September 3, 2024 • 31 mins
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In this episode, host Monica Enand and co-host Ned Renzi dive into how tech giants like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are shaking up Silicon Valley with aggressive cost-cutting moves. We discuss Musk's downsizing at Twitter and Meta's pivot, focusing on what these changes mean for the workforce—especially young professionals navigating a tough job market.
We also break down the economic trends influencing the job market. Ned Renzi shares his insights on how long-term low interest rates have led to overcapitalization and inflation in tech. We explore how AI might impact job security across different career stages and highlight the importance of continuous learning and adaptability.
Finally, we share practical career growth tips, like choosing financially stable employers, focusing on long-term development, and finding inspirational mentors. We also suggest creating a personal board of advisors to help you navigate today's evolving job market
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.
Ned Renzi (00:02):
There were two sort of high profile cases to me that
sort of were lightning rods onthis.
One was what Elon Musk did withTwitter, where he basically
gutted I don't know I don't knowthe exact number, but like more
than half the company anddespite all the skies falling
they kept going right,operations stayed up, all this
(00:22):
kind of stuff.
And then similar when Altimeterand Brad Gerster kind of went
public with you know how youknow Meta was spending money is
particularly on the you know VRand stuff like that and to give
religion about managing costs.
And when Zuckerberg did that, Imean their stock's been on a
tear.
Since then.
(00:42):
I think the rest of SiliconValley saw that hey, we just
have way too many people forwhat we need to do.
Georgianna Moreland (00:49):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejal Patrizak, and welcometo our special guest host, Ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
Technology and Beyond.
Monica Enand (01:10):
There's a lot going on economically and in the
macroeconomic climate.
It's like a crazy time in someways, and I really thought it
was just time for us to pauseand reflect on what's been
happening lately and try tointerpret what's going on.
Ned Renzi (01:29):
You know, I think you're right.
I kind of joked with my mom atthe end of her career.
She was in a business where youknow.
I asked her about experienceand she said I have 35 years
experience and it was like not adynamic environment.
I said it's kind of like oneyear experience 35 times,
whereas where I think, being afounder, if you have one year of
(01:50):
experience, sometimes it feelslike a decade in six months.
Right, I mean, there's justmarkets crashing, job markets
changing, fundraising, m&athere's just like so many things
happening at one time.
So I think it's a good time forus to have this session.
Monica Enand (02:04):
Yeah, and to me it's also not just relevant for
founders, but it's relevant foranyone sort of navigating the
job market.
You know, I have this youngerperson.
I would have called him a kid,but now I realize he's in his
30s so I should not do that, buthe was telling me so he's 30.
And he was telling me that forevery job that he's ever gotten
(02:28):
in his career since he leftcollege, he's just applied and
gotten the job and he said itnever took him more than a few
weeks to find a job he liked.
He's had multiple jobs in hiscareer.
He's never taken more than afew weeks to get them.
Career he's never taken morethan a few weeks to get them.
(02:48):
He never like leveraged hisnetwork or like he just looked
at jobs at companies that he wasinterested in, found the job,
applied, got the job.
And he's recently in atransition and he had the
expectation that he was going tohave the exact same thing
happen and he was floored thatit didn't happen and he started
(03:10):
honestly suffering a little bitof depression and he was pretty
upset and he was like I don'tunderstand what's going on.
Why is this happening to me?
It's never, ever happened to mebefore and I tried to tell him
hey, you're 30.
Since you've been out ofcollege, the job market has been
pretty darn good, especially,you know, he's kind of done some
(03:31):
tech sales and he's done somebusiness development deals, you
know.
So it's like for what you weretrying to do, the market was
crazy good and you think youhave 10 years of experience, but
really in one market conditionand we are no longer in those
market conditions.
I don't know if you have.
You had similar thoughts about.
Ned Renzi (03:54):
I have.
I think there's kind of acohort of people who came into
the marketplace from 2009forward where, up until COVID,
everything has kind of been upand to the right.
And then even during COVID, inour industry tech where you can
work remote there were still waymore jobs than people to do
them.
So I mean, from a job huntingstandpoint, it was still up and
(04:15):
to the right.
I think I joked with you in aprior pod.
Most of what I say is due toscar tissue that I have and I
graduated in the fall of 1987from college with an engineering
degree and, if you remember, inOctober the stock market
crashed.
So I came out of college whennobody was hiring.
Everybody had hiring freezesright, and in the ensuing 30
(04:39):
years there's ups and downs inthe market.
So for folks like me it's kindof a normal cyclical occurrence,
but for a lot of people who,like you know, like you're
saying, around 30 years old,this is a new thing for them to
deal with.
Monica Enand (04:56):
What is going on?
Like what do you think the mainforces that are causing this
change?
And do you like I guess youknow what's going on and then
help us understand?
Like what do you think Is itgoing to continue?
Ned Renzi (05:09):
So I think the main thing that's causing it is tech
companies are starting to getthe religion on managing costs
and efficiency right.
And I think for about you know,a decade and a half, it was
growth at all costs and I couldtell you a lot of stories
sitting in board meetings whereinvestors were just throwing
money at founders and just, wedon't care what it costs to
(05:31):
acquire a customer or lifetimevalue, we'll monetize later All
those stories that you hear andall of a sudden, companies have
to find growth at a reasonablecost.
And what is that trade-off?
And a lot of it came down to.
I'll say there were two sort ofhigh-profile cases to me that
sort of were lightning rods onthis.
One was what Elon Musk did withTwitter, where he basically
(05:55):
gutted I don't know, I don'tknow the exact number, but like
more than half the company anddespite all the skies falling,
they kept going right,operations stayed up, all this
kind of stuff.
And then similar when Altimeterand Brad Gerster kind of went
public with how Meta wasspending money, particularly on
(06:15):
the VR and stuff like that, andto give religion about managing
costs, and when Zuckerberg didthat.
I mean their stock's been on atear since then I think the rest
of Silicon Valley saw that, hey, we just have way too many
people for what we need to do.
Monica Enand (06:31):
Is the why just interest rates were low for a
very long time and money seemedcheap, free, or is there
something more to it than that?
Ned Renzi (06:40):
Yeah, I think for over, like I said, a decade and
a half, there was way too muchmoney chasing way too few good
ideas, and so you had a lot ofcompanies that were raising
money with little to no metricsand raising way more money than
what they needed.
And then the combination ofthat is because there's so many
(07:00):
companies doing that, talentgets very diluted Right, and so
instead of one company havinglike 20 awesome senior execs,
they might have five awesomeexecs and say, 15 B players,
because the other 15 awesomeexecs started their own
companies Do you know what Imean?
And there was this sort ofdilutive effect on the market.
Monica Enand (07:19):
Okay, and why do you think interest rates were so
low for so long, since we'regoing down this Y chain?
Ned Renzi (07:24):
Well, I mean it was really coming out of the
financial crisis.
I think it was needed torestart the economy.
I mean, if it wasn't forgovernment intervention and
printing money, it would havebeen the biggest crisis since
the Great Depression and perhapsbigger, and so they kind of
stayed it off and as the economycame back, I think we just got
addicted to low rates, electedofficials and everybody else
(07:47):
just sort of like justgovernment pumping money into
the economy.
I think, as of last week I wastalking with somebody.
I think the government spendingnow is something like 30
percent of GDP, which isridiculously high in a non-war
situation.
But it was all coming from theselow interest rates, right, and
so if you can't get, you know,good returns on bonds and stocks
(08:10):
, you go into more risky assetclasses.
So you had more and more peoplegoing into early stage venture
and you had all the sort ofpublic companies coming down to
late stage.
You had the late stage peoplecoming into mid-stage on venture
and the whole market wasflooded with capital.
And that includes, like foreignsovereign wealth funds from
overseas family offices,overseas funding these deals at
(08:33):
incredibly high prices.
Monica Enand (08:34):
Okay, so it's all the government's fault, although
I mean they were doing theright thing to kind of stimulate
the economy and keep us going,and I guess the guard.
Ned Renzi (08:43):
I think they did for a while and then they did too
much.
Monica Enand (08:46):
Really the thing they're trying to prevent.
So let me just check myunderstanding with you.
So like, if they lower interestrates, that's great for the
economy, they're pumping moneyin to be invested, but the bad
side of that is it can causeinflation, right it?
Ned Renzi (09:00):
causes inflation and you overcapitalize bad ideas,
right?
Yes, yes, and that we have seenquite a bit.
I think that started playingout over the course of the last
decade.
But then, when COVID hit, therewas another need for this
infusion, so that sort of forcedartificial or rates to stay
artificially low, and then theydid it for like one or two more
(09:21):
tranches.
Instead of just the first COVIDresponse, there were some
follow-ons that in hindsightweren't needed.
It really kicked off thisinflation reaction and then they
started raising rates again andnow you're seeing this
tightening and it's tricklingdown to the job market finally.
Monica Enand (09:36):
Yeah, so okay, that is one backdrop, and
there's monetary policy, fiscalpolicy as well, right,
especially around COVID, somestimulus, that's right.
So that's kind of one backdrop.
Then it makes me wonder okay,so now they're starting to.
Rates went up and now rates aregoing to come down.
(09:56):
Does it mean, like the partydays are here again in terms of
the job market?
Because I still wonder.
You know you talked about thegovernment spending as related
to GDP, like One of the ways weget out of that.
You know there's a numeratorand a denominator and one of the
ways we get out of that ismaybe increased GDP, right?
And is that?
(10:16):
Is AI going to create enoughincreased GDP that we don't have
to worry about it, or is it,you know which one of those?
So, as you look sort of to thefuture and what we're going,
what would you say to, like,people who are in the job market
?
Ned Renzi (10:38):
What should I tell my 30-year-old friend?
Yeah, I think there's probablythree or four questions to
unpack in there.
I think for the 30-year-oldfriend it depends on what their
goals are right, like somepeople are in places in life,
maybe with mortgages and kids,and they need income security
and so for them the early stageof the market may not be right.
There may be other 30-year-oldpeople who, you know, really
want to get on a rocket ship andbetween like 30 and 50 years
(10:59):
old, for example, you might getthree or four shots on goal
right Because you start with thecompany you can't leave every
12 months.
You can, but I don't recommendit, right.
So if you sort of take a joband you give it three to five
years and it doesn't work, youwant to have three or four more
shots on goal right.
I think if you're in thatlatter camp you kind of look at
it very much like a ventureinvestor would look at it right,
(11:21):
not like the first cohort wouldsay what's the probability of
success in income stability,whereas the second cohort will
say if it succeeds, what's theprobability?
It could be like a worlddominating company and kind of
look for that rocket ship.
So it all depends what yourpersonal situation is.
Monica Enand (11:39):
Yeah, okay.
So let's take that case by case, because maybe even at the end
we try to figure out kind of anexpected value, outcome, right.
So the probability of anoutcome times, you know, it's
like the risk associated withthe outcome, right?
Ned Renzi (11:55):
It is, but I will interject in that I think
there's a flaw in that modelbecause the expected value sort
of looks at this meandistribution right, when the
reality is the 130 euro wetalked about once.
You know, somewhere on the leftend of the distribution with
(12:15):
cash certainty, and the otherone wants to be on the right
tail of the distribution withthis outsized return, and so I
think it's really a bimodal, andso I think expected value is
the wrong statistical formula tolook at.
Monica Enand (12:27):
OK, ok, I'll buy that, all right.
So if I'm person A and I wantstability, what do you think is
the?
What would you give them interms of advice?
Say, they're, you know,starting a family, settling down
, expenses are going up and theyneed to really create a steady
cash flow.
Ned Renzi (12:46):
Okay, so for that I'm going to make the assumption
they're in the tech industry andsomewhere in the spectrum of
the continuum of the startupworld.
It's not like they're going togo work for Microsoft.
Monica Enand (12:56):
Well, to be honest , I kind of feel like a lot of
the industry has gone to tech.
I mean, a lot of the dynamicsthat are affecting tech are
affecting a lot of industries.
So I mean I think that's a fineassumption, but I don't think
our listeners should kind oftune out if they're not in the
tech industry, because I thinkyou know we're seeing some of
the same dynamics.
But go ahead.
Ned Renzi (13:16):
So I think for public companies a lot of this info is
known.
For private companies you kindof have to find this out in the
interview.
But you want to at least makesure they have enough cash that
they have a couple of years ofrunway.
If you know the wars in theMiddle East and the Ukraine sort
of go south and you knowcreates a worldwide recession,
you sort of want to make surethese companies are cash rich
(13:38):
and stable and can afford youand all that kind of stuff.
I think, assuming that's thecase, you still want to be with
a company that's growing right,because when companies are going
sideways or shrinking, there'smore people that jobs need to be
done and eventually you're justgoing to get cut.
So even if you're in the stablecash situation, you still want
(14:00):
somebody, some company who Ifeel is growing probably in a 10
to 30% a year reasonablyconsistent, consistently, and
they have a reasonablecompetitive position in their
industry.
Monica Enand (14:12):
Yeah, I'm going to plaza there because I actually
think this is critical and Idon't think people think about
it or talk about it too much.
If I look back on my career,you know the first seven years I
spent at Intel the company wasgrowing pretty significantly not
so much now, but opposite thinghappening.
But I watched it, you know,back then grow like crazy and
(14:33):
the opportunities I got to takeon new challenges, take
responsibility on, grow, trydifferent things, take risks,
were pretty incredible and, Ithink, shaped the rest of my
life.
And that's because I wasworking in a company that was
growing.
It wasn't about did I know thatI had the highest starting
(14:54):
salary Back then I optimized forI was an engineer graduating
from Samu and I thought it was acool project to be on, so
that's really what I was kind ofoptimizing for.
But could you have optimized forsomething different?
I don't know.
A lot of people that I talk toare optimizing for their
entry-level salary and I alwaystell people yeah, that's your
(15:16):
static salary at entry pointisn't necessarily the right
thing to optimize for.
What you're really trying to dois it's the net present value
of future cash flows right thatyou're trying to optimize for,
and so what that means is futurecash it's a time to learn and a
time to earn.
Yeah, oh, time to learn and atime to earn.
Okay, actually, we'll have todive into that a little better,
(15:38):
because I haven't heard that.
But the way I explain it is ifyou have growth opportunities
and the ability to take risksand try all these new things,
you can really capitalize onthem and it's going to cause
your wealth generation to behigher later.
I don't know, is that what youmean by time to learn and time
(16:00):
to earn?
Ned Renzi (16:00):
Well, I think that's right.
I think you want to learn theseskills that are going to be
valuable and you want to be goodat them and like them right and
you also want to get in asituation where you have really
good mentors.
And so, again, I imagine Intelin the 90s when they were kind
of, you know, the whole Wintelthing was up and to the right.
I imagine you had really reallysmart, motivated people to
(16:22):
mentor you and a lot ofopportunities where, you know,
when a promotion came up, youhad a chance to jungle gym your
way up instead of one you knowcareer straight up ladder, like
you see in a lot of traditionalindustries.
Monica Enand (16:35):
Absolutely.
We had some of the best microarchitects and software people
and hardware people in the worldthat the concentration of them,
the number of really smartpeople all in one place, was
just insane at that time takingon kind of the next night
microprocessor project and itwas just a thrilling environment
to be part of.
You were talking still aboutthe stable person.
(17:02):
They should need to know thatthere's enough cash.
Find out if the company isgrowing.
What else would you tell them?
Ned Renzi (17:11):
I would also say work with people you like and admire
.
Right, Because it's a big partof your life.
You're going there every day.
It should not feel like a grindand there should be people
there who inspire you, youadmire, and they're going to
mentor you and sort of take careof you.
Monica Enand (17:25):
I think that's really really good advice and
sort of under.
That's one where I feel likepeople have to be reminded.
I have to be reminded, I do tooBecause you get in these grinds
and you're just like thinkingand grinding on, trying to get
something done and you don't.
You don't always pick your headup and sort of think about that
and go like who's inspired?
(17:46):
I like that you use the wordinspire because it's like who's
inspiring me here?
Ned Renzi (17:51):
I sort of comment to some of my CEOs for a different
reason, but I think it applieshere is we spend a lot of our
life working in the business,right?
You're an engineer, you're acoder, you're doing sales,
whatever.
You're grinding day to day,you're working these 12-hour
days and six days a week orwhatever it takes.
But there's times where youhave to step back and get out of
(18:15):
the weeds and the trees andwork on the business, right, and
I tell my CEOs, like you know,we have these think weekends
where they kind of go away andwork on the business and have
time to think without being sortof reactive.
I think for people's personalcareers that's also important to
take a step back and look atthat whole picture and go where
am I going?
Why am I going there?
Do I even want to go there?
(18:36):
You know, just sort of askthose questions who are my
mentors?
Who should I seek out to be amentor?
You know I'm a big fan.
I build this thing I call likea personal board of advisors
when I was a junior employee andI'd either find you know, I'll
joke real people like you know,people in the org, or my mentor
orbit and just sort of meet withthem regularly.
(18:57):
And I also had this individualboard of directors where these
are people that I could nevermeet with.
Maybe it's Warren Buffett,maybe it's Jeff Bezos or
somebody like that.
And I say, man, if I had topresent this project to them,
how would I present it?
How would they critique it?
And I sort of challenged myselfon this individual board of
directors.
Monica Enand (19:16):
Okay, that's fascinating.
So Sejal and I have definitelyhad the conversation about CEOs
working in the business and onthe business, but I love your
application of put that in yourpersonal life.
Like anyone, you're working inyour career or on your career
and on your sort of career, andit has to be periodic because
(19:36):
you wait too long and you'vemissed.
You know you really need topick your head up every I don't
know, like quarter or twoprobably.
Ned Renzi (19:44):
We recommend every quarter.
That's right, that's a goodcadence.
Monica Enand (19:47):
I would say two quarters, and then I also have
these questionnaires.
Ned Renzi (19:50):
I said my CEO is like at the end of the year and it's
just sort of like a reflectionand it's like you know what?
What went well this year, whatdidn't go well?
Am I doing what I want?
Am I working in my zone ofgenius, whatever it may be?
But then also we set the goalsfor the next year.
So then the next year when theydo that review, you could look
back and say did I do it?
And then quarterly throughoutthe year we revisit those.
Monica Enand (20:13):
That's great.
So documenting it, having thesesnapshots, having these
reflective questions, reallysound like great practices.
All right, the second thing youtalked about was the board of
advisors and Sejal and I havetalked about that too, because
having personal board ofadvisors this is an interesting
twist.
You've given it thisindividuals that you and I
actually wonder if you couldn'ttrain an AI on all of.
(20:36):
If you pick Warren Buffett,I'll pick Charlie Munger and we
go, okay, like I'm going totrain on all the Charlie Munger
stuff.
And then I want to ask CharlieMunger, what does he think about
this investment that I'm doingwith that?
Because I have those peoplethat, yeah, that I go.
Oh, I would love to if I couldno longer living.
Ned Renzi (20:54):
It's funny you say that I did that like a month ago
.
I got on chat GPT and I said,you know, assume I'm like a CEO
who has a lunch with CharlieMunger and I have fun questions.
I want you chat GPT to playCharlie Munger and I started
asking questions, that it spitout this advice and so like
(21:16):
again, I have no idea howaccurate it is or how you
validate it, but it was a fun,fun exercise and you could do
that for anybody who's you know.
Obviously, if you could trainthe LLM on a lot of public info
which he has a lot written byhim and right.
Monica Enand (21:32):
Yeah, absolutely Okay.
All right, I want to knowsomething now.
If you had your personalindividuals, who would it be?
Would it be, I assume, eitherWarren or Charlie, one of them,
right?
Ned Renzi (21:41):
So when I did this exercise for myself, I broke it
into different categories.
So, like for wisdom, I putCharlie Munger.
He would be somebody who, likeon my personal board of advisors
, his role would be like wiseold counsel, right?
Yep, I'll show my sports bias,but there's a guy who started a
company called the Ringer, namedBill Simmons, who's built
(22:02):
podcasts, and he's built thislike sports pop culture empire.
But before Ringer he didsomething called Grantland, and
what I admire Bill Simmons foris he has a knack for talent
that is undiscovered Right.
And so, like, he'll find thesewriters that nobody ever heard
of that are just fantastic.
And now, like so many of them,have their own sub stacks, their
(22:23):
own podcasts, whatever.
And I sort of look at so much ofmy job as a venture person is
how do I find those undiscoveredgems Right?
And so how does he find thosetypes of undiscovered gems Right
?
Um, you could take somebodylike Elon Musk, for all the pros
and cons of Elon, the firstprinciples, thinking, and like
(22:44):
when somebody tells yousomething to understand who
wrote that, why did they writeit, what would you know?
And just keep asking the whysbehind that.
Absolutely this idea of youknow.
For for me.
Trained as an engineer, I'm notgood at being vulnerable.
I was never good atcommunications and stuff.
I had Oprah Winfrey as one ofmy you know people I admire
(23:05):
because she had a way of justcommunicating and building trust
with people quickly and thenthem sharing things.
That was very effective for meas a board member right that to
get the CEO know the CEO as awhole person, not just their
role in the company and things.
Monica Enand (23:23):
But anyhow, who would you put on yours?
I think on the vulnerability.
I mean, when you said that, Ithought you were going to say
Brene Brown and I probably wouldput Brene Brown.
I've tried to read everythingshe writes, she would be great.
You know, I definitely likeCharlie Munger's writings and
have for a long time tried toread a lot of what he has
written.
You know, I don't know, I don'tknow if it would be useful, but
(23:45):
like I think of Danny Kahnemanas somebody who's like got good
thinking and like Yuval NoahHarari, like those are like good
thinkers.
I guess if you try to thinklike who are the good thinkers,
I guess those are people thatwould come to mind for me.
Ned Renzi (24:03):
Yeah, oh, excellent choices.
Monica Enand (24:15):
If you say, like here we are, hopefully the Fed
is going to cut rates.
I believe we hope it seems thatway.
What do you see for the future?
Do you see like there's sort ofthis macroeconomic, okay,
monetary policy thing going on,but then there's also this AI
wave and innovation and they'resort of having different
(24:38):
disruptive trends on not justtech but everything in the
economy.
How do you see those two thingssort of playing together?
Ned Renzi (24:47):
Yeah, look, I'm not a prognosticator on these
short-term things because nobodyreally knows.
What I would say is if youthink AI is a long-term wave,
regardless of how jagged themarket is, whether it's wars,
interest rates you just look athistory the march of technology
is up and to the right.
Maybe it's AI, maybe it'sbiotech.
(25:11):
Whatever sectors you're in,it's generally going to keep
going up and to the right,independent of these cycles.
So I'd say, find one of thoselong-term waves and ride it
through all these differentcycles.
Monica Enand (25:23):
You know, and I agree, and it is hard to time
the market, so you have to justkind of look for the wave and
position your surfboard.
You know, I was reading thatand, honestly, I don't remember
now, right now, where I read it.
But I read somewhere recentlythat, like I don't know I'm
going to make up a number but itwas something like 63% or
something of like, the AIcompanies are going to shut down
(25:46):
, and why.
Or Gen AI, and it was becauseof data.
It was that there isn't enoughgood data for what they're
trying to do.
So this is going to be aninteresting time to figure out
which ones are going to go,which ones are bad ideas.
(26:08):
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Ned Renzi (26:11):
Yeah, you know, I think you have to look at it
like you would, like I said, putyour venture hat on and you
sort of look at these LLMs thatare getting all the press today.
I don't see any meaningful wayto differentiate an LLM, unless
I'm missing something.
They're all training theirmodels on the same data, they're
all converging on pretty muchthe same answers, and so I think
(26:35):
the only way to have anydifferentiation is with private
data, right?
And so now you see some of thebig LLM companies trying to do a
deal with Reddit or New YorkTimes or somebody so they could
get some of this access toprivate data.
But you have to look at it andsay, okay, am I going into an AI
company?
Am I in infrastructure wheresomebody is doing RAG?
(26:58):
Am I in, you know, sort of asmall language model where I'm
on the edge of the network?
Like, how do you be contrarianand correct as part of this sort
of long-term wave and I'm notan AI person, like I'm not deep
in AI but I do think there'ssome emerging vertical
applications where companieshave access to this private data
(27:20):
.
They do have a data advantage,and the question is like, how
does a startup break into that.
How do you pick the right one?
Monica Enand (27:28):
How should people feel about the future?
Should short term future whichI know it's hard to
prognosticate about the fortune,but I mean just from a job
market point of view, like, ifwe're talking about the job
market, is it going to getbetter?
Is it going to get stay thesame, get worse?
Honestly, I feel a little dourand I don't want to end on a
(27:49):
dour note, but what do you think, ned?
Ned Renzi (27:53):
I think it's very industry and geography specific,
right.
Like if you're in ai or you'rein a medical field like my
daughter, you're a pa, you're anurse or something there's way
more jobs than than people to dothem, right.
But if you're in theseindustries that are trying to
get efficient and that's youhave 30 years experience and
(28:14):
you're 50 some years old, it'sgoing to be really tough, right.
Yeah, but like I could tell you, like my son's in nashville and
his neighborhood, there's 14cranes right.
So like, if you talk to kids inNashville, it's like the sky's
the limit, right.
But I have friends who live inSyracuse, new York, and GE's
shutting down or whatever.
(28:34):
There's no other jobs inSyracuse, new York, so you
either got to move or workremote.
It's gonna be a lot tougher forthose people.
Monica Enand (28:46):
Absolutely, and I think that the thing I would say
to people is, no matter whatyour age, you've got to be
willing to learn new things andtry new things, because those
industries that are going to getmore efficient you might oh I
have friends that jumped to thiscompany and then you jump, and
then six months later that's,there's layoffs there, and then
you, oh, there might besomething, the water might be
fine over here, and then you'regoing Again.
(29:10):
It's that sort of like theadvice about look for the market
trends, look for the waves andwhere they're going.
Kind of think about where thepuck is going and then really
try to position yourself there.
Because if you try to findshort-term safety in an area
that's trending towards moreefficiency and is going to get
there, you're really settingyourself up for repeated my dad
in the 1970s.
(29:30):
So my dad came to this countryas a textile chemist in the late
1960s and the textile industryin this country in the 80s, 70s,
in the 70s just shut down, andso you know, my childhood is
marked by we went to thiscompany and this factory and
then the factory shut down andthen he got laid off and then we
(29:52):
went to this factory and thenthe factory shut down and then
he got laid off and we justchased factories for quite a few
years where he just kept thefactories just kept shutting
down and it was really painfulfor my mom, for all of us.
I I there was, you know, Ithink I went through six years
of school where I went to likeseven different schools and this
(30:16):
I'm talking about young yearslike elementary school to.
I went to like seven differentelementary schools.
We couldn't stay anywhere andyou know, I think my mom finally
had to say like hey, that's it,I'm sick of trying to get these
In her mind.
It was jobs.
These jobs are terrible,working for somebody else is
terrible.
So she was like we have to ownour own business because that's
(30:40):
what's going to.
You know, let us control ourdestiny and not let them just
close these factories and lay usoff and constantly getting laid
off.
So she really leaned towardslike I want to start a business
and I think that's kind of thespirit of entrepreneurship in
our family, or me watching mymom.
But I think you know, itdoesn't have to be starting your
own business, but it has to befinding something where you can
(31:02):
be in, something that's sort ofup and to the right.
Ned Renzi (31:10):
Hey Monica, great summary of the job market.
You know my sense is near term.
It could be a little rocky butI think, like tech has been up
and to the right.
I'm long on America, I'm longon the economy.
I think things are going toturn out fine just over maybe a
little bit longer time horizon.
So I'm a definite optimist inthat camp.
With that, I just want to thankMonica again for having me as a
(31:32):
co-host.
It's been a great time, andthanks to Georgiana and Matt.
Georgianna Moreland (31:36):
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 Petrozak.
Until next time.
There were two sort of high profile cases to me that
sort of were lightning rods onthis.
One was what Elon Musk did withTwitter, where he basically
gutted I don't know I don't knowthe exact number, but like more
than half the company anddespite all the skies falling
they kept going right,operations stayed up, all this
(00:22):
kind of stuff.
And then similar when Altimeterand Brad Gerster kind of went
public with you know how youknow Meta was spending money is
particularly on the you know VRand stuff like that and to give
religion about managing costs.
And when Zuckerberg did that, Imean their stock's been on a
tear.
Since then.
(00:42):
I think the rest of SiliconValley saw that hey, we just
have way too many people forwhat we need to do.
Georgianna Moreland (00:49):
This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid
and Sejal Patrizak, and welcometo our special guest host, Ned
Renzi.
Conversations with founders,CEOs and visionary leaders in
Technology and Beyond.
Monica Enand (01:10):
There's a lot going on economically and in the
macroeconomic climate.
It's like a crazy time in someways, and I really thought it
was just time for us to pauseand reflect on what's been
happening lately and try tointerpret what's going on.
Ned Renzi (01:29):
You know, I think you're right.
I kind of joked with my mom atthe end of her career.
She was in a business where youknow.
I asked her about experienceand she said I have 35 years
experience and it was like not adynamic environment.
I said it's kind of like oneyear experience 35 times,
whereas where I think, being afounder, if you have one year of
(01:50):
experience, sometimes it feelslike a decade in six months.
Right, I mean, there's justmarkets crashing, job markets
changing, fundraising, m&athere's just like so many things
happening at one time.
So I think it's a good time forus to have this session.
Monica Enand (02:04):
Yeah, and to me it's also not just relevant for
founders, but it's relevant foranyone sort of navigating the
job market.
You know, I have this youngerperson.
I would have called him a kid,but now I realize he's in his
30s so I should not do that, buthe was telling me so he's 30.
And he was telling me that forevery job that he's ever gotten
(02:28):
in his career since he leftcollege, he's just applied and
gotten the job and he said itnever took him more than a few
weeks to find a job he liked.
He's had multiple jobs in hiscareer.
He's never taken more than afew weeks to get them.
Career he's never taken morethan a few weeks to get them.
(02:48):
He never like leveraged hisnetwork or like he just looked
at jobs at companies that he wasinterested in, found the job,
applied, got the job.
And he's recently in atransition and he had the
expectation that he was going tohave the exact same thing
happen and he was floored thatit didn't happen and he started
(03:10):
honestly suffering a little bitof depression and he was pretty
upset and he was like I don'tunderstand what's going on.
Why is this happening to me?
It's never, ever happened to mebefore and I tried to tell him
hey, you're 30.
Since you've been out ofcollege, the job market has been
pretty darn good, especially,you know, he's kind of done some
(03:31):
tech sales and he's done somebusiness development deals, you
know.
So it's like for what you weretrying to do, the market was
crazy good and you think youhave 10 years of experience, but
really in one market conditionand we are no longer in those
market conditions.
I don't know if you have.
You had similar thoughts about.
Ned Renzi (03:54):
I have.
I think there's kind of acohort of people who came into
the marketplace from 2009forward where, up until COVID,
everything has kind of been upand to the right.
And then even during COVID, inour industry tech where you can
work remote there were still waymore jobs than people to do
them.
So I mean, from a job huntingstandpoint, it was still up and
(04:15):
to the right.
I think I joked with you in aprior pod.
Most of what I say is due toscar tissue that I have and I
graduated in the fall of 1987from college with an engineering
degree and, if you remember, inOctober the stock market
crashed.
So I came out of college whennobody was hiring.
Everybody had hiring freezesright, and in the ensuing 30
(04:39):
years there's ups and downs inthe market.
So for folks like me it's kindof a normal cyclical occurrence,
but for a lot of people who,like you know, like you're
saying, around 30 years old,this is a new thing for them to
deal with.
Monica Enand (04:56):
What is going on?
Like what do you think the mainforces that are causing this
change?
And do you like I guess youknow what's going on and then
help us understand?
Like what do you think Is itgoing to continue?
Ned Renzi (05:09):
So I think the main thing that's causing it is tech
companies are starting to getthe religion on managing costs
and efficiency right.
And I think for about you know,a decade and a half, it was
growth at all costs and I couldtell you a lot of stories
sitting in board meetings whereinvestors were just throwing
money at founders and just, wedon't care what it costs to
(05:31):
acquire a customer or lifetimevalue, we'll monetize later All
those stories that you hear andall of a sudden, companies have
to find growth at a reasonablecost.
And what is that trade-off?
And a lot of it came down to.
I'll say there were two sort ofhigh-profile cases to me that
sort of were lightning rods onthis.
One was what Elon Musk did withTwitter, where he basically
(05:55):
gutted I don't know, I don'tknow the exact number, but like
more than half the company anddespite all the skies falling,
they kept going right,operations stayed up, all this
kind of stuff.
And then similar when Altimeterand Brad Gerster kind of went
public with how Meta wasspending money, particularly on
(06:15):
the VR and stuff like that, andto give religion about managing
costs, and when Zuckerberg didthat.
I mean their stock's been on atear since then I think the rest
of Silicon Valley saw that, hey, we just have way too many
people for what we need to do.
Monica Enand (06:31):
Is the why just interest rates were low for a
very long time and money seemedcheap, free, or is there
something more to it than that?
Ned Renzi (06:40):
Yeah, I think for over, like I said, a decade and
a half, there was way too muchmoney chasing way too few good
ideas, and so you had a lot ofcompanies that were raising
money with little to no metricsand raising way more money than
what they needed.
And then the combination ofthat is because there's so many
(07:00):
companies doing that, talentgets very diluted Right, and so
instead of one company havinglike 20 awesome senior execs,
they might have five awesomeexecs and say, 15 B players,
because the other 15 awesomeexecs started their own
companies Do you know what Imean?
And there was this sort ofdilutive effect on the market.
Monica Enand (07:19):
Okay, and why do you think interest rates were so
low for so long, since we'regoing down this Y chain?
Ned Renzi (07:24):
Well, I mean it was really coming out of the
financial crisis.
I think it was needed torestart the economy.
I mean, if it wasn't forgovernment intervention and
printing money, it would havebeen the biggest crisis since
the Great Depression and perhapsbigger, and so they kind of
stayed it off and as the economycame back, I think we just got
addicted to low rates, electedofficials and everybody else
(07:47):
just sort of like justgovernment pumping money into
the economy.
I think, as of last week I wastalking with somebody.
I think the government spendingnow is something like 30
percent of GDP, which isridiculously high in a non-war
situation.
But it was all coming from theselow interest rates, right, and
so if you can't get, you know,good returns on bonds and stocks
(08:10):
, you go into more risky assetclasses.
So you had more and more peoplegoing into early stage venture
and you had all the sort ofpublic companies coming down to
late stage.
You had the late stage peoplecoming into mid-stage on venture
and the whole market wasflooded with capital.
And that includes, like foreignsovereign wealth funds from
overseas family offices,overseas funding these deals at
(08:33):
incredibly high prices.
Monica Enand (08:34):
Okay, so it's all the government's fault, although
I mean they were doing theright thing to kind of stimulate
the economy and keep us going,and I guess the guard.
Ned Renzi (08:43):
I think they did for a while and then they did too
much.
Monica Enand (08:46):
Really the thing they're trying to prevent.
So let me just check myunderstanding with you.
So like, if they lower interestrates, that's great for the
economy, they're pumping moneyin to be invested, but the bad
side of that is it can causeinflation, right it?
Ned Renzi (09:00):
causes inflation and you overcapitalize bad ideas,
right?
Yes, yes, and that we have seenquite a bit.
I think that started playingout over the course of the last
decade.
But then, when COVID hit, therewas another need for this
infusion, so that sort of forcedartificial or rates to stay
artificially low, and then theydid it for like one or two more
(09:21):
tranches.
Instead of just the first COVIDresponse, there were some
follow-ons that in hindsightweren't needed.
It really kicked off thisinflation reaction and then they
started raising rates again andnow you're seeing this
tightening and it's tricklingdown to the job market finally.
Monica Enand (09:36):
Yeah, so okay, that is one backdrop, and
there's monetary policy, fiscalpolicy as well, right,
especially around COVID, somestimulus, that's right.
So that's kind of one backdrop.
Then it makes me wonder okay,so now they're starting to.
Rates went up and now rates aregoing to come down.
(09:56):
Does it mean, like the partydays are here again in terms of
the job market?
Because I still wonder.
You know you talked about thegovernment spending as related
to GDP, like One of the ways weget out of that.
You know there's a numeratorand a denominator and one of the
ways we get out of that ismaybe increased GDP, right?
And is that?
(10:16):
Is AI going to create enoughincreased GDP that we don't have
to worry about it, or is it,you know which one of those?
So, as you look sort of to thefuture and what we're going,
what would you say to, like,people who are in the job market
?
Ned Renzi (10:38):
What should I tell my 30-year-old friend?
Yeah, I think there's probablythree or four questions to
unpack in there.
I think for the 30-year-oldfriend it depends on what their
goals are right, like somepeople are in places in life,
maybe with mortgages and kids,and they need income security
and so for them the early stageof the market may not be right.
There may be other 30-year-oldpeople who, you know, really
want to get on a rocket ship andbetween like 30 and 50 years
(10:59):
old, for example, you might getthree or four shots on goal
right Because you start with thecompany you can't leave every
12 months.
You can, but I don't recommendit, right.
So if you sort of take a joband you give it three to five
years and it doesn't work, youwant to have three or four more
shots on goal right.
I think if you're in thatlatter camp you kind of look at
it very much like a ventureinvestor would look at it right,
(11:21):
not like the first cohort wouldsay what's the probability of
success in income stability,whereas the second cohort will
say if it succeeds, what's theprobability?
It could be like a worlddominating company and kind of
look for that rocket ship.
So it all depends what yourpersonal situation is.
Monica Enand (11:39):
Yeah, okay.
So let's take that case by case, because maybe even at the end
we try to figure out kind of anexpected value, outcome, right.
So the probability of anoutcome times, you know, it's
like the risk associated withthe outcome, right?
Ned Renzi (11:55):
It is, but I will interject in that I think
there's a flaw in that modelbecause the expected value sort
of looks at this meandistribution right, when the
reality is the 130 euro wetalked about once.
You know, somewhere on the leftend of the distribution with
(12:15):
cash certainty, and the otherone wants to be on the right
tail of the distribution withthis outsized return, and so I
think it's really a bimodal, andso I think expected value is
the wrong statistical formula tolook at.
Monica Enand (12:27):
OK, ok, I'll buy that, all right.
So if I'm person A and I wantstability, what do you think is
the?
What would you give them interms of advice?
Say, they're, you know,starting a family, settling down
, expenses are going up and theyneed to really create a steady
cash flow.
Ned Renzi (12:46):
Okay, so for that I'm going to make the assumption
they're in the tech industry andsomewhere in the spectrum of
the continuum of the startupworld.
It's not like they're going togo work for Microsoft.
Monica Enand (12:56):
Well, to be honest , I kind of feel like a lot of
the industry has gone to tech.
I mean, a lot of the dynamicsthat are affecting tech are
affecting a lot of industries.
So I mean I think that's a fineassumption, but I don't think
our listeners should kind oftune out if they're not in the
tech industry, because I thinkyou know we're seeing some of
the same dynamics.
But go ahead.
Ned Renzi (13:16):
So I think for public companies a lot of this info is
known.
For private companies you kindof have to find this out in the
interview.
But you want to at least makesure they have enough cash that
they have a couple of years ofrunway.
If you know the wars in theMiddle East and the Ukraine sort
of go south and you knowcreates a worldwide recession,
you sort of want to make surethese companies are cash rich
(13:38):
and stable and can afford youand all that kind of stuff.
I think, assuming that's thecase, you still want to be with
a company that's growing right,because when companies are going
sideways or shrinking, there'smore people that jobs need to be
done and eventually you're justgoing to get cut.
So even if you're in the stablecash situation, you still want
(14:00):
somebody, some company who Ifeel is growing probably in a 10
to 30% a year reasonablyconsistent, consistently, and
they have a reasonablecompetitive position in their
industry.
Monica Enand (14:12):
Yeah, I'm going to plaza there because I actually
think this is critical and Idon't think people think about
it or talk about it too much.
If I look back on my career,you know the first seven years I
spent at Intel the company wasgrowing pretty significantly not
so much now, but opposite thinghappening.
But I watched it, you know,back then grow like crazy and
(14:33):
the opportunities I got to takeon new challenges, take
responsibility on, grow, trydifferent things, take risks,
were pretty incredible and, Ithink, shaped the rest of my
life.
And that's because I wasworking in a company that was
growing.
It wasn't about did I know thatI had the highest starting
(14:54):
salary Back then I optimized forI was an engineer graduating
from Samu and I thought it was acool project to be on, so
that's really what I was kind ofoptimizing for.
But could you have optimized forsomething different?
I don't know.
A lot of people that I talk toare optimizing for their
entry-level salary and I alwaystell people yeah, that's your
(15:16):
static salary at entry pointisn't necessarily the right
thing to optimize for.
What you're really trying to dois it's the net present value
of future cash flows right thatyou're trying to optimize for,
and so what that means is futurecash it's a time to learn and a
time to earn.
Yeah, oh, time to learn and atime to earn.
Okay, actually, we'll have todive into that a little better,
(15:38):
because I haven't heard that.
But the way I explain it is ifyou have growth opportunities
and the ability to take risksand try all these new things,
you can really capitalize onthem and it's going to cause
your wealth generation to behigher later.
I don't know, is that what youmean by time to learn and time
(16:00):
to earn?
Ned Renzi (16:00):
Well, I think that's right.
I think you want to learn theseskills that are going to be
valuable and you want to be goodat them and like them right and
you also want to get in asituation where you have really
good mentors.
And so, again, I imagine Intelin the 90s when they were kind
of, you know, the whole Wintelthing was up and to the right.
I imagine you had really reallysmart, motivated people to
(16:22):
mentor you and a lot ofopportunities where, you know,
when a promotion came up, youhad a chance to jungle gym your
way up instead of one you knowcareer straight up ladder, like
you see in a lot of traditionalindustries.
Monica Enand (16:35):
Absolutely.
We had some of the best microarchitects and software people
and hardware people in the worldthat the concentration of them,
the number of really smartpeople all in one place, was
just insane at that time takingon kind of the next night
microprocessor project and itwas just a thrilling environment
to be part of.
You were talking still aboutthe stable person.
(17:02):
They should need to know thatthere's enough cash.
Find out if the company isgrowing.
What else would you tell them?
Ned Renzi (17:11):
I would also say work with people you like and admire
.
Right, Because it's a big partof your life.
You're going there every day.
It should not feel like a grindand there should be people
there who inspire you, youadmire, and they're going to
mentor you and sort of take careof you.
Monica Enand (17:25):
I think that's really really good advice and
sort of under.
That's one where I feel likepeople have to be reminded.
I have to be reminded, I do tooBecause you get in these grinds
and you're just like thinkingand grinding on, trying to get
something done and you don't.
You don't always pick your headup and sort of think about that
and go like who's inspired?
(17:46):
I like that you use the wordinspire because it's like who's
inspiring me here?
Ned Renzi (17:51):
I sort of comment to some of my CEOs for a different
reason, but I think it applieshere is we spend a lot of our
life working in the business,right?
You're an engineer, you're acoder, you're doing sales,
whatever.
You're grinding day to day,you're working these 12-hour
days and six days a week orwhatever it takes.
But there's times where youhave to step back and get out of
(18:15):
the weeds and the trees andwork on the business, right, and
I tell my CEOs, like you know,we have these think weekends
where they kind of go away andwork on the business and have
time to think without being sortof reactive.
I think for people's personalcareers that's also important to
take a step back and look atthat whole picture and go where
am I going?
Why am I going there?
Do I even want to go there?
(18:36):
You know, just sort of askthose questions who are my
mentors?
Who should I seek out to be amentor?
You know I'm a big fan.
I build this thing I call likea personal board of advisors
when I was a junior employee andI'd either find you know, I'll
joke real people like you know,people in the org, or my mentor
orbit and just sort of meet withthem regularly.
(18:57):
And I also had this individualboard of directors where these
are people that I could nevermeet with.
Maybe it's Warren Buffett,maybe it's Jeff Bezos or
somebody like that.
And I say, man, if I had topresent this project to them,
how would I present it?
How would they critique it?
And I sort of challenged myselfon this individual board of
directors.
Monica Enand (19:16):
Okay, that's fascinating.
So Sejal and I have definitelyhad the conversation about CEOs
working in the business and onthe business, but I love your
application of put that in yourpersonal life.
Like anyone, you're working inyour career or on your career
and on your sort of career, andit has to be periodic because
(19:36):
you wait too long and you'vemissed.
You know you really need topick your head up every I don't
know, like quarter or twoprobably.
Ned Renzi (19:44):
We recommend every quarter.
That's right, that's a goodcadence.
Monica Enand (19:47):
I would say two quarters, and then I also have
these questionnaires.
Ned Renzi (19:50):
I said my CEO is like at the end of the year and it's
just sort of like a reflectionand it's like you know what?
What went well this year, whatdidn't go well?
Am I doing what I want?
Am I working in my zone ofgenius, whatever it may be?
But then also we set the goalsfor the next year.
So then the next year when theydo that review, you could look
back and say did I do it?
And then quarterly throughoutthe year we revisit those.
Monica Enand (20:13):
That's great.
So documenting it, having thesesnapshots, having these
reflective questions, reallysound like great practices.
All right, the second thing youtalked about was the board of
advisors and Sejal and I havetalked about that too, because
having personal board ofadvisors this is an interesting
twist.
You've given it thisindividuals that you and I
actually wonder if you couldn'ttrain an AI on all of.
(20:36):
If you pick Warren Buffett,I'll pick Charlie Munger and we
go, okay, like I'm going totrain on all the Charlie Munger
stuff.
And then I want to ask CharlieMunger, what does he think about
this investment that I'm doingwith that?
Because I have those peoplethat, yeah, that I go.
Oh, I would love to if I couldno longer living.
Ned Renzi (20:54):
It's funny you say that I did that like a month ago
.
I got on chat GPT and I said,you know, assume I'm like a CEO
who has a lunch with CharlieMunger and I have fun questions.
I want you chat GPT to playCharlie Munger and I started
asking questions, that it spitout this advice and so like
(21:16):
again, I have no idea howaccurate it is or how you
validate it, but it was a fun,fun exercise and you could do
that for anybody who's you know.
Obviously, if you could trainthe LLM on a lot of public info
which he has a lot written byhim and right.
Monica Enand (21:32):
Yeah, absolutely Okay.
All right, I want to knowsomething now.
If you had your personalindividuals, who would it be?
Would it be, I assume, eitherWarren or Charlie, one of them,
right?
Ned Renzi (21:41):
So when I did this exercise for myself, I broke it
into different categories.
So, like for wisdom, I putCharlie Munger.
He would be somebody who, likeon my personal board of advisors
, his role would be like wiseold counsel, right?
Yep, I'll show my sports bias,but there's a guy who started a
company called the Ringer, namedBill Simmons, who's built
(22:02):
podcasts, and he's built thislike sports pop culture empire.
But before Ringer he didsomething called Grantland, and
what I admire Bill Simmons foris he has a knack for talent
that is undiscovered Right.
And so, like, he'll find thesewriters that nobody ever heard
of that are just fantastic.
And now, like so many of them,have their own sub stacks, their
(22:23):
own podcasts, whatever.
And I sort of look at so much ofmy job as a venture person is
how do I find those undiscoveredgems Right?
And so how does he find thosetypes of undiscovered gems Right
?
Um, you could take somebodylike Elon Musk, for all the pros
and cons of Elon, the firstprinciples, thinking, and like
(22:44):
when somebody tells yousomething to understand who
wrote that, why did they writeit, what would you know?
And just keep asking the whysbehind that.
Absolutely this idea of youknow.
For for me.
Trained as an engineer, I'm notgood at being vulnerable.
I was never good atcommunications and stuff.
I had Oprah Winfrey as one ofmy you know people I admire
(23:05):
because she had a way of justcommunicating and building trust
with people quickly and thenthem sharing things.
That was very effective for meas a board member right that to
get the CEO know the CEO as awhole person, not just their
role in the company and things.
Monica Enand (23:23):
But anyhow, who would you put on yours?
I think on the vulnerability.
I mean, when you said that, Ithought you were going to say
Brene Brown and I probably wouldput Brene Brown.
I've tried to read everythingshe writes, she would be great.
You know, I definitely likeCharlie Munger's writings and
have for a long time tried toread a lot of what he has
written.
You know, I don't know, I don'tknow if it would be useful, but
(23:45):
like I think of Danny Kahnemanas somebody who's like got good
thinking and like Yuval NoahHarari, like those are like good
thinkers.
I guess if you try to thinklike who are the good thinkers,
I guess those are people thatwould come to mind for me.
Ned Renzi (24:03):
Yeah, oh, excellent choices.
Monica Enand (24:15):
If you say, like here we are, hopefully the Fed
is going to cut rates.
I believe we hope it seems thatway.
What do you see for the future?
Do you see like there's sort ofthis macroeconomic, okay,
monetary policy thing going on,but then there's also this AI
wave and innovation and they'resort of having different
(24:38):
disruptive trends on not justtech but everything in the
economy.
How do you see those two thingssort of playing together?
Ned Renzi (24:47):
Yeah, look, I'm not a prognosticator on these
short-term things because nobodyreally knows.
What I would say is if youthink AI is a long-term wave,
regardless of how jagged themarket is, whether it's wars,
interest rates you just look athistory the march of technology
is up and to the right.
Maybe it's AI, maybe it'sbiotech.
(25:11):
Whatever sectors you're in,it's generally going to keep
going up and to the right,independent of these cycles.
So I'd say, find one of thoselong-term waves and ride it
through all these differentcycles.
Monica Enand (25:23):
You know, and I agree, and it is hard to time
the market, so you have to justkind of look for the wave and
position your surfboard.
You know, I was reading thatand, honestly, I don't remember
now, right now, where I read it.
But I read somewhere recentlythat, like I don't know I'm
going to make up a number but itwas something like 63% or
something of like, the AIcompanies are going to shut down
(25:46):
, and why.
Or Gen AI, and it was becauseof data.
It was that there isn't enoughgood data for what they're
trying to do.
So this is going to be aninteresting time to figure out
which ones are going to go,which ones are bad ideas.
(26:08):
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Ned Renzi (26:11):
Yeah, you know, I think you have to look at it
like you would, like I said, putyour venture hat on and you
sort of look at these LLMs thatare getting all the press today.
I don't see any meaningful wayto differentiate an LLM, unless
I'm missing something.
They're all training theirmodels on the same data, they're
all converging on pretty muchthe same answers, and so I think
(26:35):
the only way to have anydifferentiation is with private
data, right?
And so now you see some of thebig LLM companies trying to do a
deal with Reddit or New YorkTimes or somebody so they could
get some of this access toprivate data.
But you have to look at it andsay, okay, am I going into an AI
company?
Am I in infrastructure wheresomebody is doing RAG?
(26:58):
Am I in, you know, sort of asmall language model where I'm
on the edge of the network?
Like, how do you be contrarianand correct as part of this sort
of long-term wave and I'm notan AI person, like I'm not deep
in AI but I do think there'ssome emerging vertical
applications where companieshave access to this private data
(27:20):
.
They do have a data advantage,and the question is like, how
does a startup break into that.
How do you pick the right one?
Monica Enand (27:28):
How should people feel about the future?
Should short term future whichI know it's hard to
prognosticate about the fortune,but I mean just from a job
market point of view, like, ifwe're talking about the job
market, is it going to getbetter?
Is it going to get stay thesame, get worse?
Honestly, I feel a little dourand I don't want to end on a
(27:49):
dour note, but what do you think, ned?
Ned Renzi (27:53):
I think it's very industry and geography specific,
right.
Like if you're in ai or you'rein a medical field like my
daughter, you're a pa, you're anurse or something there's way
more jobs than than people to dothem, right.
But if you're in theseindustries that are trying to
get efficient and that's youhave 30 years experience and
(28:14):
you're 50 some years old, it'sgoing to be really tough, right.
Yeah, but like I could tell you, like my son's in nashville and
his neighborhood, there's 14cranes right.
So like, if you talk to kids inNashville, it's like the sky's
the limit, right.
But I have friends who live inSyracuse, new York, and GE's
shutting down or whatever.
(28:34):
There's no other jobs inSyracuse, new York, so you
either got to move or workremote.
It's gonna be a lot tougher forthose people.
Monica Enand (28:46):
Absolutely, and I think that the thing I would say
to people is, no matter whatyour age, you've got to be
willing to learn new things andtry new things, because those
industries that are going to getmore efficient you might oh I
have friends that jumped to thiscompany and then you jump, and
then six months later that's,there's layoffs there, and then
you, oh, there might besomething, the water might be
fine over here, and then you'regoing Again.
(29:10):
It's that sort of like theadvice about look for the market
trends, look for the waves andwhere they're going.
Kind of think about where thepuck is going and then really
try to position yourself there.
Because if you try to findshort-term safety in an area
that's trending towards moreefficiency and is going to get
there, you're really settingyourself up for repeated my dad
in the 1970s.
(29:30):
So my dad came to this countryas a textile chemist in the late
1960s and the textile industryin this country in the 80s, 70s,
in the 70s just shut down, andso you know, my childhood is
marked by we went to thiscompany and this factory and
then the factory shut down andthen he got laid off and then we
(29:52):
went to this factory and thenthe factory shut down and then
he got laid off and we justchased factories for quite a few
years where he just kept thefactories just kept shutting
down and it was really painfulfor my mom, for all of us.
I I there was, you know, Ithink I went through six years
of school where I went to likeseven different schools and this
(30:16):
I'm talking about young yearslike elementary school to.
I went to like seven differentelementary schools.
We couldn't stay anywhere andyou know, I think my mom finally
had to say like hey, that's it,I'm sick of trying to get these
In her mind.
It was jobs.
These jobs are terrible,working for somebody else is
terrible.
So she was like we have to ownour own business because that's
(30:40):
what's going to.
You know, let us control ourdestiny and not let them just
close these factories and lay usoff and constantly getting laid
off.
So she really leaned towardslike I want to start a business
and I think that's kind of thespirit of entrepreneurship in
our family, or me watching mymom.
But I think you know, itdoesn't have to be starting your
own business, but it has to befinding something where you can
(31:02):
be in, something that's sort ofup and to the right.
Ned Renzi (31:10):
Hey Monica, great summary of the job market.
You know my sense is near term.
It could be a little rocky butI think, like tech has been up
and to the right.
I'm long on America, I'm longon the economy.
I think things are going toturn out fine just over maybe a
little bit longer time horizon.
So I'm a definite optimist inthat camp.
With that, I just want to thankMonica again for having me as a
(31:32):
co-host.
It's been a great time, andthanks to Georgiana and Matt.
Georgianna Moreland (31:36):
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 Petrozak.
Until next time.
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