October 28, 2025 • 26 mins
Navigating the startup world in 2025 means confronting hard truths and making difficult choices.
In this episode of Startup Different, hosts tackle five of the most pressing and controversial topics shaping tech startups today—from the rise of grueling work schedules that promise productivity but deliver burnout, to the surprising ways compliance is becoming a founder's secret weapon.
Whether you're building in AI, eyeing defense tech opportunities, or just trying to keep your startup alive in a brutal funding environment, this conversation cuts through the hype to explore what really matters.
Key Takeaways:
AI's commodification dilemma: Why being "AI-powered" is now table stakes rather than a differentiator, and what this means for your competitive strategy
The 996 work culture debate: How the controversial 72-hour workweek is spreading through Silicon Valley—and why it might destroy more startups than it saves
Compliance as competitive moat: Why getting SOC 2 or ISO certified early can boost your win rate by 30% and actually help you close enterprise deals faster
Defense tech's moment: Understanding the record-breaking funding flowing into defense startups and the ethical considerations founders face
The zombie unicorn crisis: What billion-dollar valuations mean when exits evaporate, and the tough choices founders must make between down rounds and shutdown
Whether you're a founder wrestling with these decisions, an investor trying to spot the next wave of innovation, or simply fascinated by the evolution of startup culture, this episode delivers candid insights and hot takes you won't hear in the echo chamber.
The hosts don't shy away from controversy—they dive straight into the tensions between growth and sustainability, innovation and regulation, ambition and ethics.
Tune in to challenge your assumptions about what it takes to build a successful startup in 2025, and discover why the old playbook might be leading you straight into failure.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know, amazing startup offices like the OR like nuts or
big tech companies like, you know, I don't know, chat ET
office and Google's office and like, they're like you
disassembling the slide like thethrone at the foosball table.
It's like free on the side of. The road, unhooking the beer.
Can you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just spraying. Everywhere.
Rolling it down the hallway to the elevator.
(00:20):
Everybody wants this. I'll take it.
Start it up, let's get it rolling.
Big ideas, money, hustle, smart dream.
So why turn that grinding through a joy ride?
O this is the episode where we ambush Dave.
(00:45):
I consider myself ambush. You know I love reading your
posts on LinkedIn. You have such good.
Dogs I love I. Love immediately I love your hot
takes on stuff so I had this idea as I was driving here in my
car and I was like I already don't like this.
You would be really cool is whatif I took like the top five
(01:05):
trending topics in startups and tech and just throw them at you
for your hot take. OK, OK, and you got so we're
aiming for about a 25 minute episode.
OK, that's about how long it takes me to run 5K, like about a
5K episodes. For you to enjoy.
For sure. Well, you're the one.
(01:25):
Listening I mean and all the other people that 5K while
listening to startup different. I do like to listen to that
podcast while working out. Yeah, Alright, so if you're OK
with this, I would like to throwsomething at you.
Sir, You're coming at this totally cold, but we'll call
them hot takes anyway. Oh.
Yeah, that's cold take. I like that.
That's kind of fun actually. OK, alright, hit me.
(01:46):
OK. The first one I'm going to call
the AI commodification paradox. OK, so AI has pretty much become
expected in every single tech startup now, OK, it's like table
stakes. So as AI becomes ubiquitous and
(02:07):
it's competitive advantage is declining, you know what our
startups gonna do to differentiate themselves and
create value. That's just silly.
I mean, the first thing about that is that not everyone's
gonna use it, OK? And then there's gonna be
varying levels of effectiveness and how people use AI tools, OK?
Don't you think so? Like we talked about an episode
(02:28):
previously, we had our work slopor whatever.
Yeah, not everybody's gonna workslop.
Some people are going to actually.
Use the. Some are.
Some are for sure. I mean that's kind of important.
That's going to be a differentiating point between
you and that other company, assuming you do better.
Like you produce less work slob,you use the tools more
effectively, use them as force multipliers in in the
(02:49):
appropriate roles in your company, and you automate,
eliminate and delegate other stuff.
OK. So our buyers though, just going
into saying, hey, I want to makesure whatever we buy has AI or
are they actually like looking at what the AI does, are they
actually going deep into it? Depends on the nature of the
product, I think. Yeah, I would say that it
(03:11):
probably also broadly speaking will have a downward pressure on
prices because the customer buying from you might assume
that a certain percentage of work is done by artificial
intelligence, which may be previously was done by an
expensive group of people. So I I think this is like, for
example, advertising agencies have already felt this and I
know this talking to some colleagues in these spaces where
(03:33):
the assumption is you're using AI and I better get a better
deal. And so I kind of, I think they
have a tougher time charging a lot more.
Well, you asked me though, the root of this question is how do
you differentiate in a market with everybody using AI, So
using it better. Yeah, I think also, I think it,
it also trivializes like other important things that that are
(03:55):
important for companies. So the way you handle customer
service is the culture of your company.
The, the, the actual literal marketing differentiation.
You do your product positioning like so you're a bunch of
companies that do public safety software.
Some of you will position on we're innovation leaders because
that's what we did at App Armor.We were the the innovators of
public safety. It was our our motto, the rave
(04:18):
was do all you can today. That means something a lot,
which which by the way, we fought with them on this.
But that that means something really, really different and
will attract different buyers even if both companies are using
artificial intelligence. So what I'm saying is AI is the
tool in the tool belt. Yeah, they can make you more
efficient, drive down costs, perhaps make better, hopefully
output. Yeah.
(04:38):
But the same time, differentiation lives in a lot
of different facets of your company.
OK. Yeah.
So bottom line is use AI better.Yeah, you still differentiate in
other places as. Well, it doesn't matter how well
you use AI if your customer service sucks ass.
Yeah, OK, like you know what I mean?
Like there's this is or your packaging has a bunch of
spelling mistakes or like so like, yeah, use it, use it well,
(05:01):
but understand that there's plenty of room there to make
your mark. Alright, well done.
We're down. Nope, that was.
Close number two. Yeah, alright #2 if you ever
heard of 996. I have but I can't remember what
it means right? Now working from 9:00 AM to 9:00
PM 60-6 days A. Week China, right?
Yeah. So this was so it's a 72 hour
work week. China literally banned it
(05:23):
because it was considered modernslavery but is now trending in
Silicon Valley. Yeah, Silicon Valley is really
changed. Yeah, like jaw apparently job
postings have it listed. Like, yeah, we're a 9960 my.
God. Yeah, that's yeah, yeah.
Some say it's necessary to compete globally.
Others say it guarantees burnoutand failure.
(05:44):
What's your you got? Your love the the the competing
and paradoxical narratives of AI, improving efficiency and the
need for 996. Yeah.
Right. Like what are you talking?
About you're gonna work night, I'm super you're gonna use.
It but I gotta, you know, but I have to work longer too.
Like, what the fuck is that? I also have a few other
thoughts. I just like kind of imagine I
(06:04):
was reading about this and how this is like this like the soft
days of of Silicon Valley are gone and now it's like the
hardcore days. Yeah.
How people position. This yeah, yeah.
And I just imagine like, you know, some of like the the some
of these famous, you know, amazing startup offices, like
the OR like not starts anywhere.Big tech companies like, you
know, I don't know, chat T's office and Google's office.
And like they're like you disassembling the slide like the
(06:27):
throne at the foosball table. It's like free on the side of.
The road, unhooking the beer. Can you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just spraying.
Everywhere. Rolling it down the hallway to
the elevator and. Everybody wants this one.
I'll take it. So I think like to your point to
the question, it will absolutelycause burnout.
Yeah, objectively on a path to burnout.
(06:50):
That's that's so we have similarexamples that already exist.
Go become an investment banker and work at Goldman Sachs,
right. There were three guys that
fucking died that working at Goldman Sachs because they did
all nighters like 4 days in a row.
No way they died that they were in their 20s.
This was years ago. Oht really.
Yeah, you can look it up, look it up.
(07:11):
And so like, yeah, there's a great way to burnout.
Not necessary. Yeah, I don't think this is
necessary. I think you can be highly
productive and still in a 60 hour work week and a 50 hour
work week and whatever. Do you have to work late
sometimes? Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. You have to do it as a standard
operating procedure. No, I don't think so, especially
in a world of AI, if that's whatthis promise is all about.
(07:33):
This is always like the other thing that I get thrown off with
the AI stuff. It's like all these AI companies
are hiring shit loads of people.And I'm like, but isn't the
point that we don't have shit loads of people?
Doesn't it displace people? You know, and it depends what
you're hiring for. Yeah, but you know, they they're
hiring a bunch of chefs in the cafeteria.
Anthropic. OK, maybe cool.
(07:54):
Like, I get, I get that you can't, you know, not yet.
You know, optimist will be cooking your frigging lunch.
You know, you're making your sushi in a few years, but for
now, you know, So anyway, my point here is that it's yeah,
it's a stupid idea. Straight path to burnout.
And I highly, highly recommend that startup founders do not do
that. Like, I can't be more forceful
on that. Yeah, there's a way to create a
poisonous. Culture.
So do you. My hot take on this was.
(08:16):
Excuse me, it's Dave's cold takes and I.
Yeah. What's your hot take?
My take on this was 996 would have been a decrease in my
workload. There were times when I was
going seven days a week. Yeah.
And I would never be done by 9. It was.
Feel about that. I wouldn't have anybody else do
it. Wouldn't.
Wish on your worst. Enemy, It was brutal.
It was brutal, yeah. We just had times though, where,
(08:38):
you know, we had. You don't have to go to the mat
sometimes. Yeah, you.
Do but. Sometimes, but as a like a modus
operandi, don't think. So, but like, like it felt like
there were definitely a couple of years there where we were
really growing fast and I was just constantly working and you
know, like we, we had to, I feltlike we had.
To you know what, we have other things like we were cheap.
(08:59):
You know, we could have hired more people.
We could have definitely done better.
I think in automations, yeah, wedid.
We worked hard with that. But you held on pretty tight
because you've been burned when you didn't do things before.
Yeah, I know. I think.
Part of it is you if I want to, if I'm being so.
Frank, you're. Honestly, like no.
And there'll be a lot of founders out there that have a
similar thing, which is they hold on step to a lot of things,
and it's really hard to loosen that grip.
(09:20):
Yeah. And you feel like you have to do
it, yeah. Alright, fair.
Yeah, but. Anyway, so you fucked up anyway,
next my 9:00. 96 vacation OK? Remember Operation Brisket?
The vacation was like a thing that we had to work on in the
office. Yeah, that was a project so that
you could go on vacation anyway.Sorry.
So #3 #3 I'm gonna call this compliance as the new mode.
So you know, compliance used to be something that startups dealt
(09:42):
with sort of later. I know we were kind of like that
where we were kind of playing catch up on on compliance type
issues because when you're smallyou can kind of get away with
less stuff. You're not charging as much, but
at least. Back in the.
Day, yeah, yeah, now it's becoming a competitive advantage
and a deal breaker for enterprise sales.
Is this the death of move fast and break things or can start up
still innovate while being compliance first?
(10:05):
OHP yeah, you can definitely innovate being compliance first.
That's crazy. And I don't think I don't think
either of those is true. I think the move fast and break
things still exists. Yeah.
And that will be a certain percentage of the market.
And those are the ones that are gonna get investments from like
Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia.And they're gonna do the next
like Uber thing where they just say fuck your regulations and I
(10:25):
don't care about stupid cabs. We're gonna do something that's
like quasi legal and go for. It you know.
What I mean, so I still think those are going to exist because
that is a prevailing attitude ofSilicon Valley.
Yeah, we can do whatever we wantcause we have a shit load of
money. No, really.
Like tell me I'm wrong, Right. OK, On the flip side, I think
compliance businesses are like some of the most attractive.
(10:47):
So I think compliance. So there's two things I get
here. Compliance is a requirement and
it's good to be compliant. It also keeps you out of
trouble. So like we had cyber insurance,
that was a requirement of all ofour contracts, every single one.
It was good to be compliant withthat.
We had to do penetration testing.
That was a good thing. Sure, we had to do.
Some of these so here's the problem though, like with a lot
(11:08):
of compliance things it's it it compliance equals like time, OK
and it's not like time of like junior employees it's time of
like the people that kind of understand how all the systems
talk to each other and work together it's.
All that. Sort of stuff, yeah.
So my feeling is that if your compliance first is definitely
going to slow you down a lot. Like compliance first are are
(11:31):
we? We're so like you have no
customers and you're trying to like The thing is.
So if you go to sell to a university, that's yeah, that's
our bread and butter, right? We go sell to university.
Now they're gonna ask you for these things, right?
You have to have. Complaints.
Yeah, no, I definitely think that.
I think the challenge would be how do you do compliance for
years but also move fast and break things?
How do you do both at the same time?
Right. So it's going to be innovative
(11:52):
ways to be implementing compliance testing, compliance
certifications, that sort of thing.
Yeah. You know, maybe I can help us on
this stuff. Maybe AI is baked into
everything you're doing and it'sjust you've got an AI agent that
is. Looking you could easily have a
I do penetration testing and do a lot of these different, yeah.
Things for sure quite sure so maybe in the age of AI you can
(12:14):
actually do both is that kind ofwhere I.
Guess for me it seems seems sortof like a silly question because
it's sort of like it's very difficult.
So the things that are go fast and break things are consumer
focused. Generally speaking, the things
that are compliance focused are B2B sales to larger
organizations, federal agencies,things that require like a lot
of red tape. Oh, I.
See. So I guess for me, it's kind of
like you have to do it, Yeah. Why even bother having this?
(12:37):
Maybe. It's the barrier to.
Entry it is that so if you're a small, I know a guy who's
starting a company selling to universities and they asked him
for his higher education and cloud vendor assessment tool or
the heck that yeah, I'm like, yeah, every single one's gonna
ask you yeah. And you can have no product.
You can be hosted in your basement like you can like and
the reasons are trying to catch you.
(12:58):
They want to work with you. Yeah, and they cause it's a risk
thing for the for the purchaser,right.
So it's like table stakes like you, you should be good at
compliance because the better you are in compliance, faster
would be able to go to. Market gets you in the door,
right in the door. Whereas I actually we were at an
event where we were speaking andsomebody came up and asked me
that and said well, like how do you do all the compliance to
sell to universities? You fucking do it.
(13:18):
Like you do it, you have to. Do it.
There's no way around it. Yeah.
And I said now there is some like we didn't host our own data
centres or anything like that. So we could lean on Azure and
things like that for some of those components, but we have to
do our own pen testing. We had something just you.
To lean on the customer, you could say, can you, we'll do a
pilot and during that phase we're not gonna do it yet.
And then in six months we're gonna do it or you say like you
have a render the use for this and then like they'll say, OK,
(13:41):
well we'll do the third. That's just kind of dangerous
have your customer do this, but we'll do the third party
penetration testing on your stuff.
Yeah, wouldn't recommend that, but that is an option.
And anyway, there's ways around it, but I think ultimately you
go faster by you must do compliance period, end of story.
Alright, yeah, if you don't haveearly funding.
(14:02):
Are you a real startup? Yeah, this and 33 other startup
myths are busted in startup Different.
Find it on Amazon, Audible, and Kindle.
Four question. 4. Daves cold takes alright defence
techs moment. Defence tech is suddenly the
(14:25):
hottest sector with massive funding and government backing.
I think that 5% NATO commitment thing is probably having an
impact on this. By the way, we should start up
like a defence tech something I don't know what it is, but I
have no no ideas, but I just feel like that's going to be a
huge market. So but it's also controversial.
Should mission mission driven founders build weapons systems
(14:48):
as defence tech the new crypto in terms of hype or is it a
legitimate long term opportunity?
Oh, no, it's absolutely a legitimate long-term.
Opportunity. So Trump's term, second term
ends. There's no more Trump.
Does 5% NATO commitment still exist or does it go by the
wayside? Does the funding go by the
wayside? Shouldn't be dependent on the
NATO thing like period. That's nice.
(15:10):
That's it's a, it's a, it's a bear.
Sorry, a bull market right now like invests goods, good
opportunity. Yeah, Yeah.
Will it be later? Maybe, maybe not.
That's every market. Yeah, OK.
So you you also asked something around OHP.
Sorry. I'll just say also humans fight.
Yeah. This this is this will always be
a market, right, Right. Is mission driven organization
(15:33):
you mentioned gonna go after this?
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, like if your mission is
making guns, stopping bad guys, you can spin a mission that's
like we are out there defending freedom with our soldiers and
whatever and yadda, yadda. You can go down that road if you
want. Would I personally do it?
No, no, no, I don't. I don't wanna kill people.
But if you made the like robotic, you know, battlefield
(15:55):
medic that went out there and saved injured.
Soldiers out there like C3PO trying to like patch up a robot
cause it'll be fought by robots.No, I still wouldn't.
I don't. I don't wanna participate in
that and that's more of a personal thing.
Here's the other thing, if you look back, I'm a history nerd,
right? If you look back on history, you
can actually chart a path. And it's like a pretty good
(16:18):
diagram of how most military innovations, the scientists
behind them, go wow, when we do this, surely war will end
because it's so powerful, this thing I've made.
Everybody will just have make these so they don't want.
Too violent, right? OK, right.
And what we've increasingly learned is we are fucked up.
(16:38):
OK. The machine gun was an example
of that. Some of the gases made in World
War One, it's another example ofthat.
They're like nobody would fight using this.
They immediately used it in war.Well it's so heinous that in
that they didn't use it in WorldWar 2IN combat.
OK really that they used in World War One and not world No,
I just assumed that Hitler was things got.
(16:58):
Worse in World War 1. So he never.
Got never well, he gassed on people, but he never gahh,
right. Yeah, he never gassed.
Yeah. Combat.
Wow. What else?
The dynamite yeah, is another one.
Yeah. Was invented.
It was like it's so explosive and dangerous and whatever like
clearly nobody's so dangerous todo that didn't do it.
(17:19):
Atomic weapons and atomic weapons, the one that's kind of
stuck so far, right. But like, it's not that old.
The technology. Yeah.
Frankly, yeah. So no, I am not interested in
making weapons. I'm not interested in making
addictive substances. Yeah.
And because that's just how I feel as a person.
What about? What about like fringe defence
(17:40):
tax? So I've got.
My and by the way, I think we need to fight war sometimes, OK,
I just don't want to make. The weapons, OK, no problem.
Sorry so but going back to my little last quip on this is I've
got my little cottage and I havethis nagging issue with geese.
I think this is a great problem come up on my yard and they make
an A heck of a mess. Canada geese love Canada love
(18:00):
they. Poop like their body weight
every day. So I bought these like
sprinklers that are motion detected.
You actually gave me one becauseyou had it.
For yard enforcer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm now at the point where the geese, they kind of just like
they know it's coming and they just take a few the.
Raccoons blast. Now they're like having a shower
(18:21):
out there, like. You can't they don't care
anymore. So they they go right through
it. So the other day I have a little
like sub 250 gram drone. So I decided I'm just gonna like
fly the drone down buzz buzz thetower.
So I did, but I had to get that drone pretty darn close.
What did you put, like a horn onit?
Yeah, or like a water. Gun like so that's why I'm like
(18:41):
I'm like, Oh my gosh, could I like put a camera down there and
let. It drop ice.
Cubes like there's probably drones with like API's and stuff
like can I just have it like autonomously fire up take the
great idea and go and like scareaway geese I.
Actually think that is like a billion dollar idea.
Yeah, because the past is a big deal and lots of different
markets. You like deer pests in a lot of
(19:02):
places, Sure. And this product is all about
that too. This yard enforcer is like it
chooses the way. Deer but I.
Imagine but years start bathing in it after.
Awhile, yeah, You know, I wondertoo, would the if like I flew a
drone down there, would they just started get used to the
drone? Like I don't wanna hit the
geese. I don't wanna actually do
anything to them. I just wanna spook them a bit.
I think you're probably gonna have to hit.
(19:22):
The game maybe I put a speaker on the drone and it makes like.
Like the dumb and Dumber sound like the the most annoying sound
in the world. Like play off that thing.
Like I don't know, maybe like a really high pitched thing.
Like maybe it's specific based on the animal.
Yeah, I mean, ask AI. It'll tell you the way to do
this and then use the freaking. I think it's a great idea.
Autonomous. Like it detects that there.
(19:44):
Have you ever seen, sorry, really quick, have you ever seen
the mosquito killer? That is a little radar system
and it picks up the it's got a little spinning tower and it
picks up the mosquitoes and it shows a fucking laser at them.
What? And it kills them.
The problem is it can ZAP you and you walk in between the the
shot. Right, right.
So they're not like legal. There's like a Kickstarter for
this thing and I just love the idea.
(20:06):
Of this like autonomous like so so you're not at your house.
I just picture like, you know, you know, radar going out, geese
detected a door just goes and just, you know, fires it up and
it just, you know, like two or three of them go come in hot
like it would be. Sick.
I just want to be able to tell people that I'm in defence tech,
dude. And then I have to preface it
with wildlife defence. The man versus nature the but
(20:31):
the marketing of it is amazing. You then put a little camera on
that thing. Yeah.
And those are your reals on TikTok.
Yeah, came in hot on this one. But some Star Wars like.
I do I haven't pulled this the storage card out of the drone,
but I'll I will because I do have some footage of the drone
kind of like coming up behind them and then they all start to
flap and you're like run on water thing perfect take off
(20:53):
it's. Also kind of beautiful.
You could put different music toit, put it in slow motion.
You raise me up. Some jaws.
You sell your secondary market is you sell the video footage to
religious organizations, you're killing it.
Yeah, this isn't the best idea we've had in a while.
Like, alright, we went longer #4we're going #5 #5 OK, so there
(21:14):
are hundreds of zombie unicorns out there, companies valued at
billions that can't exit and arerunning out of runway.
Should founders just accept brutal down rounds now to
survive? Or is it better to hold out for
better market conditions? What's your spicy take on which,
you know, words are gonna craterin the next 12 months and what
founders should do to avoid thatfate?
(21:37):
Yeah. So like, let's say you've got a
lot of money and that you're like a zombie Unicorn, Like your
thing, your AI thing or whatever.
OK, It's just ain't gonna work. What's that one that you always
talk about in our presentation, Jasper?
Yeah, Jasper, that like so dominated the market for like a
hot year. So what does?
Dave Rojan Mosher, he well, he'snot the chair.
On the board, yeah. Yeah, what does he do now?
(22:00):
That's a good question. So it makes me think more of
like the book The hard thing about hard thing about hard
things. OK.
And is that Ben Horowitz? Yep.
Yeah. And he.
So The funny thing about that story, I mean, that happened a
long time ago, in the early 2000s, right, just around the
dot combo. And he took a company
publicduringthe.com bubble. Yeah.
And when it burst. OK, like, they knew it had
burst, like the market collapsedand people were like just
(22:24):
chewing him out. They're like, why did you do
this? Like, this is a stupid idea.
They had like a really terrible valuation.
Whatever. And he goes, yeah.
But The thing is, our alternative was going bankrupt.
Yeah. Right.
Right. So like then he often points to
this as being like, this is whata CEO is for.
Yeah. Doing really difficult things
that no one likes that but that keep the company alive.
(22:47):
Right. So I think for these companies,
it's hard to be like, you shouldspecifically do A or
specifically do B. Yeah.
But I would do, I would make those hard decisions to stay
fucking alive. Yeah.
OK. That's all you gotta do right
now. Yeah.
Survive. And if that involves going
public on a terrible valuation, maybe, maybe you gotta do it.
Maybe you do. Maybe that involves shedding 3/4
(23:11):
of your employees. It's like maybe that involves
something totally. Radical.
Is this pivot time as well? What's your definition of pivot?
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, if you're, I mean, it's,it's a market force, yeah.
There's the hype over AI is kindof subsiding, I think a little
bit, right, at least from the mayhem of like 2022.
Yeah. And so I think like, yeah, now
you're kind of in this zone where you just need to survive
(23:33):
and you keep looking for opportunities in new markets.
See what you've got you. Maybe I think, you know, for a
lot of these companies they're trying to make it and, and
consumer spaces, Yeah. And I would urge them to
consider business markets. I thought you're gonna say
defence tech. Yeah, considers buzzing geese.
No, but really I, I do think that there's something to be
said here around just just trying to, to do there sounds
(23:55):
simplistic and it is in fact extremely complicated and
perhaps impossible to do in somecases.
Yeah. And I think if you're if, if, if
you're in an area where it is impossible and you know it, you
have a fiduciary responsibility to tell your shareholders and
wind that thing. Down.
Yeah, Yeah, there is that tough.Like that, that's the reality
too. And so that's.
Not fun, but give the money backto the shareholders business.
(24:17):
Gonna be pennies on the dollar, but yeah.
But you know what that's gonna workout?
The way the way software investing in tech investing
goes, yeah, is 9 out of 10 investments fail.
Yep. Well, one of them works.
Yeah. And you're rich as hell.
Yeah. And that's the way it goes.
Bryce has that term. What power?
Law rule, the power law, the 100X outcome yeah, that, but the VC
(24:39):
firms will have a couple of those in their portfolio right
there though that they anticipate can be unicorns.
Yeah. And that will return.
I was. I'm listening to OHT.
Gosh, yeah. God, I'm not gonna get it right
now, but it's a really good audio book.
It's about the. I'll look it up in a second.
But it's all about the startup bubble.
And it's all about how SoftBank didn't win the bid.
(25:01):
Like, they didn't wanna put moremoney into Facebook and the
early days. And it was an investment for $10
billion. They thought it was too much.
Well, if they had done it, that'd be worth a trillion.
Dollars. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So sometimes in in tech
investing, the cost of not investing is greater than yeah.
The the cost of so the the investors are taking that risk
(25:22):
and if there are, you know, downrounds later on.
And yeah, you gotta. Do it down there.
You're probably keep it offeringon that so.
It's like, is it ego? Is it ego we're talking about?
Yeah. Or is it what's best for the
company? Probably takes more courage as a
CEO to say look oh God should weshould shut.
Down I don't know if I could do it just Full disclosure like I
don't know if I could I'd have ahard time the books called the
money Trap and by Eloc Soma, he was like the number 2 at
(25:44):
SoftBank. It's amazing by the way, really
like it, but. Put it on the bookshelf on the.
Yeah, but but so I think you do what you do answer that.
Alright, so that is my 5th and final question.
That was fun of Daves cold takes.
Daves cold takes. I I don't know if from an SEO
perspective we should use the term cold takes.
We'll probably just still call it hot takes even though you're
(26:04):
completely cold going into those.
Yeah. Questions from a personality
perspective. Just cold.
Cold. Yeah.
Unyielding. Anyway.
Cool. Right on.
Cool. Thanks work.
Alright, peace. Start it up.
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas, Money folding,
hustle, Smart dream. So why turn that grind into a
(26:27):
joy? Ride.
You know, amazing startup offices like the OR like nuts or
big tech companies like, you know, I don't know, chat ET
office and Google's office and like, they're like you
disassembling the slide like thethrone at the foosball table.
It's like free on the side of. The road, unhooking the beer.
Can you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just spraying. Everywhere.
Rolling it down the hallway to the elevator.
(00:20):
Everybody wants this. I'll take it.
Start it up, let's get it rolling.
Big ideas, money, hustle, smart dream.
So why turn that grinding through a joy ride?
O this is the episode where we ambush Dave.
(00:45):
I consider myself ambush. You know I love reading your
posts on LinkedIn. You have such good.
Dogs I love I. Love immediately I love your hot
takes on stuff so I had this idea as I was driving here in my
car and I was like I already don't like this.
You would be really cool is whatif I took like the top five
(01:05):
trending topics in startups and tech and just throw them at you
for your hot take. OK, OK, and you got so we're
aiming for about a 25 minute episode.
OK, that's about how long it takes me to run 5K, like about a
5K episodes. For you to enjoy.
For sure. Well, you're the one.
(01:25):
Listening I mean and all the other people that 5K while
listening to startup different. I do like to listen to that
podcast while working out. Yeah, Alright, so if you're OK
with this, I would like to throwsomething at you.
Sir, You're coming at this totally cold, but we'll call
them hot takes anyway. Oh.
Yeah, that's cold take. I like that.
That's kind of fun actually. OK, alright, hit me.
(01:46):
OK. The first one I'm going to call
the AI commodification paradox. OK, so AI has pretty much become
expected in every single tech startup now, OK, it's like table
stakes. So as AI becomes ubiquitous and
(02:07):
it's competitive advantage is declining, you know what our
startups gonna do to differentiate themselves and
create value. That's just silly.
I mean, the first thing about that is that not everyone's
gonna use it, OK? And then there's gonna be
varying levels of effectiveness and how people use AI tools, OK?
Don't you think so? Like we talked about an episode
(02:28):
previously, we had our work slopor whatever.
Yeah, not everybody's gonna workslop.
Some people are going to actually.
Use the. Some are.
Some are for sure. I mean that's kind of important.
That's going to be a differentiating point between
you and that other company, assuming you do better.
Like you produce less work slob,you use the tools more
effectively, use them as force multipliers in in the
(02:49):
appropriate roles in your company, and you automate,
eliminate and delegate other stuff.
OK. So our buyers though, just going
into saying, hey, I want to makesure whatever we buy has AI or
are they actually like looking at what the AI does, are they
actually going deep into it? Depends on the nature of the
product, I think. Yeah, I would say that it
(03:11):
probably also broadly speaking will have a downward pressure on
prices because the customer buying from you might assume
that a certain percentage of work is done by artificial
intelligence, which may be previously was done by an
expensive group of people. So I I think this is like, for
example, advertising agencies have already felt this and I
know this talking to some colleagues in these spaces where
(03:33):
the assumption is you're using AI and I better get a better
deal. And so I kind of, I think they
have a tougher time charging a lot more.
Well, you asked me though, the root of this question is how do
you differentiate in a market with everybody using AI, So
using it better. Yeah, I think also, I think it,
it also trivializes like other important things that that are
(03:55):
important for companies. So the way you handle customer
service is the culture of your company.
The, the, the actual literal marketing differentiation.
You do your product positioning like so you're a bunch of
companies that do public safety software.
Some of you will position on we're innovation leaders because
that's what we did at App Armor.We were the the innovators of
public safety. It was our our motto, the rave
(04:18):
was do all you can today. That means something a lot,
which which by the way, we fought with them on this.
But that that means something really, really different and
will attract different buyers even if both companies are using
artificial intelligence. So what I'm saying is AI is the
tool in the tool belt. Yeah, they can make you more
efficient, drive down costs, perhaps make better, hopefully
output. Yeah.
(04:38):
But the same time, differentiation lives in a lot
of different facets of your company.
OK. Yeah.
So bottom line is use AI better.Yeah, you still differentiate in
other places as. Well, it doesn't matter how well
you use AI if your customer service sucks ass.
Yeah, OK, like you know what I mean?
Like there's this is or your packaging has a bunch of
spelling mistakes or like so like, yeah, use it, use it well,
(05:01):
but understand that there's plenty of room there to make
your mark. Alright, well done.
We're down. Nope, that was.
Close number two. Yeah, alright #2 if you ever
heard of 996. I have but I can't remember what
it means right? Now working from 9:00 AM to 9:00
PM 60-6 days A. Week China, right?
Yeah. So this was so it's a 72 hour
work week. China literally banned it
(05:23):
because it was considered modernslavery but is now trending in
Silicon Valley. Yeah, Silicon Valley is really
changed. Yeah, like jaw apparently job
postings have it listed. Like, yeah, we're a 9960 my.
God. Yeah, that's yeah, yeah.
Some say it's necessary to compete globally.
Others say it guarantees burnoutand failure.
(05:44):
What's your you got? Your love the the the competing
and paradoxical narratives of AI, improving efficiency and the
need for 996. Yeah.
Right. Like what are you talking?
About you're gonna work night, I'm super you're gonna use.
It but I gotta, you know, but I have to work longer too.
Like, what the fuck is that? I also have a few other
thoughts. I just like kind of imagine I
(06:04):
was reading about this and how this is like this like the soft
days of of Silicon Valley are gone and now it's like the
hardcore days. Yeah.
How people position. This yeah, yeah.
And I just imagine like, you know, some of like the the some
of these famous, you know, amazing startup offices, like
the OR like not starts anywhere.Big tech companies like, you
know, I don't know, chat T's office and Google's office.
And like they're like you disassembling the slide like the
(06:27):
throne at the foosball table. It's like free on the side of.
The road, unhooking the beer. Can you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just spraying.
Everywhere. Rolling it down the hallway to
the elevator and. Everybody wants this one.
I'll take it. So I think like to your point to
the question, it will absolutelycause burnout.
Yeah, objectively on a path to burnout.
(06:50):
That's that's so we have similarexamples that already exist.
Go become an investment banker and work at Goldman Sachs,
right. There were three guys that
fucking died that working at Goldman Sachs because they did
all nighters like 4 days in a row.
No way they died that they were in their 20s.
This was years ago. Oht really.
Yeah, you can look it up, look it up.
(07:11):
And so like, yeah, there's a great way to burnout.
Not necessary. Yeah, I don't think this is
necessary. I think you can be highly
productive and still in a 60 hour work week and a 50 hour
work week and whatever. Do you have to work late
sometimes? Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. You have to do it as a standard
operating procedure. No, I don't think so, especially
in a world of AI, if that's whatthis promise is all about.
(07:33):
This is always like the other thing that I get thrown off with
the AI stuff. It's like all these AI companies
are hiring shit loads of people.And I'm like, but isn't the
point that we don't have shit loads of people?
Doesn't it displace people? You know, and it depends what
you're hiring for. Yeah, but you know, they they're
hiring a bunch of chefs in the cafeteria.
Anthropic. OK, maybe cool.
(07:54):
Like, I get, I get that you can't, you know, not yet.
You know, optimist will be cooking your frigging lunch.
You know, you're making your sushi in a few years, but for
now, you know, So anyway, my point here is that it's yeah,
it's a stupid idea. Straight path to burnout.
And I highly, highly recommend that startup founders do not do
that. Like, I can't be more forceful
on that. Yeah, there's a way to create a
poisonous. Culture.
So do you. My hot take on this was.
(08:16):
Excuse me, it's Dave's cold takes and I.
Yeah. What's your hot take?
My take on this was 996 would have been a decrease in my
workload. There were times when I was
going seven days a week. Yeah.
And I would never be done by 9. It was.
Feel about that. I wouldn't have anybody else do
it. Wouldn't.
Wish on your worst. Enemy, It was brutal.
It was brutal, yeah. We just had times though, where,
(08:38):
you know, we had. You don't have to go to the mat
sometimes. Yeah, you.
Do but. Sometimes, but as a like a modus
operandi, don't think. So, but like, like it felt like
there were definitely a couple of years there where we were
really growing fast and I was just constantly working and you
know, like we, we had to, I feltlike we had.
To you know what, we have other things like we were cheap.
(08:59):
You know, we could have hired more people.
We could have definitely done better.
I think in automations, yeah, wedid.
We worked hard with that. But you held on pretty tight
because you've been burned when you didn't do things before.
Yeah, I know. I think.
Part of it is you if I want to, if I'm being so.
Frank, you're. Honestly, like no.
And there'll be a lot of founders out there that have a
similar thing, which is they hold on step to a lot of things,
and it's really hard to loosen that grip.
(09:20):
Yeah. And you feel like you have to do
it, yeah. Alright, fair.
Yeah, but. Anyway, so you fucked up anyway,
next my 9:00. 96 vacation OK? Remember Operation Brisket?
The vacation was like a thing that we had to work on in the
office. Yeah, that was a project so that
you could go on vacation anyway.Sorry.
So #3 #3 I'm gonna call this compliance as the new mode.
So you know, compliance used to be something that startups dealt
(09:42):
with sort of later. I know we were kind of like that
where we were kind of playing catch up on on compliance type
issues because when you're smallyou can kind of get away with
less stuff. You're not charging as much, but
at least. Back in the.
Day, yeah, yeah, now it's becoming a competitive advantage
and a deal breaker for enterprise sales.
Is this the death of move fast and break things or can start up
still innovate while being compliance first?
(10:05):
OHP yeah, you can definitely innovate being compliance first.
That's crazy. And I don't think I don't think
either of those is true. I think the move fast and break
things still exists. Yeah.
And that will be a certain percentage of the market.
And those are the ones that are gonna get investments from like
Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia.And they're gonna do the next
like Uber thing where they just say fuck your regulations and I
(10:25):
don't care about stupid cabs. We're gonna do something that's
like quasi legal and go for. It you know.
What I mean, so I still think those are going to exist because
that is a prevailing attitude ofSilicon Valley.
Yeah, we can do whatever we wantcause we have a shit load of
money. No, really.
Like tell me I'm wrong, Right. OK, On the flip side, I think
compliance businesses are like some of the most attractive.
(10:47):
So I think compliance. So there's two things I get
here. Compliance is a requirement and
it's good to be compliant. It also keeps you out of
trouble. So like we had cyber insurance,
that was a requirement of all ofour contracts, every single one.
It was good to be compliant withthat.
We had to do penetration testing.
That was a good thing. Sure, we had to do.
Some of these so here's the problem though, like with a lot
(11:08):
of compliance things it's it it compliance equals like time, OK
and it's not like time of like junior employees it's time of
like the people that kind of understand how all the systems
talk to each other and work together it's.
All that. Sort of stuff, yeah.
So my feeling is that if your compliance first is definitely
going to slow you down a lot. Like compliance first are are
(11:31):
we? We're so like you have no
customers and you're trying to like The thing is.
So if you go to sell to a university, that's yeah, that's
our bread and butter, right? We go sell to university.
Now they're gonna ask you for these things, right?
You have to have. Complaints.
Yeah, no, I definitely think that.
I think the challenge would be how do you do compliance for
years but also move fast and break things?
How do you do both at the same time?
Right. So it's going to be innovative
(11:52):
ways to be implementing compliance testing, compliance
certifications, that sort of thing.
Yeah. You know, maybe I can help us on
this stuff. Maybe AI is baked into
everything you're doing and it'sjust you've got an AI agent that
is. Looking you could easily have a
I do penetration testing and do a lot of these different, yeah.
Things for sure quite sure so maybe in the age of AI you can
(12:14):
actually do both is that kind ofwhere I.
Guess for me it seems seems sortof like a silly question because
it's sort of like it's very difficult.
So the things that are go fast and break things are consumer
focused. Generally speaking, the things
that are compliance focused are B2B sales to larger
organizations, federal agencies,things that require like a lot
of red tape. Oh, I.
See. So I guess for me, it's kind of
like you have to do it, Yeah. Why even bother having this?
(12:37):
Maybe. It's the barrier to.
Entry it is that so if you're a small, I know a guy who's
starting a company selling to universities and they asked him
for his higher education and cloud vendor assessment tool or
the heck that yeah, I'm like, yeah, every single one's gonna
ask you yeah. And you can have no product.
You can be hosted in your basement like you can like and
the reasons are trying to catch you.
(12:58):
They want to work with you. Yeah, and they cause it's a risk
thing for the for the purchaser,right.
So it's like table stakes like you, you should be good at
compliance because the better you are in compliance, faster
would be able to go to. Market gets you in the door,
right in the door. Whereas I actually we were at an
event where we were speaking andsomebody came up and asked me
that and said well, like how do you do all the compliance to
sell to universities? You fucking do it.
(13:18):
Like you do it, you have to. Do it.
There's no way around it. Yeah.
And I said now there is some like we didn't host our own data
centres or anything like that. So we could lean on Azure and
things like that for some of those components, but we have to
do our own pen testing. We had something just you.
To lean on the customer, you could say, can you, we'll do a
pilot and during that phase we're not gonna do it yet.
And then in six months we're gonna do it or you say like you
have a render the use for this and then like they'll say, OK,
(13:41):
well we'll do the third. That's just kind of dangerous
have your customer do this, but we'll do the third party
penetration testing on your stuff.
Yeah, wouldn't recommend that, but that is an option.
And anyway, there's ways around it, but I think ultimately you
go faster by you must do compliance period, end of story.
Alright, yeah, if you don't haveearly funding.
(14:02):
Are you a real startup? Yeah, this and 33 other startup
myths are busted in startup Different.
Find it on Amazon, Audible, and Kindle.
Four question. 4. Daves cold takes alright defence
techs moment. Defence tech is suddenly the
(14:25):
hottest sector with massive funding and government backing.
I think that 5% NATO commitment thing is probably having an
impact on this. By the way, we should start up
like a defence tech something I don't know what it is, but I
have no no ideas, but I just feel like that's going to be a
huge market. So but it's also controversial.
Should mission mission driven founders build weapons systems
(14:48):
as defence tech the new crypto in terms of hype or is it a
legitimate long term opportunity?
Oh, no, it's absolutely a legitimate long-term.
Opportunity. So Trump's term, second term
ends. There's no more Trump.
Does 5% NATO commitment still exist or does it go by the
wayside? Does the funding go by the
wayside? Shouldn't be dependent on the
NATO thing like period. That's nice.
(15:10):
That's it's a, it's a, it's a bear.
Sorry, a bull market right now like invests goods, good
opportunity. Yeah, Yeah.
Will it be later? Maybe, maybe not.
That's every market. Yeah, OK.
So you you also asked something around OHP.
Sorry. I'll just say also humans fight.
Yeah. This this is this will always be
a market, right, Right. Is mission driven organization
(15:33):
you mentioned gonna go after this?
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, like if your mission is
making guns, stopping bad guys, you can spin a mission that's
like we are out there defending freedom with our soldiers and
whatever and yadda, yadda. You can go down that road if you
want. Would I personally do it?
No, no, no, I don't. I don't wanna kill people.
But if you made the like robotic, you know, battlefield
(15:55):
medic that went out there and saved injured.
Soldiers out there like C3PO trying to like patch up a robot
cause it'll be fought by robots.No, I still wouldn't.
I don't. I don't wanna participate in
that and that's more of a personal thing.
Here's the other thing, if you look back, I'm a history nerd,
right? If you look back on history, you
can actually chart a path. And it's like a pretty good
(16:18):
diagram of how most military innovations, the scientists
behind them, go wow, when we do this, surely war will end
because it's so powerful, this thing I've made.
Everybody will just have make these so they don't want.
Too violent, right? OK, right.
And what we've increasingly learned is we are fucked up.
(16:38):
OK. The machine gun was an example
of that. Some of the gases made in World
War One, it's another example ofthat.
They're like nobody would fight using this.
They immediately used it in war.Well it's so heinous that in
that they didn't use it in WorldWar 2IN combat.
OK really that they used in World War One and not world No,
I just assumed that Hitler was things got.
(16:58):
Worse in World War 1. So he never.
Got never well, he gassed on people, but he never gahh,
right. Yeah, he never gassed.
Yeah. Combat.
Wow. What else?
The dynamite yeah, is another one.
Yeah. Was invented.
It was like it's so explosive and dangerous and whatever like
clearly nobody's so dangerous todo that didn't do it.
(17:19):
Atomic weapons and atomic weapons, the one that's kind of
stuck so far, right. But like, it's not that old.
The technology. Yeah.
Frankly, yeah. So no, I am not interested in
making weapons. I'm not interested in making
addictive substances. Yeah.
And because that's just how I feel as a person.
What about? What about like fringe defence
(17:40):
tax? So I've got.
My and by the way, I think we need to fight war sometimes, OK,
I just don't want to make. The weapons, OK, no problem.
Sorry so but going back to my little last quip on this is I've
got my little cottage and I havethis nagging issue with geese.
I think this is a great problem come up on my yard and they make
an A heck of a mess. Canada geese love Canada love
(18:00):
they. Poop like their body weight
every day. So I bought these like
sprinklers that are motion detected.
You actually gave me one becauseyou had it.
For yard enforcer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm now at the point where the geese, they kind of just like
they know it's coming and they just take a few the.
Raccoons blast. Now they're like having a shower
(18:21):
out there, like. You can't they don't care
anymore. So they they go right through
it. So the other day I have a little
like sub 250 gram drone. So I decided I'm just gonna like
fly the drone down buzz buzz thetower.
So I did, but I had to get that drone pretty darn close.
What did you put, like a horn onit?
Yeah, or like a water. Gun like so that's why I'm like
(18:41):
I'm like, Oh my gosh, could I like put a camera down there and
let. It drop ice.
Cubes like there's probably drones with like API's and stuff
like can I just have it like autonomously fire up take the
great idea and go and like scareaway geese I.
Actually think that is like a billion dollar idea.
Yeah, because the past is a big deal and lots of different
markets. You like deer pests in a lot of
(19:02):
places, Sure. And this product is all about
that too. This yard enforcer is like it
chooses the way. Deer but I.
Imagine but years start bathing in it after.
Awhile, yeah, You know, I wondertoo, would the if like I flew a
drone down there, would they just started get used to the
drone? Like I don't wanna hit the
geese. I don't wanna actually do
anything to them. I just wanna spook them a bit.
I think you're probably gonna have to hit.
(19:22):
The game maybe I put a speaker on the drone and it makes like.
Like the dumb and Dumber sound like the the most annoying sound
in the world. Like play off that thing.
Like I don't know, maybe like a really high pitched thing.
Like maybe it's specific based on the animal.
Yeah, I mean, ask AI. It'll tell you the way to do
this and then use the freaking. I think it's a great idea.
Autonomous. Like it detects that there.
(19:44):
Have you ever seen, sorry, really quick, have you ever seen
the mosquito killer? That is a little radar system
and it picks up the it's got a little spinning tower and it
picks up the mosquitoes and it shows a fucking laser at them.
What? And it kills them.
The problem is it can ZAP you and you walk in between the the
shot. Right, right.
So they're not like legal. There's like a Kickstarter for
this thing and I just love the idea.
(20:06):
Of this like autonomous like so so you're not at your house.
I just picture like, you know, you know, radar going out, geese
detected a door just goes and just, you know, fires it up and
it just, you know, like two or three of them go come in hot
like it would be. Sick.
I just want to be able to tell people that I'm in defence tech,
dude. And then I have to preface it
with wildlife defence. The man versus nature the but
(20:31):
the marketing of it is amazing. You then put a little camera on
that thing. Yeah.
And those are your reals on TikTok.
Yeah, came in hot on this one. But some Star Wars like.
I do I haven't pulled this the storage card out of the drone,
but I'll I will because I do have some footage of the drone
kind of like coming up behind them and then they all start to
flap and you're like run on water thing perfect take off
(20:53):
it's. Also kind of beautiful.
You could put different music toit, put it in slow motion.
You raise me up. Some jaws.
You sell your secondary market is you sell the video footage to
religious organizations, you're killing it.
Yeah, this isn't the best idea we've had in a while.
Like, alright, we went longer #4we're going #5 #5 OK, so there
(21:14):
are hundreds of zombie unicorns out there, companies valued at
billions that can't exit and arerunning out of runway.
Should founders just accept brutal down rounds now to
survive? Or is it better to hold out for
better market conditions? What's your spicy take on which,
you know, words are gonna craterin the next 12 months and what
founders should do to avoid thatfate?
(21:37):
Yeah. So like, let's say you've got a
lot of money and that you're like a zombie Unicorn, Like your
thing, your AI thing or whatever.
OK, It's just ain't gonna work. What's that one that you always
talk about in our presentation, Jasper?
Yeah, Jasper, that like so dominated the market for like a
hot year. So what does?
Dave Rojan Mosher, he well, he'snot the chair.
On the board, yeah. Yeah, what does he do now?
(22:00):
That's a good question. So it makes me think more of
like the book The hard thing about hard thing about hard
things. OK.
And is that Ben Horowitz? Yep.
Yeah. And he.
So The funny thing about that story, I mean, that happened a
long time ago, in the early 2000s, right, just around the
dot combo. And he took a company
publicduringthe.com bubble. Yeah.
And when it burst. OK, like, they knew it had
burst, like the market collapsedand people were like just
(22:24):
chewing him out. They're like, why did you do
this? Like, this is a stupid idea.
They had like a really terrible valuation.
Whatever. And he goes, yeah.
But The thing is, our alternative was going bankrupt.
Yeah. Right.
Right. So like then he often points to
this as being like, this is whata CEO is for.
Yeah. Doing really difficult things
that no one likes that but that keep the company alive.
(22:47):
Right. So I think for these companies,
it's hard to be like, you shouldspecifically do A or
specifically do B. Yeah.
But I would do, I would make those hard decisions to stay
fucking alive. Yeah.
OK. That's all you gotta do right
now. Yeah.
Survive. And if that involves going
public on a terrible valuation, maybe, maybe you gotta do it.
Maybe you do. Maybe that involves shedding 3/4
(23:11):
of your employees. It's like maybe that involves
something totally. Radical.
Is this pivot time as well? What's your definition of pivot?
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, if you're, I mean, it's,it's a market force, yeah.
There's the hype over AI is kindof subsiding, I think a little
bit, right, at least from the mayhem of like 2022.
Yeah. And so I think like, yeah, now
you're kind of in this zone where you just need to survive
(23:33):
and you keep looking for opportunities in new markets.
See what you've got you. Maybe I think, you know, for a
lot of these companies they're trying to make it and, and
consumer spaces, Yeah. And I would urge them to
consider business markets. I thought you're gonna say
defence tech. Yeah, considers buzzing geese.
No, but really I, I do think that there's something to be
said here around just just trying to, to do there sounds
(23:55):
simplistic and it is in fact extremely complicated and
perhaps impossible to do in somecases.
Yeah. And I think if you're if, if, if
you're in an area where it is impossible and you know it, you
have a fiduciary responsibility to tell your shareholders and
wind that thing. Down.
Yeah, Yeah, there is that tough.Like that, that's the reality
too. And so that's.
Not fun, but give the money backto the shareholders business.
(24:17):
Gonna be pennies on the dollar, but yeah.
But you know what that's gonna workout?
The way the way software investing in tech investing
goes, yeah, is 9 out of 10 investments fail.
Yep. Well, one of them works.
Yeah. And you're rich as hell.
Yeah. And that's the way it goes.
Bryce has that term. What power?
Law rule, the power law, the 100X outcome yeah, that, but the VC
(24:39):
firms will have a couple of those in their portfolio right
there though that they anticipate can be unicorns.
Yeah. And that will return.
I was. I'm listening to OHT.
Gosh, yeah. God, I'm not gonna get it right
now, but it's a really good audio book.
It's about the. I'll look it up in a second.
But it's all about the startup bubble.
And it's all about how SoftBank didn't win the bid.
(25:01):
Like, they didn't wanna put moremoney into Facebook and the
early days. And it was an investment for $10
billion. They thought it was too much.
Well, if they had done it, that'd be worth a trillion.
Dollars. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So sometimes in in tech
investing, the cost of not investing is greater than yeah.
The the cost of so the the investors are taking that risk
(25:22):
and if there are, you know, downrounds later on.
And yeah, you gotta. Do it down there.
You're probably keep it offeringon that so.
It's like, is it ego? Is it ego we're talking about?
Yeah. Or is it what's best for the
company? Probably takes more courage as a
CEO to say look oh God should weshould shut.
Down I don't know if I could do it just Full disclosure like I
don't know if I could I'd have ahard time the books called the
money Trap and by Eloc Soma, he was like the number 2 at
(25:44):
SoftBank. It's amazing by the way, really
like it, but. Put it on the bookshelf on the.
Yeah, but but so I think you do what you do answer that.
Alright, so that is my 5th and final question.
That was fun of Daves cold takes.
Daves cold takes. I I don't know if from an SEO
perspective we should use the term cold takes.
We'll probably just still call it hot takes even though you're
(26:04):
completely cold going into those.
Yeah. Questions from a personality
perspective. Just cold.
Cold. Yeah.
Unyielding. Anyway.
Cool. Right on.
Cool. Thanks work.
Alright, peace. Start it up.
Let's get it rolling. Big ideas, Money folding,
hustle, Smart dream. So why turn that grind into a
(26:27):
joy? Ride.
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