October 29, 2024 • 33 mins
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Join host Monica Enand and guest host Ned Renzi for an enlightening conversation with Thomas Kramer, a distinguished CFO known for steering companies like Cvent, Opower, and IonQ through the complex waters of public offerings and technological advancements.
"If we do not figure out how quantum computing will works our world will eventually be covered with data centers and power plants..."
Thomas break down the evolving landscape of quantum computing and its revolutionary potential to reshape our world by leveraging qubits for remarkable power and energy efficiency. Through Thomas’s extensive experience, we gain insights into the profound implications of quantum technology in transforming data centers and energy consumption, a crucial step in addressing future sustainability challenges.
The conversation moves into the intricacies of public markets and career navigation with Thomas, sharing personal anecdotes that underscore the value of humility and mentorship during pivotal career transitions. Reflect on the current challenges within IPOs and liquidity markets, the impact of the SPAC era on public trust, and the emotional nuances behind organizational budgeting decisions. By examining the role of luck, reputation, and networking, we offer valuable perspectives on achieving career success while balancing strategic financial management with personal growth.
This episode is a wealth of insight on understanding the intersection of technology, finance, and personal development.
Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Thomas Kramer (00:03):
Things move very , very quickly.
If we do not figure out howquantum computing will work, the
Earth will eventually becovered by data centers and
power plants, and we are alreadytoday seeing many examples of
where quantum computers canoutperform classical ones, and
what we need now is scale.
It's not that we need to provethat quantum computers work.
Georgianna Moreland (00:26):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejal Petruzak, and welcometo our special guest host, Ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
This episode is sponsored byEnjoy the Work.
For over a decade, they'vehelped more than 300 startup
founders build successfulcompanies.
(00:47):
Many have reached unicornstatus, while others have
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Founder growth is key tocompany growth, and Enjoy the
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From go-to-market strategies toraising capital and scaling
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(01:08):
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Learn more and schedule anintake session at
enjoytheworkcom.
Monica Enand (01:23):
Welcome to Masterstroke.
We have a very exciting podtoday.
Thank you so much to Ned Renzi,who is co-hosting with me today
.
Ned, thank you so much forbeing here.
Ned Renzi (01:33):
It's my pleasure, Monica.
Monica Enand (01:35):
All right, ned.
We have a really exciting guestwho's going to take us into a
very serious dimension, so we'regoing to learn a lot of things
today, I think.
So I'm going to let youintroduce the guest, because you
have been a longtime friend ofThomas Kramer.
Tell us who Thomas Kramer is.
Ned Renzi (01:51):
That's right.
I think I've known Thomas maybeabout 25 years or so.
We met when he was a CFO andco-founder at Cvent, which was a
leading SaaS company in theevent management space.
That company ultimately wentpublic and exited for well over
a billion dollars and then gottaken private by Vista, which.
So he has that in common withyou, monica.
(02:13):
Yes, after Cvent he became theCFO at Opower, took them public
again greater than a billionmarket cap and then he stayed
through the sale and integrationwith Oracle, which I suspect
was a lot of fun, and thencurrently he's the CFO to
quantum computing company IonQ,which I know Monique has a lot
(02:35):
of questions on quantumcomputing, and he took IonQ
public at $2 billion valuation.
So Thomas is three for three insuccessful exits.
Prior to all that, he servedtime at Accenture, bcg and the
military, and I used served timewith Accenture and BCG because
it's probably just the same asserving time in the military.
(02:58):
So Thomas jokes he's survivedthree recessions and he's
currently looking for the fourth.
So I'd like to get somepredictions from you on that.
In terms of background, he hasa Master in Science and
Economics from the NorwegianSchool of Economics and
Stockholm School of Economics,an MBA from Harvard, and has
(03:20):
been named CFO of the Year inWashington DC several times.
I'd also say personally, asI've gotten to know Thomas, he
has excellent taste in wine andI think it's okay to say I could
give you a budget and you buycases and just have them shipped
to me, which are still some ofthe best wines I've ever had,
and actually at reasonableprices.
So I'm just dropping some ofthose nuggets in in case Monica
(03:43):
wants to take the conversationin that direction.
Monica Enand (03:46):
Oh well, we could talk for a very long time about
all kinds of fun things, I'msure, but what I really?
Thomas, thank you so much,first of all, for being here on
Masterstroke.
Welcome to the show.
We're really happy to have youhere.
Thomas Kramer (03:58):
Well, thanks for having me.
Monica and Ned, thank you somuch for giving us your money.
Almost nobody else wanted togive us money at Cvent and we
almost went under, but you savedus.
So thank you very much.
Ned Renzi (04:10):
Yeah, I joked in the early days before success was
obvious.
I'm going to look really smartor really stupid in a decade and
, thanks to you and the rest ofthe team, it turned out on the
smart side.
Monica Enand (04:23):
Oh, I think you've done a lot of smart things, ned
, and definitely backing Reggieand the team at C-Bent and
Thomas was incredible.
Watching that.
Your success, thomas, is justincredible.
But you know it's one thing tohave one successful exit, one
successful, you know, go publicbillion dollar valuation, but
(04:44):
your track record is amazing.
You know I feel like next timeI start a company, can you come
join and help me take it publicNot that I'm going to start a
company, I'm not going to dothat, not again.
I'm very interested.
You're working on IonQ, whichis quantum computing.
Can you explain, kind of thelayperson, four dummies what is
(05:05):
quantum computing?
Thomas Kramer (05:06):
What is quantum computing is that it represents
a new type of supercomputersthat is just vastly more
powerful and also more energyefficient than what classical
computers represent.
Instead of using transistors,you use qubits, so a quantum bit
(05:27):
, and instead of the transistorsthat we know, which are like
light bulbs they're 0 or 1, aqubit, a quantum bit, can be
both 0 and 1 at the same time.
They can also be any numberbetween 0 and 1,.
They can also be any numberbetween zero and one, including
negative one.
In fact, it's a sphere ofnumbers.
(05:47):
But the truth is that if we donot figure out how quantum
computing will work, the Earthwill eventually be covered by
data centers and power plants,and that's really not a great
feature feature.
(06:12):
So that's sort of a cop-out,because quantum computing is
something that goes back to 1900.
It stems from a field ofphysics called quantum mechanics
, and quantum mechanics is adifferent way of looking at
things.
Many people think that one plusone should always equal two,
and we have a perfect way ofdoing it because it is that way.
(06:33):
It isn't that way.
If you look outside, there areno numbers of nature.
We made them up and quantummechanics is a different system
that explains the universe, andin many ways it explains it
better than our classical waysand digital ways, and in many
(07:01):
ways it's more efficient atgetting to certain solutions.
And so it's been around for,you know, over 100 years.
Albert Einstein first tried toprove that it didn't exist, and
he then got around to sayingwell, it does.
I can't tell you why, but wecan observe that it does, and
this is what he famously calledspooky action at a distance,
(07:23):
because he could observe thattwo elements knew about each
other, and even when he changedone, even if they're kilometers
apart, at a speed that's fasterthan light, the other element
would know what the first onewas doing, and they were not
connected by any wires.
And so that was his um.
(07:44):
He admitted defeat and will goon to do many other great things
.
It wasn't until 1981 when someother famous physics geek called
Feynman issued the statementthat nature isn't classical Damn
it, it's quantum classical.
(08:10):
Well, damn it, it's quantum.
What can you do with a quantumcomputer?
The best example is probablysomething called the traveling
seismon, which has to do withhow can you get to the most
stops.
If you're going somewhere, andif you think about a FedEx
driver, he or she has to make120 stops a day.
(08:30):
That is only because of oureight-hour workday, but you
think, when you have thislimitation, that the great minds
at FedEx stack your car for youand give you a list of how you
can make the most efficientroute between your various stops
.
It turns out they can stackyour car but they can't figure
(08:51):
out the most efficient route.
The reason for this is that ifyou want, with a classical
computer, to figure out what isthe best route, you have to
figure out all the possibleroutes and how long that would
take, and then you pick thefastest one.
Well, how many possible routesare there between 120 stops?
(09:11):
This is what we know from highschool math.
It's a factorial, and so, inorder to figure out how many
there are, it's 120 minus one,so it's 119 times 118, times 117
, and so forth, all the way downto one.
Monica Enand (09:26):
The number gets pretty large, pretty quickly.
Thomas Kramer (09:29):
It is larger than the age of the Earth in
nanoseconds, and so a classicalcomputer will not be able to
calculate this before all thepackages have been delivered, a
long time ago.
What a quantum computer does?
Instead of doing the sequence,it calculates how long it takes
for every route at the same time, so it pushes it through
(09:51):
simultaneously, and what comesout on the other end is a
probability distribution of whatis most likely to be the right
route.
Monica Enand (10:01):
You paint an amazing future and I definitely
like your future whereeverything's perfectly optimized
and I get my items exactly whenI want them and quickly and
efficiently, and we do not coverthe world with data centers.
What I want to know is is thislike science fiction that is
(10:27):
going to happen, like in mychildren or my grandchildren's
timeline, or you know?
Is this something that youthink quantum computing would be
broadly commercialized in mylifetime?
Thomas Kramer (10:42):
Oh, 100 percent.
Things move very, very quickly.
They do Absolutely lifetime.
Oh, 100, things move very, veryquickly, they do absolutely.
But we were invited to thewhite house recently for a
quantum summit, and so were allthe other quantum manufacturers,
and asked just that question sowhen it is quantum gonna hit,
like just main mass adoption?
(11:04):
And depending on who you are,so Microsoft would say well,
around 30 years from now, andIBM would say around 20 years
from now, and Google would saythe same and we're saying in a
couple of years.
So when you ask the question ofwhen is quantum going to reach
(11:25):
commercialization, you need toinsert a quantifier on your type
of hardware, because if yourhardware isn't up to it, it's
going to take much longer.
And Microsoft is famously stilllooking for their qubit, which
is the basic building block of aquantum computer.
So obviously they can't, whichis the basic building block of a
quantum computer, so obviouslythey can't build quantum
(11:48):
computers.
But we are already today seeingmany examples of where quantum
computers can outperformclassical ones, and what we need
now is scale.
It's not that we need to provethat quantum computers work.
Monica Enand (12:04):
That is fascinating and I am so excited
about that future.
If you think about in ourlifetimes what Moore's Law has
done for us and the technologyand where we are in the world
and all the benefits that we'vehad from.
If you think about thebeginning of the transistor
probably in 1970 or maybe aroundthen to now, with it shrinking
and shrinking and shrinking andall of the amazing technological
(12:29):
advancements, this kind oftakes it a whole different step
and then you know you can seeanother ushering in a new era.
Ned Renzi (12:47):
Thomas, I'm going to take the conversation in a
slightly different direction.
Over the years, you've beengracious to me in sort of
serving as a mentor advisor tosome of the executives I've been
working with, and something Iadmired about you is how you
just I don't know if level up isthe right word, but you started
at startups and you've gonethrough the hyper growth phase.
(13:08):
You've gone through the IPO,the acquisitions, multiple times
and in your current role, rightso like how, how did you manage
your personal development tosort of level up, you know, for
every next phase of growth ofthe companies you've worked with
?
Thomas Kramer (13:25):
That is an excellent question, the um.
The truth is that, uh,companies are organisms just
like people, but they grow a lotfaster.
The average company hits prime.
Well, most companies never getout of the start and so they're
(13:46):
dead by year three.
But the average companyprobably hits prime somewhere
between 10 and 20 years and by30 they're over.
The secret to actuallysurviving is just to be humble
and ask.
And when I was going public withOpar in the field that I knew
(14:07):
very little about, and so I justpicked up the phone and called
other cfos who had gone publicin that field and I said, hey,
what do you think I should do?
And I remember one of them, um,who?
I called her?
And I said I was on my way toSan Francisco and she said well,
(14:30):
why don't I just pick you up atSFO and I can drive you to your
hotel and we can talk in thecar.
And then on the way she stoppedover somewhere and we had lunch
and there's thisbrother-sisterhood of CFOs of
like.
We all know who scary is and sowe help, yep.
Ned Renzi (14:53):
That is really important, that's a great
example of just sort of askingfor help.
It's one of the things I foundwhen I moved to the Bay Area is
there was just a culture of payit forward, that somebody had
helped that person, so they'rewilling to pay it forward and
just continue.
Well, I think it's important tohave that beginner's mind like
that you, they're willing to payit forward and just continue.
Monica Enand (15:08):
Well, I think it's important to have that
beginner's mind, like thatyou're not afraid to say, hey, I
know how to take an eventmanagement company public, but I
don't know how to do this, andI, you know, I'm not afraid to
just ask.
So I think that's really.
Thomas Kramer (15:24):
Well, I know little.
I grew up on a wet piece ofrock in Northern Europe, and so
my entire country has 5 millionpeople, and we know, all of us,
that if you don't adapt to therest of the world, well, you're
not going to go far.
Ned Renzi (15:42):
So, thomas, while you've leveled up your career I
know there's times in betweensome of these where you took
time off you mountain bike, youskied, you ate and drank your
way around the world but thenyou kind of decided to jump back
in the game and sort of maybetalk to us a little bit about
how you thought about thosetransitions at those points in
(16:03):
life and how do you think aboutyour next act, when to decide
how to decide to get back in thegame or not first I will say
that I skied 30 days last seasonum so it's possible to have a
work life balance.
Thomas Kramer (16:17):
Um, but that said, after old power I took
roughly five years off.
I served on boards and, youknow, traveled around and did
this and that I was pretty happy.
I was the only board.
I will admit that.
And then NEA, who's backed allof my three companies, called
(16:44):
and said that IMQ was going togo public and if I wanted to
maybe consider taking thempublic.
And I asked them how muchrevenue do you have?
And when the answer was zero, Isaid this has been a great call
, but I've got to go.
Monica Enand (17:02):
I was wondering about that.
Thomas Kramer (17:08):
And then I felt bad.
The next day I called my friendback and said hey, you know,
I'll speak to your CEO.
And then I spoke to the CEO andI still said no.
But then the rumors come outthat they're still going public,
(17:28):
they're using an interim CFO,which, monica, you know what it
takes to go public.
And so that felt a littlesketchy and I said I'd be happy
to mentor this guy and just helpalong, be consultant, whatever.
And then you know, and I leftthis as a voicemail and then 40
(17:51):
seconds later the guy calledback and go, you invented this
guy.
Who do you want to be this guy?
And so I was suckered in,partially also because the
person who first funded thiscompany was Harry Waller and he
was my best man at my weddingand, uh, I was in his, and so,
(18:17):
uh, the last, the last companyhe actually invested in, was I
am here and he was a um.
It was a physic physics majorin college and on the weekends
he read physics papers and hesaw this great paper by two
professors, johnson Kim andChris Monroe, and he just drove
(18:41):
down to Duke from their officeand said you have to do this.
This reads like a business plan.
I'm going to fund you andthat's how imq started.
Monica Enand (18:53):
And so when age what, I realized that I'm like,
okay, I should probably takethem public, because it was a
great connection to this companyyeah, I know being with the
people that you admire andrespect is huge and and you know
it's such a rare story to hearabout academics writing a paper
and somebody saying that readslike a business plan, like
that's a pretty unusual story.
And you know you talked aboutgoing public.
(19:17):
We've been talking about goingpublic and over our careers the
three of us we've seen exitwindows come and go, but it kind
of feels different now.
I mean there are a lot fewerpublic companies than there used
to be.
It's unclear that there's evenlike an attitude in DC towards
(19:38):
tech M&A that is friendly.
It seems maybe possibly hostileand the IPO bar seems really
high.
And the IPO bar seems reallyhigh.
How do you see liquiditymarkets kind of evolving,
especially with private equityand growth equity firms
providing liquidity?
Thomas Kramer (20:00):
How do you see that over the next few years?
You know there's an old truismthat good companies can always
go public, and what's happeningis that it's becoming harder for
more peripheral companies whohave a harder story to tell.
But we should also be awarethat we did this to ourselves.
What happened in the SPAC erawas a travesty of so many
(20:27):
companies that had no businessbeing public and they went out
and they abused the trust thatthe public has in the system and
in going public.
I hope that this will changeand I think it will change.
We've also gone through COVIDand we've gone through we're
(20:49):
still going through twointernational and military
conflicts.
That interrupts a lot of thingsaround the world, including the
Odessa exchange Talk to meabout ordering lasers, for
instance, from the other side ofthe world and so these things
tend to come and go.
I both hope and I believe thatit will come back.
Ned Renzi (21:12):
Look, I think it's fair to say that throughout
history, these macro situationscome and go, whether they be
wars or recessions or whatever.
However, you know the metricsdo seem to have moved right.
Like you know, monica's brotherit was a founder who I invested
in and we took his companypublic in 99 at 29 or $30
(21:36):
million in revenue, right, andyou had small boutique banks
that would track them and make amarket and trade and provide
analyst support and all thatkind of stuff, right.
And it just feels like you know, you know, I don't know,
notwithstanding, with zerorevenue.
It just feels like if you're arevenue generating company, it
feels like you know you have tobe in the hundreds of millions
(21:59):
of revenue to be considered foran IPO and a roadshow to get the
banks to sign up these days.
I mean, how do you view that?
Thomas Kramer (22:17):
Well, ned, we're both old.
What is the current value of$20 million in 1999?
And we're also remembering theoutliers.
The norm used to be back whencement was going public and opar
, like you need to get to $100million the year of when you go
public.
That was just a metric, andthen nowadays it feels like it's
(22:40):
$200.
So, yeah, it is becoming harder, but that doesn't mean well,
actually, that might be a goodthing.
Harder, but that doesn't meanwell, actually, that might be a
good thing, because if you don'thave to deal with the SEC and
quarterly reporting, you havethe beauty of just thinking more
(23:00):
long term.
And because somewhere along hereand I don't know exactly when
this happened, but an IPO usedto be a fundraising event.
You addressed a public marketso you could get money.
That's almost never the casenow.
When you go public, your job isactually to transition your
(23:23):
shareholder base from people wholike to invest in private
companies to people who like toinvest in public, and it has
very little to do withfundraising, except for the SPAC
era, where what they promisedwas a way to get funding, and
some say quickly, some say cheap.
To me, this backup process feltexactly like the IPO process,
(23:49):
but it's not clear how we thinkabout it.
And if you can go privatelonger and you're able to
fundraise, I mean, I wouldactually prefer that, except
that from a societal perspective, I think there's a lot of good
(24:14):
sunshine in being public, sothat you're forced to follow
similar rules, so you cancompare one company to another.
But I think that the rising barfor going public part of that
is just also a reflection on theeconomy being there.
Ned Renzi (24:30):
Yeah, look, I think on one hand you make some valid
points on like because we playin the private markets game, so
we are beneficiaries of that.
When I think about the generalpublic, like my dad, my brother,
who you know are publicservants they have public
pension funds who can't really,you know they're accessing these
private companies through veryhigh cost vehicles, right, and
(24:53):
paying much higher fees andthings like that than they would
if it was public.
You know you're a part of anETF where the light's shining in
as you speak, and so my senseis there's probably fewer people
who are benefiting by some ofthese trends.
Do you see it that way?
I would know.
Thomas Kramer (25:12):
I would have to go out and look.
The truth is, if you look atthe IPO as an exit, it's better
to exit through a sale thanthrough an IPO, and whether
people need to invest in thesesmaller companies, I don't know.
(25:33):
Actually, I know that that'sprobably not a good idea for
most people because they don'thave the ability to actually
figure out what's going on, andin that respect, it's better
that they're public, becausethere is some screening
functions that happen when youforce people to follow the same
rulebook.
Ned Renzi (26:00):
We joked earlier that kind of referenced.
You know you're looking foryour fourth recession.
I know you and I were involvedduring what I'll call like the
first recession in my career andwe kind of had to make some
drastic moves to what I calldefault survival mode above any
other goals for the company.
Like if you were a CEO or CFOright now in some of these tech
(26:25):
companies, what would you do toprepare your company in case a
recession hits?
Well, the best?
Thomas Kramer (26:32):
preparation is to load up on money.
So the golden rule is that, forme at least, if somebody shows
up on your doorstep with twosuitcases full of money, take
them, because you never knowwhen that situation comes back
again.
However, from an operator'spoint of view, I think the best
(26:56):
preparation for a recession isto run a good company and to be
I was going to say cheap, butyou can't always be cheap.
You know it's not necessarilycheap or frugal.
It is investing in what matters.
Ned Renzi (27:15):
And so running a tight shop.
Are you an advocate of almostlike annually doing a zero-based
budget approach and just startfrom the ground up, line item by
line item, every year, everycouple of years?
Like, how do you think aboutthat?
Thomas Kramer (27:29):
So somewhere between a zero-based budget and
KTLO, keeping the lights onBecause there are.
There's a difference betweenmarketing and be legal and, like
(27:49):
G&A, overall, I have to payrent.
I don't have to really thinkabout it that much.
However, it pays to payattention to the rent and things
like insurance.
It's easy to forget about it.
So if you don't have a list andgo through that, you've done it
(28:09):
all.
Some version of Cerebes shouldbe done.
I remember when I started atOpar, the budgets were created
by taking one month in Excel andthen the next cell was previous
cell times 1.04.
And then you just dragged itacross and now you had a whole
(28:33):
budget.
That meant absolutely nothing.
Monica Enand (28:36):
Yeah, everything was just going to grow by 4%
every year, right?
Thomas Kramer (28:41):
So you do have to think, and we're actually
right now going into ourbudgeting session at IONQ and
it's a massive undertaking andyou have to justify what you
need.
And we got together and then wehave to decide whether we need
(29:04):
all of that.
And it's funny when you dobudget cuts before the budget's
even approved, because theystart at a high number, it's too
high, and so we cut it down andpeople feel this intensely oh,
I lost something or somebody gotfired, but these are just
numbers on a page and nobody'sgotten fired yet and if you do
(29:27):
this right, you won't have tofire anybody.
The most harrowing experienceprofessionally for me was when
we had to fire 78% of theworkforce at C-Bell.
(29:49):
Oh, my goodness, and weliterally had the discussion of
hey, should we just leteverybody be around for one and
a half more months we have agreat party, and then we even go
home around for one and a halfmore months, we have a great
party, and then we even go homeor should we do the responsible
thing and cut as hard as wecould so that we could have jobs
for a few people and that wecould honor the commitments we
(30:12):
made to our investors and keeptrudging on?
But that trudging wasn't fun.
That was three years misery andwe were just too young and
naive to know that we could justthrow it all in and leave.
We had to make it work.
And again, thank you to Nefffor sticking with us, because I
know that probably wasn't funfrom the outset either.
Ned Renzi (30:34):
Burn the boats kind of strategy.
Monica Enand (30:36):
Yeah, it sounds like you've had some crazy
experience.
I can't imagine what it's liketo have to let 78% of your team
go just to keep the lights on,as you said, and survive another
day, because really what it'sabout is just can you survive?
Can you continue to surviveuntil something can change in
the market, the market that yourproduct, your fit, can take
(30:59):
hold, that your product, yourfit, can take hold?
So kind of on a personal level,what I wonder is you've had
these great successful exits.
I'm sure there were fun daysand then some not so fun times,
but you always choose to getback into it and I wonder how do
you think about a next act,about a next act?
(31:25):
Um, and how should somebodythink about, like, what are the
criteria and how how do theydecide what to do for a next act
?
Thomas Kramer (31:28):
hashtag asking for a friend, thomas, not not at
all I'm asking for myself atall well, um, I took two days
off between BCG and Cvent, andthen I took two days off between
Cvent and OBAR.
Oh my gosh.
Then my friend he was a mentorto me said that's not smart.
(31:50):
So I took five years after OBAR.
Five years, five years.
I mean I kept busy and I sat onboards and whatnot.
Five years.
And I just, I mean I kept busyand I sat on boards and whatnot,
uh, but people kept calling andasking hey, do you want to be
cfo of this, you want to be cfoof that?
And it's, the pitch is alwaysthe same.
(32:11):
We have this great sass companywhat good funding, growing fast
.
We don't go public and none ofthe recruiters ever say what
these companies do is like hey,can you come look at this money
for us?
Right, that doesn't interest me.
So I'm an economist at heart.
(32:34):
I like to make things work andI have to be interested in what
it is that we're doing Now.
Grand at Sealand was perhapsnot the most intricate business
idea, except that when westarted Sealand, only 20% of
(32:56):
Americans had email.
Ned Renzi (32:57):
Oh, yeah, it was all snail mail.
Running events was horrificlogistically back then.
Thomas Kramer (33:04):
And so if you get to be part of building
something new and fun, that'swhat it's about, and I just
really like what I'm doing, andit took a while for me to find
something that was worth it, andit was completely random how I
found it.
There are many others who willcorrectly tell you that the best
(33:28):
way to do this is to get upevery morning and look at 10
opportunities and not pick anyof them until you get convinced
that this is the one.
I've been pretty luckythroughout my entire career and
just things present themselvesand I've said, yes, I'll take
that.
Thank you.
Monica Enand (33:49):
I don't think you're.
I understand what you mean byyou think you've been pretty
lucky.
I don't think it's just luck.
I think it's, you know,establishing a reputation, a
track record.
I think it's establishing areputation, a track record,
people who know you, a networkof people who want to work with
(34:09):
you again, who hear about yourwork.
Thomas Kramer (34:15):
So obviously, yes, there's a little bit of
luck involved in all of ourlives, but it sounds like you've
done a lot right to get there.
Well, luck does favor theprepared, but there are so many
ways that you can be successful.
There isn't one way, so it'shard for me to say you have to
do X, y or Z, but what I do knowis that you should love what
(34:38):
you do, because if you don't,there are so many other things
you can do that you should bedoing one of those well, thomas,
this has been a greatconversation.
Monica Enand (34:49):
We learned about quantum computing, we learned
about public markets and whatit's like to be in fast-growing
startups and m&a um.
So thank you so much for beingwith us today.
We really appreciate, reallyappreciate you sharing your
wisdom.
Thomas Kramer (35:06):
Monica and Ned thanks very much for having me.
I give my best to achieve asense that there might be a
connection there.
Monica Enand (35:13):
He's my brother, and that has been our episode of
Masterstroke.
Another episode of Masterstroke.
Thank you to Thomas Kramer,thank you so much to Ned Renzi
and to Georgiana Moreland, ourexecutive producer.
Georgianna Moreland (35:37):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
Things move very , very quickly.
If we do not figure out howquantum computing will work, the
Earth will eventually becovered by data centers and
power plants, and we are alreadytoday seeing many examples of
where quantum computers canoutperform classical ones, and
what we need now is scale.
It's not that we need to provethat quantum computers work.
Georgianna Moreland (00:26):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejal Petruzak, and welcometo our special guest host, Ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
technology and beyond.
This episode is sponsored byEnjoy the Work.
For over a decade, they'vehelped more than 300 startup
founders build successfulcompanies.
(00:47):
Many have reached unicornstatus, while others have
secured meaningful exits.
Founder growth is key tocompany growth, and Enjoy the
Work focuses on developing bothyour leadership and operational
skills.
From go-to-market strategies toraising capital and scaling
teams, they partner withfounders ready to take their
(01:08):
companies to the next level.
Learn more and schedule anintake session at
enjoytheworkcom.
Monica Enand (01:23):
Welcome to Masterstroke.
We have a very exciting podtoday.
Thank you so much to Ned Renzi,who is co-hosting with me today
.
Ned, thank you so much forbeing here.
Ned Renzi (01:33):
It's my pleasure, Monica.
Monica Enand (01:35):
All right, ned.
We have a really exciting guestwho's going to take us into a
very serious dimension, so we'regoing to learn a lot of things
today, I think.
So I'm going to let youintroduce the guest, because you
have been a longtime friend ofThomas Kramer.
Tell us who Thomas Kramer is.
Ned Renzi (01:51):
That's right.
I think I've known Thomas maybeabout 25 years or so.
We met when he was a CFO andco-founder at Cvent, which was a
leading SaaS company in theevent management space.
That company ultimately wentpublic and exited for well over
a billion dollars and then gottaken private by Vista, which.
So he has that in common withyou, monica.
(02:13):
Yes, after Cvent he became theCFO at Opower, took them public
again greater than a billionmarket cap and then he stayed
through the sale and integrationwith Oracle, which I suspect
was a lot of fun, and thencurrently he's the CFO to
quantum computing company IonQ,which I know Monique has a lot
(02:35):
of questions on quantumcomputing, and he took IonQ
public at $2 billion valuation.
So Thomas is three for three insuccessful exits.
Prior to all that, he servedtime at Accenture, bcg and the
military, and I used served timewith Accenture and BCG because
it's probably just the same asserving time in the military.
(02:58):
So Thomas jokes he's survivedthree recessions and he's
currently looking for the fourth.
So I'd like to get somepredictions from you on that.
In terms of background, he hasa Master in Science and
Economics from the NorwegianSchool of Economics and
Stockholm School of Economics,an MBA from Harvard, and has
(03:20):
been named CFO of the Year inWashington DC several times.
I'd also say personally, asI've gotten to know Thomas, he
has excellent taste in wine andI think it's okay to say I could
give you a budget and you buycases and just have them shipped
to me, which are still some ofthe best wines I've ever had,
and actually at reasonableprices.
So I'm just dropping some ofthose nuggets in in case Monica
(03:43):
wants to take the conversationin that direction.
Monica Enand (03:46):
Oh well, we could talk for a very long time about
all kinds of fun things, I'msure, but what I really?
Thomas, thank you so much,first of all, for being here on
Masterstroke.
Welcome to the show.
We're really happy to have youhere.
Thomas Kramer (03:58):
Well, thanks for having me.
Monica and Ned, thank you somuch for giving us your money.
Almost nobody else wanted togive us money at Cvent and we
almost went under, but you savedus.
So thank you very much.
Ned Renzi (04:10):
Yeah, I joked in the early days before success was
obvious.
I'm going to look really smartor really stupid in a decade and
, thanks to you and the rest ofthe team, it turned out on the
smart side.
Monica Enand (04:23):
Oh, I think you've done a lot of smart things, ned
, and definitely backing Reggieand the team at C-Bent and
Thomas was incredible.
Watching that.
Your success, thomas, is justincredible.
But you know it's one thing tohave one successful exit, one
successful, you know, go publicbillion dollar valuation, but
(04:44):
your track record is amazing.
You know I feel like next timeI start a company, can you come
join and help me take it publicNot that I'm going to start a
company, I'm not going to dothat, not again.
I'm very interested.
You're working on IonQ, whichis quantum computing.
Can you explain, kind of thelayperson, four dummies what is
(05:05):
quantum computing?
Thomas Kramer (05:06):
What is quantum computing is that it represents
a new type of supercomputersthat is just vastly more
powerful and also more energyefficient than what classical
computers represent.
Instead of using transistors,you use qubits, so a quantum bit
(05:27):
, and instead of the transistorsthat we know, which are like
light bulbs they're 0 or 1, aqubit, a quantum bit, can be
both 0 and 1 at the same time.
They can also be any numberbetween 0 and 1,.
They can also be any numberbetween zero and one, including
negative one.
In fact, it's a sphere ofnumbers.
(05:47):
But the truth is that if we donot figure out how quantum
computing will work, the Earthwill eventually be covered by
data centers and power plants,and that's really not a great
feature feature.
(06:12):
So that's sort of a cop-out,because quantum computing is
something that goes back to 1900.
It stems from a field ofphysics called quantum mechanics
, and quantum mechanics is adifferent way of looking at
things.
Many people think that one plusone should always equal two,
and we have a perfect way ofdoing it because it is that way.
(06:33):
It isn't that way.
If you look outside, there areno numbers of nature.
We made them up and quantummechanics is a different system
that explains the universe, andin many ways it explains it
better than our classical waysand digital ways, and in many
(07:01):
ways it's more efficient atgetting to certain solutions.
And so it's been around for,you know, over 100 years.
Albert Einstein first tried toprove that it didn't exist, and
he then got around to sayingwell, it does.
I can't tell you why, but wecan observe that it does, and
this is what he famously calledspooky action at a distance,
(07:23):
because he could observe thattwo elements knew about each
other, and even when he changedone, even if they're kilometers
apart, at a speed that's fasterthan light, the other element
would know what the first onewas doing, and they were not
connected by any wires.
And so that was his um.
(07:44):
He admitted defeat and will goon to do many other great things
.
It wasn't until 1981 when someother famous physics geek called
Feynman issued the statementthat nature isn't classical Damn
it, it's quantum classical.
(08:10):
Well, damn it, it's quantum.
What can you do with a quantumcomputer?
The best example is probablysomething called the traveling
seismon, which has to do withhow can you get to the most
stops.
If you're going somewhere, andif you think about a FedEx
driver, he or she has to make120 stops a day.
(08:30):
That is only because of oureight-hour workday, but you
think, when you have thislimitation, that the great minds
at FedEx stack your car for youand give you a list of how you
can make the most efficientroute between your various stops
.
It turns out they can stackyour car but they can't figure
(08:51):
out the most efficient route.
The reason for this is that ifyou want, with a classical
computer, to figure out what isthe best route, you have to
figure out all the possibleroutes and how long that would
take, and then you pick thefastest one.
Well, how many possible routesare there between 120 stops?
(09:11):
This is what we know from highschool math.
It's a factorial, and so, inorder to figure out how many
there are, it's 120 minus one,so it's 119 times 118, times 117
, and so forth, all the way downto one.
Monica Enand (09:26):
The number gets pretty large, pretty quickly.
Thomas Kramer (09:29):
It is larger than the age of the Earth in
nanoseconds, and so a classicalcomputer will not be able to
calculate this before all thepackages have been delivered, a
long time ago.
What a quantum computer does?
Instead of doing the sequence,it calculates how long it takes
for every route at the same time, so it pushes it through
(09:51):
simultaneously, and what comesout on the other end is a
probability distribution of whatis most likely to be the right
route.
Monica Enand (10:01):
You paint an amazing future and I definitely
like your future whereeverything's perfectly optimized
and I get my items exactly whenI want them and quickly and
efficiently, and we do not coverthe world with data centers.
What I want to know is is thislike science fiction that is
(10:27):
going to happen, like in mychildren or my grandchildren's
timeline, or you know?
Is this something that youthink quantum computing would be
broadly commercialized in mylifetime?
Thomas Kramer (10:42):
Oh, 100 percent.
Things move very, very quickly.
They do Absolutely lifetime.
Oh, 100, things move very, veryquickly, they do absolutely.
But we were invited to thewhite house recently for a
quantum summit, and so were allthe other quantum manufacturers,
and asked just that question sowhen it is quantum gonna hit,
like just main mass adoption?
(11:04):
And depending on who you are,so Microsoft would say well,
around 30 years from now, andIBM would say around 20 years
from now, and Google would saythe same and we're saying in a
couple of years.
So when you ask the question ofwhen is quantum going to reach
(11:25):
commercialization, you need toinsert a quantifier on your type
of hardware, because if yourhardware isn't up to it, it's
going to take much longer.
And Microsoft is famously stilllooking for their qubit, which
is the basic building block of aquantum computer.
So obviously they can't, whichis the basic building block of a
quantum computer, so obviouslythey can't build quantum
(11:48):
computers.
But we are already today seeingmany examples of where quantum
computers can outperformclassical ones, and what we need
now is scale.
It's not that we need to provethat quantum computers work.
Monica Enand (12:04):
That is fascinating and I am so excited
about that future.
If you think about in ourlifetimes what Moore's Law has
done for us and the technologyand where we are in the world
and all the benefits that we'vehad from.
If you think about thebeginning of the transistor
probably in 1970 or maybe aroundthen to now, with it shrinking
and shrinking and shrinking andall of the amazing technological
(12:29):
advancements, this kind oftakes it a whole different step
and then you know you can seeanother ushering in a new era.
Ned Renzi (12:47):
Thomas, I'm going to take the conversation in a
slightly different direction.
Over the years, you've beengracious to me in sort of
serving as a mentor advisor tosome of the executives I've been
working with, and something Iadmired about you is how you
just I don't know if level up isthe right word, but you started
at startups and you've gonethrough the hyper growth phase.
(13:08):
You've gone through the IPO,the acquisitions, multiple times
and in your current role, rightso like how, how did you manage
your personal development tosort of level up, you know, for
every next phase of growth ofthe companies you've worked with
?
Thomas Kramer (13:25):
That is an excellent question, the um.
The truth is that, uh,companies are organisms just
like people, but they grow a lotfaster.
The average company hits prime.
Well, most companies never getout of the start and so they're
(13:46):
dead by year three.
But the average companyprobably hits prime somewhere
between 10 and 20 years and by30 they're over.
The secret to actuallysurviving is just to be humble
and ask.
And when I was going public withOpar in the field that I knew
(14:07):
very little about, and so I justpicked up the phone and called
other cfos who had gone publicin that field and I said, hey,
what do you think I should do?
And I remember one of them, um,who?
I called her?
And I said I was on my way toSan Francisco and she said well,
(14:30):
why don't I just pick you up atSFO and I can drive you to your
hotel and we can talk in thecar.
And then on the way she stoppedover somewhere and we had lunch
and there's thisbrother-sisterhood of CFOs of
like.
We all know who scary is and sowe help, yep.
Ned Renzi (14:53):
That is really important, that's a great
example of just sort of askingfor help.
It's one of the things I foundwhen I moved to the Bay Area is
there was just a culture of payit forward, that somebody had
helped that person, so they'rewilling to pay it forward and
just continue.
Well, I think it's important tohave that beginner's mind like
that you, they're willing to payit forward and just continue.
Monica Enand (15:08):
Well, I think it's important to have that
beginner's mind, like thatyou're not afraid to say, hey, I
know how to take an eventmanagement company public, but I
don't know how to do this, andI, you know, I'm not afraid to
just ask.
So I think that's really.
Thomas Kramer (15:24):
Well, I know little.
I grew up on a wet piece ofrock in Northern Europe, and so
my entire country has 5 millionpeople, and we know, all of us,
that if you don't adapt to therest of the world, well, you're
not going to go far.
Ned Renzi (15:42):
So, thomas, while you've leveled up your career I
know there's times in betweensome of these where you took
time off you mountain bike, youskied, you ate and drank your
way around the world but thenyou kind of decided to jump back
in the game and sort of maybetalk to us a little bit about
how you thought about thosetransitions at those points in
(16:03):
life and how do you think aboutyour next act, when to decide
how to decide to get back in thegame or not first I will say
that I skied 30 days last seasonum so it's possible to have a
work life balance.
Thomas Kramer (16:17):
Um, but that said, after old power I took
roughly five years off.
I served on boards and, youknow, traveled around and did
this and that I was pretty happy.
I was the only board.
I will admit that.
And then NEA, who's backed allof my three companies, called
(16:44):
and said that IMQ was going togo public and if I wanted to
maybe consider taking thempublic.
And I asked them how muchrevenue do you have?
And when the answer was zero, Isaid this has been a great call
, but I've got to go.
Monica Enand (17:02):
I was wondering about that.
Thomas Kramer (17:08):
And then I felt bad.
The next day I called my friendback and said hey, you know,
I'll speak to your CEO.
And then I spoke to the CEO andI still said no.
But then the rumors come outthat they're still going public,
(17:28):
they're using an interim CFO,which, monica, you know what it
takes to go public.
And so that felt a littlesketchy and I said I'd be happy
to mentor this guy and just helpalong, be consultant, whatever.
And then you know, and I leftthis as a voicemail and then 40
(17:51):
seconds later the guy calledback and go, you invented this
guy.
Who do you want to be this guy?
And so I was suckered in,partially also because the
person who first funded thiscompany was Harry Waller and he
was my best man at my weddingand, uh, I was in his, and so,
(18:17):
uh, the last, the last companyhe actually invested in, was I
am here and he was a um.
It was a physic physics majorin college and on the weekends
he read physics papers and hesaw this great paper by two
professors, johnson Kim andChris Monroe, and he just drove
(18:41):
down to Duke from their officeand said you have to do this.
This reads like a business plan.
I'm going to fund you andthat's how imq started.
Monica Enand (18:53):
And so when age what, I realized that I'm like,
okay, I should probably takethem public, because it was a
great connection to this companyyeah, I know being with the
people that you admire andrespect is huge and and you know
it's such a rare story to hearabout academics writing a paper
and somebody saying that readslike a business plan, like
that's a pretty unusual story.
And you know you talked aboutgoing public.
(19:17):
We've been talking about goingpublic and over our careers the
three of us we've seen exitwindows come and go, but it kind
of feels different now.
I mean there are a lot fewerpublic companies than there used
to be.
It's unclear that there's evenlike an attitude in DC towards
(19:38):
tech M&A that is friendly.
It seems maybe possibly hostileand the IPO bar seems really
high.
And the IPO bar seems reallyhigh.
How do you see liquiditymarkets kind of evolving,
especially with private equityand growth equity firms
providing liquidity?
Thomas Kramer (20:00):
How do you see that over the next few years?
You know there's an old truismthat good companies can always
go public, and what's happeningis that it's becoming harder for
more peripheral companies whohave a harder story to tell.
But we should also be awarethat we did this to ourselves.
What happened in the SPAC erawas a travesty of so many
(20:27):
companies that had no businessbeing public and they went out
and they abused the trust thatthe public has in the system and
in going public.
I hope that this will changeand I think it will change.
We've also gone through COVIDand we've gone through we're
(20:49):
still going through twointernational and military
conflicts.
That interrupts a lot of thingsaround the world, including the
Odessa exchange Talk to meabout ordering lasers, for
instance, from the other side ofthe world and so these things
tend to come and go.
I both hope and I believe thatit will come back.
Ned Renzi (21:12):
Look, I think it's fair to say that throughout
history, these macro situationscome and go, whether they be
wars or recessions or whatever.
However, you know the metricsdo seem to have moved right.
Like you know, monica's brotherit was a founder who I invested
in and we took his companypublic in 99 at 29 or $30
(21:36):
million in revenue, right, andyou had small boutique banks
that would track them and make amarket and trade and provide
analyst support and all thatkind of stuff, right.
And it just feels like you know, you know, I don't know,
notwithstanding, with zerorevenue.
It just feels like if you're arevenue generating company, it
feels like you know you have tobe in the hundreds of millions
(21:59):
of revenue to be considered foran IPO and a roadshow to get the
banks to sign up these days.
I mean, how do you view that?
Thomas Kramer (22:17):
Well, ned, we're both old.
What is the current value of$20 million in 1999?
And we're also remembering theoutliers.
The norm used to be back whencement was going public and opar
, like you need to get to $100million the year of when you go
public.
That was just a metric, andthen nowadays it feels like it's
(22:40):
$200.
So, yeah, it is becoming harder, but that doesn't mean well,
actually, that might be a goodthing.
Harder, but that doesn't meanwell, actually, that might be a
good thing, because if you don'thave to deal with the SEC and
quarterly reporting, you havethe beauty of just thinking more
(23:00):
long term.
And because somewhere along hereand I don't know exactly when
this happened, but an IPO usedto be a fundraising event.
You addressed a public marketso you could get money.
That's almost never the casenow.
When you go public, your job isactually to transition your
(23:23):
shareholder base from people wholike to invest in private
companies to people who like toinvest in public, and it has
very little to do withfundraising, except for the SPAC
era, where what they promisedwas a way to get funding, and
some say quickly, some say cheap.
To me, this backup process feltexactly like the IPO process,
(23:49):
but it's not clear how we thinkabout it.
And if you can go privatelonger and you're able to
fundraise, I mean, I wouldactually prefer that, except
that from a societal perspective, I think there's a lot of good
(24:14):
sunshine in being public, sothat you're forced to follow
similar rules, so you cancompare one company to another.
But I think that the rising barfor going public part of that
is just also a reflection on theeconomy being there.
Ned Renzi (24:30):
Yeah, look, I think on one hand you make some valid
points on like because we playin the private markets game, so
we are beneficiaries of that.
When I think about the generalpublic, like my dad, my brother,
who you know are publicservants they have public
pension funds who can't really,you know they're accessing these
private companies through veryhigh cost vehicles, right, and
(24:53):
paying much higher fees andthings like that than they would
if it was public.
You know you're a part of anETF where the light's shining in
as you speak, and so my senseis there's probably fewer people
who are benefiting by some ofthese trends.
Do you see it that way?
I would know.
Thomas Kramer (25:12):
I would have to go out and look.
The truth is, if you look atthe IPO as an exit, it's better
to exit through a sale thanthrough an IPO, and whether
people need to invest in thesesmaller companies, I don't know.
(25:33):
Actually, I know that that'sprobably not a good idea for
most people because they don'thave the ability to actually
figure out what's going on, andin that respect, it's better
that they're public, becausethere is some screening
functions that happen when youforce people to follow the same
rulebook.
Ned Renzi (26:00):
We joked earlier that kind of referenced.
You know you're looking foryour fourth recession.
I know you and I were involvedduring what I'll call like the
first recession in my career andwe kind of had to make some
drastic moves to what I calldefault survival mode above any
other goals for the company.
Like if you were a CEO or CFOright now in some of these tech
(26:25):
companies, what would you do toprepare your company in case a
recession hits?
Well, the best?
Thomas Kramer (26:32):
preparation is to load up on money.
So the golden rule is that, forme at least, if somebody shows
up on your doorstep with twosuitcases full of money, take
them, because you never knowwhen that situation comes back
again.
However, from an operator'spoint of view, I think the best
(26:56):
preparation for a recession isto run a good company and to be
I was going to say cheap, butyou can't always be cheap.
You know it's not necessarilycheap or frugal.
It is investing in what matters.
Ned Renzi (27:15):
And so running a tight shop.
Are you an advocate of almostlike annually doing a zero-based
budget approach and just startfrom the ground up, line item by
line item, every year, everycouple of years?
Like, how do you think aboutthat?
Thomas Kramer (27:29):
So somewhere between a zero-based budget and
KTLO, keeping the lights onBecause there are.
There's a difference betweenmarketing and be legal and, like
(27:49):
G&A, overall, I have to payrent.
I don't have to really thinkabout it that much.
However, it pays to payattention to the rent and things
like insurance.
It's easy to forget about it.
So if you don't have a list andgo through that, you've done it
(28:09):
all.
Some version of Cerebes shouldbe done.
I remember when I started atOpar, the budgets were created
by taking one month in Excel andthen the next cell was previous
cell times 1.04.
And then you just dragged itacross and now you had a whole
(28:33):
budget.
That meant absolutely nothing.
Monica Enand (28:36):
Yeah, everything was just going to grow by 4%
every year, right?
Thomas Kramer (28:41):
So you do have to think, and we're actually
right now going into ourbudgeting session at IONQ and
it's a massive undertaking andyou have to justify what you
need.
And we got together and then wehave to decide whether we need
(29:04):
all of that.
And it's funny when you dobudget cuts before the budget's
even approved, because theystart at a high number, it's too
high, and so we cut it down andpeople feel this intensely oh,
I lost something or somebody gotfired, but these are just
numbers on a page and nobody'sgotten fired yet and if you do
(29:27):
this right, you won't have tofire anybody.
The most harrowing experienceprofessionally for me was when
we had to fire 78% of theworkforce at C-Bell.
(29:49):
Oh, my goodness, and weliterally had the discussion of
hey, should we just leteverybody be around for one and
a half more months we have agreat party, and then we even go
home around for one and a halfmore months, we have a great
party, and then we even go homeor should we do the responsible
thing and cut as hard as wecould so that we could have jobs
for a few people and that wecould honor the commitments we
(30:12):
made to our investors and keeptrudging on?
But that trudging wasn't fun.
That was three years misery andwe were just too young and
naive to know that we could justthrow it all in and leave.
We had to make it work.
And again, thank you to Nefffor sticking with us, because I
know that probably wasn't funfrom the outset either.
Ned Renzi (30:34):
Burn the boats kind of strategy.
Monica Enand (30:36):
Yeah, it sounds like you've had some crazy
experience.
I can't imagine what it's liketo have to let 78% of your team
go just to keep the lights on,as you said, and survive another
day, because really what it'sabout is just can you survive?
Can you continue to surviveuntil something can change in
the market, the market that yourproduct, your fit, can take
(30:59):
hold, that your product, yourfit, can take hold?
So kind of on a personal level,what I wonder is you've had
these great successful exits.
I'm sure there were fun daysand then some not so fun times,
but you always choose to getback into it and I wonder how do
you think about a next act,about a next act?
(31:25):
Um, and how should somebodythink about, like, what are the
criteria and how how do theydecide what to do for a next act
?
Thomas Kramer (31:28):
hashtag asking for a friend, thomas, not not at
all I'm asking for myself atall well, um, I took two days
off between BCG and Cvent, andthen I took two days off between
Cvent and OBAR.
Oh my gosh.
Then my friend he was a mentorto me said that's not smart.
(31:50):
So I took five years after OBAR.
Five years, five years.
I mean I kept busy and I sat onboards and whatnot.
Five years.
And I just, I mean I kept busyand I sat on boards and whatnot,
uh, but people kept calling andasking hey, do you want to be
cfo of this, you want to be cfoof that?
And it's, the pitch is alwaysthe same.
(32:11):
We have this great sass companywhat good funding, growing fast
.
We don't go public and none ofthe recruiters ever say what
these companies do is like hey,can you come look at this money
for us?
Right, that doesn't interest me.
So I'm an economist at heart.
(32:34):
I like to make things work andI have to be interested in what
it is that we're doing Now.
Grand at Sealand was perhapsnot the most intricate business
idea, except that when westarted Sealand, only 20% of
(32:56):
Americans had email.
Ned Renzi (32:57):
Oh, yeah, it was all snail mail.
Running events was horrificlogistically back then.
Thomas Kramer (33:04):
And so if you get to be part of building
something new and fun, that'swhat it's about, and I just
really like what I'm doing, andit took a while for me to find
something that was worth it, andit was completely random how I
found it.
There are many others who willcorrectly tell you that the best
(33:28):
way to do this is to get upevery morning and look at 10
opportunities and not pick anyof them until you get convinced
that this is the one.
I've been pretty luckythroughout my entire career and
just things present themselvesand I've said, yes, I'll take
that.
Thank you.
Monica Enand (33:49):
I don't think you're.
I understand what you mean byyou think you've been pretty
lucky.
I don't think it's just luck.
I think it's, you know,establishing a reputation, a
track record.
I think it's establishing areputation, a track record,
people who know you, a networkof people who want to work with
(34:09):
you again, who hear about yourwork.
Thomas Kramer (34:15):
So obviously, yes, there's a little bit of
luck involved in all of ourlives, but it sounds like you've
done a lot right to get there.
Well, luck does favor theprepared, but there are so many
ways that you can be successful.
There isn't one way, so it'shard for me to say you have to
do X, y or Z, but what I do knowis that you should love what
(34:38):
you do, because if you don't,there are so many other things
you can do that you should bedoing one of those well, thomas,
this has been a greatconversation.
Monica Enand (34:49):
We learned about quantum computing, we learned
about public markets and whatit's like to be in fast-growing
startups and m&a um.
So thank you so much for beingwith us today.
We really appreciate, reallyappreciate you sharing your
wisdom.
Thomas Kramer (35:06):
Monica and Ned thanks very much for having me.
I give my best to achieve asense that there might be a
connection there.
Monica Enand (35:13):
He's my brother, and that has been our episode of
Masterstroke.
Another episode of Masterstroke.
Thank you to Thomas Kramer,thank you so much to Ned Renzi
and to Georgiana Moreland, ourexecutive producer.
Georgianna Moreland (35:37):
Thank you for listening today.
We would love for you to followand subscribe.
Monica and Sejo would love tohear from you.
You can text us directly fromthe link in the show notes of
this episode.
You can also find us on theLinkedIn page at Masterstroke
Podcast with Monica Enid andSejo Petrzak.
Until next time.
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