Full Transcript for Marrying young, getting rejected by YC, and getting canceled | SOTA S1E1

Speaker 1

If everybody in your life who you respect and look up to is telling you not to do something, and then you do it anyway, and you are successful, that usually means you are quite a good startup founder. It's part of my business to bet on people like that.

Speaker 2

No one bet on me. College day. I

Speaker 1

think it was a mistake. I think it was a mistake that you didn't get in. You are an incredible founder.

Speaker 2

We got into the first batch of Neo Accelerator. It was this point of like, if you take this money, I think it was like 625K, you have to drop out. And that killed the startup, basically. And we went back to school.

Speaker 1

Do you think that getting married has made you less ambitious?

Speaker 2

I think it has changed my priorities for sure. It has made me less quote unquote ambitious of like, I want to be a founder and I want to dedicate my full life to work. Like there is a sacrifice that you make.

Speaker 1

I do think you either should be single or you should find someone that's like your ride or die.

Speaker 2

Biggest thing getting married got. How do you know there's not a better soulmate out there for

Speaker 1

you? You just have to bet on the person.

Speaker 2

And you bet on on?

Speaker 1

He would say that, you know, he bet on me, but I'm like, yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2

Do you feel like you've Miss out on the freedoms that you could have had. Let's talk about getting canceled.

Speaker 1

Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2

Welcome to the very first episode of Soda Wives. My name is Sarah.

Speaker 1

And I'm Vivian.

Speaker 2

And we're super excited to have you here today.

Speaker 1

So this is Sarah. She is incredible. Sarah and I have known each other since she was at MIT as a college student and a young spring chicken.

and we actually met because she was a content creator at the time. Can I, I can say this bit, right? I

Speaker 2

graduated an unemployed MIT, yeah.

Speaker 1

Graduated unemployed and you cold DM'd me on LinkedIn. Love it. And then we did a little internship together. and you interned at the company that I was running at the time. And I was super impressed with you, even though you were very chaotic that summer. We recorded a bunch of content through New York. you really helped jumpstart the growth of the new product that we were running at the time.

you taught me a lot about content and TikTok in particular and other things that we'll get into. and now, I don't know, you've done a tour of different startups in San Francisco, and then now you lead a team at Cerebrus and do incredible work. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Excited to chat.

Speaker 2

Before I introduce you, I need to make a couple of clarification. Yeah, true. With this story. First, this whole LinkedIn cold DMing thing was a very dark part of my history, which I will say, the only person, Viv is like the only person I've ever done that to. I swear you can look at my LinkedIn history. Vivian When we met, you were an incredible CEO of Acely slash Juni.

Speaker 1

I think

Speaker 2

I admired you a lot that you took a very contrarian pers- like approach to how you ran a company and you did it very successfully. But more recently, you just got promoted.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

And was very quickly identified as star talent and promoted to GP.

Speaker 1

That is very kind of you, but yes.

Speaker 2

You're very humble, but then I hear other visiting YC partners, like at your party, you I feel like are very humble about it, like your whole time at YC and as a partner and you're like, yeah, it's chill and you're like I grind and I take on all these responsibilities and then your friend, I think her name's Hersha.

Speaker 1

Hershoda, yeah. Hersha. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

Hershoda?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

The other YC visiting partner was like, Vivian's crazy. She's like, Vivian went through more YC applications than anyone else.

Speaker 1

I, I did cherry pick her

Speaker 2

children. And obviously the fact that you're promoted so quickly, I think is testament to how good you've done

Speaker 1

at YC. I will say it's, it's really about the founders, but you know, I, I will take, take your, you know, take your compliment for once.

Speaker 2

So before we go into all these fun stories that we have about YC, about SF culture, a big part of, I think, why we bonded was because I think we had a very, we generally have a very similar philosophy in life. I think we agree on most things, but obviously a big part of it is that we both got married very young compared to everyone else. Got married when I was 25, met Tyler because I was living in this startup house in Hays Valley.

He would come and like our home was like a work office for two of my roommates because they were co-founders. They worked out of our office. He would come in all the time. And I think the thing is very much true that It makes such a big difference to get married young because it's before you've ever made it and before any of you have made a name for yourself.

Because at the time I was living in a two by four, I was literally living under the goddamn staircase in this like fake bedroom because I was like,

Speaker 1

it was a

Speaker 2

Harry Potter room. I could, the stairs were physically above my room and it was tiny. But like I had not made it, I was not making as much money, especially compared to what I would have at quant trading. And so what was really helpful though was that right after we started dating, he was founding engineer at this company called Brev. Brev got acquired by Nvidia.

Everyone on their team, it was a very small team, got these huge payouts. And so all of them, you know, the two founders wanted to buy multi-million dollar homes. Tyler had a lot more capital than he had when we first met. His friends who were on the team who were single had a lot more money. It was this whole thing of like, okay, if I start dating someone now, how do I know the intentions are me versus just my money or this acquisition? And it's great knowing that like, you know, we started like, I know your intentions are clean because we started dating before any of this happened.

And now that we're married, it feels like a joint celebration of like what we've accomplished together.

Speaker 1

Before the seed, man. Pre-seed angel investor, before anything happened.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. But you and Andres, same thing. I mean, when you first met.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I, I just, I, I think you can't buy that. And you unfortunately can't, I mean, you, you can't go back in time and change that either about Your time. So I, I do think you either should be single or you should find someone that's like your ride or die in that era.

Speaker 2

Do you feel like, okay, biggest thing getting married young, how do you know who's the right one? How do you know there's not a better soulmate out there for you?

Speaker 1

You just have to bet on the person.

Speaker 2

And you bet on Ange?

Speaker 1

I think so. I mean, he would, he would say that, you know, he bet on me, but I'm like, yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, at the time he was like, oh, I'm going to go to Singapore and work for the sovereign wealth fund. I was like, good luck with that, dude. He was like, okay, no, I'll, I'll stay in San Francisco and, you know, we'll, we'll do this tech thing.

And then he got into venture and, and all this other stuff. But yeah, like I, I think you have to bet on a person and then you have to shape your life together. We, we had just gone and done our own thing. He would have moved, I would have stayed here. Who knows, but you have to decide. I guess I was, not very compromising, though, in that.

Speaker 2

But I think, like, for example, like, there is a sacrifice that you make. Like, for example, there was a time when I had psychosis, as you know, about wanting to go to China for a year.

Speaker 1

Yes. I mean, that was very recent psychosis.

Speaker 2

This was very recent. I was dead set on this. I was like, I want to go to China for a master's for a

Speaker 1

year. By the way, it is very common for everyone from the Asian diaspora to decide that they want to go back to their parents' home country and, like, make it happen. Dead

Speaker 2

set on

Speaker 1

it.

Speaker 2

It's generally

Speaker 1

not worked out for anybody that I know, but. Well,

Speaker 2

the thing that happened was that I was dead set on getting a master's in China, and I was like, I was like, I'm sick of this tech bubble. Like, I need new ideas. I need a liberal arts background. I'm going to go to China for a year. It was right before our wedding, like a week before our wedding, and we were going on the, driving on the way to Wedding dance lessons.

And I'm like, by the way, Ty, I think I want to go to China for a year. Like, I'm really dead set on this. He did not take it well. He came- Good

Speaker 1

man, Tyler. He

Speaker 2

came around to it of like, okay, I guess like I'll be supportive of this, but he was like, we're going to move to China for a year.

Speaker 1

Good man.

Speaker 2

Because when you're married, now it's joint decisions. You can't make these types of decisions by yourself. I had this dream. I've never lived alone. I've only, I had roommates all through college. I had like four plus dude roommates in SF. And so you like, okay, like, are you missing out? Are you missing out? Do you feel like you've missed out on the freedoms that you could have had?

Speaker 1

Sometimes I think about it, but probably not. I think the sad reality is, in general, I think that a lot of my friends who didn't find their person, and they're now in their early thirties, it doesn't seem worth the trade-off. Like, it's so much more stressful now to be in that position. Do you think that getting married has made you less ambitious?

Speaker 2

I think it has changed my priorities for sure. That like, initially, just being super successful and being a career woman and just focusing... Actually, here's the thing. I think that goal of like being my cornerstone, like my, like zoom in mindset is like no longer a thing. I also think that I'm very lucky that at Cerebrus, like my old boss and people that I report to, I've always reported to women at Cerebrus basically, and they've been these super successful women who have kids, and you have found a way to have a family at the same time.

And so I feel like that's a really nice role model. I think what the difference is, is that it has made me less quote unquote ambitious of like, I want to be a founder and I want to dedicate my whole life to work. They're like, now I want more of a work life balance. But I do think that having a stable partner enables you to do so much more.

And I'm like, I still am very ambitious in my career, and I think I can do so much more now because I have a partner who is supportive. And I think so much of the game is mental. Like, it's not, like, let's say you have more money. It's not a matter of spending more money, it's a matter of, like, if some shit happens, and you, like, are stranded somewhere, like, okay, I don't know the best way to explain this, but it's almost like

you can take more risks because you know it's gonna be okay. But you're, like, you're just not stressed about it.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And that was my view of getting married, is that I felt like I could actually take more risks.

Speaker 2

And you don't have to be stressed anymore, because it's gonna be okay.

Speaker 1

But

Speaker 2

it doesn't feel like I need to sleep on an air mattress and I need to take these extremes to be really successful, because you're like, I don't need to take these extremes, and I'm gonna be okay.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I also think about it, like, our careers are, I mean, especially cause entrepreneurs work in, you know, very adjacent areas, like, It, it is very symbiotic if both of us are doing well in our careers.

Speaker 2

But I want to jump backwards into us both leading very public lives. I feel like we've been navigating leading very public lives together. Let's talk about getting canceled.

Speaker 1

Let's talk about it. You're, you have more experience than me. I've

Speaker 2

only gotten canceled very publicly, I think once. Okay, I think there's a difference between getting canceled and getting hate.

Speaker 1

I think we both have gotten hate and not fully canceled because

Speaker 2

I've gotten hate, but this was before, this was like three years ago, three or four years ago.

Speaker 1

Cause you're a startup.

Speaker 2

Yes, this was the first time that I'd gotten a lot of public hate because originally I was very public when I was at MIT blogging at MIT, it was on YouTube.

Speaker 1

People

Speaker 2

are very nice to me on YouTube cause I feel like it's tied to your personal Gmail, but TikTok is a whole nother story because like user 5139 underscore can anonymously shit on you and like with no consequences. Yeah. But that's obviously a very different story from getting canceled like I feel like both of us had experiences with especially on Twitter and the tech ecosystem.

Speaker 1

I think both of us don't feel like we've ever gotten truly canceled because we say things that we believe in.

Speaker 2

Yes. And

Speaker 1

we would actually

Speaker 2

fight. Yes.

Speaker 1

Right. So we would fight. I stand

Speaker 2

by everything and so do you.

Speaker 1

I stand by everything. No regrets.

Speaker 2

Yep.

Speaker 1

And so if you live that way on social media, then when you're canceled, you're not really canceled, right? It just, it, it might take people longer to come around to what you were saying. So

Speaker 2

be specific, what did you cancel? So

Speaker 1

I got canceled basically, there was this bill, called SB 1047. It was basically like the precursor to this Bernie Sanders cancel AI, pause AI bill that he has now, which is like, honestly, an insane bill, like up to 20 years imprisonment for working on AI models,

Speaker 2

kind of thing.

Speaker 1

It's crazy. It, it just so happened that when that bill sort of came into public knowledge, although they'd been working on it for a while, I had gotten attacked by a homeless guy in a cafe like six months before that, and I'd not really talked about it.

And then it all kind of came together where I had this hot take where I was like, oh, it's easier to be a homeless guy in California than it is to be an AI developer.

Speaker 2

No, it was crazy. I mean,

Speaker 1

it was crazy. They let the guy out like two days after he assaulted multiple people with a deadly weapon. And I don't even

Speaker 2

think, I think you're being humble about how crazy this like attack was.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, if you go look it up, like the article's still there, you can watch the video. It's crazy

Speaker 2

what this guy did to

Speaker 1

you. Yeah, he like threw a chair through a window, the glass like cut my face up. I still have scars on my forehead. And I didn't talk about it until this bill came up. And I had kind of You know, just tweeted it as like a hot take. And I don't know, my account did not have that many followers. I think I had like less than 10,000 followers or something at the time.

And then I went super viral because people were, were basically like, how dare you, you know, be so blase about the homelessness crisis in California. You're just some like out of touch tech person, blah, blah, blah. Who got

Speaker 2

freaking attacked. Yeah.

Speaker 1

And, and by the way, it had to get

Speaker 2

through to read it. Like, this is crazy.

Speaker 1

I had never seen the video actually. So this reporter who chased me around to write that article, they went and got the footage from the coffee shop. I'd never actually seen it. They caught the guy a couple blocks away. There was some good Samaritan who pointed it out and the cops got him. And, the cop, the police were actually very good to me.

They took me home. They were like, You know, they read, they logged everything really quickly, and then I think he got let out like a couple days later on house arrest. And you're like, how can you have a homeless person on house arrest? It makes no sense. I then tweeted so many months later about this, and it was just kind of this passing comment, and then it spiraled out of control, where I'm like, are we really creating sentencing requirements for AI developers that are harsher than what we do for people who commit physical violence? It's, it's kind of an absurd place to live in, very, you know, dystopian in a lot of ways, and then it went very viral with the very

progressive segment of people who were like, had many problems with me for being a tech person, I guess. The TLDR was basically, I I would not back down from what I said, and I believe very much in it. And that's like, that's the main thing when you get canceled, is you, you have to get canceled for something you actually believe in,

Speaker 3

because

Speaker 1

then you can just, you can go down with the ship, you know, if you believe in it. Don't tweet things you don't believe in, because it's not worth it getting canceled over it otherwise. But yeah, we've lived through it, and then go on to do better things, and, as, I don't know, I generally think, like, no publicity is bad publicity.

Speaker 2

I agree. Which I think, one thing we have a hot take about, which is, like, as someone who's been on social media for so long, and it's part of my job to be on social media,

and to, like, be known and, like, get a lot of views that I've also gotten canceled, I think at this point my skin is tough enough that most comments don't get to me, but, like, I still think people don't realize the gravity of your, like, careless, like, five-second comment can ruin a person's life, and there are drastic consequences to shit you put on the internet.

I mean, for me, the one thing, okay, aside from like the WMAF stuff, I think more recently, the one thing I got hate for, and like when viral and got canceled for, was this post that I made about a hot girl walk, which is crazy,

but I made a post, like me and another friend from MIT were doing this like MIT reunion thing, and we were doing the reunion in SF, where a bunch of us went on this like, just met up and went on a walk through the marina. And at the time on TikTok and Social media, this concept of hot girl walk was really trending. It literally doesn't mean anything.

It's just like the same of like a snack plate or like, like there's trends that happen. It was

Speaker 1

technically supposed to mean a walk that you take to get hot because you're working out. Yes,

Speaker 2

you just, people, the word hot girl walk was just a term. So we posted a picture of this hot girl walk on Twitter

and it blew up. It was like millions of views a day. All the comments were like, I don't see a single hot person in this photo. And to me, like, I'm like, okay, again, to your point, like as long as you tweet something that's authentic, you just stand by it. And for me, What I was seeing was like everyone who I knew or who I respected was coming to our defense, was commenting, being like, you guys slay, like this is great, don't ignore the haters, people were DMing, anyone who I cared about was DMing me in a very positive, like, I hope you're okay, ignore the haters.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And obviously there's like thousands of haters who are like piling onto this, and to me, all I really care about are the like the respectable people in the SF industry. And so eventually though, after a few days, I did take it down. Usually I wouldn't. The only reason I took it down was because there were other people's faces in it, and because it was like all these other girls in it who were also like secondhand getting hate.

I was like, I'm not gonna like stand for this. Out of respect, I'm gonna take it down, take their face down.

Speaker 1

You know the other one I was remembering is, you know your birthday post? When you turned twenty five. Yes.

Speaker 2

So for context, I made a post when I turned twenty five that was like a picture of me and I think I comment, the caption was turn twenty five and then I was like recapping the things that had happened in my last year which was like I think I had grown a lot on social media, done good content. You had

Speaker 1

killed it. Your, your twenty fourth year was epic.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I got married, our company had, Cerebrus IPO'd and it was delayed. When I first posted it, it didn't go super viral and then all of a sudden It went viral, like weeks later.

Speaker 1

I thought it was because that guy retweeted it and was like, this is psychological violence.

Speaker 2

Yes, someone called me psychologically violent for posting this, like, birthday celebration post. Because

Speaker 1

you were having a good life and people couldn't handle it.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

That was my takeaway. Anyway, I, I went to town on that one and then the guy took it down and, and was very nice about it. But I remember, actually Tyler and I were like, yeah, I got attacked. I got attacked for

Speaker 2

this post.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it's like, again, it's more a reflection on the people than on you, right? It's like, if you're threatened by someone living their best life, You should probably examine your own life, but it's much easier to go and rip someone apart on Twitter than, than to go to therapy yourself, which is probably the actual solution. I mean, I'm sure there are many cancellations in our future that, that can happen.

It's going to be okay. Yeah. I mean, even like when we were coming up with a name for this podcast, that was part of the big we were talking

Speaker 2

about. I wanted this podcast. Okay, so I suggested a name for the podcast. I suggested twice. We can still change

Speaker 1

it.

Speaker 2

No, no. I suggested this name twice, and Vivian didn't respond either time. She just like ignored the text both times.

Speaker 1

I, I, my friends have told me that they, they understand that the text being ignored means, no. No.

Speaker 2

My suggestion for the name of this podcast was Trophy Wives.

Speaker 1

Yeah. You

Speaker 2

don't think it'd be so funny? Well, you

Speaker 1

said it was like ironic, but then I was like, I know that people are going to take it unironically because people can't take a joke. But it's

Speaker 2

people who understand that we're not Trophy Wives, but it's kind of... You

Speaker 1

just said you want to live on a farmstead and raise ten children, dude.

Speaker 2

While having an amazing startup and career.

Speaker 1

Again, if that's... I would say like anything that you do, I feel like you're going to do the maximum version of it, so I'm not actually worried about you. I think everybody has these, you know...

Speaker 2

Cancelled moments. Yeah,

Speaker 1

like you just have to... You just have to keep posting out of it. Yeah. It never helps to disappear. Also, people forget about

Speaker 2

it instantly.

Speaker 1

Yeah, dude, I forgot about... People got canceled like two weeks ago. Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I have a handful of questions I've been dying to ask you about what it's like to be a partner at YC. Number one. What do you do with the children that you don't like?

Speaker 1

Well, I love all my children equally. Children

Speaker 2

referring to YCT?

Speaker 1

Yes,

Speaker 2

yes. All my

Speaker 1

founders. I love all my founders equally. I think you can tell pretty early if some people have the right bones or not. There's also this thing where certain people, they're just the kind of people you want to succeed, and they seem to rally people to their cause. And other people want to invest in them and advise them, like buy their products and stuff like that.

And that's a quality I haven't put my finger on it yet. I think a lot of people who have that energy, they're just going to make it. Like they make a lot of luck. A lot of the times, the ones who get to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, et cetera, they've been groomed in a certain way to always follow instructions and like Look for certain badges to collect and things like that.

Speaker 2

It is a badge to collect, like YC, especially for these, these three schools.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And so I think there's just, you can tell kind of early on when people are really smart or talented in other ways, but just like startups aren't right for them. Like they don't spend a lot of time talking to users. They don't spend a lot of time putting themselves in uncomfortable situations. Like they get told no once and then they panic and like shut down the startup.

Yeah. And then they also, on the flip side, like they agree to everything and then they get nothing done. Like that's, that's reality. And so I think I look for more of that, I guess. And you can tell pretty early if somebody can get stuff done or can't.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Okay. So you have three months, you identify someone early as like, you're not going to make it. Then what? You're like, I'm gonna still do all these office hours with them, or you're like, I'm just gonna spend all my time with these companies that I'm really bullish on.

Speaker 1

So I think there's a lot of people where you're like, oh, if I actually spend more time with them, they're sort of like a cusper, and you could, you could push them a little bit more. I see. And so I, I really think it's too soon to like totally write somebody off, but, there's this term that, PG and Jessica, the founders of YC used, in one of their podcasts, it's called palliative care.

And it's basically like, if you just think a startup is not in the stars for a team, you're just like, let them figure that out, and let it go a little bit.

But, you know, people turn it around. Like, there's a lot of people who seem kind of NGMI during the batch, and then they come back, like, three to six months later, and they've made a lot of progress. I think sometimes if somebody's, like, too academic or too big company, and they're a little set in their ways, it's, it's more tough. But especially if it's, like, a young team that, you know, if you're, like, nineteen or twenty when you start, I mean, we, you started your startup when you were, like, nineteen or twenty, and you just never know.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I was, I think I was nineteen.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you just never know.

Speaker 2

That's

Speaker 1

true.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Like, I had a startup in college. I founded a company called Thrift House when I was, I think my sophomore year, and I did it with my boyfriend at the time. So he was also at MIT. It was just like, I feel like it was just COVID energy, right? Like, you have nothing to do. We built a, like, a startup. So we got into Z Fellows. When we finished Z Fellows, Corey and I think another company jointly put in a bigger check.

And then we kind of just rolled with it and we raised money and we were getting money and to that point there was like it was not very intentional. It was like our junior spring, we took a gap year, we were all in for like a semester. we actually lived, if you know Hanby and Han from Magnify, it was while they were going through YC, the four of us lived together.

It was very cute. And then it was right, it was this inflection point where it's like, okay, we got into the first batch of new accelerator, we didn't get into YC and

which is fine.

Speaker 1

I wasn't there, but

Speaker 2

yes. Before Vivian's time. But we got into the first batch of new accelerator and then it was right, it was this point of like, if you take this money, I think it was like six hundred twenty five K, you have to drop out. And then we both Together agreed, like, no, we're not going to drop out. We're not going to take this money. And that killed the startup, basically.

And we went back to school.

Speaker 1

That's why the PG advice is not to drop out.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

Right. And then if you, in spite of his advice, choose to drop

Speaker 2

out,

Speaker 1

then that's a really good signal, right? But if everybody in your life who you respect and look up to is telling you not to do something, and then you do it anyway, and you are successful, that usually means you are quite a good startup founder.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

I actually worked with these founders, this summer batch, where everybody told them not to drop out. They're from Ireland. Everybody told them not to drop out. And it's even more uncommon in Ireland to drop out of school, but because they have people like the Collisons who became so successful with their startup, you have this whole generation of young Irish people who think that's a plausible path, but then to actually do it is, you know, like a different step.

and I remember they were working on a completely different idea, when I saw their application, but they had been banging their heads against that idea for like three to six months. And they had gotten like a number of users using the product. It was some prediction markets thing. And I was like, I don't know about this idea, but these guys have been serious about doing it while they're in school.

And they told me that they want to drop out. And I have to believe them at their word, right? Like if two people come to you and they're like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I got to assume that they're, they're telling me the truth and that they'll make it work. And yeah, they, they had an incredible batch for the summer,

pivoted their idea of which, it's now, you know, related to coding agents, but that kind of story, like, it's always, it's part of my business to bet on people like that.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And I, I want to remain optimistic about it. No one bet on me

Speaker 2

on college day. I think it was a mistake. So I got rejected from

Speaker 1

YC. I think it was a mistake that you didn't get in is my two cents. especially knowing you, I'm like, you, you are an incredible founder, and I hope you found some things. One day, fantasy. Rest in peace, thrift house.

Speaker 2

Rest in peace. Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So I think I'm choosing to still be optimistic. I mean, call me back in like five years when a bunch of MIT kids have like told me they're going to drop out and then went back to school and now we're... They

Speaker 2

have. There are so many cases of people who have just gone back to school because it's like it's a stamp on your resume or LinkedIn.

Speaker 1

Yes. And that is really sad because startups are very hard. And it's... I mean, yeah, this happens, you know, they work on it for like two to three months, they have a co-founder issue, they realize it's really hard to sell into enterprise. Well, to be fair,

Speaker 2

like to your point, startups are really hard. I think, I mean, obviously when we like pitch to investors, we try not to show overtly that we're dating. And like, I mean, if you think about it, it's like we're in the middle of college, red flag. In the sense of like, we can't be full-time. We're dating, red flag. Like, Maybe

Speaker 1

that's why you didn't get it. Or it

Speaker 2

is not that original red flag. In the grand scheme of things, but I think we did have an investor. I don't know who it was like, I think it was Pear.

Speaker 1

It

Speaker 2

was like, we had a follow-up call and he was like, are you guys dating? Yeah.

Speaker 1

I will say, I, you can't go back and change history, but I do wonder if you guys weren't dating, what the storyline of the started.

Speaker 2

We definitely just would never have started this company together

Speaker 1

ever. Yeah. I think that there's so many things like that can go wrong with a startup. You might as well work with somebody that you like, you know, you respect as a peer and all these good things, and then see where it goes.

Speaker 2

So this was the first time we met was through the startup ecosystem. And I feel like after we stopped working together, I joined SF, you already were living in SF, we had a period, and then we reunited. Yeah, I did not want to live in SF at all. Like I had contracted for a month living in here. I had contracted with SF for a month, moved to SF, did not like it.

Like the first party that I ever went to in SF was so traumatizing.

Speaker 1

I

Speaker 2

lived in Hayes Valley right next to SF Commons. Not, or the, the Commons. I think SF Commons and the Commons are different.

Speaker 1

Next to the

Speaker 2

Commons.

Speaker 1

Are they still alive?

Speaker 2

I think they're still alive. And I think it was just a culture shock. Like I think now it's not as crazy, but like the people are great. Like I knew people who lived there and they were great, but it was this party. It was a block away. It was the very first party I ever went to in SF. Everyone was cat ears and meowing. It was like a cat party.

Everyone was meowing. No words were spoken at this party. People were meowing at each other and clawing. Like someone like came up to me and went like

Speaker 1

on

Speaker 2

my shoulder.

Speaker 1

Did you participate?

Speaker 2

No.

Speaker 1

Okay. So you just went. They started

Speaker 2

Howling. I vividly remember on the dance floor, everyone started howling at each other.

Speaker 1

So did you, and you just left, or? I

Speaker 2

was there with friends, so I, like, was there,

Speaker 1

and I had to participate.

Speaker 2

The only way that I participated was I put the cat ears on that they handed me.

Speaker 1

But I was like, holy shit,

Speaker 2

what has my life become? Like, I was dead set. I mean, almost MIT people, you just make the migration to New York.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And that's it. Like, very few people were in SF, so I think coming here temporarily for work was like, sure, I'll do it for a month.

Speaker 1

Actually, a little, a funny story on that. So when we graduated college, we moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a third friend of ours. And then, yeah, poor third friend. we actually got the short end of the stick. It was crazy because I guess rents were already crazy then. It was like 6K for a two bedroom apartment. And I, in my feminist mind, was like, we should split the rent three ways.

Speaker 2

No, you didn't. Yeah, but

Speaker 1

Ange and I were sharing one room and one bathroom. And so we were paying two thirds of the rent and the other guy didn't say anything until later. anyway, but then we moved into a three bedroom place with another guy. So then there were four of us. And then after those two guys moved out, then another couple and another guy moved in. So then there were five of us.

Oh

Speaker 2

my God. And it was

Speaker 1

like the, the, the apartment was just multiplying people. And at one point we were running, two startups, sorry, three startups out of one apartment. Mine, on Discord. Yeah. And then, our other friend Sebastian was running this company Malibu at the time.

is it the same

Speaker 2

sub

Speaker 3

that,

Speaker 2

is that

Speaker 1

That's working with Ange now. Yeah.

Speaker 2

Really? You guys go that way back?

Speaker 1

Yeah, so we were all friends. We were actually

Speaker 2

all, I know

Speaker 1

we were in the same business fraternity at Stanford. It was very, I don't, it's very cringe. I agree. No,

Speaker 2

they're so, we, I mean, we can have a whole segment on I feel like the people from my high school and college that I'm reunited now with NSF who are just totally crushing it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah. That is all that we have for today's episode, our very first pilot season of State of the Art Wives. Stay tuned, like, subscribe, comment, hype, boost, repost to all your friends, and we'll catch you next time.