September 25, 2025 • 58 mins
Linda Rottenberg is the CEO & Co-founder of Endeavor, the leading global community for High-Impact Entrepreneurs. With operations in 45 countries, Endeavor backs founders who dream big, scale fast, and pay it forward. Known as one of the world’s premier voices on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and business transformation, Linda is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Crazy Is a Compliment.
If you're an entrepreneur, and part of the Endeavor network as a founder, mentor or advisor and would like to be a guest on the podcast, email us at hello@foundertactics.com.
To learn more about our work, past interviews and live events visit www.foundertactics.com.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to Founder Tactics, a podcast about entrepreneurs and
the communities that shape them.I'm your host, Julia Lucchitti.
Today I'm sitting down with a legend in the world of
entrepreneurship, Linda Rotenberg, Co Founder and CEO of
Endeavor, the global organization that has redefined
what it means to build and support high impact
(00:22):
entrepreneurs, especially in emerging markets.
Linda was named an Innovator forthe 21st Century by Time and the
World's Mentor Capitalist by TomFriedman.
She has spent nearly 3 decades unlocking the potential of
founders across 45 countries. Under her leadership, Endeavour
has helped scale over 3000 companies, including 85 unicorns
(00:45):
in the network, creating 4 million jobs and launched a Co
investment fund that manages $540 million in assets.
But this conversation goes way deeper than just business
metrics. We talked about the early days
of building Endeavor, the personal growth that came from
her founder journey down to the driving force behind her vision
(01:07):
and success throughout these years.
If there's any organization thathas taught me the power of
community, its endeavour. You'll hear more about that on
the podcast. But before we dive in, I'm so
thankful that you tuned in to join us and want to stay
connected. So please take a moment to
subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're
listening to us on now. By subscribing, you'll be the
(01:30):
first one to find out about our new episode releases and you'll
be helping our podcast grow. If you're an entrepreneur in the
Endeavor Network and you'd like to be featured on the podcast,
you can e-mail us at hello@foundertactics.com.
We'll have all the details in the episode description as well.
Now, without any further ado, let's dive in.
(01:53):
All right, welcome to the podcast, Linda.
It's. Great to be.
Here. So happy to have you here.
It's an honor. It's been a journey to get here,
but we are here. But as two entrepreneurs, we're
laser focused on getting things done, so we made it happen.
I do want to share like 1 is personal thing before we get
started. Endeavour had such a tremendous
(02:16):
impact on my life and, and it's not just my life, but I like
hear this from so many other people who worked at Endeavour,
particularly Endeavour Brazil, because that's where I spent my
time. It was one of the most formative
experiences of my life, and I think that it's really difficult
to come across that kind of experience in life.
(02:40):
And not that it was easy, it wasactually really tough, but it
shaped me into the professional that I am today.
Truly I. Love hearing that and we have
such extraordinary alumni aroundthe world and who are all
they're entrepreneurs themselvesor people who stay in that
entrepreneur sport ecosystem. So it's so it's always amazing
(03:02):
for me to re meet people who've come.
We have once Endeavour, always endeavour.
That's what we always say and honestly, people who I worked
with at Endeavour, we stay connected.
Like they are people who I stillreach out to.
They are people who are mentor me in my business that I always
have open doors with. During the Endeavour Brazil 25
(03:23):
year reunion, we had a alumni reunion the weekend prior and we
had a cookout. There was like 70 people there.
Wow. And we were just all sharing
about how like none of us quite had the the same like experience
ever again. Like it was just like this
magical season for us that shaped us and became a
(03:44):
foundation for what we would allbuild after that.
And I guess like at times I've wondered like, how much do you
like how much you might know about that, right?
About like that experience that we've had as team members of
Endeavor and how much it's impacted us.
That makes me. So happy, thank you for sharing.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And also, I read your book Crazy
(04:06):
as a compliment, and I loved it.It was so encouraging.
Just in moments where you know, as a founder building by myself
and you know, you have ups and downs, it was like a really nice
comfort to just tune into an audio book and hear from another
founder and be like encouraged. Well, I love that and you know,
(04:27):
it's funny because I had the opportunity to have let's say
that it wasn't going to be an A list celebrity, but let's call
it a B minus list celebrity. Read the audio book.
Many people take them up on the publishers up on that offer
because it's difficult to go in a studio.
You're a professional now, but you have to go and your PS are
(04:49):
wrong. And so you have to do the whole
chapter over again. And I, it was really important
to me that it's be my voice. Yeah.
Because I said I wrote this as if I were in the room with
founders, with, you know, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs
and I wanted them to hear my voice.
So I love that you that you saidthat well.
(05:09):
As soon as I turned it on, I it was the first thing that crossed
my mind. I said, Oh my, I'm so glad she
recorded in her voice because I have a like, I have a hard time
sometimes listening to audiobooks.
They just feel a little bit mechanical.
But because it's you, it carriedlike the whole like emotion and
experience of what you were saying, and it just made it
captivating. I love that.
Well, the book came out in 2014,so now it's 2025.
(05:32):
I have no plans to write a second book.
I'm married to an author. He's about to publish his 16th
book. I say I'm one and done, but
never say never. But one of the newer endeavor of
our entrepreneurs is Mati Staniszewski, who's the founder
of 11 Labs, which is the top AI voice company in the world.
(05:53):
So one of the things I'm going to be doing in September is
recording my voice for 11 Labs AI.
But we'll see. We have to go into the recording
studio next time. So for people who are listening
who haven't met you yet, would you mind doing a brief
introduction on who you are and what do you do?
Sure. I'm Linda Rotenberg, and I am
(06:15):
the cofounder and CEO of Endeavor.
Endeavor is now what we call a global network of trust of, by
and for entrepreneurs. Back 27 years ago when we
started, Endeavour really set out to identify and support
entrepreneurs based in emerging and growth markets who were not
(06:36):
getting the attention, the networks, the capital we felt
they deserved because they weren't setting up in Silicon
Valley. And even today it's so
interesting, we we talk at Endeavour about the power of
elsewhere and all of this innovation happening really
everywhere. But we say elsewhere, because if
you are not today building in Silicon Valley in China, 20,
(06:57):
seven years later, people are back to saying, if you're in
doing AI, you can't succeed. And we just think that that's,
you know, not true. And so Endeavour really set out
to put these entrepreneurs on the map, to give them the
supports to grow their companies, to scale their
companies and then a platform topay their success forward.
(07:20):
Yeah, no. And, and you guys are doing
incredible work present in 45 countries, having tremendous
impact, generating so many economic opportunities, job
creation and really pairing these founders with other more
experienced mentors who can advise them and help them grow.
Yeah. So as you said, we're in 45
countries, a plan to support entrepreneurs in 100 countries.
(07:41):
We've screened probably now over60,000 companies to work with
just under 3000. Last year they generated 8 and a
88 1/2 billion dollars in revenue and over 4 million jobs.
Yeah. We have over 85 unicorns in the
network meeting companies that have grown up to be the billion
dollar plus companies that are now really on the national and
(08:05):
in some cases international roadmap.
And we also have a Co investmentfund as side by side.
So we have the nonprofit ecosystem builder and the for
profit fund that today manages 540 million in in assets.
Yeah, that's super impressive. And so you started an endeavor
in your late 20s, which is really impressive.
(08:28):
Did you already have like, clarity on the vision of what it
would become? No, I, I joke that I started an
endeavour to escape the law. And what I mean by that, I was a
sort of fugitive of sorts, but I, I had grown up in
Massachusetts, had gone straightthrough to call.
(08:49):
I went to college at Harvard, I went to Yale Law School and I
was literally the only one in myclass that didn't have the next
three years of their lives set. They were going to a law firm or
they were going to Goldman Sachsor they were going to clerk for
a justice on the Supreme Court and then go to something else.
And I had no idea. I all I knew is I didn't want to
practice the law. And so professors took pity on
(09:10):
me, sent me down to Latin America.
And so I was working on a numberof different projects in Latin
America in the mid 90s and realized that no one was
starting a business. And here it was the time of
Yahoo and Netscape and Steve Jobs going back to Apple.
And I thought, where are the entrepreneurs?
And one day I tell the story a lot.
But one day I was in Buenos Aires in a taxi and realized my
(09:33):
driver had an engineering degree.
So I thought, why aren't you a? And I could not think of the
word and neither could he. He kept saying presario.
And I said, no, it's a presario.You know, it's not some big
businessman with Swiss bank accounts and government
connections. It's an an innovator.
And he said, we don't have a word like that here.
And that was my aha moment. Like, Oh my God, if you can't
(09:54):
even go back home and tell your parents what you want to be, no
wonder no one was starting a company.
And that really gave rise to this crazy idea.
People called me Chica Loca for about a decade.
That's why crazy as a complimentemerged, yes.
And, and, and we set out to prove them wrong.
We set out to say, hey, look, we're going to prove that there
(10:17):
are entrepreneurs in these markets worthy of growth, worthy
of support, worthy of capital. And one of my favorite moments,
I know you worked for Endeavour Brazil came about five years
later when the editor of Aurelios, the Brazilian
dictionary, Portuguese dictionary, called up our team
and said they were adding the words imprendidor and
(10:38):
imprendidor, ismo, entrepreneur and entrepreneurship into the
lexicon in part because of Endeavors work.
Yeah, no, that's amazing. So back then when you started
Endeavor, you just wanted to kind of create a cultural shift.
I from what I hear from you saying, right, you didn't yet
realize what it would come to beas a whole.
Is that right? Yeah.
(10:58):
Well, there are elements that tothis day remain the same and
that's in some ways the most surprising thing.
We said, OK, we're starting in Latin America, but we want it to
be global, which it is. We said that there's going to be
more in common. I talked about forget B to B&B
to C, business to business and business to consumer.
(11:19):
I said from really day one, it'sE to E, it's emerging market to
emerging market. That is true more than ever
where we see people from the Middle East going to Southeast
Asia, from Africa going to LatinAmerica and from Eastern Europe,
right. So there's there's so much so
that we always had in mind, we always had in mind there was
(11:40):
going to be a selection process to identify the most promising
entrepreneurs. That has really stayed the same
and we always said we were goingto create this full circle where
we would mentor and support these entrepreneurs.
We didn't initially have a fund,but we were mentor Tom Friedman
(12:01):
and called us the mentor capitalists.
So we always said we're going tomentor the entours and then we
had we said there was going to be a mechanism for them to pay
their success forward. So I think today the things that
are different are the addition of the fund to make Endeavour
self-sustaining and add capital into the ecosystem system.
And we really now talk about themultiplier effect.
(12:23):
We're actually quantifying how mentorship and reinvestment and
training of the next generation.You can actually quantify how
big an ecosystem can grow. So those are some of the things
that are different. And obviously we didn't know new
technologies, quantum and AI. But apart from that, the vision,
weirdly is very similar to what it was initially.
(12:44):
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And I love that side of
endeavor, that there's the policy and research to really
back up a lot of the decisions that not only Endeavors making,
but ecosystems that as a whole are making.
So I love that component. So one thing that really
impresses me about your journey is just how you've been able to
get in front of very big names and garner support early on.
(13:06):
I would say that Endeavor today has a very strong reputation.
But in the beginning of the journey, you were building
something from scratch where people was like, we're thinking
like what's Endeavor and who is Linda and still building that,
that reputation, right? And to name a couple names of of
folks in your network and who have been supporters, Michael
(13:26):
Dell, Reed Hoffman, Eduardo Elstein from Argentina's largest
real estate developer, George Pagu Lemon, one of the owners of
3G Capital in Brazil. What do you believe moved these
people to support you early on? Yeah, I always say that stalking
is an underrated startup strategy.
And at the beginning when you nothing to lose, I mean, I just
(13:47):
felt so passionate about what I was doing.
But you mentioned one of the people.
I'll mention a couple of them, but Eduardo was one of the
earliest people I met because noone thought there were
entrepreneurs in these markets. And one day there had been a New
York Times piece about the fact that he had invested George
Soros's money, making George Soros technically the largest
(14:09):
real estate owner in in Argentina.
But through Eduardo and I somehow got a 10 minute meeting
on a Friday knowing. So it's the app Friday
afternoon. Eduardo happens to be an
Orthodox Jewish man, so I knew he was going home for Shabbat.
So I knew this was only lasting 10 minutes.
And 5 minutes into our conversation, he turns, he, he
(14:30):
looks at his watch and says, I get it.
You want an intro to George Soros.
This was in Buenos Aires at his headquarters.
And he said, I'll see what I cando.
And I said no, no, no, no, Eduardo, I'm an entrepreneur.
You're an entrepreneur. This is an organization of by 4
entrepreneurs. I want your passion, your
involvement and $200,000. And he looks at his right hand
(14:51):
guy. He's like esta chica, esta loca.
And he basically says, wait a minute, I thought, what
happened? I thought she was so charming.
And now it's like you're in a bad movie where she's stabbing
you with a knife. And I said, Eduardo, I started
says you're not. You know, I'm disappointed.
This from the guy who famously walked into Soros's office and
came out with a $10 million check.
You're lucky. I asked you for only 200,000.
(15:12):
And he walked out the door and Ithought, uh oh, I've just
insulted him. He's just walked out.
He's leaving to get home and theright hand guy looks at me like
I don't know what to do and before I walked I stood up to
leave. The bardo walked back in with
his checkbook and read the $200,000 on the spot.
(15:34):
That's incredible. And it was that move and the
fact that we set up in Argentinathat George Apollo and Beto of
3G, who had met another mentor of mine, Bill Solomon at Harvard
Business School, who had gotten to no endeavor.
And they said they wanted to support entrepreneurs in Brazil.
They were funding scholarships for people in Brazil and, and
(15:56):
frustrated that the people were just becoming investment
bankers. And so they wanted, and so Bill
had said, go meet Linda and you should bring Endeavour's model
to Brazil. So the fact that that we had
worked in Argentina, then brought it to Brazil.
We were then called in by the who's who of Mexico.
But it's what's interesting is this is for founders, you know,
(16:16):
crossword. You don't have to have the
connections yourself, but you have to have that authentic a
belief that what you're doing issolving a pain point or problem
that other people want solved. Yeah.
No, that's good. And did you, did you already
have like a strong pitch? Do you feel like you were
refining that pitch on the go? Totally refining on the go.
(16:39):
Yeah, Totally. No.
And then also, for better or forworse, I'm not a political
person, as Connor, who is here, who worked at the White House,
knows, right? And so one of the funny things
what happened is after we went to Argentina and Brazil, again,
this was going to be global in our minds, but we just had to
start in Latin America. I got a call from Pedro Aspe,
(17:01):
who was the former finance minister of Mexico and then was
starting the first private equity firm in the country.
He said, Linda, I'd like you to come meet a group of people
we've assembled to talk about Endeavour because I think Mexico
might be a good place for it. I said, great.
So I got on the plane and beforeI walked in the room, someone
(17:22):
tapped me on the shoulder and said, do you know what
percentage of Mexico's GDP is inthat room?
And I said, no, I don't think I want to.
And it was the founder of the head of Cemex and the head of
Televisa and, you know, the Carlos Slim who owned half the
country. And it was just, it was this
impressive group. And they basically said, we want
(17:45):
to know why are there entrepreneurs coming out of
Brazil and Argentina and even Uruguay?
We're in, we're endeavoured presence and what's wrong with
Mexico? So I said to them, well, and I
tried not to look at Carlos Lim,but I said, Nope, Here in
Mexico, you are the big fish andyou've got to think of
(18:06):
entrepreneurs as the little fish.
And in Mexico, the big fish tendto eat the little fish.
And I thought, again, I thought I was going to be kicked out.
This is the story of 11. Instead, Pedro mentioned for me
to keep going. And I said, so why don't you
think of Endeavour like an aquarium where the big fish
learn to feed the little fish? And again, to my shock, and I
(18:27):
said it with a kind of wink, butthey could have gotten insulted,
kicked me out and said, go back home to, you know, New York kid.
And instead they said, all right, we're going to, we're
going to, we're going to all report this.
And a decade later, Emilio Escaraga, who ran at that point,
the largest media company, Televisa, had a magazine called
(18:50):
Expansion, and it was dedicated to business and
entrepreneurship. They had a 10 page spread 10
years to Endeavour, Mexico. And the title.
The cover story was big fish feeding the.
Oh, that's so good. Yeah, there's like power and
storytelling. It's really, really important.
And and I see that not only in your story, but just like
(19:10):
Endeavor in general. How how you know you've been
able to build so much by leveraging this vision and
getting people to buy in with the story.
And and getting people, you know, endeavor really is the
story of Co creation, right? And it is the story and it has
been a partnership with these big business leaders.
And now we always had the other dream of by 4 entrepreneurs of
the entrepreneurs would take over.
(19:31):
And we have fifty of our top entrepreneurs serving as board
members in our local incredible.You know, we had Sergio Furio of
Credit us, the outgoing president of Endeavour Brazil
handing it over to Cesar Carvalho of Wellhub, Jim Paz,
another Endeavour entrepreneur as president of the board.
(19:53):
And we have presidents as about 6 or 7 Endeavour entrepreneurs
presidents. But I will say I want to give
credit to the big fish, to thesebig business leaders who.
To their credit, wanted to do something for their economy and
said, you know what entrepreneurship is it?
Is it even if they themselves might be disrupted, even if
(20:14):
innovation was going to challenge the traditional
businesses and that they were going to have to grow the pie?
But if you think about one of the challenges of emerging
markets is that the top ten families controlled so much of
the access to capital, to information, to to networks.
(20:36):
And I just find it astounding. And it's really, as I said, a
testament to these people in in so many markets.
This is true in Turkey, in the Philippines and Indonesia and
South Africa and all of our countries that they were willing
to even potentially give up someof the control, some of the
power to grow the pie and to puttheir countries on on the map.
(20:56):
Yeah, No, absolutely in in this process over the many of years
that you've had, have there beenmentors that supported you
through different challenges? Absolutely.
And it's interesting, one of theearly mentors I had who's no
longer living, but was the greatPeter Brook and Peter Brook,
(21:22):
whom I also stalked. Oh, yeah, yes.
But he, he founded TA Associatesand Advent International.
He is considered among the founding fathers of
international venture capital and was this sort of very Boston
Brahman. And here I am, even though I
(21:42):
grew up in Boston, I am much more, you know, at Chickaloca
and overwhelming and we have very different personalities.
But I learned so much from him and he loved and this is the I
think the truth of mentorship isit's often also reverse
mentorship. While he gave me legitimacy and
helped me understand how do you build a franchise in of venture
(22:04):
capital or entrepreneurship support in all these markets,
which TA and Advent has done. But he credited me with
reminding him what his roots hadbeen and that he was getting
frustrated that his organizations were becoming too
down the private equity line andnot in the VC close to
entrepreneur roots that they had.
(22:26):
And he sort of started shaking them up and being a little bit
more agile as a result. And I think that that's really
been true all along that some that I started out with mentors
who were older and wiser than I than I was.
I mean people like George Apolloand Bill Solomon that I
mentioned, and yet now the opposite is true, right?
(22:47):
When I see these entrepreneurs coming up in their 20s and I'm
technically there to mentor them, but inevitably they're
mentoring me. Yeah, I work with student
volunteers, so I host the Fort Lauderdale Tech meet up once a
month. We have about 200 guests that
come and I work with 10 student volunteers at every meet up and
(23:09):
they volunteer their time and afterwards I take them out for
pizza and mentoring. So I give them advice on their
career. Sometimes I bring an awesome
professional with me and they love it.
And inevitably over the past twoyears, like I've had to make
some make some difficult decisions with the company with
the way we build the meet up. I had to start charging.
(23:30):
It was free for a long time and we transitioned into charging.
And, you know, there are momentswhere it was, I was out there
with them doing pizza mentoring.Maybe we were just having some
talks over, over dinner. And I, I couldn't kind of hide
the difficulty that I was going through, you know what I mean,
of making like a really hard decision.
(23:51):
And I was like, oh, man, do I like, do I hold this back from
them? Do I hold this back from them or
do I include them in this? And I just opened up to them and
I said, you know, I'm making this decision.
It feels really scary and but I know that it's the right thing
to do right now, which at that moment was to transition to
charging. They were so encouraging and
mind you, they are some of them are dual enrolled high school,
(24:15):
college. So they're high school students.
They're 16/17/18 up to 21. And they told me, you know what,
I think we're going to attract higher quality people because if
people are spending their money,they're going to be more
intentional. And, you know, it's going to
work great. We're going to explain.
We're going to, you know, be super hospitality oriented.
(24:37):
And I was like, OK, like, we'll do it.
And some of them were like, Oh my gosh, you're so bold.
I can't believe you're doing this.
You know, they were excited to be on that journey with me.
And they were right, you know, and I was just so encouraged to
see that, you know, I should be listening to them as well.
You know what I mean? It doesn't matter that they're
younger, that they have less experience in the market.
They have valid contributions toadd.
(25:00):
And so in a sense, yes, I'm there mentoring them, but a lot
of ways they are also pouring back into me.
Yeah, I think the other take away I have that reminds me of
something one of the biggest lessons of my own journey is
that as leaders and I would say particularly as women leaders,
(25:21):
we are told to be, you know, tough and invincible and
superhuman and not show our vulnerability.
And a a story I tell because it was deeply personal was in 2008.
(25:43):
So this is a little a decade into the journey I had had
identical twins born in 2005 2008.
So my girls are three and my husband got diagnosed with an
aggressive form of bone cancer. And so sorry thing he is, he
recovered. He did recover thankfully, but
it was, it was really, it was a grueling year.
(26:05):
It was the last year, which is better than the lost life, as
you would say. But it was a lost year and he
was, I had to accompany him to every chemo treatment.
He had really the only second time in the world that his
femur, that the surgery that's now considered standard but was
pioneering at that point, he hadhis entire femur removed, a
(26:28):
titanium rod put in the femur attached, more chemo.
It was, it was, it was a lot andI had these young girls and so I
really was not very present. And this is before the Zoom, so
before the idea of remote work. So and when I came back, I said,
OK, I am not going to let them see me cry.
I'm not going to, you know, get emotional.
(26:49):
I'll freak them out here. I'm coming back.
They're probably anxious, my team.
And of course, within the 1st 5 minutes I broke down.
It's like I'm not never, never works.
So I literally after that meeting slinked away to my
office and I was thinking, Oh myGod, what have I done?
Like I've my team is going to befreaked out.
(27:11):
And instead 2 younger employees like knocked on my door.
I let them in and they said we just wanted to say thank you for
showing us your authentic self. And we had always thought you
were kind of superhuman, kind ofan unrelatable way.
(27:33):
And they said, now that you've shown us your vulnerable side,
we'll follow you anywhere. And so the last night I said,
which we are not taught is like less super, more human, right?
And I think that that's what those students were telling you
is that they're hungry for people who are authentic, who
are showing the struggles, right?
And I think especially in today with this Instagram world where
(27:55):
everyone shows their perfect sides, it is becoming rarer and
rarer for people to say, hey, no, this is who I am.
Not in a performative way, but in a Let me bring you into
what's really going on. Do you feel like that is still a
continuous process, even though it was many years ago?
Your girls are not 20, right? Yes.
(28:16):
So it's been many years since since that original kind of
moment of clarity that you had about the importance of
vulnerability. Do you feel like it's something
that's kind of ongoing and 100% like what's, what's the journey?
Because I'm I'm there, you know what I mean?
Especially as a new entrepreneur, starting a
podcast, putting my voice out there, I'm really figuring out,
(28:37):
you know, what does authenticitylook like for me behind a
microphone? Well, I also you put in the
work. So in the last year, I put
together what we, what we're calling Vision 2035 and I had
set a goal that we've surpassed and to deliver this vision to
(28:58):
1000 people in the network. And people thought, again, this
is crazy, this is crazy. I said, well, look, I said I
have, I have to do this because I have to set the framework for
where we're going and get people, you know, excited and
then we can build a strategy around it.
And I know we have 45 countries,but we have to be rowing in the
same boat. But in that process, I said, I'm
going to be open about what I know we're going to do, what I
(29:23):
hope we're going to do. And when I'm terrified that we
won't be able to do or that or the challenges that we're going
to face internally and externally.
And and I think people really appreciated that and coming with
a framework, coming with thought, not just doing a dump
of emotional. Spaghetti to the wall, correct?
(29:43):
But that within that I was saying, OK, here's why I'm I'm
personally scared. Like I don't know if I can do
that. I don't know Here's why I need
your help. Here's where.
What do you think? Let's Co create this.
I think that's the other thing, giving people, especially with a
company, the opportunity to Co create is is something that
people really appreciate and rarely ever get the chance to be
(30:05):
part of. Do you struggle with self doubt
or anxiety or any, you know fearin the process?
I think, you know, it's funny because Connor is my amazing new
chief of staff who you met is here.
And there was a time even a couple weeks ago, I was like
Connor. I rarely say there's like I am
(30:26):
over my ski. I'm like, I am done.
I am like at my limit. I have not had a break.
I have to replenish or I I just I I feel like I, I, I'm, I'm,
I'm not able to, to yeah, you know, I'm not getting your mask.
I'm not getting a mask. I mean, I'm someone I then went
away for like a long weekend andI came back, I was like, OK,
(30:46):
that works for me. Like you have to know yourself
too. I think there's that.
That works for me. I actually, and someone I just
need a little bit of time. What I started doing is I, I, I
said, I'm going to take a walk every day.
I'm going to not do everything on Zoom.
I realized I was doing so much on Zoom and then rushing to the
office and physically I couldn'tdo that.
Yeah. So it was a little bit of a
change up of no, I'm going to take a walk and I'm going to do
(31:09):
that every day. My girls who were home for the
summer, I said I'm making them breakfast every morning, I'm
going to be home in the evening,I will time shift.
And so I think that that's OK. I think being able to tell
people as a leader, well what you need, but then giving them
that same opportunity. I think that as long as you're
consistent and for some people, I have a colleague who needs to
(31:33):
take 3 weeks and be off and not answer any e-mail or any, you
know, anything and he runs our fund.
He's an important person here. All right, That's what Alan
needs. That would drive me crazy to
come back and have 300, you know, 3000 emails probably.
So I'm someone who needs like anhour a day.
(31:54):
But I think that that's what youhave to do.
That's, that's on a daily basis.On a, on a larger basis, I think
that finding people who are not your investors, who are not your
employees as well to test out the scary things is often
helpful because you need someonewho's going to give you advice
(32:16):
and not have their, their own, you know, interests affected.
So that's the other thing is test things out on people who
are can be objective and then and then talk to your employees,
your board members. Yeah, that's good.
That's good. Usually that's my husband.
(32:37):
So I say, you know, in my opinion, the building a company
is one of the biggest self development projects.
Like as far as like how it pushes you in every aspect of
your life, emotionally, physically, mentally.
What about, you know, building endeavour has changed you and
shaped you well? One of the things is we gather
(33:02):
are the top 10% of endeavour entrepreneurs, we call them are
outliers every year. So it's about 200 entrepreneurs.
This is we held it in Portugal on the beautiful comporta, sorry
in in Portugal and these are thethe top entrepreneurs and I
thought, all right, they're justgoing to be talking about how do
I IPO or how do I do M&A or how do I, you know expand to this
(33:26):
market. It was all personal really, all
issues of OK, I'm exhausted. How do I be a parent?
How do I be a good partner? I'm really scared.
Like I am having mental health challenges and I don't know what
to do because I don't want to scare off my employees.
I'm burnt out, my health has suffered.
(33:49):
How do I put me first? It was so liberating and
validating that you're not alone.
So I think that's the thing I would say, and one of the things
I'm most proud of that is the brainchild of a Sylvia.
Sylvia, my, our chief marketing officer is something called
Endeavour Untold. And what Sylvia is doing is
(34:11):
getting Endeavour founders to open up about their most
challenging moments, their mental health struggles, their
struggles with founders who havehad substance abuse issues or
who have had cancer or family issues that have gotten, you
know, been impacted or impacted their.
(34:34):
Their business. And these are things you just
never hear about. And so to your question, I would
say we all go through these selfmoments of self doubt.
We all go through these physical, emotional,
psychological struggles. And I think the more that
entrepreneurs, founders can talkto one another, they'll realize
they're not alone. Yeah, it seems like sometimes
(34:56):
that part of the conversation gets isolated, like let's just
talk about business. So it's so refreshing to hear
that with the internal conversations that you guys are
having with entrepreneurs, like these topics are surfacing and
it's so important to build a sustainable business, to have a
sustainable life and to and to actually experience joy, right?
Like, not everything is about exclusively work.
(35:18):
Like there is your family and there's so much more than that,
right? Yes, and also you know, from the
beginning with Endeavor, one of the things that led me to write
crazy as a compliment is and I started getting frustrated that
all of the conversations around entrepreneurship were about
product market fit and finances and the cap table.
(35:40):
And Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz wrote a book called The
hard Thing about Hard things. And I said, well, I want to
write the hard thing about soft things because I look at the cap
tables and those are people problems and I can tell them
they need to fire their brother-in-law and their mothers
in the cap table. This is a problem and the early
investor is not aligned and so many of the issues of scale are
(36:03):
people problems that even now. It was so interesting at this
Outliers event in comport to Portugal.
This is April. What's everyone talking about?
AI. And I knew everything was going
to be about AI and yet not the way I thought.
In fact, many of the conversations were the human
aspects of Oh my God, how do I communicate?
(36:25):
My team is freaking out. How do I do some of these
necessary layoffs or cuts while I need to empower the
superstars? I don't know what to do.
They're they're human problems, they're soft problems, they're
people problems. This is why many companies make
it or break it. And yet we end up only talking
about products, finance, the things that are quote serious,
(36:47):
which I think is backwards. Yeah, whenever I started my
entrepreneurial journey, it was actually a really spiritual
process for me because I was so afraid and I never actually
imagined that I would step into entrepreneurship until it was
the only option. And so I did and it literally
brought me to my knees because Iwas so afraid to do it alone.
(37:10):
I got on my knees and I prayed and I said God will you be my Co
founder? And I just the reason why I
prayed it was because I had had several different Co founder
conversations. We know those are complicated.
Very complicated. And I just didn't feel the
confidence to really like, lock down on any particular
(37:31):
partnership. And I just thought to myself, I
can't do this alone. How am I going to do this alone?
This is crazy. Like, there's so much I don't
know. And when I prayed that, I just
felt like this sense of relief, I didn't know what exactly that
meant. I joke around with my husband
now that that God took the chiefmarketing officer role because
(37:53):
our events have blown up and I've maybe spent $100 in AD
spend in in almost three years. It's all been organic growth.
And so it has brought me into a deeper relationship with my
faith. And I'm curious to know, has
faith played a role for you at all in your journey or how you
know, is there a spiritual aspect to the way that you view
(38:15):
life? So interesting and my is
interesting as my husband has written a number of books more
on the journeying side, but one of his books was called Walking
the Bible. To actually go to the ancient
places and see if they exist. I think for me, the importance
actually is getting people of somany different faiths in a
(38:41):
moment where that is really challenging.
And I'm so proud of the fact that we're operating, you know,
throughout the Middle East and throughout Southeast Asia and
Africa and Latin America and Europe.
And we have people of so many backgrounds and beliefs.
(39:05):
And I think today we are so siloed.
And I think Endeavour being a safe space where regardless of
your background, regardless of your religion, regardless of
your political beliefs, you can come together and know these are
your people and they've got yourback.
And that's what matters. And we're building a better
(39:26):
future together. That's that's what I hold on to.
I love that. That's great.
So after almost 30 years leadingthe business, what still drives
you today? I was 5 when I started.
What still drives you today, like what is what really, you
know, makes you wake up in the morning and have this energy
(39:49):
that you have and passion that you have to really drive forth
the vision of this business? Well, I think there are a few
things. It's funny because.
I don't have as much fun when everyone thinks what we're doing
is cool and obvious. And in 2021, there was a blip
when SoftBank and Tiger and everyone and their mother was
(40:12):
investing in these, our markets.And I thought, oh boy, maybe
where are we done? And we were not done.
And yet now we certainly are notdone.
And I kind of love the fact thattoday I'm on a lot of panels and
people are saying, well, in AI you have to be in Silicon Valley
or China and, or you're nothing.And I'm about to moderate a
panel in Athens, right at the slopes of the Acropolis.
(40:35):
Moderate a conversation between Prime Minister Greek Prime
Minister Kriyakos Mitsotakis andthe founder of Google DeepMind
Demisasabas, who built who rebuffed his initial
ambassador's plea to move to Silicon Valley and he stayed in
London and Athens is becoming anInnovation Center and ever
Greece is partnering a lot with the Prime minister's office
there and to promote this concept of elsewhere.
(40:58):
So I really feel like there's still a voice for endeavour to
talk about innovation elsewhere.Yeah and right that's still
important. The idea of the endeavour
multiplier effect is something Ifeel passionately about because
while back to what was always been talked about.
I have no problem when we're proud of the unicorns in our
(41:18):
network and but we think why is valuation the end goal or exit.
It really is building ecosystems.
It really is saying we talked about the bubbles of influence
growing because we map out different bubbles on in our in
our multiplier system maps. And the bigger the more you
mentor, the more you train, the more you invest in, the more you
(41:41):
inspire the next generation, thebigger your bubble grows.
So we talked about, you know, you want a big bubble, not just
the big bank account. And I think using and
quantifying this, paying it forward through this multiplier
effect is very important to to change the language of success.
And then the third and final thing that keeps me motivated is
that the idea of Endeavor Catalyst is that we're not just
(42:06):
making great returns for LP's bywho can go and fast in these
opportunities around the world, but half the proceeds go to
Endeavor to make the nonprofit side of Endeavor
self-sustaining. And I to me, that's where we
ourselves are pioneers and we have universities coming to us
saying, hey, wait a minute, we need to look at this model too.
(42:27):
And I think this idea of public private partnerships and hybrid
models are going to need to takeroot.
And so that that brings me joy. Yeah.
So two things. One is Endeavour aligning the
financial model with the fund, which I, I think this is, it's
such a good thing for ecosystems, for Endeavour,
(42:49):
because it allows for you to align your goals with who is
most aligned with you with entrepreneurs.
So I think that that's so valuable.
It's such a big game changer because you know, where the
funding is coming from does impact, you know what, what you
focus on or you know, the direction and growth can be
(43:12):
either maybe you know, slowed a bit or maybe not go super in the
direction that you want it. So I think that's a massive
shift of synergy for Endeavour to have aligned in that way.
And then the other thing that I wanted to touch a little bit
more into is the multiplier effect.
So when we talk about the multiplier effect, let's unpack
this a little bit because I think this is so much Endeavors
(43:33):
world that we really know what we're talking about in this
conversation. But a lot of people who are not
a part of Endeavor maybe don't realize the importance and the
impact of entrepreneurs paying it forward with their time, with
their expertise, with their money.
You know, even with, with what I'm building with, with founder
tactics, with the podcast, with the events that we do, it's
(43:55):
really with the focus of strengthening tech communities,
strengthening the founder community.
And I sell this vision to everybody who I invite to either
come on the podcast or speak at the tech meet up.
Maybe they're really high level entrepreneur and they don't have
a ton of time. And look, look, this is actually
really important for you to be apart of our community in this
capacity. Like I'll work around your
(44:15):
schedule. I'll fly to New York twice.
Like, how can we? You know, it's, it's let me
gather my thoughts again, like the importance of transmitting
this message to entrepreneurs who are ahead of the game.
Yes, and, and I think we take for granted here that there will
be support. One of the benefits of
(44:39):
entrepreneurship in the United States being synonymous with
Silicon Valley is that Silicon Valley is known to promote
networking and to promote investing in the next people.
Even people talk about the PayPal Mafia.
This is something we talk about.Mafia is an endeavour because of
(45:00):
the PayPal Mafia, which is the group of people who came out of
PayPal, including from Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and Reid
Hoffman and David Sachs. And so many people who have gone
on to become some of the lead investors and entrepreneurs,
earners and other companies all came out of this same exerience
(45:23):
and invested in one another and supported one another.
And it seems so obvious here, and yet it's not typically the
case in these markets. So I remember in the mid 2000s,
Reed Hoffman, who's on my board asking Endeavour entrepreneurs,
how many of you, if you, if yourcompany failed on a Tuesday,
(45:44):
would go home to the equivalent of American Thanksgiving?
And in your markets on Thursday,how many of you would show up
and more than half the room? The hands did not go up.
And he said if those of you would show up, how many of you
would ask for money for your next company?
0 hands were raised. He said this is the difference
(46:08):
in Silicon Valley. Everyone's hands would have
stayed up for both questions. So I think that and there were,
there are some of our markets where actually you can go to
jail for bankrupting a company, right?
And the last thing you're going to do is have failure be tied to
investing in, right. What's interesting is now we
talk about the Rappi mafias, theKareem mafias, these companies
(46:31):
and people are seeding the ecosystems.
And by the way, these are not necessarily the hugest.
I mean, Cream was a very large exit because it's sold to Uber,
but they had originally planned to IPO.
Robbie has not exited yet. And yet what's so amazing is
they have trained the next generation who's getting smarter
(46:51):
and seeing how things had been done for good and for bad.
And the other story I tell, which is really the antithesis
of Silicon Valley, is close to where I grew up in Boston on
Route 128, Right. And I when I say to people,
well, do you want to be Silicon Valley Route 128?
Everyone's like, well, what's Route 128?
(47:12):
I'm like, yeah, exactly. That's the point.
The story of Route 128 is that in the 1980s, most of the tech
workers were on a strip that was, you know, near Harvard,
near MIT, near you had deck, andyou had some of the early
computer tech and tech servicingcompanies.
(47:33):
And it really is where entrepreneurship should be
known. So Stanford was still like, you
know, coming up, there was just not that much happening in
California. And there was so much happening
in the Boston quarter. And what happened was these
early tech companies forbade networking.
They made you sign NDA's, non disclosure agreements and non
(47:58):
compete when you left. So instead of investing in your
next company, they basically said you're dead to me and you
can't do anything else right. Silicon Valley, California did
not support Ndas and non competes and that is why people
said, OK, you're leaving a man tomorrow.
What can I at least invest in your company?
And, and today as a result, there is no Route 128.
(48:21):
And in fact, Boston has had to slowly and surely build up with
biotech and other things the, the, the right to even be in the
entrepreneurship conversation, which is so odd.
And so you look at some markets where the early founders are not
mentoring, are not being role models, are not paying it
forward. And actually you say to them,
(48:41):
hey, your ecosystem could disappear.
Right. So what's the mindset shift that
you think needs to happen? Because when we talk about the
level of collaboration that happens in California, I think
we don't have to look too far outside of the United States to
see ecosystems that are not yet operating with that kind of
(49:02):
collaboration. What do you think the like
mindset shift, mindset shift should be for cities that want
to be more entrepreneurial? Like what?
What needs to change, right? Like obviously, like we've
shared here, the non competes are not great.
That's not really supportive of innovation and and the growth of
(49:25):
these entrepreneurial communities.
Yet people are afraid, right? That's why they do it.
They don't want to. They're like, oh, I'm going to
lose money or I'm going to lose,you know, an edge to a
competitor. There's fear that's holding
people back or organizations. Back and I also think people
don't want to be finger wagged and told what to do.
Oh, you're supposed to give back.
(49:45):
So we're trying to change the language of success and make it
actually competitive because entrepreneurs are and by nature
competitive and fun and have FOMO.
And so Endeavour is working withone of our own entrepreneurs at
Globe End, which is a public company that does digital
transformation on an A multiple,an Endeavour multiplier effect
app, where entrepreneurs can go in and get their multiplier
(50:08):
score and actually start seeing whose bubble is bigger, whose
multiplier score is greater. Yeah, right.
And to take pride not only in the company and the jobs that
they themselves have created, but how many people they spot.
And let's go back to the beginning of this conversation.
What did you say to me? You said, Linda, I don't know if
you know how many people who worked for Endeavor that this
(50:32):
was a transformational part of our lives.
Absolutely. That's what I'm hearing from
entrepreneurs. They don't even know that
founders of companies they've heard of started in their
companies sometimes. And so they want for them, it's
now a source of pride that wow, that person got their start in
(50:53):
my company and now look at them.And I think if we sort of change
that mindset. And I think now when you're also
looking at countries we just launched in places like Ukraine
and Poland, and, you know, putting these on the map in
terms of entrepreneurship is a source of national pride, right?
Because cities like Dubai and, and, and Singapore and Sao
(51:15):
Paulo, right, that are up and coming.
And so we're saying, hey, look, it's not just about you and your
company, it's about your city, it's about your community,
getting the the know how and realizing that it's not fear,
it's not it's about growing the pie.
It's about, I think this is whatArgentina back to our earliest
(51:36):
country did well. They said we're only going to do
well if we get together and realize we're building the
ecosystem together. And sometimes this means you
poach my CTO and I poach your CEO, and we have to be OK with
it. Yeah.
But we're going to be able to attract people from all over the
world if we create a place wherepeople want to be.
Yeah. And it makes you have to be more
(51:57):
competitive and connect with your team and provide, you know,
a good challenge. So I think it really does enrich
the ecosystem as a whole becausecompetition is good for that.
Yeah, and right. Just as the best tennis players
will say, playing against the most competitive tennis players
makes their game better. That's how entrepreneur.
Exactly. OK, so we have a couple of
(52:18):
minutes and I would love to do alightning round if you're of
course. So who do you call when you're
stuck? I call, I probably call my
husband. He is a storyteller by nature.
And so much I think of getting unstuck is figuring out the
(52:38):
story you want to tell. And so that's who I would call.
Secret talent. I used to be able to tango.
I make a very mean pot pesto pasta that I learned from a
contessa in Italy. A favorite memory.
(53:05):
Well, I would say last year we have this Endeavor Gala every
December. It's the one time of year where
it's sort of like a traditional New York nonprofit.
We're not a traditional organization, right?
We're at this hybrid organization.
But every year we do this call. And my, my daughters have come
(53:25):
every year since they were two. But it was my, you know, one's
an art historian, one's a poet, playwright.
They don't really have that muchto do with entrepreneurship.
Last year they're they were sophomores in college and they
each brought a friend and suddenly endeavour was cool, but
their friends were interested toso to see their view change of
(53:51):
this organization that they grewup with, but to see it
throughout through their friendseyes and shift how they
perceived that was great. That's great.
Best compliment you ever got? Well, I have to say that was
crazy, right? That's my whole theory that
crazy is a compliment and that you're, if you're not being
called crazy when you're starting something big, then
you're not thinking big enough. And today, like now, people said
(54:14):
the vision 2035 was crazy. I'm like, OK, good.
And we're on track. A skill you're working on.
I am working on letting go as a parent.
That's one thing. I am working on understanding
(54:35):
how to where and when to use AI.Everyone has to work on this.
It's a journey and then they over.
I'm sorry, but I I was working on something and I and back to
my husband who's like you chat you PT Ed this didn't you?
You can tell. You can tell.
You can tell. Yeah, it's like a little
(54:57):
cringey. Yeah, yeah, if you get an
e-mail. What if you get a neat like I've
gotten an e-mail? It was not to e-mail, it was
like. Really extensive and very
explaining and I was like I I, Iwill sometimes use it to get
ideas on how to better rephrase something but I will never copy
paste it. It's like OK, I'm now going to
put this into my own words because my therapist Chachi PT
(55:18):
helped me think through my thoughts basically.
But my, yeah. But the, oh, the e-mail thing is
a total giveaway because if theyrespond to every single thing
you've mentioned, you no, no. No.
OK, this one's a little different.
Worst advice you've ever gotten?Worst advice is ignore your
(55:41):
strengths, bolster your weaknesses.
I thought I had to teach myself accounting and the, you know,
deep finance because. And I realized, you know, you
strengthen your tea and you can.Yeah.
And you can find people surrounding you who, who
compliment you. But why try to homogenize
everything you do? Focus on your strengths.
(56:03):
Beautiful. This has been amazing.
Oh, I also owe another bad advice.
This is fun. Keep every door open.
Paralyzes you. Closed doors.
Closed doors. That's like a cliffhanger.
Yeah, I had friends even in, in,in in law school who were, they
keep every door open and they keep none open.
(56:25):
I then they went, they, they never ended up pursuing, you
know, they are like, oh, I'm going to take the finance job
and then I'm going to be the professional chef.
Nope, never. They were they, they, they ended
up, they thought they, they deluded themselves that they
were keeping the door open. They weren't.
And I think if they had actuallysaid, you know what, I'm not
going to go this path. I'm going to try this other one.
(56:47):
Yeah. And if it doesn't work, then
I'll fall back. You know, I think you've got
gotta tell yourself, no, I'm gonna.
I'm going to take the leap. I'm going to close the door.
At least for now. Yeah.
Or you paralyze yourself and youdon't really.
Absolutely. So good.
Okay, so before we wrap up, how should people contact you or
learn more about Endeavor? You know where where should they
(57:08):
reach out to? Endeavour.org.
I am on LinkedIn, so I'm Linda Rotenberg on LinkedIn and yeah.
Awesome. Thank you so much for making the
time for this to happen. It's been an absolute pleasure.
This was a pleasure and I'm so happy that you became and I see
a by for entrepreneur our team as well.
Amazing. All right.
(57:29):
Thank you so much. Bye, everyone.
And that wraps up another episode of the Founder Tactics
Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
And don't forget, if you want toget updates on new episodes,
live recordings, and everything happening in our listener
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podcast on the platform you're on now.
(57:50):
And to learn more about our work, including past interviews
and live events, you can head over to foundertactics.com.
We'll see you next time. Yeah.
Welcome to Founder Tactics, a podcast about entrepreneurs and
the communities that shape them.I'm your host, Julia Lucchitti.
Today I'm sitting down with a legend in the world of
entrepreneurship, Linda Rotenberg, Co Founder and CEO of
Endeavor, the global organization that has redefined
what it means to build and support high impact
(00:22):
entrepreneurs, especially in emerging markets.
Linda was named an Innovator forthe 21st Century by Time and the
World's Mentor Capitalist by TomFriedman.
She has spent nearly 3 decades unlocking the potential of
founders across 45 countries. Under her leadership, Endeavour
has helped scale over 3000 companies, including 85 unicorns
(00:45):
in the network, creating 4 million jobs and launched a Co
investment fund that manages $540 million in assets.
But this conversation goes way deeper than just business
metrics. We talked about the early days
of building Endeavor, the personal growth that came from
her founder journey down to the driving force behind her vision
(01:07):
and success throughout these years.
If there's any organization thathas taught me the power of
community, its endeavour. You'll hear more about that on
the podcast. But before we dive in, I'm so
thankful that you tuned in to join us and want to stay
connected. So please take a moment to
subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're
listening to us on now. By subscribing, you'll be the
(01:30):
first one to find out about our new episode releases and you'll
be helping our podcast grow. If you're an entrepreneur in the
Endeavor Network and you'd like to be featured on the podcast,
you can e-mail us at hello@foundertactics.com.
We'll have all the details in the episode description as well.
Now, without any further ado, let's dive in.
(01:53):
All right, welcome to the podcast, Linda.
It's. Great to be.
Here. So happy to have you here.
It's an honor. It's been a journey to get here,
but we are here. But as two entrepreneurs, we're
laser focused on getting things done, so we made it happen.
I do want to share like 1 is personal thing before we get
started. Endeavour had such a tremendous
(02:16):
impact on my life and, and it's not just my life, but I like
hear this from so many other people who worked at Endeavour,
particularly Endeavour Brazil, because that's where I spent my
time. It was one of the most formative
experiences of my life, and I think that it's really difficult
to come across that kind of experience in life.
(02:40):
And not that it was easy, it wasactually really tough, but it
shaped me into the professional that I am today.
Truly I. Love hearing that and we have
such extraordinary alumni aroundthe world and who are all
they're entrepreneurs themselvesor people who stay in that
entrepreneur sport ecosystem. So it's so it's always amazing
(03:02):
for me to re meet people who've come.
We have once Endeavour, always endeavour.
That's what we always say and honestly, people who I worked
with at Endeavour, we stay connected.
Like they are people who I stillreach out to.
They are people who are mentor me in my business that I always
have open doors with. During the Endeavour Brazil 25
(03:23):
year reunion, we had a alumni reunion the weekend prior and we
had a cookout. There was like 70 people there.
Wow. And we were just all sharing
about how like none of us quite had the the same like experience
ever again. Like it was just like this
magical season for us that shaped us and became a
(03:44):
foundation for what we would allbuild after that.
And I guess like at times I've wondered like, how much do you
like how much you might know about that, right?
About like that experience that we've had as team members of
Endeavor and how much it's impacted us.
That makes me. So happy, thank you for sharing.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And also, I read your book Crazy
(04:06):
as a compliment, and I loved it.It was so encouraging.
Just in moments where you know, as a founder building by myself
and you know, you have ups and downs, it was like a really nice
comfort to just tune into an audio book and hear from another
founder and be like encouraged. Well, I love that and you know,
(04:27):
it's funny because I had the opportunity to have let's say
that it wasn't going to be an A list celebrity, but let's call
it a B minus list celebrity. Read the audio book.
Many people take them up on the publishers up on that offer
because it's difficult to go in a studio.
You're a professional now, but you have to go and your PS are
(04:49):
wrong. And so you have to do the whole
chapter over again. And I, it was really important
to me that it's be my voice. Yeah.
Because I said I wrote this as if I were in the room with
founders, with, you know, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs
and I wanted them to hear my voice.
So I love that you that you saidthat well.
(05:09):
As soon as I turned it on, I it was the first thing that crossed
my mind. I said, Oh my, I'm so glad she
recorded in her voice because I have a like, I have a hard time
sometimes listening to audiobooks.
They just feel a little bit mechanical.
But because it's you, it carriedlike the whole like emotion and
experience of what you were saying, and it just made it
captivating. I love that.
Well, the book came out in 2014,so now it's 2025.
(05:32):
I have no plans to write a second book.
I'm married to an author. He's about to publish his 16th
book. I say I'm one and done, but
never say never. But one of the newer endeavor of
our entrepreneurs is Mati Staniszewski, who's the founder
of 11 Labs, which is the top AI voice company in the world.
(05:53):
So one of the things I'm going to be doing in September is
recording my voice for 11 Labs AI.
But we'll see. We have to go into the recording
studio next time. So for people who are listening
who haven't met you yet, would you mind doing a brief
introduction on who you are and what do you do?
Sure. I'm Linda Rotenberg, and I am
(06:15):
the cofounder and CEO of Endeavor.
Endeavor is now what we call a global network of trust of, by
and for entrepreneurs. Back 27 years ago when we
started, Endeavour really set out to identify and support
entrepreneurs based in emerging and growth markets who were not
(06:36):
getting the attention, the networks, the capital we felt
they deserved because they weren't setting up in Silicon
Valley. And even today it's so
interesting, we we talk at Endeavour about the power of
elsewhere and all of this innovation happening really
everywhere. But we say elsewhere, because if
you are not today building in Silicon Valley in China, 20,
(06:57):
seven years later, people are back to saying, if you're in
doing AI, you can't succeed. And we just think that that's,
you know, not true. And so Endeavour really set out
to put these entrepreneurs on the map, to give them the
supports to grow their companies, to scale their
companies and then a platform topay their success forward.
(07:20):
Yeah, no. And, and you guys are doing
incredible work present in 45 countries, having tremendous
impact, generating so many economic opportunities, job
creation and really pairing these founders with other more
experienced mentors who can advise them and help them grow.
Yeah. So as you said, we're in 45
countries, a plan to support entrepreneurs in 100 countries.
(07:41):
We've screened probably now over60,000 companies to work with
just under 3000. Last year they generated 8 and a
88 1/2 billion dollars in revenue and over 4 million jobs.
Yeah. We have over 85 unicorns in the
network meeting companies that have grown up to be the billion
dollar plus companies that are now really on the national and
(08:05):
in some cases international roadmap.
And we also have a Co investmentfund as side by side.
So we have the nonprofit ecosystem builder and the for
profit fund that today manages 540 million in in assets.
Yeah, that's super impressive. And so you started an endeavor
in your late 20s, which is really impressive.
(08:28):
Did you already have like, clarity on the vision of what it
would become? No, I, I joke that I started an
endeavour to escape the law. And what I mean by that, I was a
sort of fugitive of sorts, but I, I had grown up in
Massachusetts, had gone straightthrough to call.
(08:49):
I went to college at Harvard, I went to Yale Law School and I
was literally the only one in myclass that didn't have the next
three years of their lives set. They were going to a law firm or
they were going to Goldman Sachsor they were going to clerk for
a justice on the Supreme Court and then go to something else.
And I had no idea. I all I knew is I didn't want to
practice the law. And so professors took pity on
(09:10):
me, sent me down to Latin America.
And so I was working on a numberof different projects in Latin
America in the mid 90s and realized that no one was
starting a business. And here it was the time of
Yahoo and Netscape and Steve Jobs going back to Apple.
And I thought, where are the entrepreneurs?
And one day I tell the story a lot.
But one day I was in Buenos Aires in a taxi and realized my
(09:33):
driver had an engineering degree.
So I thought, why aren't you a? And I could not think of the
word and neither could he. He kept saying presario.
And I said, no, it's a presario.You know, it's not some big
businessman with Swiss bank accounts and government
connections. It's an an innovator.
And he said, we don't have a word like that here.
And that was my aha moment. Like, Oh my God, if you can't
(09:54):
even go back home and tell your parents what you want to be, no
wonder no one was starting a company.
And that really gave rise to this crazy idea.
People called me Chica Loca for about a decade.
That's why crazy as a complimentemerged, yes.
And, and, and we set out to prove them wrong.
We set out to say, hey, look, we're going to prove that there
(10:17):
are entrepreneurs in these markets worthy of growth, worthy
of support, worthy of capital. And one of my favorite moments,
I know you worked for Endeavour Brazil came about five years
later when the editor of Aurelios, the Brazilian
dictionary, Portuguese dictionary, called up our team
and said they were adding the words imprendidor and
(10:38):
imprendidor, ismo, entrepreneur and entrepreneurship into the
lexicon in part because of Endeavors work.
Yeah, no, that's amazing. So back then when you started
Endeavor, you just wanted to kind of create a cultural shift.
I from what I hear from you saying, right, you didn't yet
realize what it would come to beas a whole.
Is that right? Yeah.
(10:58):
Well, there are elements that tothis day remain the same and
that's in some ways the most surprising thing.
We said, OK, we're starting in Latin America, but we want it to
be global, which it is. We said that there's going to be
more in common. I talked about forget B to B&B
to C, business to business and business to consumer.
(11:19):
I said from really day one, it'sE to E, it's emerging market to
emerging market. That is true more than ever
where we see people from the Middle East going to Southeast
Asia, from Africa going to LatinAmerica and from Eastern Europe,
right. So there's there's so much so
that we always had in mind, we always had in mind there was
(11:40):
going to be a selection process to identify the most promising
entrepreneurs. That has really stayed the same
and we always said we were goingto create this full circle where
we would mentor and support these entrepreneurs.
We didn't initially have a fund,but we were mentor Tom Friedman
(12:01):
and called us the mentor capitalists.
So we always said we're going tomentor the entours and then we
had we said there was going to be a mechanism for them to pay
their success forward. So I think today the things that
are different are the addition of the fund to make Endeavour
self-sustaining and add capital into the ecosystem system.
And we really now talk about themultiplier effect.
(12:23):
We're actually quantifying how mentorship and reinvestment and
training of the next generation.You can actually quantify how
big an ecosystem can grow. So those are some of the things
that are different. And obviously we didn't know new
technologies, quantum and AI. But apart from that, the vision,
weirdly is very similar to what it was initially.
(12:44):
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And I love that side of
endeavor, that there's the policy and research to really
back up a lot of the decisions that not only Endeavors making,
but ecosystems that as a whole are making.
So I love that component. So one thing that really
impresses me about your journey is just how you've been able to
get in front of very big names and garner support early on.
(13:06):
I would say that Endeavor today has a very strong reputation.
But in the beginning of the journey, you were building
something from scratch where people was like, we're thinking
like what's Endeavor and who is Linda and still building that,
that reputation, right? And to name a couple names of of
folks in your network and who have been supporters, Michael
(13:26):
Dell, Reed Hoffman, Eduardo Elstein from Argentina's largest
real estate developer, George Pagu Lemon, one of the owners of
3G Capital in Brazil. What do you believe moved these
people to support you early on? Yeah, I always say that stalking
is an underrated startup strategy.
And at the beginning when you nothing to lose, I mean, I just
(13:47):
felt so passionate about what I was doing.
But you mentioned one of the people.
I'll mention a couple of them, but Eduardo was one of the
earliest people I met because noone thought there were
entrepreneurs in these markets. And one day there had been a New
York Times piece about the fact that he had invested George
Soros's money, making George Soros technically the largest
(14:09):
real estate owner in in Argentina.
But through Eduardo and I somehow got a 10 minute meeting
on a Friday knowing. So it's the app Friday
afternoon. Eduardo happens to be an
Orthodox Jewish man, so I knew he was going home for Shabbat.
So I knew this was only lasting 10 minutes.
And 5 minutes into our conversation, he turns, he, he
(14:30):
looks at his watch and says, I get it.
You want an intro to George Soros.
This was in Buenos Aires at his headquarters.
And he said, I'll see what I cando.
And I said no, no, no, no, Eduardo, I'm an entrepreneur.
You're an entrepreneur. This is an organization of by 4
entrepreneurs. I want your passion, your
involvement and $200,000. And he looks at his right hand
(14:51):
guy. He's like esta chica, esta loca.
And he basically says, wait a minute, I thought, what
happened? I thought she was so charming.
And now it's like you're in a bad movie where she's stabbing
you with a knife. And I said, Eduardo, I started
says you're not. You know, I'm disappointed.
This from the guy who famously walked into Soros's office and
came out with a $10 million check.
You're lucky. I asked you for only 200,000.
(15:12):
And he walked out the door and Ithought, uh oh, I've just
insulted him. He's just walked out.
He's leaving to get home and theright hand guy looks at me like
I don't know what to do and before I walked I stood up to
leave. The bardo walked back in with
his checkbook and read the $200,000 on the spot.
(15:34):
That's incredible. And it was that move and the
fact that we set up in Argentinathat George Apollo and Beto of
3G, who had met another mentor of mine, Bill Solomon at Harvard
Business School, who had gotten to no endeavor.
And they said they wanted to support entrepreneurs in Brazil.
They were funding scholarships for people in Brazil and, and
(15:56):
frustrated that the people were just becoming investment
bankers. And so they wanted, and so Bill
had said, go meet Linda and you should bring Endeavour's model
to Brazil. So the fact that that we had
worked in Argentina, then brought it to Brazil.
We were then called in by the who's who of Mexico.
But it's what's interesting is this is for founders, you know,
(16:16):
crossword. You don't have to have the
connections yourself, but you have to have that authentic a
belief that what you're doing issolving a pain point or problem
that other people want solved. Yeah.
No, that's good. And did you, did you already
have like a strong pitch? Do you feel like you were
refining that pitch on the go? Totally refining on the go.
(16:39):
Yeah, Totally. No.
And then also, for better or forworse, I'm not a political
person, as Connor, who is here, who worked at the White House,
knows, right? And so one of the funny things
what happened is after we went to Argentina and Brazil, again,
this was going to be global in our minds, but we just had to
start in Latin America. I got a call from Pedro Aspe,
(17:01):
who was the former finance minister of Mexico and then was
starting the first private equity firm in the country.
He said, Linda, I'd like you to come meet a group of people
we've assembled to talk about Endeavour because I think Mexico
might be a good place for it. I said, great.
So I got on the plane and beforeI walked in the room, someone
(17:22):
tapped me on the shoulder and said, do you know what
percentage of Mexico's GDP is inthat room?
And I said, no, I don't think I want to.
And it was the founder of the head of Cemex and the head of
Televisa and, you know, the Carlos Slim who owned half the
country. And it was just, it was this
impressive group. And they basically said, we want
(17:45):
to know why are there entrepreneurs coming out of
Brazil and Argentina and even Uruguay?
We're in, we're endeavoured presence and what's wrong with
Mexico? So I said to them, well, and I
tried not to look at Carlos Lim,but I said, Nope, Here in
Mexico, you are the big fish andyou've got to think of
(18:06):
entrepreneurs as the little fish.
And in Mexico, the big fish tendto eat the little fish.
And I thought, again, I thought I was going to be kicked out.
This is the story of 11. Instead, Pedro mentioned for me
to keep going. And I said, so why don't you
think of Endeavour like an aquarium where the big fish
learn to feed the little fish? And again, to my shock, and I
(18:27):
said it with a kind of wink, butthey could have gotten insulted,
kicked me out and said, go back home to, you know, New York kid.
And instead they said, all right, we're going to, we're
going to, we're going to all report this.
And a decade later, Emilio Escaraga, who ran at that point,
the largest media company, Televisa, had a magazine called
(18:50):
Expansion, and it was dedicated to business and
entrepreneurship. They had a 10 page spread 10
years to Endeavour, Mexico. And the title.
The cover story was big fish feeding the.
Oh, that's so good. Yeah, there's like power and
storytelling. It's really, really important.
And and I see that not only in your story, but just like
(19:10):
Endeavor in general. How how you know you've been
able to build so much by leveraging this vision and
getting people to buy in with the story.
And and getting people, you know, endeavor really is the
story of Co creation, right? And it is the story and it has
been a partnership with these big business leaders.
And now we always had the other dream of by 4 entrepreneurs of
the entrepreneurs would take over.
(19:31):
And we have fifty of our top entrepreneurs serving as board
members in our local incredible.You know, we had Sergio Furio of
Credit us, the outgoing president of Endeavour Brazil
handing it over to Cesar Carvalho of Wellhub, Jim Paz,
another Endeavour entrepreneur as president of the board.
(19:53):
And we have presidents as about 6 or 7 Endeavour entrepreneurs
presidents. But I will say I want to give
credit to the big fish, to thesebig business leaders who.
To their credit, wanted to do something for their economy and
said, you know what entrepreneurship is it?
Is it even if they themselves might be disrupted, even if
(20:14):
innovation was going to challenge the traditional
businesses and that they were going to have to grow the pie?
But if you think about one of the challenges of emerging
markets is that the top ten families controlled so much of
the access to capital, to information, to to networks.
(20:36):
And I just find it astounding. And it's really, as I said, a
testament to these people in in so many markets.
This is true in Turkey, in the Philippines and Indonesia and
South Africa and all of our countries that they were willing
to even potentially give up someof the control, some of the
power to grow the pie and to puttheir countries on on the map.
(20:56):
Yeah, No, absolutely in in this process over the many of years
that you've had, have there beenmentors that supported you
through different challenges? Absolutely.
And it's interesting, one of theearly mentors I had who's no
longer living, but was the greatPeter Brook and Peter Brook,
(21:22):
whom I also stalked. Oh, yeah, yes.
But he, he founded TA Associatesand Advent International.
He is considered among the founding fathers of
international venture capital and was this sort of very Boston
Brahman. And here I am, even though I
(21:42):
grew up in Boston, I am much more, you know, at Chickaloca
and overwhelming and we have very different personalities.
But I learned so much from him and he loved and this is the I
think the truth of mentorship isit's often also reverse
mentorship. While he gave me legitimacy and
helped me understand how do you build a franchise in of venture
(22:04):
capital or entrepreneurship support in all these markets,
which TA and Advent has done. But he credited me with
reminding him what his roots hadbeen and that he was getting
frustrated that his organizations were becoming too
down the private equity line andnot in the VC close to
entrepreneur roots that they had.
(22:26):
And he sort of started shaking them up and being a little bit
more agile as a result. And I think that that's really
been true all along that some that I started out with mentors
who were older and wiser than I than I was.
I mean people like George Apolloand Bill Solomon that I
mentioned, and yet now the opposite is true, right?
(22:47):
When I see these entrepreneurs coming up in their 20s and I'm
technically there to mentor them, but inevitably they're
mentoring me. Yeah, I work with student
volunteers, so I host the Fort Lauderdale Tech meet up once a
month. We have about 200 guests that
come and I work with 10 student volunteers at every meet up and
(23:09):
they volunteer their time and afterwards I take them out for
pizza and mentoring. So I give them advice on their
career. Sometimes I bring an awesome
professional with me and they love it.
And inevitably over the past twoyears, like I've had to make
some make some difficult decisions with the company with
the way we build the meet up. I had to start charging.
(23:30):
It was free for a long time and we transitioned into charging.
And, you know, there are momentswhere it was, I was out there
with them doing pizza mentoring.Maybe we were just having some
talks over, over dinner. And I, I couldn't kind of hide
the difficulty that I was going through, you know what I mean,
of making like a really hard decision.
(23:51):
And I was like, oh, man, do I like, do I hold this back from
them? Do I hold this back from them or
do I include them in this? And I just opened up to them and
I said, you know, I'm making this decision.
It feels really scary and but I know that it's the right thing
to do right now, which at that moment was to transition to
charging. They were so encouraging and
mind you, they are some of them are dual enrolled high school,
(24:15):
college. So they're high school students.
They're 16/17/18 up to 21. And they told me, you know what,
I think we're going to attract higher quality people because if
people are spending their money,they're going to be more
intentional. And, you know, it's going to
work great. We're going to explain.
We're going to, you know, be super hospitality oriented.
(24:37):
And I was like, OK, like, we'll do it.
And some of them were like, Oh my gosh, you're so bold.
I can't believe you're doing this.
You know, they were excited to be on that journey with me.
And they were right, you know, and I was just so encouraged to
see that, you know, I should be listening to them as well.
You know what I mean? It doesn't matter that they're
younger, that they have less experience in the market.
They have valid contributions toadd.
(25:00):
And so in a sense, yes, I'm there mentoring them, but a lot
of ways they are also pouring back into me.
Yeah, I think the other take away I have that reminds me of
something one of the biggest lessons of my own journey is
that as leaders and I would say particularly as women leaders,
(25:21):
we are told to be, you know, tough and invincible and
superhuman and not show our vulnerability.
And a a story I tell because it was deeply personal was in 2008.
(25:43):
So this is a little a decade into the journey I had had
identical twins born in 2005 2008.
So my girls are three and my husband got diagnosed with an
aggressive form of bone cancer. And so sorry thing he is, he
recovered. He did recover thankfully, but
it was, it was really, it was a grueling year.
(26:05):
It was the last year, which is better than the lost life, as
you would say. But it was a lost year and he
was, I had to accompany him to every chemo treatment.
He had really the only second time in the world that his
femur, that the surgery that's now considered standard but was
pioneering at that point, he hadhis entire femur removed, a
(26:28):
titanium rod put in the femur attached, more chemo.
It was, it was, it was a lot andI had these young girls and so I
really was not very present. And this is before the Zoom, so
before the idea of remote work. So and when I came back, I said,
OK, I am not going to let them see me cry.
I'm not going to, you know, get emotional.
(26:49):
I'll freak them out here. I'm coming back.
They're probably anxious, my team.
And of course, within the 1st 5 minutes I broke down.
It's like I'm not never, never works.
So I literally after that meeting slinked away to my
office and I was thinking, Oh myGod, what have I done?
Like I've my team is going to befreaked out.
(27:11):
And instead 2 younger employees like knocked on my door.
I let them in and they said we just wanted to say thank you for
showing us your authentic self. And we had always thought you
were kind of superhuman, kind ofan unrelatable way.
(27:33):
And they said, now that you've shown us your vulnerable side,
we'll follow you anywhere. And so the last night I said,
which we are not taught is like less super, more human, right?
And I think that that's what those students were telling you
is that they're hungry for people who are authentic, who
are showing the struggles, right?
And I think especially in today with this Instagram world where
(27:55):
everyone shows their perfect sides, it is becoming rarer and
rarer for people to say, hey, no, this is who I am.
Not in a performative way, but in a Let me bring you into
what's really going on. Do you feel like that is still a
continuous process, even though it was many years ago?
Your girls are not 20, right? Yes.
(28:16):
So it's been many years since since that original kind of
moment of clarity that you had about the importance of
vulnerability. Do you feel like it's something
that's kind of ongoing and 100% like what's, what's the journey?
Because I'm I'm there, you know what I mean?
Especially as a new entrepreneur, starting a
podcast, putting my voice out there, I'm really figuring out,
(28:37):
you know, what does authenticitylook like for me behind a
microphone? Well, I also you put in the
work. So in the last year, I put
together what we, what we're calling Vision 2035 and I had
set a goal that we've surpassed and to deliver this vision to
(28:58):
1000 people in the network. And people thought, again, this
is crazy, this is crazy. I said, well, look, I said I
have, I have to do this because I have to set the framework for
where we're going and get people, you know, excited and
then we can build a strategy around it.
And I know we have 45 countries,but we have to be rowing in the
same boat. But in that process, I said, I'm
going to be open about what I know we're going to do, what I
(29:23):
hope we're going to do. And when I'm terrified that we
won't be able to do or that or the challenges that we're going
to face internally and externally.
And and I think people really appreciated that and coming with
a framework, coming with thought, not just doing a dump
of emotional. Spaghetti to the wall, correct?
(29:43):
But that within that I was saying, OK, here's why I'm I'm
personally scared. Like I don't know if I can do
that. I don't know Here's why I need
your help. Here's where.
What do you think? Let's Co create this.
I think that's the other thing, giving people, especially with a
company, the opportunity to Co create is is something that
people really appreciate and rarely ever get the chance to be
(30:05):
part of. Do you struggle with self doubt
or anxiety or any, you know fearin the process?
I think, you know, it's funny because Connor is my amazing new
chief of staff who you met is here.
And there was a time even a couple weeks ago, I was like
Connor. I rarely say there's like I am
(30:26):
over my ski. I'm like, I am done.
I am like at my limit. I have not had a break.
I have to replenish or I I just I I feel like I, I, I'm, I'm,
I'm not able to, to yeah, you know, I'm not getting your mask.
I'm not getting a mask. I mean, I'm someone I then went
away for like a long weekend andI came back, I was like, OK,
(30:46):
that works for me. Like you have to know yourself
too. I think there's that.
That works for me. I actually, and someone I just
need a little bit of time. What I started doing is I, I, I
said, I'm going to take a walk every day.
I'm going to not do everything on Zoom.
I realized I was doing so much on Zoom and then rushing to the
office and physically I couldn'tdo that.
Yeah. So it was a little bit of a
change up of no, I'm going to take a walk and I'm going to do
(31:09):
that every day. My girls who were home for the
summer, I said I'm making them breakfast every morning, I'm
going to be home in the evening,I will time shift.
And so I think that that's OK. I think being able to tell
people as a leader, well what you need, but then giving them
that same opportunity. I think that as long as you're
consistent and for some people, I have a colleague who needs to
(31:33):
take 3 weeks and be off and not answer any e-mail or any, you
know, anything and he runs our fund.
He's an important person here. All right, That's what Alan
needs. That would drive me crazy to
come back and have 300, you know, 3000 emails probably.
So I'm someone who needs like anhour a day.
(31:54):
But I think that that's what youhave to do.
That's, that's on a daily basis.On a, on a larger basis, I think
that finding people who are not your investors, who are not your
employees as well to test out the scary things is often
helpful because you need someonewho's going to give you advice
(32:16):
and not have their, their own, you know, interests affected.
So that's the other thing is test things out on people who
are can be objective and then and then talk to your employees,
your board members. Yeah, that's good.
That's good. Usually that's my husband.
(32:37):
So I say, you know, in my opinion, the building a company
is one of the biggest self development projects.
Like as far as like how it pushes you in every aspect of
your life, emotionally, physically, mentally.
What about, you know, building endeavour has changed you and
shaped you well? One of the things is we gather
(33:02):
are the top 10% of endeavour entrepreneurs, we call them are
outliers every year. So it's about 200 entrepreneurs.
This is we held it in Portugal on the beautiful comporta, sorry
in in Portugal and these are thethe top entrepreneurs and I
thought, all right, they're justgoing to be talking about how do
I IPO or how do I do M&A or how do I, you know expand to this
(33:26):
market. It was all personal really, all
issues of OK, I'm exhausted. How do I be a parent?
How do I be a good partner? I'm really scared.
Like I am having mental health challenges and I don't know what
to do because I don't want to scare off my employees.
I'm burnt out, my health has suffered.
(33:49):
How do I put me first? It was so liberating and
validating that you're not alone.
So I think that's the thing I would say, and one of the things
I'm most proud of that is the brainchild of a Sylvia.
Sylvia, my, our chief marketing officer is something called
Endeavour Untold. And what Sylvia is doing is
(34:11):
getting Endeavour founders to open up about their most
challenging moments, their mental health struggles, their
struggles with founders who havehad substance abuse issues or
who have had cancer or family issues that have gotten, you
know, been impacted or impacted their.
(34:34):
Their business. And these are things you just
never hear about. And so to your question, I would
say we all go through these selfmoments of self doubt.
We all go through these physical, emotional,
psychological struggles. And I think the more that
entrepreneurs, founders can talkto one another, they'll realize
they're not alone. Yeah, it seems like sometimes
(34:56):
that part of the conversation gets isolated, like let's just
talk about business. So it's so refreshing to hear
that with the internal conversations that you guys are
having with entrepreneurs, like these topics are surfacing and
it's so important to build a sustainable business, to have a
sustainable life and to and to actually experience joy, right?
Like, not everything is about exclusively work.
(35:18):
Like there is your family and there's so much more than that,
right? Yes, and also you know, from the
beginning with Endeavor, one of the things that led me to write
crazy as a compliment is and I started getting frustrated that
all of the conversations around entrepreneurship were about
product market fit and finances and the cap table.
(35:40):
And Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz wrote a book called The
hard Thing about Hard things. And I said, well, I want to
write the hard thing about soft things because I look at the cap
tables and those are people problems and I can tell them
they need to fire their brother-in-law and their mothers
in the cap table. This is a problem and the early
investor is not aligned and so many of the issues of scale are
(36:03):
people problems that even now. It was so interesting at this
Outliers event in comport to Portugal.
This is April. What's everyone talking about?
AI. And I knew everything was going
to be about AI and yet not the way I thought.
In fact, many of the conversations were the human
aspects of Oh my God, how do I communicate?
(36:25):
My team is freaking out. How do I do some of these
necessary layoffs or cuts while I need to empower the
superstars? I don't know what to do.
They're they're human problems, they're soft problems, they're
people problems. This is why many companies make
it or break it. And yet we end up only talking
about products, finance, the things that are quote serious,
(36:47):
which I think is backwards. Yeah, whenever I started my
entrepreneurial journey, it was actually a really spiritual
process for me because I was so afraid and I never actually
imagined that I would step into entrepreneurship until it was
the only option. And so I did and it literally
brought me to my knees because Iwas so afraid to do it alone.
(37:10):
I got on my knees and I prayed and I said God will you be my Co
founder? And I just the reason why I
prayed it was because I had had several different Co founder
conversations. We know those are complicated.
Very complicated. And I just didn't feel the
confidence to really like, lock down on any particular
(37:31):
partnership. And I just thought to myself, I
can't do this alone. How am I going to do this alone?
This is crazy. Like, there's so much I don't
know. And when I prayed that, I just
felt like this sense of relief, I didn't know what exactly that
meant. I joke around with my husband
now that that God took the chiefmarketing officer role because
(37:53):
our events have blown up and I've maybe spent $100 in AD
spend in in almost three years. It's all been organic growth.
And so it has brought me into a deeper relationship with my
faith. And I'm curious to know, has
faith played a role for you at all in your journey or how you
know, is there a spiritual aspect to the way that you view
(38:15):
life? So interesting and my is
interesting as my husband has written a number of books more
on the journeying side, but one of his books was called Walking
the Bible. To actually go to the ancient
places and see if they exist. I think for me, the importance
actually is getting people of somany different faiths in a
(38:41):
moment where that is really challenging.
And I'm so proud of the fact that we're operating, you know,
throughout the Middle East and throughout Southeast Asia and
Africa and Latin America and Europe.
And we have people of so many backgrounds and beliefs.
(39:05):
And I think today we are so siloed.
And I think Endeavour being a safe space where regardless of
your background, regardless of your religion, regardless of
your political beliefs, you can come together and know these are
your people and they've got yourback.
And that's what matters. And we're building a better
(39:26):
future together. That's that's what I hold on to.
I love that. That's great.
So after almost 30 years leadingthe business, what still drives
you today? I was 5 when I started.
What still drives you today, like what is what really, you
know, makes you wake up in the morning and have this energy
(39:49):
that you have and passion that you have to really drive forth
the vision of this business? Well, I think there are a few
things. It's funny because.
I don't have as much fun when everyone thinks what we're doing
is cool and obvious. And in 2021, there was a blip
when SoftBank and Tiger and everyone and their mother was
(40:12):
investing in these, our markets.And I thought, oh boy, maybe
where are we done? And we were not done.
And yet now we certainly are notdone.
And I kind of love the fact thattoday I'm on a lot of panels and
people are saying, well, in AI you have to be in Silicon Valley
or China and, or you're nothing.And I'm about to moderate a
panel in Athens, right at the slopes of the Acropolis.
(40:35):
Moderate a conversation between Prime Minister Greek Prime
Minister Kriyakos Mitsotakis andthe founder of Google DeepMind
Demisasabas, who built who rebuffed his initial
ambassador's plea to move to Silicon Valley and he stayed in
London and Athens is becoming anInnovation Center and ever
Greece is partnering a lot with the Prime minister's office
there and to promote this concept of elsewhere.
(40:58):
So I really feel like there's still a voice for endeavour to
talk about innovation elsewhere.Yeah and right that's still
important. The idea of the endeavour
multiplier effect is something Ifeel passionately about because
while back to what was always been talked about.
I have no problem when we're proud of the unicorns in our
(41:18):
network and but we think why is valuation the end goal or exit.
It really is building ecosystems.
It really is saying we talked about the bubbles of influence
growing because we map out different bubbles on in our in
our multiplier system maps. And the bigger the more you
mentor, the more you train, the more you invest in, the more you
(41:41):
inspire the next generation, thebigger your bubble grows.
So we talked about, you know, you want a big bubble, not just
the big bank account. And I think using and
quantifying this, paying it forward through this multiplier
effect is very important to to change the language of success.
And then the third and final thing that keeps me motivated is
that the idea of Endeavor Catalyst is that we're not just
(42:06):
making great returns for LP's bywho can go and fast in these
opportunities around the world, but half the proceeds go to
Endeavor to make the nonprofit side of Endeavor
self-sustaining. And I to me, that's where we
ourselves are pioneers and we have universities coming to us
saying, hey, wait a minute, we need to look at this model too.
(42:27):
And I think this idea of public private partnerships and hybrid
models are going to need to takeroot.
And so that that brings me joy. Yeah.
So two things. One is Endeavour aligning the
financial model with the fund, which I, I think this is, it's
such a good thing for ecosystems, for Endeavour,
(42:49):
because it allows for you to align your goals with who is
most aligned with you with entrepreneurs.
So I think that that's so valuable.
It's such a big game changer because you know, where the
funding is coming from does impact, you know what, what you
focus on or you know, the direction and growth can be
(43:12):
either maybe you know, slowed a bit or maybe not go super in the
direction that you want it. So I think that's a massive
shift of synergy for Endeavour to have aligned in that way.
And then the other thing that I wanted to touch a little bit
more into is the multiplier effect.
So when we talk about the multiplier effect, let's unpack
this a little bit because I think this is so much Endeavors
(43:33):
world that we really know what we're talking about in this
conversation. But a lot of people who are not
a part of Endeavor maybe don't realize the importance and the
impact of entrepreneurs paying it forward with their time, with
their expertise, with their money.
You know, even with, with what I'm building with, with founder
tactics, with the podcast, with the events that we do, it's
(43:55):
really with the focus of strengthening tech communities,
strengthening the founder community.
And I sell this vision to everybody who I invite to either
come on the podcast or speak at the tech meet up.
Maybe they're really high level entrepreneur and they don't have
a ton of time. And look, look, this is actually
really important for you to be apart of our community in this
capacity. Like I'll work around your
(44:15):
schedule. I'll fly to New York twice.
Like, how can we? You know, it's, it's let me
gather my thoughts again, like the importance of transmitting
this message to entrepreneurs who are ahead of the game.
Yes, and, and I think we take for granted here that there will
be support. One of the benefits of
(44:39):
entrepreneurship in the United States being synonymous with
Silicon Valley is that Silicon Valley is known to promote
networking and to promote investing in the next people.
Even people talk about the PayPal Mafia.
This is something we talk about.Mafia is an endeavour because of
(45:00):
the PayPal Mafia, which is the group of people who came out of
PayPal, including from Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and Reid
Hoffman and David Sachs. And so many people who have gone
on to become some of the lead investors and entrepreneurs,
earners and other companies all came out of this same exerience
(45:23):
and invested in one another and supported one another.
And it seems so obvious here, and yet it's not typically the
case in these markets. So I remember in the mid 2000s,
Reed Hoffman, who's on my board asking Endeavour entrepreneurs,
how many of you, if you, if yourcompany failed on a Tuesday,
(45:44):
would go home to the equivalent of American Thanksgiving?
And in your markets on Thursday,how many of you would show up
and more than half the room? The hands did not go up.
And he said if those of you would show up, how many of you
would ask for money for your next company?
0 hands were raised. He said this is the difference
(46:08):
in Silicon Valley. Everyone's hands would have
stayed up for both questions. So I think that and there were,
there are some of our markets where actually you can go to
jail for bankrupting a company, right?
And the last thing you're going to do is have failure be tied to
investing in, right. What's interesting is now we
talk about the Rappi mafias, theKareem mafias, these companies
(46:31):
and people are seeding the ecosystems.
And by the way, these are not necessarily the hugest.
I mean, Cream was a very large exit because it's sold to Uber,
but they had originally planned to IPO.
Robbie has not exited yet. And yet what's so amazing is
they have trained the next generation who's getting smarter
(46:51):
and seeing how things had been done for good and for bad.
And the other story I tell, which is really the antithesis
of Silicon Valley, is close to where I grew up in Boston on
Route 128, Right. And I when I say to people,
well, do you want to be Silicon Valley Route 128?
Everyone's like, well, what's Route 128?
(47:12):
I'm like, yeah, exactly. That's the point.
The story of Route 128 is that in the 1980s, most of the tech
workers were on a strip that was, you know, near Harvard,
near MIT, near you had deck, andyou had some of the early
computer tech and tech servicingcompanies.
(47:33):
And it really is where entrepreneurship should be
known. So Stanford was still like, you
know, coming up, there was just not that much happening in
California. And there was so much happening
in the Boston quarter. And what happened was these
early tech companies forbade networking.
They made you sign NDA's, non disclosure agreements and non
(47:58):
compete when you left. So instead of investing in your
next company, they basically said you're dead to me and you
can't do anything else right. Silicon Valley, California did
not support Ndas and non competes and that is why people
said, OK, you're leaving a man tomorrow.
What can I at least invest in your company?
And, and today as a result, there is no Route 128.
(48:21):
And in fact, Boston has had to slowly and surely build up with
biotech and other things the, the, the right to even be in the
entrepreneurship conversation, which is so odd.
And so you look at some markets where the early founders are not
mentoring, are not being role models, are not paying it
forward. And actually you say to them,
(48:41):
hey, your ecosystem could disappear.
Right. So what's the mindset shift that
you think needs to happen? Because when we talk about the
level of collaboration that happens in California, I think
we don't have to look too far outside of the United States to
see ecosystems that are not yet operating with that kind of
(49:02):
collaboration. What do you think the like
mindset shift, mindset shift should be for cities that want
to be more entrepreneurial? Like what?
What needs to change, right? Like obviously, like we've
shared here, the non competes are not great.
That's not really supportive of innovation and and the growth of
(49:25):
these entrepreneurial communities.
Yet people are afraid, right? That's why they do it.
They don't want to. They're like, oh, I'm going to
lose money or I'm going to lose,you know, an edge to a
competitor. There's fear that's holding
people back or organizations. Back and I also think people
don't want to be finger wagged and told what to do.
Oh, you're supposed to give back.
(49:45):
So we're trying to change the language of success and make it
actually competitive because entrepreneurs are and by nature
competitive and fun and have FOMO.
And so Endeavour is working withone of our own entrepreneurs at
Globe End, which is a public company that does digital
transformation on an A multiple,an Endeavour multiplier effect
app, where entrepreneurs can go in and get their multiplier
(50:08):
score and actually start seeing whose bubble is bigger, whose
multiplier score is greater. Yeah, right.
And to take pride not only in the company and the jobs that
they themselves have created, but how many people they spot.
And let's go back to the beginning of this conversation.
What did you say to me? You said, Linda, I don't know if
you know how many people who worked for Endeavor that this
(50:32):
was a transformational part of our lives.
Absolutely. That's what I'm hearing from
entrepreneurs. They don't even know that
founders of companies they've heard of started in their
companies sometimes. And so they want for them, it's
now a source of pride that wow, that person got their start in
(50:53):
my company and now look at them.And I think if we sort of change
that mindset. And I think now when you're also
looking at countries we just launched in places like Ukraine
and Poland, and, you know, putting these on the map in
terms of entrepreneurship is a source of national pride, right?
Because cities like Dubai and, and, and Singapore and Sao
(51:15):
Paulo, right, that are up and coming.
And so we're saying, hey, look, it's not just about you and your
company, it's about your city, it's about your community,
getting the the know how and realizing that it's not fear,
it's not it's about growing the pie.
It's about, I think this is whatArgentina back to our earliest
(51:36):
country did well. They said we're only going to do
well if we get together and realize we're building the
ecosystem together. And sometimes this means you
poach my CTO and I poach your CEO, and we have to be OK with
it. Yeah.
But we're going to be able to attract people from all over the
world if we create a place wherepeople want to be.
Yeah. And it makes you have to be more
(51:57):
competitive and connect with your team and provide, you know,
a good challenge. So I think it really does enrich
the ecosystem as a whole becausecompetition is good for that.
Yeah, and right. Just as the best tennis players
will say, playing against the most competitive tennis players
makes their game better. That's how entrepreneur.
Exactly. OK, so we have a couple of
(52:18):
minutes and I would love to do alightning round if you're of
course. So who do you call when you're
stuck? I call, I probably call my
husband. He is a storyteller by nature.
And so much I think of getting unstuck is figuring out the
(52:38):
story you want to tell. And so that's who I would call.
Secret talent. I used to be able to tango.
I make a very mean pot pesto pasta that I learned from a
contessa in Italy. A favorite memory.
(53:05):
Well, I would say last year we have this Endeavor Gala every
December. It's the one time of year where
it's sort of like a traditional New York nonprofit.
We're not a traditional organization, right?
We're at this hybrid organization.
But every year we do this call. And my, my daughters have come
(53:25):
every year since they were two. But it was my, you know, one's
an art historian, one's a poet, playwright.
They don't really have that muchto do with entrepreneurship.
Last year they're they were sophomores in college and they
each brought a friend and suddenly endeavour was cool, but
their friends were interested toso to see their view change of
(53:51):
this organization that they grewup with, but to see it
throughout through their friendseyes and shift how they
perceived that was great. That's great.
Best compliment you ever got? Well, I have to say that was
crazy, right? That's my whole theory that
crazy is a compliment and that you're, if you're not being
called crazy when you're starting something big, then
you're not thinking big enough. And today, like now, people said
(54:14):
the vision 2035 was crazy. I'm like, OK, good.
And we're on track. A skill you're working on.
I am working on letting go as a parent.
That's one thing. I am working on understanding
(54:35):
how to where and when to use AI.Everyone has to work on this.
It's a journey and then they over.
I'm sorry, but I I was working on something and I and back to
my husband who's like you chat you PT Ed this didn't you?
You can tell. You can tell.
You can tell. Yeah, it's like a little
(54:57):
cringey. Yeah, yeah, if you get an
e-mail. What if you get a neat like I've
gotten an e-mail? It was not to e-mail, it was
like. Really extensive and very
explaining and I was like I I, Iwill sometimes use it to get
ideas on how to better rephrase something but I will never copy
paste it. It's like OK, I'm now going to
put this into my own words because my therapist Chachi PT
(55:18):
helped me think through my thoughts basically.
But my, yeah. But the, oh, the e-mail thing is
a total giveaway because if theyrespond to every single thing
you've mentioned, you no, no. No.
OK, this one's a little different.
Worst advice you've ever gotten?Worst advice is ignore your
(55:41):
strengths, bolster your weaknesses.
I thought I had to teach myself accounting and the, you know,
deep finance because. And I realized, you know, you
strengthen your tea and you can.Yeah.
And you can find people surrounding you who, who
compliment you. But why try to homogenize
everything you do? Focus on your strengths.
(56:03):
Beautiful. This has been amazing.
Oh, I also owe another bad advice.
This is fun. Keep every door open.
Paralyzes you. Closed doors.
Closed doors. That's like a cliffhanger.
Yeah, I had friends even in, in,in in law school who were, they
keep every door open and they keep none open.
(56:25):
I then they went, they, they never ended up pursuing, you
know, they are like, oh, I'm going to take the finance job
and then I'm going to be the professional chef.
Nope, never. They were they, they, they ended
up, they thought they, they deluded themselves that they
were keeping the door open. They weren't.
And I think if they had actuallysaid, you know what, I'm not
going to go this path. I'm going to try this other one.
(56:47):
Yeah. And if it doesn't work, then
I'll fall back. You know, I think you've got
gotta tell yourself, no, I'm gonna.
I'm going to take the leap. I'm going to close the door.
At least for now. Yeah.
Or you paralyze yourself and youdon't really.
Absolutely. So good.
Okay, so before we wrap up, how should people contact you or
learn more about Endeavor? You know where where should they
(57:08):
reach out to? Endeavour.org.
I am on LinkedIn, so I'm Linda Rotenberg on LinkedIn and yeah.
Awesome. Thank you so much for making the
time for this to happen. It's been an absolute pleasure.
This was a pleasure and I'm so happy that you became and I see
a by for entrepreneur our team as well.
Amazing. All right.
(57:29):
Thank you so much. Bye, everyone.
And that wraps up another episode of the Founder Tactics
Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
And don't forget, if you want toget updates on new episodes,
live recordings, and everything happening in our listener
community, make sure to subscribe, follow and rate the
podcast on the platform you're on now.
(57:50):
And to learn more about our work, including past interviews
and live events, you can head over to foundertactics.com.
We'll see you next time. Yeah.
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