Welcome to the Rad Dead Show today. My guest on the show is Parker Thompson, an engineer, an EVC who's really famous in Silicon Valley for his anonymous profile of startup Al Jackson. A profile under which, for years, Parker fascinated and enlightened the world with his sarcastic and outspoken truce about Silicon Valley.

Welcome, partner. Thanks for having me.

S O U R on awesome dead living in San Francisco. Having sort of a hard job VC working 24 7 Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you get to this point?

Yeah, I guess background lies. Um, I came to the valley in 2000 and two, kind of in the wake of the dot com crash, had just graduated college and ended up at Berkeley studying intellectual property law, copyright building, file sharing networks out of the information school there. And I guess what I was really interested in was this weird world in which you know, Children. We're getting sued by giant corporations, and that was absolutely Napster and kind of the whole deal. So I spent a couple of years they're working on that made the very good choice not to become a lawyer and when and decided to write a much code for the Internet archive. So I went over to the Internet archive, spent a bit of time they're in building out Web crawlers and large scale kind of what you now called big data storage stuff on DSO. That was an interesting experience. Started a social local mobile start up a bit too soon,

as happens. And so the CTO of that company and my big valuable lesson was I was just a terrible, terrible CTO right. It was an okay engineer, not as good of a manager and someone to make a team productive. And so I found this company pivotal that knew that stuff well and ended up spinning quite a few years there, on I sort of think about is my formative Silicon Valley career years, right? Like learning how to be an engineer and then ultimately learning how Thio build the company and how you take a company from a couple people in a room through a meaningful acquisition and integration with a major corporation. We sold the emcee in 2012 and then I got an offer to be a VC about a year later on ended up jumping over to do that. So spent the last five or so years in the venture space helping, not doing. And that's been quite a learning experience and quite quite valuable for me. It's been fun. So that brings me to where I'm at today. And now,

you know, I spend my time trying to help companies trying to find companies heckling about these things on the inner Internet. Andi, you know, keeping busy.

So, out of all these jobs, what was your favorite?

You know, I guess I don't. I love what I'm doing now. I don't really think about it that way. I mean, I think these were all these were all great jobs and experiences at the times that I took them right. I've been very fortunate. Thio, for example, I think about it is like, you know, when you're 18 you're like, all right, I'm gonna plot out this career path, and I'm gonna write a resume, and I'm gonna do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and at least in my experience, and I think it's probably more of a general saying you know,

the reality is life sort of happens to you, right? Like so you know, I met these Internet archive people through, ah, professor that I was working with. And then I started a company with some people I'd met in grad school. And then I found these pivotal folks because, you know, I had this real problem and, you know, a guy that worked for me, it was like, Oh, I know, you know,

I was reading books and someone was like, You should just talk to these guys. They know what they're doing, you know? So along the way I mean, I think these things have sort of happened to me these opportunities that presented themselves and they've all been, you know, wonderful for where I was at and where I wanted to go. And, you know, for example, with a pivotal, pivotal experience. I mean, in many ways, these are the best people that I ever worked with.

But when I left just a great time for me to leave. I mean, I had this opportunity to go into venture toe, learn a bunch of new stuff. I was running business development and sales of the time instead of pivotal. And we got bought by, you know, one of the sales teams on the planet, right? It's sort of like Okay, well, I shouldn't be your boss. And I'm not sure where I make a big dent in this thing going forward. So it's been awesome. But, you know,

here's the next thing. So I guess I just don't sort of think about it in terms of like, Oh, that was the best. And only if I could go back there, right? It's, you know, hopefully we're all growing as we go. And so what's the best for us now? Changes come along. Answer your question. I would struggle with that. What's your favorite album?

I don't know. You know, I know it sounds perfect than it sounds like you just picked the next opportunity. Did you give it a lot of thought when you picked every next opportunity or kind of just take what seems good and roll with it until you find the next thing that's more interesting at the time? Um,

yeah, I think you have to give it a lot of thought to make a, you know, change anything when you're going to jump to a new job, a new career. I mean, I think you've got to think about it seriously, right? Like when I went in to venture, I didn't really understand the job Super well, but I understood the basics and I thought really hard about it. You know, when I looked at where I was and what I could accomplish with the pivotal path, like staying there and I mean, they're doing amazing things that would have been like I walked away from something grain, right? Like they've spent the last five years building a company that's gonna go public in a meaningful way.

A. So I'm really excited for all those folks. That would have been a great path forward. I'm sure there's a you know, another one I made you know didn't specifically consider. But outside of venture, that could have been great. I mean, it's wonderful to have these options, and you just gotta kind of think seriously about it and take a bet. The worst thing you do is you know, you make a horrible mistake, and you, you know, spend a year of your life learning and go, Go back, go do something else. You know, I

totally resonate with that, right? But a lot of people are at least my parentsgeneration. A lot of kids to plan. Go and figure out what you want. I don't know. Do you still know what you wanna do it like this? Like this? You see, thing is working out really well. But is that the thing? You know, I don't

like this morning, too, You know, I don't know how I'll feel in 20 years, but I don't I'm not tired now, right? Like, this is fun. This is good. I've got a long ways to go. And, you know, I think it's about learning. And really, the great thing about VC is you know, the whole job is about learning, right?

So maybe I'll get bored of it. But, you know, I think the people that I've seen who I don't like V c figured that out pretty quickly and they go back in the operational rules. But I do know what you mean about, you know, parents and planning. I mean, I think you know, I remember when I said I was going to start a startup and my mom was like, couldn't you just stay at your like, your real job until this thing like you know, works,

you know? Well, that's not how it works, Mama. You know, I'll

be okay. And I think it's just a east from my perspective. It's, you know, it it seems generational. Maybe it depends on you know who you were in the older generation. But, you know, for my parents, it was they were definitely 30 years at a career and a pension kind of people. So this whole thing seems crazy. Speaking

of the quick question on start ups, because I've seen a CNBC say that in the old days people would actually work 9 to 5 and then go home, and then they do. They started for a while. I think the example was delicious. The bookmarking sites founders were full time employees until they basically wanted this thing. It was blue out of the water, but you'll actually left to do start up. Do you think there's one way or you can actually manage this job started thing?

I mean, I think there's very obviously many ways, you know, some people can't afford to leave their job. In my case, I was just I mean, I was just stupid. I was like, Oh, we're gonna like I've got enough money to build, you know, for a couple months and like them will raise the money and we'll be okay. And it didn't quite work out that way. But, you know, I think there's different ways to do it. I think optimum Lee,

you know, your full time. But I think it just depends on it. Really depends on your circumstances in the market. You know, sometimes a startup doesn't have 15 competitors. I think if you've got 15 competitors and they're all full time and you're not, you know, usually you're gonna lose that one. But, you know, if you got a state, your job and work nights and weekends, I mean, I see a lot of people do that, and they get to a point where you know,

they've got a viable product and they can raise a 1,000,000 bucks, and that's enough for them and their co founders to quit their jobs and do it. That's great, too. I mean, I think the ones that air the ones that I see that seem to not work out are the ones where somebody's like, Well, I'm just going to stay at my job until, like, Aiken, convince somebody to give me money, you know, versus saying like him to stay at my job and build this thing to a point where it's really valuable enough that I can raise money and then I'm gonna go all in on it. And it sze maybe that mentality shift of like there's some people who think they want to work for V. C's, and I don't think that

works out very well, right? So the key different fate is that you've got to kind of have a goal where you want to get your company, too. And even if you have to mean any job, yeah, even talking to the sea becomes a lot easier, because then you know that the founders ready for something as well.

I think it's the mentality that money is just a tool, right, And you're like, Okay, I need this tool. But I'm trying to accomplish this goal, and the goal is the thing as opposed to stressing out about, you know, having a regular salary and, like, you know, saving for your retirement or whatever it is right, Like you're gonna go start a company. Money is just a tool to get you there, and and I don't know that you have to do crazy things like, you know, you probably shouldn't put all this stuff on your credit card. I know a lot of people do, but you know, the people who tend to be successful and make money out of their startups I think that the people who look at money is a tool, and that makes them a little bit more comfortable with taking a risk and using that tool to help them get

to their objectives. That's excellent advice. And, you know, from the perspective of your mom, it's probably worth out.

I you know, I think she would say that I am, you know, successful. I don't think she worries about me that much anymore. But you know, I think she likes the person that I'm married and she's happy that I gave her several grandchildren and we seem to be sort of like functional adults. So I think she was more, you know, more worried when I was, you know, 23 quitting my poorly paying nonprofit job, which she was super happy with to go do something that seemed a little bit more speculative. And it's like, Well, you're 23 kids. You should get on that career track,

you know? And that's just, you know, kind of where she came from. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully she say good things if you ask her.

Actually, where were you guys in life where you had your

first kid? We were 30. So we got married at 27. And we've been, you know, we met in grad school, so we've been dating for a few years. And before we got married, I had a few years of marriage before we had our first kid. So now I just turned 39. So I've got an eight year old of five year old and a seven month old. So we're stocking up on kids and seemed to be doing okay.

Well, might as well keep going at this

point. That would that would be my wife's opinion as well. We'll see. We'll see. One

of the time, you know. So what's it like to raise kids in San Francisco?

I live in the East Bay. We live in a town called Alameda, which is just a wonderful place. It's a little bit detached from the whole San Francisco craziness, I think and really think anything. I appreciate that, right? Like we live in a place where, like, I think I know one other guy who's a venture capitalist who lives in Alameda in You know, there's lots of people who live here, right, but not actually most of the people here. So it's nice to interact with a bunch of humans where you actually can't talk about, you know, tech in a like a, you know,

work sense. And, like the playground conversations are not about, you know, deal terms. You know, I goto kids birthday parties in San Francisco, and it's like deals are getting done like Oh my God, this, you know, let's just, like, hang out with our kids. So, um, I think it says you might imagine.

I mean, I think the defining characteristics for me are, you know, this is a region where it's incredibly expensive, right? The cost of living is incredibly high, and that's, I think, obviously driven by tech. So that creates dynamics, where you see you know, your friends from the preschool going like I like that. Are we gonna move to Denver? Are we gonna move into the hood in Oakland? Like, how are we gonna kind of make this work right?

Like, you see, You know, you see folks struggling with that, So I mean, that's something that we're a little bit personally insulated from, but it's It's a, you know, defining characteristic of the community in which we live. So I mean, I think that you know, e I know you're in Seattle. I think that's a little bit easier to deal with their. I mean, Seattle seems to be doing a little bit better of a job on some of those things, but I imagine you get some of that as well,

a sort of the backdrop for you know how you're raising your kids and what they're experiencing. But it's not like San Francisco, where I think San Francisco is incredibly segregated, right? Like it's this place where there's this absolute wealth. And then there's this absolute poverty and sort of like you walked by homeless people on the street. But actually, the only people your Children interact with are millionaires and the Children of millionaires, right think moving to the East Bay, That's a little bit, you know, it's a little bit more compressed, right? Like there are actually, like, you know,

a dollar and working class folks that are in our kid's classroom, and it's a little bit more diverse, so we don't have that sort of the extreme wealth of the extreme poverty. And that's, you know, in many ways I think better, right? Like you don't necessarily want to run from that poverty. But I think, like, you know, San Francisco create some hard choices for families, right? Like you're like, Well, do I want my kids in a diverse public school were like The low end is really low because,

you know, folks are really those kids are coming at it a little baseline? Or do we want to put my kids in a private school where everybody's got private jets right? And like so it's nice to be here where it's sort of like all right, I can have a reasonably divers public school system and my kid can sort of see a range of people and have a good education, and, you know, you're trying to get you sort of have it. All right. So we do

the best we can. It's actually hard to believe that normal people still exist.

Yeah, for now, you know, like it is nice to sort of. You know, the parent in your kid's classroom went to the same school, and he's a police officer in Oakland or something, right? You're like, Okay, like, you kind of make it work, right? We'll see. I suspect that's going to be less true in, you know, 10 or 15 years,

because I don't think the Bay Area we could talk all day long about, you know, sort of the economics of the Bay Area and where it's going. But it's a least, you know, people are hanging on today. They're making it work.

Actually, you mentioned about moving to Denver just the other day. I was listening. Thio Combinator podcast with this guy called Mr Mining Mustache. You're familiar?

I'm not. Sounds

awesome. It actually does. He apparently retired with us 30 But instead of retiring like a lot of us want to retire, you know, you're like, millions of dollars in the bank. And because this and that they just got a couple investment properties and basically just lived on the very somewhere in Colorado, in fact, that he, like, rides a bicycle to work great bicycle to grocery store. And I mean, if you compare yourself to building, there's in San Francisco, then that's you, like is good as homeless. Yeah,

but in the great scheme of things, you know, he works for, like, what he said four or five hours a day, and he's got the rest of the day to spend with the kids. So in the way, it's a pretty nice lifestyle. So maybe maybe we shouldn't fear that my tray like you just it's something you need to accept. And if you're willing to accept that, it actually becomes perfectly fine life,

Yeah. I mean, I think you got to figure out what you want, right? I mean, I think the get addicted to wealth and you can get addicted to a paycheck and you can certainly live, you know, requiring more money or less money. I mean, there's something I appreciate about, you know, my colleague nerve all at Angel lists, right? Like there's a guy who could live quite opulently but actually lives very, you know, Spartan life and he just does it intentionally, right?

He's living deliberately. I think the you know, the flip side of that those if you really want to be great at work, right? If you if work gives you meaning on, I think that's a good thing, man. I feel bad for people who work to live. You know, it's very hard to be great at anything kind of half ass ing it, you know, doing four hours a day. And so I think that's kind of a struggle, right? My wife and I talk about this because we like more time with our kids. You know,

she's an executive at a large financial company. You know, I do investing and, you know, we work hard and we get home at six and we have a little bit of time with our kids, you know, it's like she could tell him it's six and gets the kids. She leaves really early in the morning, and I dropped him off and kind of like we spent a lot of time on work and she's got a massive team to manage. And you know, for her to sort of say like all right, I'm gonna you know, go five hours a day. You know, for me to do that would be to choose a very different career path, right?

We couldn't be doing what we're doing. And so I think that's why personally, I don't like the, you know, I don't like the term or the frame of work life balance. I just prefer to sort of think about it is all life and say Look like these are my priorities, right? Like my Children are priority. My job is a priority and want to be great at these things. I certainly have to figure out how to do them all well, to sort of make the pieces fit. But I don't know that that's about work, life balance. It's like work should in my mind be part of life. So if you want to go five hours a week and you could be happy, you know,

doing the kind of job that's going to allow Great. I don't know how to do that. So I'm not trying to do that, You know, I'm gonna, like retire. I sort of the irony of it, right. As you retire around, maybe when your kids are you know, graduating high school or college or whatever, or not. I mean, I hope to never retire, but yeah, in an ideal world,

you'd spend much time with your kids now and they need to work hard after they leave the house. I just don't think, you know, that's realistic for certain careers. And so, you know, you kind of got to make that choice

right. And what you're doing is you're setting expectations for yourself and you got a working towards them. And as long as you're comfortable and happy doing that right, that that all that matters in a sense, And

I think you can kind of, you know, you can look at your kids and kind of go like, Hey, do have a good relationship, you know? Is this good? Do my kids like me and my spending enough quality time with them on? And, you know, hopefully you're self aware enough to understand. And it's not in my mind about, you know, being there to pick him up from school. It's about the quality of time and whether you're there for the writing

stuff and all that. So, giving the timing of the interview actually curious. You obviously heard of Mike Morris See from Square writing an article, he allegedly basically said that a lot of US employees are pretty lazy and comparing to China. And, you know, in China people work all day long and spend 20 minutes a day with their kid and like, that's how you get ahead. And he's worried about us in general because we're so lazy all the time as a parent who works all the time. You know what, So what's your take on that? I mean,

I read the anecdotes. It's not how I work, you know, like I'm not seven days a week, 12 hours a day working. I just don't I mean, I don't find that to be useful there, you know, like there days where I spend half the day. You know, Saturday I spent most of the morning working and, you know, I, like, rushed out of the house to get to a soccer game. You know, it's like I got to get out and get to this thing s Oh,

you know, I think you do have to work hard to build a company. I mean, that's just a generic statement, right? like you can't You're not gonna do it. 9 to 5. But I think, actually, you know, people who were really gonna do it are just not going to choose to work 9 to 5. You're gonna figure out how to make it work, right? Like maybe for you. It's, you know,

turning off on Sundays. And that's your day with the kids. Or like for me, it's a lot of, you know, I get the kids to bed because turns out, kids go to bed by eight o'clock and then you're like, all right, like if I need to get back online and do you know some work? You know, you just get back on line and do it and that that's sustainable for me. And so I think about, you know, short term and long term sustainability. I don't think that's necessarily 9 to 5, but like,

you know, in the early days of a startup, it's probably significantly more than 9 to 5. And once you hit product market fit in, you're scaling. It's probably still not 9 to 5, but, you know, it's also not, you know, seven twelves. So you know, I mean, I think the directional correctness of what he's saying is, you know, you got all these things and if you think that you know you're gonna win just because you're Silicon Valley,

be aware that there are. You know, there are places where people are very hungry and very smart, So I mean, I think a good reading of what he said I just didn't sort of take the concept and ignore the concrete examples and exactly what he said right. It's helpful for us to keep in mind that there are other people out there that are hungry and working hard, and that the world is is flatter than it used to be in full, smart people. And I put think particularly China is astounding place, and we should be. We should be, you know, looking toe what we can learn from them and not thinking of them, as you know, a crappy, you know,

emerging ecosystem that maybe one day we'll be as good as us, right? Like these people are better than that said a lot of things and you're already seeing actually, models reported here, right? If you have lime bike here in Alameda, where one of the first. I think you guys do too, right? We've got him, Toso, these the two places

that running. I mean, this was

an idea that was pioneered in China, right? Trying to figure this out first. And now the U. S is sort of saying, Let's take their ideas that used to go the other way. So I mean, I think machine learning and a eyes another place where China's out front, like not enough people are paying attention to this, and that's a you know, that's a really constructive conversation to have. I think the other thing that I thought about when I read that article was you know, I see founders come here from Europe, right? I see entrepreneurs come here from Europe. It's really hard to build a startup in Europe, and Europe is a place where,

you know, it's very 9 to 5, and breaking out of that is tough. And, you know, if he had said, Hey, we should just think about whether we wanna be more like Europe, more like China go 1/3 way, you know he would. I mean, if if they were like Europe here, I would go somewhere else, right? So I think it's worth us having a conversation about. You know,

what it really takes to succeed as a start up. And sometimes people don't you know, they want to hear that 9 to 5 is going to do it, and that's just kind of not, you know, not true. But, you know, I also think like, you know, I see plenty of founders who have Children who are quite good and are terrible parents. So I don't think you have to choose between, you know, 20 minutes a day with your child or, like, you know,

is succeeding in a start up, you know, So I don't know. It's just a very hard conversation. I saw the conversation on Twitter. I just don't think you're going to say useful conversation around. He's thinks that, like,

Well, the article itself is polarizing to bring attention to the issue right. But which leads Twitter to be fairly polarizing in the responses as well? But I think you're bringing up a great point that there's our founders air. There was kids for like, normal people, and they managed to do it, so it's not I can't do it. You just have to make a decision.

I mean, I think it's also worth just understanding what this content is, which is just marketing, right? Like it's Sequoia's, a VC firm. They want to work with founders who think they're hard core. They're going to write an article talking about how you should be hard core. I mean, I think this is a lens through which to look at Paul Graham's essay, as many which were just great right? But like, look like at the end of the day, these air businesses, they have customers, their marketing to their customers, and we can all like,

sort of yell about these ideas. But really, what we think is irrelevant because they just are trying to get that next. What's after drop box or whatever. So it's It's also worth just keeping in mind, sort of who the audience is, and it may not be you.

Actually, it's a perfect secretary. Interpol grandmaster, because peachy road, the sesame wants about how, if you are, if you're in college and you think you're doing a start up, you might as well go travel in Thailand first, because if you start a startup, it's a 10 year thing, and you're gonna be really busy. And if you become really successful, like Facebook, where B and B you're actually not gonna be able to just going bomber on Thailand for a while, like ever. Uh, right.

And the state. So at the same time, when we look at kids, wait, try to take the opposite approach. Like you said, like Okay, well, I gotta do work now, and I will spend with my kids when they're in college. When I find out retire. I just find it interesting how, in essence is the same concept. But it's also very polarizing Whether you're applied to yourself or to your family. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I'm not sure what the question is in there, but you have Children if you want, Have Children when you're young. I know some people who have done that. And, you know, I have a good friend who had kids right out of college. His kids were in high school, you know, he's gonna have a lot of time after, you know, after they're out of the house to be an adult. And I'm gonna be Certainly we have more Children, quite old by the time they're all out of the house, and then it works for him. Works for me.

I don't know. Yeah, it's like bumming around in Thailand. That sounds like a horrible. You know, I don't want to spend three months in Thailand. I would get bored, but, you know, people want do that, go

for it. Well, before we dive full into Children, I'm sure some people here I really interested start a little Jackson. Can you Can you just give us a quick summary how that came about and how maybe it influenced you in your life in that period?

Yeah. I mean, I think for me. So for anyone who doesn't know because I don't presume this is an Internet celebrity, I made a fake Twitter account. It was, you know, imagine the persona of Samuel L. Jackson. All oppose fiction, but yelling you know angrily about start ups on the internet. So I made this account when I was a pivotal. And, you know, we were a very sort of like non external, facing non marketing culture. Very,

you know, just focused on doing great work. And, you know, I was interacting with all these companies in the Valley. So that was all my father, right? It was like take a meeting with Google in the morning and Facebook in the afternoon and then tweet about the crazy things. And so, you know, a challenge when you're working with every company and every company you're not. A reworking with his potential customer is it's hard to, you know, you gotta be careful about what you say. And so this was just a way of, you know,

saying things on the Internet that were true and maybe pointed without without making it personal. So not to say that I would meet with Google on Google is stupid. But it's me with Google and then say, Oh, big companies do these silly things without that person from Google, you know, feeling like I was talking about them on the Internet. And, you know, it's not about Google. It's just about this concept that happens to be true. So I started this count, uh, it I kind of took on a life of its own, as these things do. So my intent was not to make something,

you know, giant and thought Leader ish, but I guess that kind of happened, which is kind of silly and crazy on dhe. You know, for me, it was a fun way. Is fun meditation right on what I believe and how startups working away to put ideas into the world. And so I enjoyed it for a few years, and then it got you know, it got big enough that I could say anything even if it was wrong and stupid. And people would sort of take it as gospel, which is, I think, the curse of thought leaders. And that was kind of when I knew it was time to be done with it.

So So I stopped. Did anyone help you to grow it at the beginning? You know, it's a It's a good question, And I started it with a friend of mine, a guy named Roger Neil, who is the co founder of a company called Maven Link that you've never heard of. It's a very successful company, probably valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Now they make very boring enterprise project management software. So Roger was client of mine. Uh, kind of the way it came about was a friend of mine, Eric Reese was writing the lean startup book, and, you know,

he tweeted something to defective. I'm I'm recording the audio version. I said I e at the time Samuel Jackson just recorded that. Go. They have to sleep book that I'm gonna wait for, you know, that recording and that. So that was the genesis of the idea. And so I think probably in the 1st 100 tweets. Half of them were Roger. And half of them were me. But he was very busy, you know, starting his company. And it just sort of became more my project. And he would pop in every once in a while,

probably still has the credentials and would pop it in every once in a while and shoot out a tweet S o. You know, shout out to Roger, who was my early collaborator who gets no credit. He's like the Pete best of the Pete. Best of the start of L. Jackson. If there's any, you know, old school Beatles dorks out there, so thank you, Roger.

Did that have any impact on your life of the time, did you? Surety of kids?

Boy, You know I shouldn't know this. I don't I don't remember if I had. I don't remember if I had my first kid. When I when I started that I suppose I probably did. I suppose I probably did. At that point, it probably had one s Oh, yeah. I don't know that It I don't know exactly how to, you know, talk about the influence there. But obviously, you know, kids are a big part of your life, so they kind of influence every aspect.

But I mean, from what I've heard, it was a very well kept open secret in the valley. So there were quite a few people who knew who you were who started Bill Jackson was right. But yeah, dozens. Yeah. I just can't imagine you walking through San Francisco where you occasionally or all the time bumping to your friends and then some of them to some of them You just you into some You this other character? Yeah. And while I

think it was, you know, the character was pretty thin, you know, is basically me, right? So I think people who knew me the joke of it Waas, this is obviously you. And, you know, for people who didn't know me. It was like, who? How can Mark Andrews and be this way or whatever, right? That was the joke of it. And that was, I think I think that was what was funny about it to everybody who actually was in on the joke, right? It's like, this is obviously you and it's silly that this is a secret.

Have you ever tried to play that? I count? Like whenever people say, Oh, Mark Andriessen must be behind this accountant thing? You would actually kind of pointed in his direction to see where the crowd takes that I

don't know. I mean, you know, I consider it, you know, it's a friend of mine had a friend of mine years ago, had this mailing list that was very large, and he described it as being like a lizard. He could poke and it would do stuff right. It's sort of like I think that's right. When you've got this big living thing, you can, like, push content out or do things that air. You know, like you have a meeting with somebody and then you tweet about them later on, and they're kind of perplexed or whatever.

In a in a friendly or, you know, a friendly sort of way, right, A kind spirited sort of way. So I guess I would like describe that is like playing with the account. But, you know, you just do fun things with it. But I don't know beyond that had, you know, give you concrete examples. Did you miss it? No, you know, is it was it was good for the time,

and it was actually felt really good giving it up. There's a lot of work, you know. It's actually having a lot of followers is kind of a pain in the butt, you know, like you've got 100,000 followers on Twitter people, you know, people have a lot of opinions. There's a lot of, you know, you really get the value out of the 1000 that you care about, right? Or the 5000 you care about everybody else. It's more like you're doing it in the round, and that's a lot of work. So I very much appreciate not, you know, not having the mass audience personally. I'd rather just have that conversation with a smaller number of people.

Interesting, because I think a lot of people into it or aspire to get more followers. Yeah, but I

think it depends what your goals are, right? Like I mean, I think the power of this thing was that there really were only likely 1001 100,000 followers. Just isn't that many people if you're going for a mass market audience, right? But if your goal is actually have a conversation within silicon value of the broader tech community, in my opinion, there's probably only, you know, 3 to 5000 people that really matter that are really at the level where you're like I can learn a lot from you. I want to engage with you. I'd like you to engage with my ideas. And so if you can throw away the other 190 95,000 and just keep that five, that's actually better for you, right? Because you're reaching 100% of the audience that you care about.

I think that's actually you know, you congenital eyes that as a marketer, right, like the audience is a vanity metric. You've got to really reach the right people, and you really value you get much more value out of deep relationships with the right audience than shallow relationships with a broader set of people who really don't matter that much in terms of your goals. So, yeah, but I'm much happier. Just tweeting is me now and, you know, fewer retweets and that's fine. You know. Who cares? Well,

you use yourself was pretty witty. Thio. Well, yeah,

it's the same thing. It's the same content. Except now you know, the peanut gallery doesn't care. That's fine.

That's great. And maybe it's a little bit toned down because now you can just shout from No,

I don't think it is. Actually, that's I think people say that. I think I don't think about it that way. I it's just I just don't There's just not enough time in the data sort of light. You know, there's not enough time in the day to sort of think about you know who's gonna feel. What about your thing? I mean, I think like my goal was always to avoid being mean spirited and mean, and these sorts of things that still is, you know, But it's not like I was just a jerk over here, and now I can't be a jerk anymore. It's like, you know, like I feel like I can say exactly the same thing.

So, yeah, it's just when you see a picture of Samuel L. Jackson with the pulp fiction thing, you just read it that way, right? And that's that's kind of the polarity of it.

So start ups and kids have a lot of incoming When you when you start up is boring. Everybody wants to give you advice. And then kind of similar thing happened with kids, your parent's friends, the Internet. It's full of advice. How do you manage that?

I mean, I'll tell you what the two pieces of advice that I give two new parents, like somebody says, I'm gonna have a kid. I give them two pieces of advice. One is meta. It's like whenever somebody gives you advice, they're giving you a universal piece of truth there, telling you about themselves and their context is very likely to be different than your context. Their child is very likely to be different from your child because from my perspective, it's roulette, right? You get what you get on DSO. You know, always looking advice through that lens. You don't have to ignore it. But look at it through the lens of this is about them,

not you. And the other piece of advice that I give to people is ah, keep in mind whenever you're feeling bad about yourself that we live in the best time in human history to have Children, right? Like you look at the data. Infant mortality rates are the lowest in history. You've got the internet, you've got 24 7 doctors. You've got antibiotics, disposable diapers, Amazon prime like we have a lot going for us right on dso You know, I think it's easy, particularly with the 1st 1 You're like, Oh, my God, this is so hard.

And I'm not sleeping and, like, you know, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, right. It's helpful to sort of let go like Well, actually, it could be 18 50 on Dhe. I could have to have six kids just to get 1 to 18 and you know, not have electricity and running water and all the shit. So those are my two pieces of advice I give to every new parent, and I guess in terms of how I take advice,

you know, I try to look at it through that same lens, right? Which is like a little bit like a startup, right? It's like you have a problem. Go ask for smart people, not one, and then synthesize that advice and try to apply it to your situation. But ultimately you gotta figure out what makes sense for your baby being a startup or a human.

That's excellent advice. And you mentioned that you kids might be different from other people's kids. But you have three kids. Are they all the same or are they different within themselves?

Oh, I mean, I think they're very different, you know, the 3rd 1 You know, he's like the baby. He doesn't cry super happy. We'll see how that turns into, you know, personality traits as he gets older. But I've just never seen such a smiley, happy baby, and maybe that will turn into a very gregarious adult. Our middle one is what it wasn't quite that extreme as a kid, but she's like, you know, way joke.

She's the one we're gonna have to bail out of jail one day, you know, like very mischievous. Doesn't listen, goes their own way. Super extroverted. Very much the Alfa in her little preschool, like to the extreme, like the Pied Pipers won. And my wife and I are, by the way, not just not that way at all. Right? So we're like, Where did this come from? You know,

our first kid is much more like me. I think she's like, super serious. But whether you know, goofy, she's got a goofy thing. But like very serious nose in a book, A little bit more quiet, little bit more, you know, like, Oh, we've gotta look, engineer. The play dates to help you, you know,

make friends and, like, you know, help you with that stuff because that's not, you know, your default skills. Sad s o. You know? Yeah, You've got these different kids where one you're like, all right. Our parenting job with you is Thio, you know, help you develop social skills, and you're gonna be great at all this, you know,

academic stuff. And so on, so forth. And the other one where you're, like, great, you know, our job with you is to, like, figure out how to get youto obey enough of the rules, you know, make it through college. or whatever. So, yeah, you know,

you get what you get and my sort of my philosophy with it is like there's a research on this, right? You look at the research that and some of it says like you don't really have any control over your Children, right? Yet you have no influence half of his jeans and half of it is, you know, their environment, their Children or their peers like Okay, well, like let's kind of, like start there and like, except that these kids are who they are and then try to go with it. A supposed to fight is, I guess, something I try to keep in mind because I think it's very easy is apparent to just be like, Let me make you like me or let me make you like I want you to be. And I don't think that's constructive. Maybe also good advice for a VC Visa VI have found her right. It's like go with who they are supposed to trying to make them you

or what you want them to be. So went there so different than you're so busy. How do you find time to actually, because it sounds like you plan for your kids individually or would have to give in who they are. How can you organize a lot, you know, give them the best where they are right now and for different ages as well. I

mean, I don't think it's like I just kind of a problem with the concept of finding time, you know, like it There is only so much time, right? And what you're really doing is, you know, allocating your time towards these things. And so, you know, I mean, my wife. First of all, there's a lot of management of, you know, the schedule and about the stuff because she's just, like,

really oriented. Or she's a planet, right? Great. You want to own that? I could, you know, advise this process. And so we talk about it. We try to figure out you know what, You know what's gonna be constructive for them, and you can't do everything right. Like sometimes it's about saying like, that's not a priority. So there was like a camp. There's couple camps this summer.

We're just not doing because, you know, making them work with our schedules just doesn't work. So it be great if you know we could do this thing that our older daughter wants to do. We can't make it work right. But we could make other things work. And so I think it's about, you know, you. You take the hours in the day and you try to slice them up. And I think it's like for me, a lot of it is thinking about, you know, parents all teamwork, right? So my wife will go in really related the office,

and, you know, I'll come home a little bit later and take the kids and little bit later. So it's hard for me to d'oh calls before eight in the morning or meetings before nine in the city. And that's just like I just you know, that's how I make it worked at some time with my kids in the morning and get my wife off to work early. It's hard for her to do meetings after five because she's coming home to get the kids. But you know, that works for her because she's got a, you know, teams on the East Coast. And so you know, we do that and then we make you know we work around her travel schedule in my travel schedule and, you know, you just kind of you slice up the time to try to make a much of it work as possible. And,

you know, for us I mean, I think it's Ah, it's hopeful that we could actually afford toe have some help, right? So we have someone who comes and helps and like we make piano and French class and swimming and all these extracurricular things work by having someone who spends a couple hours after school. You know, driving our kids around is needed because we're not there to do it. And that's great. Like she's just great, right? I don't consider that outsourcing my parenting. I just consider that giving my kids some thing that they, you know, giving them more options and giving them more things that they can d'oh that I couldn't do if I were, you know,

trying to, you know, just work and, you know, have them in day care. Whatever

makes sense. I'm sure they get the best of it doing all these activities. Just bored sitting, watching TV on the couch.

Oh, my God, that's terrible. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I think sort of think about it is like, you know, I want my kids to certain when I think about the things that I'm optimizing for right creativity, critical thinking and empathy, right? Like is the skills of the future. And so, like, you know,

if they want to do a bunch of activities and be exposed like my daughter did, a woodworking class is like, awesome. Go build things right. And she does piano, which is kind of the one thing I'm militant about because, you know, no one made me do it, and I suck it, you know, I suck it music, and I'm a little bit better about it s o, you know, a cz. Long as she's engaged in that and she likes her French class and she, you know,

like the stuff she's doing. I think you can over schedule your kids, but I think as long as they're, you know, getting energy out of these things, I think they're feeding into those objectives, right. It's like, let's just expose you to a bunch of stuff that that, actually, you know, stretches your mind in different ways, and hopefully you come out, Okay. The other side.

So critical thinking and empathy. How do you personally his appearance? Amplify that. Or maybe a better question is what's your long term vision to set your kids up for success and give him space and time to develop?

Yeah, I feel like empathy is a little bit easier right there, just like let's spend a lot of time talking about how other people feel right and what they're thinking and try to get them into that head space where they are able to imagine how other how their actions affect other people so that when I feel like is easier, you just got to do it. I think creativity to me is harder, right? It's like, How do you teach someone to be creative? It's not obvious on I'm not an expert on child development, so we'll see. But I think for me it's about trying to figure out what their interests are and, um, create opportunities for them. Thio explore those interests in ways that, you know, teach something so, like yesterday,

you know, I took my daughter to the store and it was just my older daughter, and it was her and I, And she was like, Why does Safeway cell gas? You know, I've been trying to get her to think about starting a business like which, you know, trying to get her to, like, start a chicken business where I can invest in her chicken business and we do the whole thing. But she doesn't seem interested in that yet, and that's okay. I'm not pushing it. But why does the world work this way? And we have this great conversation about,

you know? Well, you know, Safeway has terrible margins in their business and, like they sell gas to get you to come in and they're just like, Oh, she has this little video game she plays on the phone every once in a while. That's about pizzas and, oh, yeah, I get to set the prices on my pizzas. And so we're like having this conversation about, like, unit economics and business and supply and demand and how you know, grocery stores or hyper competitive. And,

you know, like hopefully that just makes the wheels spent a little bit and the most set it aside. And it was great when your kids were asking questions, and it's just sort of, like, find whatever they're interested in and try to explore that with them, you know? So that's how I approach it. At least maybe there's a better way.

And this was your eight year old, right? Yeah. Surprised. Yeah, Yeah, it's awesome because, like you say, you don't have to spend a lot of time with her. But just this little experience that basically teaches math, economics and a whole bunch of other things, and now she can go and process it all on her own. You don't have to be there to observe and kind of hold her hand that she's

doing. Yeah, I think books are really good for this is Well, you know, I think backside books are underrated as a way to teach empathy, right? Like if you're reading books about people who are not like you or even people who are like you, you just think a lot And you're actually living in those people's heads. So that's great. And then you're learning all these things about the world. Eso you know, Fortunately, we've gotten the older one to be, you know, nose in a book as much as possible. Um, so you know,

have tricked her into thinking It's like she's getting away with something. If I let her, like, stay up and read instead of making to making your turn out the light. And so you know, great. Read whatever you want to read. I'll buy you as many books as you want. Um, anything. Those kinds of things were good, and we'll see how long that lasts. But it seems to be good for now. And so, you know, I think you get at least the creativity and the empathy out of that.

And then you know the critical thinking stuff like, I'm someone ambivalent about things like, you know, teaching these kids to code at this age, you know, because I think like putting their face and a computer when they want to put their foot face in a book. I feel like is maybe not the best thing. But, you know, eventually we'll get to those things, right. Well, like she seems to be developing a deep interest in science. So that's awesome. If I can find, you know,

extracurricular science classes or camps for her, I think we're doing one of those summer, so, you know, we'll get into the science stuff. I bought her a microscope for Christmas. You know, you find little, a little bit of default there. Time to things that are pointed in directions. You think they're valuable and hope for the best.

Ah, I mean, I find it amazing that you're giving them so many different choices, right? And, uh, but I guess that's what you always have to do is a busy that you gotta think in advance and final those things they can do. And this is how you get the vestibules worlds where you're learning in Oregon.

She's learning. Yeah. Although I would say I do think actually to too many things is often not good. So, I mean, I guess something I struggle with his parent. Maybe you do as well. It was like, you know, 5000 presents under the Christmas tree because all the relatives love the kids so much, right? You're like, OK, well, you know, I don't need 5000 toys. What I need is five really great toys that are,

you know, they can go deeper with, like, I'd rather have them just playing with Legos, you know, get a Lego set and play with that for 50 hours, you know, versus like play with 50 toys each for one hour and then throw them away because I think that's actually at least the way I think about it, you know, is like I suspect that you know, it's a much more of a workout for your brain when you have to figure out 50 hours worth of fun to have with those Legos, then like one and then you move on to the next away. So I don't know that it's necessarily about more options. And that's something I struggled to control. Was a parent is like, You know how Thio take the good intentions of people who love your Children and channel them into the kinds of structure that you want to see is opposed to sort of letting it happen to you.

Well, two things, actually. I think you're striking a really great point about spending 50 hours in Legos. I remember reading somewhere. It's I think she's a professor in college who is doing like alternative way to teach math to kids. And she's saying that a lot of schools would give home Oregon say OK, do this problem over and over and over again. Well, maybe not one problem, right? But they're easy problems over and over, like a whole work sheep. But for kids, at least, she says, it's an equivalent of taking a spoon and digging a trench.

It's extremely painful, but if you give kids a problem that's deep, where they can discover the answers, they go through it, that's gonna be really invigorating, and they're actually not going to struggle with it at all. So think building for a while is equivalent.

Yeah, I think that's probably right. And I guess the point I was trying to make is like Like, for example, when I buy Legos. I think I buy Legos that air like just the bucket of Legos like a kid because I wanted to sort of be, like, bring your own imagination to this thing. I think we get a lot of Legos that are like, you know, here's the kit and you put it together and you're kind of don and it's like to me, rather actually have that thing that you can build in 100 different ways, and you have to kind of bring your own idea to it. Then you know this the x wing, and you make it and put it on the shelf. And I mean, I see people's houses where they have them.

I'm just like, Oh, my gosh. Like I don't This is the same brand. But this is not the same toy. And the toy that you're buying for your Children is not achieving the objective that I'm trying to achieve with the toy that I'm buying for my Children, even though we're buying it

from the same company, you know, because you're looking for discovery and they're looking for an accomplishment.

I don't even I actually think it's more like I don't think people are thinking very hard about it right there. Not being deliberate. There's the got Legos. Air. Good, right? Like Legos air good for kids. I'm gonna buy some Legos. You know, I'm sort of saying, like, Okay, like, what do I want my Children to be doing? What order my objectives for them interacting with this toy. And, you know,

I don't necessarily expect Grandma to think that way. Right? But it does, you know, create challenge. Was one like the one toy that you gave them a sitting there and it's a bucket of blocks. And they've got, you know, 50 other things that are maybe shiny. Er,

yeah. No, I know this very well. And sometimes we get toys that make noises. You know, you push a button and it makes a noise. And the grandparents, Well, isn't that lovely? It's like, Yeah, like it doesn't achieve anything. You know, it's a monkey can sit there and push a button, but yeah, you called yourself. Wants a reformed Milito militant anti princes. Dad.

Yeah. Um, yeah. Look, I mean, I think one thing I was surprised by when we had Children was like, I sort of maybe touched on it earlier is like, there's so much that's out of your control. Right? So, you know, you're like, I'm not going to do any princesses. I'm gonna have these girls and, you know, I'm gonna give him Legos and blocks, and we're going to do all this other stuff because the princess imagery and,

uh oh, this stuff is just I'm sure you feel this way, right? It's like to me, not the way that I want my daughters to think about the world and then you can eat there like three and one day you realize not even three, maybe younger, right? You just realized that they know all the names of all the Disney princesses, whether they've seen they hadn't seen the movies, right? Like Children, never Washington. They know all the names and all the story, like get it through osmosis Because it turns out that, like the rest of the Children and the rest of the world is all about these things. And so I think,

I guess at some point I gave up and sort of said like All right, like, I can't get rid of the princesses. And then my next thought was like, Well, like, you know, what? If I had nothing but time, what I would do and somebody should do this if you're listening?

I want

a series of books for young girls where it's like the princess is air like lawyers and doctors and successful business people, and sort of it's like, well, your your princess. You just happen to be a princess. Use these other awesome things, right? Like I want a world of princess is where these people are all accomplished, you know, accomplished in their own right that air good role models, because what we have is Disney princesses. And maybe Disney's doing a better job these days. But, I mean, I think what I was trying to say is we had that conversation was I've given up, right? Like if my kids want to be a princess for how wean Fine.

You know, like you can wear the princess dress and you could be the Princess Elsa. But then we can also do all of these other things, right? And I think the big picture for me is that, you know, when they conceive role models around them in the real world, that are, you know, successful women who are, you know, strong and, you know, empowered and whatnot. And they see, hopefully,

you know, their father treating their mother in a way that that I would want other people to treat them and meditate them. Hopefully, you know, the princess thing isn't that big of a deal. So I you know, I just It was just a realization for me at some point where I'm like, all right. Like, I can't control what happens to you when you're outside of my sight, and that's a lot of, Ah, a lot of the world. So let me make the best of it.

One of the last questions. But we had this discussion to order the other day and speaking of losing control, When you send your kids to school or they go on the play date and you're not there, food is kind of an important question. You said you guys send her to school where they're very careful about not eating a lot of sugar. That cast thinks, How do you as a parent, how do you manage that? Because I do the pole and I said, You know, should we bring Cupcakes are peas and carrots and peas and carrots and winning, but by a very small margin right now,

Yeah, I mean, I think issue. First of all, you should just have a talk with your school. Our school said something really smart, which is like they're like, Look, there's 30 kids in the class that's this many birthdays. If if everybody brought sugar, we just eat sugar all the time, and that would be good for nobody. So please don't bring sugar. And so the thing in our kid's class, which I think it's fun is everybody brings little goody bags. And so my wife did the smart thing with our daughter, where she's like,

look like let's go on the Internet and you can decide what yours, A budget. You can decide what you want to put in all these goody bags, and then we'll order them and then you can put them all together and then you can take thes 30 little goody bags would like a little, you know, a little fun toys that you think are fun stickers and pencils and use like punchy balloon things. And so that was a fun activity for her. And I think, you know, good in general. I guess my attitude on my attitude on food in general is like, we really well at home were pretty militant about, like, you're gonna eat your vegetables, every meal, and you're gonna you know,

you're pretty well, like we very well. And so the kids get a little dessert every night and it gives us something to, like, take away or hang. You know, give them is an incentive to do the things we want so a little bit of, you know, teeny little dessert every night is not necessarily a bad thing, you know, like keep it in perspective. And my attitude is like, Look, if you're in some birthday party and there's a bunch of cake Oh, well, you know,

like I tend to think that the things that we do every day matter a lot more than the things that occasionally happen. So, you know, I think if there are parties and there's cake or their you know somebody's house and those people eat terribly and donate vegetables, that's just not their default right there. Default is they've got a plate full of fruits and vegetables every night. So I think my kids were in the 98th percentile in terms of you know how well they're eating. And so I try not to stress about the rest of it, because, I mean, my parents were pretty militant anti sugar people. And I remember thinking as a kid, I'm like, I can't wait until I could make my own decisions. I'm gonna eat sugar at every meal, you know,

I was just like, uh, you know, really, they were extreme, and I just you know, so I backed off a little bit a little bit on that. I don't know if that answers your question. It's helpful. But that's

how I think about it. Doing the super helpful to remember to set defaults that like, Yeah, if you, you know today, you kid, my one cupcakes. But if you keep eating vegetables day in and day out, eventually that becomes the norm.

And I think that's just a good life. That's a good way to think about life, right? Like, Are you eating well? It turns out that if you know by default, you're eating a meal that's half fruits and vegetables, right? Every meal that's your default doesn't really matter what the exceptions to that are. You're probably going to be a pretty healthy person.

That's right. So, you know, before we go, I had a couple of parents reach out. Say, Well, parents to be You're worried about how to find the information about what's gonna happen when they get kids, health, food, toys, all of us. And I mean, some people take it better than others. What's your advice to new and upcoming parents to just take it easy and how to get through life

wins. Yeah, I spent a massive amount of time before we had our first kid reading about the actual process of having a baby. And like what you do with this thing when you take it home, I couldn't feel like that was really time well spent, you know, like the whole like time at the hospital. I felt like I had a really understanding of everything that was gonna happen and all the scenarios. And I think that's good for stress. You know, I don't think that prevents you from, like, you know, going home and being like, really, like you're letting me leave with this thing. I'm not qualified,

but it's good, right? Like it's good. It's good. Have that baseline. I think, you know, And you probably know this at this point, like what you wish you could tell yourself was, you know, it's gonna be okay. Don't worry that much, right? Because, you know, again,

it's like you've got the Internet and Amazon and Google and everything else, right, like the world. And it's not 16 hundreds. Yeah,

it's not the year. Even the 18 hundreds,

right? Like your kid's not gonna die of dysentery. You know, that's a pretty good bar, right? S o. I mean, I don't I think that it's helpful to keep in mind that there's literally only one thing that that is common amongst all your ancestors definition Aly, which is? They managed somehow to get at least one child all the way through to reproductive age, right? Like it's the one thing that none of your ancestors fucked up, right? So maybe you'll be the first, right? It's possible. But, you know, that's that Seems like a like a like a like a Hey, here's

a low bar kind of thing.

But I think that's pretty empowering. Right? And then you kind of like you take it as it comes. You know, you have this kid, and you're like, All right, Well, what are my kids problems? What are my goals for my kid? How do I help them get there? You do the best you can, and you know, we'll see. I don't know. I'm not an expert on this, so don't ask me my kids.

My kids have successfully made it. Thio successfully got 1 to 8 years old, so I'm not, you know, through the race, but I'm encouraged, you know, like I'll give you. Really? Maybe this is a useful anecdote for you. Uh, our school decided to have a Lycan early dismissal day on Friday, and so there was no one there to pick up my child. You know, when you're like, OK,

well, like depending on how you've parented your child and depending on your attitudes, what's gonna happen, right? And I think like my childlike waited for someone to pick her up and no one came. And so she went to the office on her own, and no one was there because she'd waited long enough. She's like, All right, I'm just gonna walk home and see if the neighbors there and the neighbor wasn't there so easily. All right, Well, what's my next plan? I'm gonna walk to the, you know, my after school activity that I go to and hang out there.

And so we like it. Discovered her missing in this period, and she just, like, walked a mile and 1/2 on her own and found the right place and was just, you know, she took it under our own control of Tucker initiative. And I'm like, This is awesome. You know, like my kid. Uh, you know, my kid didn't cry in a corner, right? She went and got it done.

So I don't know that I can't take any credit for that. But, you know, that's like, hopefully, you know, hopefully you, uh you you know, your kids. You figure it out when they have those moments which are, by the way, like, you know, when it's a child Ever go anywhere on their own these days. So I secretly very happy that my sensitive in the last exactly exactly like somebody's gonna get arrested for this, right?

So, you know, I don't know that I have great advice on it, but I think, you know, taking is it taking it as it comes And sort of realizing that you're probably gonna be okay. Like, if you're asking this question and you're listening to a podcast about parenting, probably. You've already won, right? Like your the people who are not gonna

have problems with your Children employ. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the goal. You know, for this podcast, then the website. In general, people to feel comfortable that there are all sorts of dads and families and parents out there and for older kids as well that to hear that people are different than where they are might be similar. Different. Like even listening to you. I hear a lot of similarities with a lot of other guests and a lot of differences, and it's perfectly fine because everybody decides on their own. But at least it's, Ah, it's a piece of data for people to to use to make these decisions, you know,

and stories are awesome. And it sounds like, you know, you won the lottery. Your kids air pretty smart.

That's far. That's far. We got him to eight, and they're not, you know, doing drugs or hanging out with a bad crowd yet. So we'll see about 18. But, you know, that's far doing okay.

I mean, way grew up a long time ago, in a sense, but I was just talking to somebody yesterday and I said, Well, how do you know this person becoming friends? And she goes out. He used to sell weed in middle scrap, so, yeah, you know, apparently so literally. So you get a

Yeah, well, I think about you know, I think they're about? I think Theo influence you can't have. I suspect. Right is I think, in retrospect, about the friends my parents steered me towards, an away from which is certainly control you have early in their life. And, you know, it seems like some of the folks that my parents scared me away from we're not the folks that were a successful is that, you know, the like, the nerds my parents were excited about encouraging me and hang out with. So maybe that's some soft influence you have.

And you know, uh, yeah, maybe the kid who sold weed in, You know, middle school is a bad influence. Or maybe that's an entrepreneur. And those are the folks that you know, go start great company. So

I don't know, he's now. He's now, if you see exactly. Um, so any lust wisdom you want T

o? You know, I don't I don't know that I have. You know, I gave my gave my go to pieces of advice for parents. I don't know that I have much beyond that. I mean, I think you know, like everybody else, I'm trying to figure it out, So I'll leave you with that

here. Here's to figuring it out. Thank you very much for coming on the show. You're absolutely

fabulous. Sex. Maybe we'll have you again in a couple of years. Exactly. We could do the follow up. We'll see. We'll do that. We'll do the post middle school show and see if I give. Kept my kids out of trouble.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the ride, Dad Show If you enjoy this episode, please tell your friends Facebook, Twitter email. Slack wherever you are. Every time you share this podcast with your friends, it helps me to keep going. I hope to see you soon. This has been rad. That show in your host, Carol's Lebowski.