Craig Cannon on Podcasting with Adora Cheung

Welcome! I am Adore Chun. I'm a partner at Y Combinator and I am here interviewing Craig Kenan.

"How's it going?"

"Good! How are you doing?"

"I'm doing very well, great! Thanks for being here and for being on your own podcast."

"No problem! I had a great time setting in a lot."

So Craig is the head of marketing at Y Combinator and also the extraordinaire host of this great Y Combinator podcast. He actually asked me a few weeks ago on topics I was interested in doing on a podcast. So I thought about things I want to learn more about, and one of those things is actually podcasting itself. It's hitting its stride, I think, and who better to ask than someone like yourself?

So I want to spend most of the time talking about podcasting trends, what you think about it, how to do it correctly, things like that, and about the Y Combinator podcast itself. But maybe we can start off with telling us, you know, people—lots of people listen to you, you know, what, two to three times a week—know anything about you. So why don't you start off with, "Who's Craig Kenan? Where are you from? You know, how did you—what's your background? How did you learn about YC and how did you even end up here?"

"Yeah, that's a big question. I'll do the quick version. So yeah, hi, my name is Craig. I'm from Boston or near Boston. I went to school at NYU and I was an English major, so I was like the guy all you people, all you CS engineers made fun of. And I was about to graduate and I realized that I was like moderately unemployable. I didn't have very many skills, but I was running the comedy magazine at NYU. And so I was like, well, maybe I can get a job at this place called The Onion. And so I just sent out an application and like that was the one thing I got. So I started working there. And while I was there I actually started reading HN and programming on the side."

"And after a few years there, I started this hackathon series called Comedy Hack Day, where developers and comedians made stuff together."

"Yeah, yeah. Because I was going to hackathons and realizing that they were mostly presentation competitions, not really programming competitions."

"What's an example of something?"

"So one of the was called Times Fi, and it was a Chrome extension that would allow you to turn any website—usually a junk news website like BuzzFeed—into a site that looked like The New York Times, but it would inject the article into it and then like you could click the ads, and it would basically create a slideshow of all the images. Yeah, that was great. And there are a ton of them. Um, yeah. So he did that for like four years with a few of my friends. And I had gotten into cycling when I was out here and I found this thing—this like world record that I wanted to go for. And I did it, and it worked out and people started treating me differently and it was really weird. And I like started feeling this like pending doom of my youth and vitality fading away. It was the most elevation climbed in 48 hours."

"Oh wow. So is that—well, mine was like 97 thousand feet."

"Got it! Yeah, so yeah, people were treating me differently and I was like, oh [__] I'm not gonna be young forever, and so I quit and I went on like a five-month bike tour, okay, out of the country. And I went to Japan and Vietnam and New Zealand. And I came back and I had no job and I had no idea what I was gonna do. And then Luke Iseman, who used to work here, called me up and asked me if I wanted to do a contract for the blog. And so that started, you know, three years ago."

"Okay, oh okay! So you start with the blog. And then, so what were the steps into how you eventually started this—the YC podcast? And what—why even the podcast?"

"Yeah, so it should be said that Aaron did a YC podcast a few years ago called Startup School Radio. And yeah, I wanted—actually, I didn't care as much about making a podcast. I wanted to make a YouTube channel because YouTube, I think a lot of people know now, has great SEO, and podcasts have terrible SEO. And so I was like, alright, what's the easiest way for us to create a ton of content for a YouTube channel and then title it all in a way that, you know, like our founders get attention, like stuff we want to talk about gets attention and, more importantly, it doesn't fade away? And so I was like, well, podcast is a good way to do that. And yeah, we just started from there."

"Oh, so podcast is the way to get the content and then YouTube is the way to spread it?"

"Well, because we do both, but I think it was like 2014 or 2015 and I started following Joe Rogan and I just saw this like massive growth happening. And people were like clipping his videos and creating like fan channels. And now I think his YouTube channel gets as many views as his podcast gets downloads, right? Which isn't true for ours, right? But yeah, if you look for Adore Chun online, like I'm sure Google yourself."

"So to calibrate us a little bit, so the Y Combinator account, how do you like—how many views do we get? Or, you know, how do you even calculate this or what metric actually matters? And so let's talk about that."

"Yeah, so the thing that ultimately really matters is like we kind of have two goals, so one is to, you know, help educate founders and people who are in the startup game and two is to bring other founders in. So the way we're trying to calculate this—and it's still pretty loose—is by driving applications and that's like the main thing. But in terms of like sheer metrics, you know, we started out just like a possibly a little bit bigger than other shows by having like maybe two or three thousand people automatically subscribe. And now we're maybe a 40-ish thousand, give or take, you know, five or ten thousand every episode plus YouTube. So YouTube can go from like a thousand to a hundred thousand depending on how the person is."

"Yep, yeah. So alright, so I want to get into how you create a podcast, essentially, and your tips there. So let's pretend I'm—I want to do a podcast and so I have a topic that I want to do. How do I decide if that's actually a good idea or not to even work on it?"

"Do you have an idea in mind?"

"Um, no, I have a—I can come up with a theoretical idea. So one I've always just joked around doing, which I think actually might be a good idea, is to do a podcast where I ask little kids questions—like deeply philosophical questions—or I'm just because I think they will—they actually have a great insight into the world in which we are. You've seen that show, right? 'Kids Say the Darndest Things'?"

"Yes, people have told me about that. I have not seen it, but I've seen clips of it. Seem like little clips."

"Yes, yes! So right off the bat, there's clearly an audience already for this, like that show worked. The first question is honestly, do you want to do the thing? And I think another question that a lot of people don't ask is, am I willing to even create like a time box around this and say I'm okay if I make 10 episodes? Because one of the hardest parts about podcasting in particular, if it's not your job—like with YC, I'm just like okay, we'll just keep banging out every week—if it's not your job, it can become a real grind because those metrics don't go up that quickly. You know, getting from like 30,000 to 40,000, 40,000 to 50,000 can take years for certain people. So assuming that you really want to do the thing—think what could I maybe make, like eight of these?"

"Like Alexis Madrigal did that with a container podcast. I don't know if you'd listen to that one, it was super cool."

"And it's like the short version, I thought that was a great idea. So then I would—would this be scripted in any way?"

"Probably not, but I would have to probably edit."

"Oh, oh yeah. Okay, so what I would suggest doing is just getting like a basic setup and then just going and recording a bunch. Like don't even release it."

"Got it! Cool. And so the YC podcast has—every episode has its own topics. So how do you come up with those topics?"

"Yeah, so in many ways it's about like stuff I'm interested in. I don't know—I hit this point where, you know, we hang out, we—you hang out with other people, I see in people who are in tech, and I just found that there wasn't really any tech podcasts that interested me. Because it all feels very inside baseball, and it's like maybe other founders aren't interested in this either because they talk about it all the time. So I thought, okay, perhaps we could focus on technology as a core—as like a pillar—but also do, you know, art and science and entrepreneurship. And then it's just been about getting a mix of these people. So yeah, a big driver is obviously if they have a following, but then, yeah."

"So you have a topic for the episode, then you obviously need to find someone to interview. Usually, it goes the other way. Okay, tell me—the water operations of how you put together a whole target entire podcast."

"So a common one is I ask someone who I see, like you, 'Hey, who do you want to do a podcast with?' You know, Kevin Hale has done a few recently. That's what—that was there. There are other ones. For instance, I did an episode with John Preskill, who's a quantum physicist at Caltech, and he suggested other people. So he was like, 'Oh man, you got to get like Scott Aaronson, Leonard Susskind, all those people.' And so that's a really common thing."

"Yeah, it's just finding trends, finding things that are interesting, going from there. Is booking guests easy, hard, or are there—what are reasons why people don't want to do? 'Cause I'm sure some people said, 'Uh, not really.'"

"The more common no is no replying."

"Got it! Yeah, but there are some fringe runs for sure where people say, 'I don't know if I want to be on a YC podcast.'"

"Interesting because there are certain brand connotations."

"Interesting, yeah! Okay, you're making this actually—to do a podcast sounds like almost like starting a startup. Like, you need to validate your audience, you know? There's a lot of hard, long days of work to do. And, you know, maybe there's a lot of cold emailing, cold outreach essentially, and just like keep asking people to do it until they actually—and then keep learning too. I think thinking about content in the same way you think about product is just like great."

"They go—you can apply all the same ideas."

"Cool! Alright, so how do you prepare for interviews in particular? You have some interviews that involve topics which you're probably not an expert in, like physics, these kind of things, but you actually ask really good questions. So yeah, how do you do that?"

"So I think I would probably break apart the episode types. So there are episodes like office hours with Adore. Okay, I know you—I know the kinds of questions that come in, I don't really have to prep for that one. There's a middle level, which is a founder of a company, like say Ryan Petersen at Flexport. I kind of know what Flexport does; I've seen Ryan talk before. In that instance, what I would do is find every podcast he's ever done and listen to all of them at like 2x speed."

"So you're like, okay, this is the stuff he's excited about, these are the anecdotes he's used a million times, avoid anything that he's gonna have these really easy places to go. And the last category are the quantum physics type episodes, which to confirm your belief I'm not an expert in."

"Yeah, does it take—like for example that episode itself, did you like—some of these you don't have—barely did you any prep, just one like that? Did it take weeks or days?"

"Well, there was a hard one before that too with Rana Adhikari about gravitational waves, but the quantum one was more difficult. That probably took two and a half days between listening to John's talks and reading articles he's written, you know, with other people. With Scott Aaronson, I read his whole book. Hmm. And you just like take notes on that kind of thing."

"But ultimately, the goal is actually not to become an expert; the goal is to become informed enough that I know more than maybe the average listener but not so informed that we fill it with jargon and talk about stuff that like no one really knows about or cares about."

"That makes sense! Yeah, but there are examples like the Susskind episode, which is one of the most popular ones. We had planned for months and then the week before, I hadn't done any prep yet. The week before, I'm like, 'Alright, you know, we're gonna meet here.' That it added up. No reply, but usually when that happens it means that he's ghosting me. Huh. And so I didn't do any prep. And so I'm like, 'Alright, he's ghosting me, he's ghosting me, he's ghosting me.' We're doing the interview on Monday; he emails me Sunday night. And I'm like, 'Oh [__] cramming.' So possibly the YouTube comments reflect my level which is a separate thing."

"Got it! Was that the most—whoa! What was the most challenging one?"

"I would say that, hmm, so John Prescott was particularly difficult because he's also very chill. And so keeping it upbeat, keeping it interesting, keeping it fun. But I would say the one I bombed hard was Jocko Willink and Mike Cirelli. I don't know if you listened—yeah, I think I was just too nervous. I have this thing where when I get nervous, I laugh. It was fine, you know, like we hung out afterwards and it's like, yeah, this is much better before the ball."

"So on the topic of keeping a podcast or an episode engaging, how do you—like you said, some people are just really chill and maybe they're monotonous or whatnot. How do you push them to keep it engaging?"

"So usually there's this—it doesn't come out in the podcast, but we talk before we start recording, right? And so you kind of feed them what they should think about, how they should act, like you know, basically like these are the norms of the show. And most of it's just about making them really comfortable. And we do a slight amount of editing, usually almost none. But if I edit anything, it's often the first five minutes. I'll just cut the whole first five minutes off because you're like, 'Oh, Adore really got warmed up and she was into it at this point.' Yeah, and I can mix in an intro. Like people think this matters, but like the intro doesn't really matter. I think—I don't know, it's not a big thing that I care about."

"And actually one of the best podcasters in this regard is Russ Roberts from EconTalk."

"Oh, I love that one!"

"Yeah, so if you'll—if you pay attention to his show, he always starts with a—not a controversial question, but a question that's not a softball, and I think that's a really great way to start the show."

"Got it! Because you want to give them something that's interesting to them, but you don't want to confront them. And this is something that a lot of podcast hosts—and I fall prey to it too—you don't want to offend someone, and so you're really nice, so you ask them all these like softball questions, but you don't really go anywhere. And that's how you end up with like the Joe Rogan-Elon Musk episode. They're so bad. It's like Joe Rogan's great, and Elon Musk is capable of giving good answers, but because he knows so much more than Rogan and Rogan didn't prep that much, he just dodged him the whole time and he was fanboying."

"So, yeah, those get obvious after the first 10 minutes. It's like, okay, this is going down, though. Yeah, not gonna learn much here. You listen to—you listen to full episodes normally?"

"Adore Chun—of any event, I guess? I try. If I'm going—I try listening to Joe Rogan. I love it! I like his—so do I!"

"I listen maybe once a week. I'll listen to maybe other shows. Those are maybe the only two I'm a regular listener to."

"The whole thing—yeah."

"Um, yeah! I guess not more because this is something that I often think about because of metrics—not the metrics—the analytics are so bad; you don't know, like, man, should I just be cutting this down too? Yeah, I think they're just different. It's not like YouTube where you can see where they just dropped off. Well, you have Apple analytics, but they're not very good. And it's only a percentage of them are, yeah."

"Okay! I want to talk about analytics in a second, but actually let's just talk about analytics."

"Okay, so Apple analytics—there's nothing like Mixpanel or Amplitude or any of those. It's like Google Analytics version 0.1."

"That's where I get you because you— I think what might not be obvious to people: some podcasts aren't like YouTube videos. You don't upload your podcasts to iTunes; you upload your podcasts to a host and then the host serves the podcasts from an RSS feed. And because that's the way it works, what information you can get is like served, like it's been downloaded basically X amount of times. But you don't have any kind of that like retention data that you have unless you're using Apple or you're using an embedded player. So if you listen, for instance, on the YC blog in the embed thing, then I know."

"But yeah, so really only these podcaplet podcast players might know that. Well, they will know it given what that went for that episode, I guess, that yes."

"It's actually played on their podcast. Yeah, but I guess the players have—you’re seeing fragmentation amongst players now. I've heard something like sixty percent is Apple Podcasts."

"Okay, got it! So it's pretty big share."

"Yep, but then after that is I think that there's a dominate player on Android. I forget what it's called."

"And then the Castbox one—it's actually not that one. I always so I just—well that was a YC company, and that was like when they applied to us, like no way, the podcast app! There’s the podcast—it's like such a great name, you know? Yeah, such a good idea! Okay, cool!"

"So what are other tools that are indispensable for the podcast? So maybe you would start with a software and then you've got a lot of gear, but I would say—so I did my research, and I listened to—before this, I listened to a lot of your first episode. No, and so you can hear—and which is actually pretty good quality, but then if you listen to the last ten episodes that you just did, you can hear the sound quality—like there's less echo, you can hear the voice more clear."

"Yeah! So yeah, maybe walk me through like how—what did you start with and what's the gear that—like what's the MVP gear you need?"

"Yeah, yeah, you know? And then what do you have today? The MVP gear is this—this is your phone. I can record a podcast on your phone and don't let your gear disqualify you from doing it; that's my main point. But what I started with back in the—I did a podcast before, oh, I see—too. It was called—it was great, it was called Salt of the Earth. It's done! And it was really funny and in contrast to the YC podcast because it was in relation to tech entrepreneurs getting so much attention. My friend and I went to college together, and we both grew up in New England, and none of our role models were tech entrepreneurs; they were like local electricians and stuff. And so we said, dude, why isn't there a podcast with these guys? Because—and ladies who are often very funny and so we—it's like really hard to find these people, but funny successful small business entrepreneurs. So we did that and, you know, we maxed out like two thousand downloads an episode or something like that, but we had really simple gear."

"And so that was a Zoom recorder. So it has like four inputs, totally great, and Shure mics that were like, you know, fifty bucks each, and the Zoom recorder—I don't know, it's like a hundred bucks. So they're also USB. There's this thing called the Blue Yeti, which you can just plug into your laptop and record."

"Got it! Cool. And then, oh yeah! And the gear now?"

"Oh yeah! Sona, if you listen to this on a podcast—Craig, like when he does an episode, he actually has a lot of stuff. And one of the things he does is he takes down our walls—these portable walls that are in another room, and he like drags them into like a really small conference room, so I guess that’s for sound. But yeah, and I think it actually ends up looking better too in a— we’re in a weird way."

"But, uh, yeah, so okay, so what happened there was I realized after I started doing this podcast in this room that this is not the best room in the world to record a podcast. But actually the office doesn't have many great rooms for that because you don't—you definitely don't want a street window, right? But it also needs to like not being used all the time. And so I was basically left with like this room."

"So yeah, so I have these like sound blocking things to eliminate echo because my voice was getting picked up on your microphone and now it’s a little bit—you still get it, but it's a little bit less because we don't do the headphones. You've probably seen that before."

"Yes! Yeah! I tried it and everyone freaked out."

"I hate headphones."

"Exactly, yeah! I used to do—when I was in college, I had a radio show."

"Really?!"

"And I was like, you just you're hearing yourself talk, and I was the one who like—it was annoying. One—and just—"

"You were that host?!"

"No, no, no! I—well, it was like a talk show, so it wasn’t—like I'm scabbing. It was like old-school podcast I guess. What was it about?"

"It was just— we talked about news in the school and just regular politics and stuff like that."

"I really hope this was not recorded! But yeah it was a local college news station."

"Okay, cool! Yeah! Yeah! That’s hard! This is a separate question that someone asked that we should talk about."

"Hearing your voice? But yeah! So now we use these are Shure SM7B mics. These are like 300 bucks. The biggest upgrade was the recorder which was actually from a YouTube comment—this is called a MixPre 6 from Sound Devices. To make these Shure mics sound good, you need a bunch of what they call clean gain and our Zoom recorder didn't really do that. This thing does that, and then we record on like a Canon US—yeah, let's not have a box each."

"Okay! So your suggestion? Step one, just use an iPhone."

"That's good quality anyway!"

"Well, I wouldn't suggest iPhone as doing it, I kinda—I was like, you can conceivably do it with an iPhone, got it! But what I would suggest is if you're gonna move around locations all the time, and even if you're not, if you're gonna do the interviews in person, get a recorder like a Zoom H4N, something like that. Get Shure mics, SM58 or whatever—they're like sixty bucks—and XLR cable, so the cables to plug them in. And you can take it anywhere. If you're gonna interview people remotely, get a USB mic like a Blue Yeti and then just—and then do it over Skype."

"So yeah, there's a— I've used it one time. I forget now that I remember what it's called—there's podcasting software where you can record online. Okay."

"But if you just Google it—okay, cool! Alright! And then, how do you—and then what's the—sorry this is really noob questions, but it's like so you record it, you're editing it."

"Yeah, you need software to edit. Oh yeah! So we definitely use software to edit. There's free software called Audacity. Okay, again, you can take the file from your iPhone, put it in Audacity, you're good to go. We use—because we have video, we actually just edit the video and then export the video audio to a podcast."

"I see!"

"And then if you've heard it before, but like I record an intro thing—great! Yeah! Which is what I like, but other people like songs, other people like little clips from the show, whatever! Yeah, cool! And then you have to serve it and we use Backtracks for that."

"Alright, so you mentioned your voice—do you think your voice sounds awful when you listen to it?"

"Well, I mean, you can get used to it. That's my answer."

"Okay, yeah! Because you have to—'cause you're the one editing too, so you have to play back up."

"Yeah! Okay, woah—'cause they—yeah, my answer to this question is actually like, what—how do you feel about your voice? I generally don't like it, but it sounds different than what I'm like."

"When I'm hearing myself, I sound very different than when I hear it on our recorded version. Is it lower, higher?"

"Yes! Just not what I expected. Snippets low, a little bit lower I think."

"Okay, I think—I don't know, yeah! It's tricky because actually some people have figured out ways to manipulate in like post-production their voice to make it sound closer to what it sounds like in their head."

"You know, like I often think about this—I did an episode of another podcast and it was based here—then we normally record on—and I was like, oh man, that sounds like more like my actual voice."

"Yeah, but personally, I don't really like the NPR tone, like you know, really like soft."

"Oh yeah, I don't really like it! So I'm okay with it, but you get a—a—my voice in my head is lower, but as soon as you start recording yourself on video all the time, you're like, oh man, that's what I look like! And then you feel like way worse about that!"

"Yeah! Yeah! Okay, cool! So let's move to what you've learned from the YC podcast. It's all sure. Okay, so let's start off with actually what has been—what's been the best interview, your favorite interview so far?"

"Um, so my favorite interview—so the most popular one is Leonard Susskind. So that's, yeah, that's the most popular one. But I've actually learned a lot from different people. I really liked the Michelle Kuo interview with Kat, so that was about art and technology. She's awesome! Then Ryan Peterson interview was a great one. He's got this like cool, like hustle but not annoying vibe, which I really like. The Rosalyn Watts—the psilocybin—the mushroom interviews, yeah! That was like, because I mean, I had heard about it, but I didn't know it in that detail; that was awesome! And then maybe some of the ones with my friends have been really fun."

"Cool! It's like—my friend Matt Hackett started this company with Casey Neistat, so I like that."

"Oh, that was cool!"

"Yeah! Alright! And what's the most surprising thing you've learned about startups after joining YC and interviewing so many founders like Ryan?"

"Yeah, I mean this is definitely one that you should answer too, but I think like a core part of it that wasn't obvious to me from the outside is how important confidence is and how big of a role it plays in just doing the thing. A lot of people oftentimes when I meet them and they're interested in about YC, they make up these things in their heads that disqualify themselves from starting. And a lot of the successful founders don't do that ever! And then they also have gotten into YC or some other thing and they like have a little bit of like kind of wind behind them, and so they have just like the confidence to do the thing. And I would say that's like a learned trait and that's a skill that you can develop."

"And a lot of people might not think it is, but I really do think it is! So yeah, I would just tell people like just do the thing and like know that you're good enough because they're just normal."

"Yeah, I don't know! What do you say?"

"No! I think that's a good observation! I think it's harder, you know one of the things as working with startups now—yet I do is during office hours for example is just keep the keep the optimism of where this could go at a realistic but high level. Meaning like every day, you know, you’re like 'the ground'—every day you would not think it's going anywhere fast. But so it's always—I like to remind people like this is where, you know, you started this for this reason. Yeah! And this reason could be bigger than what you even thought about what you thought it could be. But regardless, you know, you should always think about why you're doing something! That's—that's a really good thing to like bigger than you think it could be. This is a big—a big— it's a core thing in Silicon Valley that I get some criticism because you could say like 'Alright, not everything is venture fundable nor should it be, sure.' But there's another way to think about that which is it's not as risky as you think it is and it's actually often easier to find people to work with if you're like, 'I'm just gonna build rockets now' and you really stand out. Whereas like doing these like—I don't want to put it down, but like hackathon-level SaaS tools you as compelling to people, right? No, that's been a big takeaway for me as well."

"Alright! So I'm just—I’m gonna start going through questions that our Twitter has—Twitter was great! I don't have to prepare much for this interview! So what have you learned from any of your guests that you've put into practice?"

"I mean I think like on—honest-to-God main thing is it's just gotten me super anxious about doing my own thing."

"You must do a startup now or something, yeah! Yeah! Because you can only interview so many people who are like, 'I mean this is fun to do,' but you know, being the host it just—it kind of sinks into your mind as—I mean kind of reviewing YC applications too as this observer of trends happening and things happening, and you realize that you're just like this passing moment in someone else's life. And it’s cool and everything, but they're like getting right back to their thing, so I really admire that! That's been a big thing Sam encouraged me to just like do the thing, which is like always good and he's very helpful there—the mushroom interview very interesting, and you can do your own research privately in different countries if you want to do that."

"Tim Wong, he did the container book with me."

"Oh, that's right! Yeah! And he's been on twice. He's the AI policy guy."

"Yeah, okay, Tim's awesome. And so Tim is one of the only people I know who has been able to maintain cool jobs but also have all the like little side hustle projects going on, and his work ethic is unprecedented in my mind for that kind of thing. And I think maybe the last one is just realizing like it doesn't take that much to generate a pretty real following online by writing and communicating clearly."

"Mmm! I think like YC that's at the core of YC, right? Like PJ's essays or content marketing—I mean they're cool, they're obviously like valuable, but it's, you know."

"Yeah, and you know like Andrew Cortina from Venmo—that's how I found out about him."

"And even like Michael's like Eyeballs essays are great! They really helped him! Yeah! So yeah, I like them when they're to the point! Yeah, I mean this is tricky right? Like it’s just a style thing. Yeah! Like who are your favorite writers right now, I guess, in that scene?"

"I don't—you don't think this is a podcast? Yeah, I wish PG would write more essays is what I'm secretly hinting at! That anyway!"

"Alright! So, what are the top or the most counterintuitive or maybe non-consensus things you've learned about building successful startups after interviewing so many founders?"

"I think—well, okay! I also want your answer on all of these really cool questions. There's definitely no one model for a successful startup. They're usually not riding some trend in the middle of the wave; they're like wait early. So it seems weird! They're not doing like AI, blockchain, data right now; that's definitely a thing. And, and then I think they like often are more focused on finding these really big problems than they are on just focusing on like doing a startup or a company."

"And they're definitely not attached to a solution, a lot of these people. With that in mind, in my experience, like there aren't a lot of crazy pivots—like 180-degree pivots. They come in and they're like, hey, I found this thing, and then all of a sudden, they realized that it's like quite large or they change degree a little bit, you know? But it's not like a total turn, yeah! And then the last thing is like they're just normal people, you know? I think they get built up so much."

"Yeah, I agree with that! Cool! What's your answer?"

"Oh, I agree with—that's a good question! Alright, you know, I actually agree with the whole—what did you say about the AI blockchain thing? Oh, they're not in like the middle of a big trendy wave, alright early? Okay! So know what I was thinking was, I think the best ideas are when you can explain the problem and even the solution without using jargon. Like without saying 'AI' or 'blockchain.' Yeah. So I think some investors are, when you say those words, they're like, 'I'm in!' But for me, I think if you can articulate it without actually describing the new tech you're doing, that’s never—that's always like the mechanism of which you're solving the problem, but that's never—you know, I don't think that's the problem you're solving, if that makes sense?"

"I totally! I mean, it’s this question is like what more do you need? Man, it’s a tools question, right? But it's not a product question. And that's the answer! Like I said, content, product, same thing. Like do you make a good podcast? Do you make a good app or whatever you might be making?"

"Yep! Yeah! Okay! So now that you've done podcasting for many years, if you have to start one again from scratch, okay, how would you structure it?"

"Okay, so I have a couple notes on this, but the thing is I kind of did start this podcast from scratch. So in many ways, it reflects my personal taste and how I like shows to go. If I were to do my own thing—like not YC related—from scratch, so that like the main constraint here has been this is still my job, right? And so that in that way, I think in real life, I would have—in real life—in like a non-YC podcast, I'd have more like really strange people, like weird—like definitely do not fit in this podcast. What's an example of that?"

"Well, he's not—okay, so one friend comes to mind. He's not actually weird—not that weird—but he is an off-the-grid guy in the middle of Vermont. And so he's like built his whole cabin in the woods, he's homeschooled all of his kids, he is solar-powered—like all that stuff! But he's also, you know, a teacher out of college. And so he's super smart but a sweetheart and like living this very weird different life that I think appeals to a lot of people."

"So like, stuff like that, where just there have been moments where Mike could—I—is this like a YC episode? And whatever, maybe not. I mean even like the Casey Neistat episode, I was a little like, I don't know if this is gonna fly."

"So there's like a little bit of a branding thing you have to think about."

"Is that what you're—"

"Well, yeah, I mean this is like a separate conversation, but given that the podcast has grown a little bit, you know, I have like 18 bosses. Everyone who I see is cool but, like that! Like at any given moment I can get emails from anyone! Yeah! And like this is how I feel about the podcast and usually it's an expression of personal tastes—and this is something that you have to get used to with creative work, right? It's like differentiating, oh, this is objectively good feedback even if it hurts versus, oh, they just have a personal opinion. It feels that they feel that way, and both strategies can work."

"Mm-hmm, which is really hard. Got it! So yeah! So the answer to the question is like I would make it more weird! I would have like maybe like sillier people on! But I would definitely still do YouTube, do transcripts, do the podcast, like clip the show as much as you can—like I'm really bad at that!—but like clipping it for YouTube! Yep! And then, like pro tips, big names still work! Yeah, like trend still work. I don't do a lot of trans stuff! Yeah, big names work! Do you see when you talk about clipping—do you see, does that in whole unique wise—unique listener wise—anyway get you more listens than people just listening to it from the audio stream?"

"So what's tricky? Oh yeah, this is a learning—we have two YouTube channels—subscribe! We have three! Y Combinator and Y Combinator Clips, right? Because what happened was initially I was like, oh, I'll just clip the show because this is great! It's great for SEO, right? You title, like, you know, Jessica Livingston on finding a co-founder rather than Jessica Livingston with Sam Altman, right? Right! And then you can make like five clips from one episode, which is cool. But when I put out all like seven videos on one day, everyone freaked out on the YouTube comments—what are you doing, man? Like you're clogging my feed! This was like, okay, fine! I'll pay CAC Clips Channel. The problem there is like the Clips Channel doesn't have that flywheel effect. So in the long run, you see this with Joe Rogan; like there are in aggregate like his show clipped out will do more than an individual episode. But you need an audience before, right? Yeah, which requires like bigger, bigger names help in that way."

"Great! Make sense! Yeah, one question—why are more podcasts not actually videos on YouTube? Because people are dumb!"

"By people, you know, it's more work, right? And I think this is actually like a fairly new revelation, like some people have been doing it for a while, but I don't think it's been as obvious to people that you can even just like upload a still image of you and then the audio, and that would be a thing."

"Yeah, but it's interesting that you actually thought in reverse! Like I want to start a YouTube channel because that's where the audience is! Yeah! And then I podcasting is an excuse to get that content! What's that? Smart! The question was—I met with Michael in this room when we were talking about it and we were like, where the youth is hanging out, and I was like man, it's like a lot of these other mediums are kind of feel aging to me, whereas YouTube's just gonna be young."

"Yeah, it'd still be young for a while! Oh! And then you guys started Instagram."

"Yeah! Does another thing about it! So thanks for my Snapchat too! We didn't do Snapchat! I held out because people were like, oh, you want to be like the YC personality on—no, we adjusted for that."

"Yeah! But we clipped the podcast on YouTube! On Instagram actually does really well too! It just takes work, right?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Alright! So what patterns have you recognized in just from your lips—from the YC podcast? And when an episode gets popular, viral, what are the reasons for that? It's like besides like big names."

"Yeah! Big names, like an easy one, usually it’s some certain like cohort of influencers grab it online and then it just goes. Like this has been true—and I won't go so far as to say any of the episodes have gone viral—oh yeah, okay, definitely no! But one of the strategies for the physics episodes was we want more people to apply who are studying physics and there aren't that many big names in those communities. Therefore, if we get the biggest names in those communities, we can get them to at least know about YC!"

"Right! And so what I realized there, it was like those communities—again, not viral—but as soon as anything is shared within those communities, everyone shares it! And so you have like John Prescott will share it, but then like Sean Carroll will share it, and then, you know, like Scott Aaronson will share it, it’s like one, two, three, four, five, six, and so yeah! Like finding these like small but really tightly networked communities works really well."

"Mmm! It's almost like you want guests that are maybe not within startup tech itself, but kind of adjacent—just this is my personal opinion."

"Yeah, this is like how I differ."

"Yeah! And it makes sense because I’m like, okay! I'm actually a really good example of that is um Mr. Money Mustache. Do you listen to that one? That was about personal finance and like—"

"Say okay! So this has been a crazy trend happening the past maybe ten years about people saving high, high, high percentages of their income and quote, retiring early, right? So I think Pete—that this guy, Mr. Money Mustache saved up like something like 600 K and owned his house outright and then he, you know, quote retired at 30. And it's become—he's become like a figurehead in a cult! Cult leader—I mean yeah—the episode is called, 'Don't Start a Blog to Start a Cult,' and this comes from one of his talks and put people of YC were like dude what are you talking about? Like—sorry! And—but if it—he has this like passionate following of in large part software engineers because they earn so much money it’s very easy to save 50 percent of your income! And so, yeah! I was like, oh, this is tech adjacent! This physic thing is tech cute!"

"There was more of a trend thing actually! Yeah! But yeah!"

"Alright! So in terms of the future of podcasting, so it seems like it's taking off now and one of the primary problems, I guess, is it's hard to make money."

"Yeah! I mean, it starts with it's hard to measure! But what—one, it's hard to make money. What do you think is the future of podcast monetization?"

"I think there are a few possible avenues! I tweeted this out recently but the—with the Spotify, Gimlet and Courier deal—right, it's conceivable that a lot of these podcasters get on contracts with big companies like Spotify and are just paid, because for the majority of them, like they're not making more than a—you know—a thousand bucks a month off of ads! Like if you're not a big podcaster, a lot of them aren't making any money and they actually don't care all that much about having maximum distribution, which is different than Rogan because Rogan wants to sell comedy shows—he's monetized his podcast. This is why comedians dominate podcasts; like they have a business plan right here! This is all marketing and their content's super interesting, so they've figured it out. The people who have had products on the side have figured this out for a long time. I think we're gonna see a decrease in CPM around podcast advertising."

"Mmm! Because it's been like a racket. And now it's—I think it's really thinned out, like as in it was more lucrative than at least Bennett is now. I see it was higher than it would have—it actually performed, because it was just made up, right? So you're like, hey, MailChimp, I want 20 grand and they're like, okay, fine—that's it, what goes?"

"So yeah, and so I think that'll be a trend, I think we're gonna see some kind of Patreon model work out in some way! I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more like tipping happening—there will probably be a new app—stuff like Himalaya and China for sure!"

"Yes! Tons of Education! And one thing that I've really been surprised that that doesn't exist yet is super expensive podcasts, huh?"

"Yeah! Like, like $10 an episode? I like it! So you listen to Hardcore History?"

"I have, yes! Decades? Free! That could be 50 bucks an episode! Yeah, easily! Like you see this stuff like Masterclass happen! Like why is it—History, right? And then you're seeing more—I guess we pay for audiobooks, yeah! So I guess you're saying there's something in the middle between audiobooks, which we pay a lot for, and free podcasts."

"There's it—but I heard that last year, or whenever it was quoted the audiobook market was three billion dollars and in the same year, the podcast market advertising was three hundred million dollars. And then when I talk to my friends, like wait a second! There’s this huge gap here because most people are actually listening to podcasts, not audiobooks, so there has to be some kind of thing in the middle—especially around educational content."

"Where people will pay a lot of money to have you and like teaching them, educating them! Because I think there probably is like a definitively best American history teacher and a definitively best Mandarin teacher, right? Yep! And you a thousand dollars a year for their podcast or whatever! The great courses, yeah! That seems like kind of in that spectrum, but it's like, it's like Internet 2.0, though."

"I think there's like a new—like a bigger version—know what happens?"

"Yeah! The Himalaya is actually, I think a breeze! I know you don't know about it! You should check it out! I'm trying to get some Chinese yes on it right now! Oh really?"

"Yeah, it's like this big complicated thing!"

"Alright! So do you think podcasts—okay, so there are so many podcasts out there, yeah! Do you think it will become saturated like the music—and, in history, or do you think the music industry saturated?"

"No, I thought that question was like a false premise. I don't think music or—he's like—Is YouTube saturated? I don't think so. Is blogging saturated? Yeah! I mean there are a lot of—there are a lot of, but that doesn't mean like, you know, like you said, like PG doesn't write an essay a day for you like—yeah, yeah! And would that be enough? Maybe not even! Yeah! What do you think is missing in the podcast world? I guess we talked about the educational content."

"Yeah! I mean there's like a lot of missing stuff around monetization for sure. But I think in many ways it's like gonna be about people committing—like a lot of people do it on the side or they've already had a product, right? So I think shifting that model to be like, hey, this is valuable, you should pay for it. I'm making really great content and that might require some kind of like basic income salary from Spotify. So if I'm like, 'Hey, Adore, you want to make Kids Say the Darndest Things, here’s whatever, 30 grand a year,' and that’s enough for you to get really motivated to make all this stuff, because oftentimes like you don't see it, because iTunes doesn't make it obvious, but iTunes has hundreds of thousands of dead podcasts."

"And they just—like never get it going enough to commit, right? After three or four—and then it just kind of—yeah, doesn't go anywhere! Yeah! And then you're done! Yeah! I mean you quit! And so it's a good idea."

"So maybe, so what you're saying, Spotify might do the Netflix model of—or well, you would hope! Is that the Netflix model of where they commit you to a certain number of episodes and then you just go for it, and then if it does well, you just reduce?"

"Look, it's like think about it, right? So I heard that Jerry Seinfeld signed a hundred million dollar deal with Netflix, wow, for Comedians in Cars and plus some other stuff! Okay, how much could Netflix or Spotify sign Adore for? Probably less than odd! So you know, you could imagine a world where like they hire a hundred podcasters at 30 grand a year, they all work from anywhere in the world and they just make stuff that people are really into, right? For Spotify!"

"Bada 5! Yeah, because like at 30 grand per person, that's actually not nearly as much, you know, as like paying for all the—I don’t know—Lady Gaga royalties, so yeah, I could see that happening!"

"In terms of podcasters, so you obviously, you listen to lots of podcasts—what has been—you talk a lot about Joe Rogan, but who else has been like the most influential for you?"

"I think Russ Roberts is great! When I started the YC podcast, I had just heard about EconTalk! He's been doing it for a long time. I still don't know why that show’s not bigger! Yeah, I think it's pretty big, but it could be bigger! I wanted to do a combination of EconTalk and Rogan where it's like interesting people who are technical, but it's also fun because that—you can talks, it can be a little dry sometimes! I really like those! But I have—I have like this whole list I wrote down a lot of shows you listen to, so another dead—so there are a ton of dead podcasts that are still good! There's one called Seventh Avenue Project, so this is by this guy Robert Poly, who lives SF somewhere; you're nearby SF. It's basically like an NPR science show and the interviews are great! They're like an hour long! It's got the NPR vibe, but if you can get past that, it's cool. There's another podcast I listened to called Barbell Medicine! So have you ever gotten into lifting weights at all?"

"Not really!"

"Okay! So I got into it last year, because I hurt my back, and I was like, how do I fix this? And people said, well, you should lift! Cool! So this is a podcast called Barbell Medicine, and it's two doctors who talk about medical research as it relates to exercise! Oh! And so they like read a bunch of papers and say like, oh you know, like creatine is good or like this protein's like garbage, and like this type of exercise does nothing, and this is why you should train like, you know, three sets of five versus something else! Surprisingly interesting, dead authors podcast! You listen to that one?"

"Mmm, this one's also dead! It's a PHA—left Thompkins bringing on comedians who imitate dead authors, and they have like—it's like an interview show—they do it in their voice, too! Yeah, but it’s—I mean it’s all goofily oftentimes. You don't really know who what their voice sounds—yeah, but the bore has one with Nick Kroll—I was amazing if you want to check it out! Berkshire Hathaway, so yah!"

"Who got the rights to the Berkshire Hathaway board meeting or the nothing board meeting? The conference—the shareholder meeting? Cheryl Da—that's a podcast! Oh, wow!"

"Which is awesome! The Nine Club! Here into skateboarding, growing up! Nine Club is amazing! Okay, have you like a bunch of skateboarders from back in the day! My buddy Spencer does one called Preparing that’s about manufacturing—I did an episode on that! And Startup School podcast by Seth Godin! Did you hear that one?"

"No! Same name!"

"Yeah, yeah! That's from like 2012, okay? It's actually really good!"

"Cool! So, alright! That's my list of! So I'll check out all of this!"

"How did you discover the dead podcast or an author by yes? I subscribe when it was so active or I'm in like the dead—because I am when I have a topic that I'm interested in, I'll go in search for it! And then that's how I discovered somebody’s podcast that don’t really exist in him?"

"Yeah! So what like, what ones are you into that are dead?"

"Well, I'm not into it. I just listen to the one episode! Yeah, I don't actually have you—checked out Listen Notes?"

"Yes Notes! It's awesome! Yeah! Because that you can index everything! Yeah, yeah— that's a big thing! But I mean it should be said Discovery's totally broken, yes! Which is why the clipping this is this is what I think will happen! Like there will be some version of a podcast app that resembles YouTube clipping that's a podcast app!"

"And so what happens with YouTube clipping is you just get in this like five to ten minute clip one after the next after the next! Term and like Himalaya is much more like that, right? Than the standard models! Yeah! Yeah, more Twitter questions!"

"Okay, these are—this is—these—these are trying to get unrelated! But we'll just finish off with some unrelated ones! What podcasts you listen to? I—why should you, you have been YC wanderer?"

"I deal with an EconTalk listener, Tyler Cohen—Cohen has—yeah—has a good one! I listened to Rico Decode! Okay!"

"That one—that one—why do you listen to podcasts? What—well, I preface with I actually listen to audiobooks much more! Oh, okay! And so when I'm kind of tired of listening to the audiobook, I will either switch to music or podcast! Okay! And so it's kind of my other thing that I listen to! But are you kind of tuned out when you're listening? You're like doing something else?"

"No, I—if I'm doing something else, I'll listen to music! Okay! But I never listened—like it's hard to listen to audiobooks especially, but also podcasts, we enter tuned out! But tech ones are actually because it’s like you know it's not—it's—."

"Isn't it? Yeah, I guess I'm not learning anything entirely new and so you can just listen it too while you're doing something else!"

"Yeah! So that's what I do! Okay! Yeah, I'm similar! Yeah! Patrick Bender asks: what idea do you believe in that your social group would think is crazy?"

"Oh yeah, okay, so this is why I'm glad we got this question before hands, a moment to think about! I think cushy Internet jobs are bad for innovation!"

"Okay, like what's an example of that?"

"Any bank job where you just like show up and kind of do work! Got it! And for that reason, I think jobs should have term limits on them unless you're like the founder—basically reverse vesting! Yeah! So it's like hey! Adore, you've been a partner at YC for five years, yes, see you later! Yep! And you! Yeah! And it's kind of implied that like, you know, if you go join Sequoia or something, you're like, okay, fine! Yeah! Because I’ve—it's related to this early retirement thing, but I see a lot of people like maximizing that and just staying on at big companies and it makes me mad because they have so much talent and they like, they have safety nets they could go do stuff! So mmm!"

"Interesting! I think maybe somewhat related to that! I think there should be forced sabbaticals! Totally!"

"Alright! After you work for so many years, you should take time off to like just do something else, too! I get that! Because I think if you work at a company, especially if it's like just one position in on one team, you just kind of get stuck and your—you know, that creativity flow and yeah, just thinking outside the box gets a little bit harder after some time! I've been surprised that that's not like a bigger employee retention thing!"

"Yeah! I know some companies do it, but it's after like quite a while! Yeah! How—so Cat did one last year! Yes! Cat, who's also a YC partner? Yeah!"

"Yeah! And she came back because she had all these thoughts, right? And then she came back and—and she was like super excited and really happy and I was like, you know what, I kind of didn't feel like doing anything and that was okay too! Yeah! I got off my phone and to her point, that's totally fair! But I do feel like that the four sabbatical would need to be longer than the company—oh no! Yes! I haven't thought about how long it should be—at least six months? Yeah! Three—six-month? Three months? 36 months? I think it's such a good idea!"

"Yes! But like, if there is even a greater incentive for them! So basically what I'm saying is like, I want people to leave their jobs, but like if they were like, you know, we will decrease your salary if you return or like, we'll give you some seed funding or something."

"But then you see this stuff happening at Google, right?"

"Where they're like funding internal startup be things and it just feels like employee retention, right? Yeah! I don't know! Yeah! I don't thought through the right mechanism for that is! But what—'cause I'm curious about you—like if you two and a half years, I'm sorry, okay? Yeah, we started roughly the same time."

"Yeah! Yeah! Like how much time do you think you would want to like really consider?"

"Yeah, that's—that's—I think 36 months is probably—"

"I think because then I think it lets you just focus on other things that again will help you with your job, actually! Yeah! And anyway, but but yeah, this is the thing like a lot of people don't know this about you—oh! I see!"

"But you've jumped around between a bunch of stuff within YC, within the agency, that's right! Where is like some other people happen?"

"Right, right! And so you're kind of like always looking for it, right, for news?"

"My version of ADD! Yeah! And is that also in the back of your head like maybe I want to start a city or maybe I want to do this on my own?"

"Yeah, we'll see! I—and back my head as always what's the next startup, sure! Yeah! So that's always in it! And I think we talked about the neuro in our episode probably—maybe whatever the case, you know, it's on one hand being at YC is great because you—you're with all these founders and you're motivated about startups in general! And there's so many ideas!"

"On the other hand, it's like one week I'm I'm obsessed with this one idea! And then I talked to another founder, then I just like ping pong around ideas, and so it's very hard to stay focused!"

"It's tricky, right? 'Cause you—I can see it going both ways! Because with all this stuff, like it's all good! There's no like objective right answer, but yeah! I can see that, that intellectual like game being really compelling, yes! But then your addictive too!"

"Totally! But you're also like a maker, right? Yeah! And so is that—that yes, 50 might happen! Yeah! Watching people build and you're on the sideline, not build is really rough! So you have to come up with at least hobbies, side projects that often go uncompleted, unfortunately."

"Alright! So Zachary Cannon asks—oh okay! So this is one of the application questions!"

"Oh yeah! Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some non-computer system to your advantage?"

"So I kind of mulled over this one for a while, and I think that the silly world record actually might be the best one because it had like the largest outcome. So basically what happened was there was this trend in cycling—whatever—I did it like four years ago where people were climbing the height of Everest on their bike, and they called it everything, and I was like I could probably do that. Meanwhile, I'm not—I mean, I'm heavier now than I was then, but even then I was like 170 pounds, which in cycling is like heavy!"

"Like you are—you're the fattest cyclist if you're 70! What's the typical weight?"

"I mean the guys who win are like 135, 140, and they're taller than me, so they're stronger than hate—yeah, they all look very tall and skinny! They look like skeletons! Yes! Yeah! So like you're looking at probably like five eleven, hundred and seven—137 pounds, something like that and they're stronger than me! Yeah! And so I'm like 170 pounds and yeah—not that skinny! So yeah! So basically what I did was like I did that eversting thing, and it worked, and I was like oh, I could do more of this! And so then I created a spreadsheet of all the hills in the East Bay where I could like maximize how much elevation I could get in like the shortest distance while also being like close to a bathroom, close—also like not having enough trout or not having too much traffic, like something that my friends could get to so they could like help me out. And yeah, through that spreadsheet, I like unlocked this place that just worked for me!"

"And so that's basically how it happened! Oh wow! Yeah, that's pretty cool! It was pretty cool! You achieved your life goals! Everything! Exactly! And then my life was over! Kind of quarter-life crisis! Yeah, yeah, basically! And then I worked left the country!"

"Alright! Cool! So last question—what, see you, obviously talk to a lot of founders and being at YC similar itself, do you ever feel the pressure to just go start a company? And if you're going to start a company, what would the problem be be that you're for this one for yourself?"

"Uh, answer first then the answer is yes! I do feel—yeah! Oh, yeah! Answer—that's a leading question! Totally yes! Yeah! That's another thing that's not really talked about much of the podcast or in public at all! But working at YC and managing YC is a weird kind of like cat wrangling where like the default personality type is like solo founder kind of vibe, and like they—everyone just wants to be doing their own thing all the time! You know, it's like boxing people in! It's good; you got a bunch of CEOs basically with very different styles, which is actually kind of interesting! Like it hasn’t been selected for like one vibe! Yeah! Anyway, I think the answer is definitely yes! And where I'm kind of focusing right now is I'm getting this impression that like people want freer lives! And I think you see this with early retirement! But I also think you see it on the other side with like basic income and then I think you see it in the middle with like Marie Kondo! And so there's like—there's just this vibe that people want like potentially less stuff, potentially simpler lives, potentially like more freedom, and so I think I would probably develop a product in that space around one of the things that's like most expensive—so like probably a housing thing where it's like a ton of your income goes into this but it's like this aspirational thing that leads you to leaving—leaving it for your life!"

"Mmm! Interesting! Yeah, so it would be—uh, okay! I think I understand! Well, I mean, I mean like I'm a little vague because I think I might end up doing it—"

"Yeah! Alright! Anything about you! There's tons of Adore knowledge it hasn't been on the pot! I've you've only done it like twice, right?"

"Yeah! I think I've done it twice—three times! I did it once talking about startup school and then once random questions from the internet! Yeah! Right! Yeah, I probably should do more podcasts or writing or something! Yeah, if you want! So what—what's your like, what attracts you as an idea right now or like a market?"

"I don't know! That's a question! There are a bunch of things! I think anything related to making life in a city better! Anything from starting new cities to just mobility and housing and stuff like that I'm interested in!"

"So we're funding more of those things at YC! It's cool! I'm very—on the other polar opposite! So it’s kind of ironic! I'm also interested in this is remote collaboration and remote work stuff! Yeah! And trying to figure out what are the tools that can help kind of replicate the—you know, I think a lot of like Slack and video and stuff like that, like that’s all well and good! But the thing that you—you still won't get is the serendipitous nature of living in a city, and is that possible when you're not you know actually physically together? And I think if we can get—if we built something that get there, then, you know, maybe cities aren't as needed! But, yep! Anyway, that would—that would go in the face of 2,000 years of, you know, of why cities are great! Why it spurs innovation! And if an alien showed up, it would be, oh, humans build these things—that's like our one goal! Yeah! So those are two topics to come on! I'm started looking to brain computers and stuff like that!"

"Oh! You're a link type stuff! Yeah! Yeah! Stuff like that! Really! But but yeah, I'm just—I'm just starting! Is there anything cool happening right now? Like anything working?"

"I'm such a—I'm a beginner! Totally new! How—yeah! Oh yeah! But what else? Yeah! And then a lot of stuff in emerging markets! There's just a lot of good engineers that are start—like good engineering talent that's popping up! And not like obviously India and China are the obvious ones! But places like Jakarta—we have a company in Iraq this batch and so they're just building a lot of basic—I mean it's probably to us in America it's kind of basic in infrastructure stuff! Okay!"

"But I think it's what's gonna spur innovation and inspire a lot of these places! Was that—yeah! I mean I think it's cool! Like obviously there’s a lot of arbitrage stuff people can do with so much engineering talent! But like, would you build Homejoy in Iraq? Like would you be excited to do a thing again if you—?"

"I don't think that would work there! But yeah, I've pretty much decided— I don’t think I want to work—like the next company I build is not going to be in the O2O space, like heavy operations, it's like—it's gonna be more in software and stuff like that! Yeah! But—but I don't know, it depends! Like I want to work on a really good problem though first and foremost, and how I go about solving it—it’s whatever! So it ends up being that, then it ends up being that! So when, why doesn't first go to that?"

"And also I think it requires local talent to get that stuff right! And so I'm more interested in the position I'm now, which is helping them—yeah! Do you think like start things and think about how to go about, you know, setting up operations and how to think about metrics and stuff like that and getting off the ground? Yeah! But yeah! So I prefer to work on that level in emerging markets! But it's fascinating to me! So what do you like when is an opportunity gonna be good enough for you to feel that it's right?"

"I think what is it—I mean, I think on two levels! One is people you work with and so finding the right team to work with again and then to the problem again! It's something that where I don't get distracted from! So it has to be really compelling to me! Right? Like if I can come up with this while I'm at YC, that'd be amazing because I get distracted very often! Yeah! With new cool ideas! Yeah! And so yeah, I think those are two!"

"Okay for me? Yeah! I want for you a lot of things! Yeah! I'm just like I'm not gonna go full like Luke Iseman and like screaming you should quit your job! But it's—it's always the thing like it's something I care about! Yes! So yeah, alright! Well, that has been a fun long podcast! Thank you very much! Thank you for doing this! And I hope others have learned okay! Thanks! Alright!"