LOGAN: Laela, thanks for doing this.
LAELA: Thanks for having me, Logan.
LOGAN: I, so I wanna start, what is CapitalG?
LAELA: CapitalG is a growth investment fund backed by Alphabet and Google. So our mandate is to invest in the world's greatest technology companies, [00:02:00] partner with them to help them scale. So we typically invest series B and up to pre IPO.
LOGAN: What are you able to do differently, or what is different as having by having a single lp, in Alphabet
LAELA: Lots of things. First what is similar to other venture funds is that we are an independent investment fund. So alphabets are single lp, but we invest for financial return. And our incentives are the same as any other investment fund aligned with the portfolio companies.
LAELA: But since Alphabet is our single lp and they're a very long-term lp, they think about the long-term impact and potential of technology trends and are excited about the potential to build really big companies. So first we have a very long-term orientation. Second is that we engage the employees inside of Alphabet and Google to help our portfolio companies.
LAELA: So over the last couple of years, we've had more than 3000. Alphabet employees that have engaged with our portfolio companies on [00:03:00] advisory relationships. Anything from scaling cloud technologies to building out sales and marketing team. So an example is CrowdStrike is one of our portfolio companies and we helped incubate the inside sales team for CrowdStrike inside our offices.
LAELA: So we'll bring advisors on sales compensation, on lead gen and demand marketing. So all these very specific operating challenges that scaling companies face. We're able to find advisors inside of Alphabet to help the companies in very specific ways and it's a just a win-win for everybody 'cause the Alphabet employees are excited about partnering with startups and helping use their expertise in new and innovative ways and learning.
LAELA: And our portfolio companies get access to real, really relevant up to date learnings and expertise within kind of the Google and Alphabet family.
LOGAN: So how does it work?
LOGAN: Do you say is it actually a. Fund structure. I know that economics work similar to that, but is it a fund structure or do you come and [00:04:00] say, Hey, here's about what we think we're gonna
LAELA: It's a fund structure, so it would be set up just like RedPoint, but just as alphabet as the single lp. So we we look at it as the best of both worlds. It's a independent fund structure where we you know, where we're clear on our mandate. We have the sort of governance and fund set up, but where we have access to an LP that has a very long-term orientation as well as this really unique network of advisors that can help our companies.
LAELA: And they also help us on the investing side in, we'll call in advisors on emerging thesis areas like AI is the obvious, very obvious an exciting one right now. I've heard about it. Yeah. You've probably had a few people on your podcast chatting about it. Obviously within Google and Alphabet, we have, amazing experts in that area.
LAELA: And so we'll work with those leaders in technology to bounce our ideas off of them and go back and forth. And that's been really an amazing asset, not just in ai, but in security data infrastructure. A lot of areas where we've made significant investments at CapitalG [00:05:00] we've pulled in these advisors to help us.
LAELA: Pre-investment as well as growth investment.
LOGAN: Alphabet now is a three and a half billion or trillion dollar, excuse me, I'm used to billions in my vernacular. In your world. There's a T more often involved in that, a one and a half trillion dollar business. And are there three venture ish private products?
LOGAN: GV gradient. Cap G.
LAELA: Yeah. Those are the three independent, exactly.
LOGAN: Alphabet's so big. And there's a tension that exists between the strategic nature of corporate vc, right? Which is, hey, we're doing this so we can get pure access and we want to only invest in the themes that we care about as a parent company.
LOGAN: Yeah. And then on the other side, it sounds like where you are is like the independence and the structure of a normal normal quote unquote venture fund. Which makes sense. It sounds like a lot of benefits for you going this way. What are the benefits for Alphabet going the other
LAELA: way?
LAELA: Yeah, it's a great question. So I think, you have to step back 50,000 [00:06:00] feet, as I think when CapitalG was getting started, which is a little over 10 years ago. And really actually Larry and Sergey were quite involved in the early days of thinking about investment funds within Alphabet with GB CapitalG, and it really mission and vision of I think Google and Alphabet overall, which is to help build transformative technology companies and obviously to innovate and to help be a catalyst and driver for some of the most important technology inventions and businesses in all the different areas that Alphabet Works and builds directly as well as more broadly.
LAELA: So I think the vision was that the expertise of Google and Alphabet could really help build influence, partner with and create more innovation and help contribute to company building outside of Alphabet. And the reason we set, so it was, with that vision hey, the resources the cash, the expertise of Google and Alphabet can help build [00:07:00] amazing things inside of Alphabet and amazing things outside of Alphabet.
LAELA: And the reason we set up the fund structure independently as we have is because we believe that's the best incentive structure to. Recruit and help develop the world's best investors and the best for the companies because strategic investing is quite difficult to do to have, both financial metrics as well as strategic metrics that you're competing.
LAELA: It's very hard to do. And I think when you look historically it's hard to point to strategic investment arms that have, been the VC partners that have built iconic. Helped partner and invest in iconic companies repeatedly over time. We really felt strongly that the best way to structure this to build one of the world's best investment funds was to have this independent structure and have the incentives.
LAELA: And Alphabet from the very beginning has been super supportive And that's why you see in addition to other types of investing within corp development or off the balance sheet. So there's lots of different ways, both [00:08:00] strategic and independent that alphabet's
LOGAN: In other different types of investing, so you referenced series B ish? Yeah, through pre IPO it. I've seen your name pop up some recently in some of the take privates as well, duck Creek and Coupa. Yeah, I think were the two most recent ones. Yeah. How do you think about that in the suite of services or the types of investments you do?
LAELA: Yeah, so I think our primary investing is in high growth. Pre IPO companies. So if you look historically over the billions that we've invested, that is our sweet spot. Companies like Duolingo, CrowdStrike, UiPath where we're, we'll invest and partner in the series B and then ideally invest significantly more capital over the future rounds.
LAELA: And that's been primarily what we've done. We also are opportunistic and have a broad mandate, and I think it's been a unique macro environment to say the least. And yeah, exactly. And we have expertise within our team on evaluating, I think everything from [00:09:00] Series B to public companies.
LAELA: I'm still on two public boards, like we stay over, quite a significant portion of the lifecycle of companies as well as private equity transactions. And so I think we've seen we believe that Coupa Duck Creek, some of these companies that you reference are high growth, high quality.
LAELA: Private technology companies where many of these we've known for many years and looked at them over the course of their own growth lifecycle. And we're excited to partner with those private equity firms to invest in those rounds as well. So I think we look at it as high growth generational technology companies.
LAELA: We will invest and that has primarily been in pre, pre IPO, but we also have invested, in private equity transactions as well.
LOGAN: How much of that you alluded to the macro thing? Yeah. Is it, I'm sure it's company specific in some ways as well. Coupa, obviously special business. Duck Creek. I've known for a long time actually my old investment bank advised on the sale to Accenture, which is I think like six transactions ago at this point for Duck [00:10:00] Creek.
LAELA: Yeah. So going way back
LOGAN: Way back to Duck Creek. Interesting companies, but did that start, and when you think about that being that the private markets are funky, I guess would be my generous interpretation of them over the last year, and so let's go look at the opportunistic things and the relationships we have.
LOGAN: Or was it more company specific we love these companies.
LAELA: It's been company specific and it's also been we've actually done it since our inception at CapitalG.
LAELA: So we have for the last 10 years a part of our fund has always been in these private equity transactions. 'cause we look at it as a really good discipline actually as investors to to be able to evaluate and think about the growth drivers of businesses of different. Size and scale.
LAELA: And certainly when you spend time as we have over the last 10 years looking at most private equity transactions are profitable companies 'cause they're applying leverage and you're talking a lot and thinking a lot about free cash flow. It turns out being able to evaluate and partner with companies at that scale is really helpful when you're[00:11:00] on the board of a series D company who you first invested when they were 15 million in a r and now there's several hundred and in the point of their journey where they're gaining operating leverage and trying to get to profitability.
LAELA: So understanding the trade-offs of that. As growth investors we think it's actually good discipline and good training and expertise to be able to to study companies at all those different scales. And just as long as they're growth companies, market leaders in big markets we've been flexible about the.
LAELA: The type of transactions, and it's been from the beginning. So it, even though in the macro environment, certainly there's been less growth growth deals overall. There's been these private equity deals since we started about 10 years
LOGAN: now, you in March of this year got a appointed a new fancy title, which congratulations. Thank you.
LOGAN: Managing partner, right? What what is, what does managing partner mean? It seemed like a big deal and and you're longtime partner was [00:12:00] stepping aside in that title. What responsibilities roll up, do you now? How-
LAELA: I don't know if it's fancy, but Thank you Logan.
LOGAN: I, yeah I, keep trying to appoint myself king internally.
LAELA: Yeah. Has it flown? Yeah. Keep trying. Yeah. Keep the, just travel with the mic around the whole thing. See how that works. No, I'm very excited. It's so the role is Overall responsibility for running the fund. So I will continue to invest as a general partner as I have for the last 10 years, and I love that part of my job.
LAELA: I love investing. I love serving on boards. And I'm also have taken on this increased responsibility of overseeing the entire fund. So thinking I'd say where I've spent even more time, even though I've. Spent a lot of time on this always over the years, is really thinking about recruiting and helping mentor and train our sort of next generation of partners at the fund, which for me is really rewarding.
LAELA: I was a operator for a long time before I was an investor, and I've always loved hiring and thinking about team building and culture and so I've been spending a lot of time thinking about [00:13:00] that, investing in the team and the culture of the fund. And then some of the questions we've just been talking about, thinking about investment strategy and macro and how we think about, our deployment across different asset classes and all of that.
LAELA: A lot of the same. And and then some new fun additional responsibilities. I think on the team strategy side.
LOGAN: Now, investment decisioning, I've talked before about how we at RedPoint decide on stuff, but what has that evolved over time? How do you all make decisions today and come to an answer?
LOGAN: Is it consensus? Is it one person?
LAELA: Yeah, I would love to hear what you guys do at RedPoint. I always find this an interesting question as well. So we historically have given general partners at the fund a lot of flexibility and empowerment to, to to get deals done.
LAELA: And I think there's been a lot of trust across our partnership to for our general partners to kinda advocate for and take the risks that they seem appropriate. So we have a very rigorous investment committee process and that's something that I [00:14:00] think all of us love because we I think we all have found that investing disproportionately in the investment committee makes us all better investors.
LAELA: So we provide a lot of detailed materials. We do a lot of sort of rigorous debate across, and we invite our entire team, so the, general partners or the decision makers, but the whole team is invited to, to see the dialogue. And I think we really pride ourselves a strong pushback and engagement there.
LAELA: But we've done many deals that are not a hundred percent consensus. So where there's been, certainly partners that have said, Hey, I would not do that if I were you. I don't think this is the right call, but I'll support you doing it if you really advocate for that. So that's.
LAELA: That's the approach that, that we've taken. And I think it's worked out really well. I think actually it's very fun to look back over 10 years and think about the deals that some of your partners who you deeply respect, wanted to lie on the tracks and prevent from getting done are heroic and some you wish you listened to ‘em. The [00:15:00] humbling and heroic journey of investors,
LOGAN: Right my prior firm, we went back and tried to analyze if any of the consensus or non-consensus led to any better decision who was on the ic and it was all noise. We weren't able to figure it out.
LOGAN: Our, to answer your question though, our early stage team operates more like you all do. Yeah. With with a lot of autonomy. But a centralized IC process, so everyone gets to weigh in, but ultimately people are trusted. Our growth team is much more consensus oriented. And I described, I wish I came up with this 'cause it's a great analogy, but my partner Elliot.
LOGAN: Described it as so we have three general partners on the growth fund and the way it tends to work is he compared it to a family trying to figure out what to watch on tv, which is if someone really wants to watch something and the other two are wanna watch it, you probably watch it.
LOGAN: If one person's over my dead body, are we watching that, then you probably don’t.
LAELA: So a lot of baking shows?
LOGAN: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. If you end up in a neutral space, then it probably doesn't, you probably [00:16:00] keep looking. And we ultimately want someone in the group to feel uniquely passionate to drive to the decision on it, and then the other people along the way to feel passionate about it.
LOGAN: It's something we debate though. Ultimately we have a lot of trust for one another. We've been in situations where we've been at loggerheads, but that, yeah. It doesn't happen too frequently.
LAELA: Yeah, no, it's super interesting. Yeah. It would be go good to go back and run that data comparatively over time.
LOGAN: You alluded to this, but you had never invested before joining CapitalG founding Yeah. Where you were part of the original-
LAELA: I joined about two or three months after it was started. Yeah. Founder. Yeah.
LOGAN: How did you learn how to invest and like what type of investor you were gonna be, because you always hear, oh, investing's an apprenticeship business
LAELA: Yeah. The, yeah. The fun thing about investing right? Is that there's so many things to, to keep learning and for me it was in stages. So yeah. When I joined a little over 10 years ago, hadn't invested. The only thing I'd [00:17:00] done is I worked at Bain before I was at Google and we had a big private equity consulting practice there that I worked in Peg Yep.
LAELA: For a couple of years. And that was actually an amazing training where, I got exposure to the investment process and how diligence was done at, big private equity firms.
LOGAN: Because at Peg you're working at Bain, but you're opposite a private equity firm, helping them in their diligence. Exactly. Ultimately the output is going to a private equity
LAELA: Exactly, and you're doing, you basically learn the sort of methodologies of customer research, of market work, of kind of understanding. In these big private equity models, you're really validating assumptions okay, what's the market share gain gonna be?
LAELA: How big is the market? Is it gonna grow? What is the the churn profile of customers look like? So you begin to understand sort of the mechanics of the analytical side of investing. And I liked that in my early career, but I love technology and so I was really interested. I wanted to be at a hypergrowth and so I joined Google and, spent many years on the operating side and loved that. [00:18:00] Never really thought that I would get into investing. I thought I would be an operator. I was considering various c o roles actually when I was considering leaving Google after many years.
LAELA: And that's when I got. Recruited to CapitalG and had the opportunity to think about venture and think about whether I'd like it, what I would have to learn, what if I'd be any good at it. And I think it was a gradual process of learning lots of different things. I think learning more of the investor toolkit, getting more familiar and getting more reps on the financial side of our business.
LAELA: Building five-year models, looking at data, figuring out which data to pay attention to, what's the noise? And that I think. Came from just reps. The more interesting and the more fun part I think came from the board work was like really thinking about how great companies are built, how you think about building management teams, recruiting, making decisions on when you expand international, when you don't to like, when what's the, how does the data that you see in an investment diligence process show up in the board boardroom in terms of kinda [00:19:00] operational priorities.
LAELA: And I think that I was lucky to have made I think some good early investments and to be in some boardrooms where I learned an incredible amount from the management teams. And I think a lot of my best investments actually came from. Learning in those board meetings and using those as springboards to make other investments and to really know what to look for and the type of founders that I really wanted to partner with.
LAELA: So I think it's both an apprenticeship business and there's an element of learning as much as you can and putting yourself in as many sort of environments that have really steep learning curves as possible.
LOGAN: And there's a funny thing. I too feel like I got lucky early on in my career with the companies I got to work with.
LOGAN: And there's, you don't get an opportunity to be lucky late in your career. You have to be lucky early to be afforded. 'cause otherwise, yeah, the other way it doesn't work quite as well. I think you end up fired if it goes the other way. What was the most, do you remember? When you were coming in, like what was most surprising about [00:20:00] investing just a, as an operator stepping into it and you're like, this is confusing.
LOGAN: ' cause I've been a career sort of investor finance my entire life and so this is all I've known. And so the weirdness of it, I try to think about what's weird versus a real business quote unquote.
LAELA: But so many things are weird when you're first coming in. So many things are different. First of all, I think as an operator especially, I had worked in very early stage stuff at Google, so all of the things I was trying to get, I worked on YouTube monetization, like after we bought YouTube.
LAELA: So in the early years I worked on a bunch of new products around Google Maps and our payments business. And so it was a lot around launching early products for Google and helping them scale. And so I had very much of a, an optimist, entrepreneurial type approach to business building, which I think is wonderful in, I think in partnering with the entrepreneurs I partner with, 'cause you have to have, you have to be an optimist and believe this is gonna work and be, so enthusiastic about it.
LAELA: And I think the first thing that I had to learn was I remember for [00:21:00] example, Stripe. I, and I led that investment in 2016. I remember having the many conversations with Patrick about all of the different products that we're gonna launch and, an operator's mindset, you're like, yeah, you're gonna launch 'em all, you're gonna launch 'em all next year.
LAELA: You just, you get in that enthusiasm and and of course that works a lot of the time for amazing companies like Stripe. But I think the investor toolkit side I really had to learn how to calibrate risk, how to think about both seeing the opportunities that entrepreneurs would paint that you could see in the market with, as a growth investor being able to pattern recognize over time.
LAELA: Every c e O thinks they're going to grow net retention by X amount when they fix XY thing. But when you really look and say, okay o over a larger data set of companies it, it, that would be more of an outlier expectation to see some, to see a variable like that change.
LAELA: So I just began to, I don't know if it's pessimism or reality or learn [00:22:00] to combine the how to look about the data and how to think about risk reward, like both seeing the opportunity. 'cause I think to be a great growth investor, you can never lose that Belief and to be able to tune into and lean into the right risks.
LAELA: But at least for me, over time I learned to use the data to calibrate which risks to take so that was the biggest, I think, change was to to marry maybe people like yourself that had been investors their whole career, that had more of an analytical approach to it with more of a operator company building.
LAELA: We're gonna find a way to make this work and we're gonna recruit the right people to do it. We're gonna build the right teams to marry that with more of the analytical strategic decision
LOGAN: Now you've bounced around from an industry standpoint of what you focused on.
LOGAN: So you, Duolingo, you're still on the board of public company, whatnot, super hot fascinating business Stripe, UiPath. Yeah. Gusto. These are a bunch of different types of businesses. How do you. Go about learning. One of the things I always fear [00:23:00] is that I'm gonna be the patsy at the table. That I don't know.
LOGAN: I can't how do you get your arms around the totality of what is to be known going into a new sector that maybe you haven't had previous experience and how do you go about building domain in an area?
LAELA: so to me that's been the most fun about being in investing for 10 years is I couldn't imagine just staying in the same sector. Like for me, I've, I I love to take to, to explore areas where I.
LAELA: Know something. And then, I don't know, something. So use it, just use, a path to have some sort of knowledge to get my foot in the door and then figure out how I can learn as quickly as possible. So it's been iterative. So when I first started in investing, I had I had a lot of experience on the operator side with SS m b businesses.
LAELA: So I'd helped launch a few different businesses at Google that sold into small and medium sized businesses. So I understood how hard it was and is to sell into that customer base and how difficult it is to to scale marketing, to set [00:24:00] up sales channels. Like I had the sort of blood, sweat and tears of understanding an experience on what I thought worked and what didn't.
LAELA: And then I had a lot a lot of experience with businesses on the Google side as well. So my first couple years in investing, I really focused in that. So that's when I did Gusto, I did Duolingo, I did these businesses where I understood the small and medium sized business value prop.
LAELA: I understood how to scale the sales channels to, so to your point, I felt like I had some relevant expertise to, to be in the room, and then I would use it to to parlay into the next thing. For example, one of the reasons I got really excited about Stripe was that the, their competitive in the early days, their competitive one of their many competitive differentiation was just that they got these customers at inception and they had really figured out how to make small businesses easy to use, implement payments right away.
LAELA: And then these businesses grew into massive companies. They got The lifts of the world when they were just getting started and then those grew [00:25:00] into, massive compounding businesses. And so I really believed early on in what a differentiation that acquisition channel was because I understood the hard part about scaling to small and medium sized businesses.
LAELA: And then I said, okay, I'm just gonna learn everything I can about the payments business. And, went studying and looked at every payments big platform that I could find and worked hard to really understand the whole sector before I did that investment. And so it would go like that.
LAELA: Like I used UiPath automation to parlay into a bunch of no code investments. 'cause it was all going after similar thematic areas around digital transformation. So every couple of years I choose a new sector that I think is going to have a really strong impact across a bunch of different industries.
LAELA: And then we'll go deep in areas where I think there will be several investible opportunities and use what I learned to to go into them.
LOGAN: So how often will that start from a top down [00:26:00] thematic Hey, this is happening. The low code world is coming to be versus bottom up, hey, stripe is a thing and it's working really well.
LOGAN: I should go validate that this is the best of all the different things that exist around it. Is it? Yeah. Is it some of both? How does it typically go?
LAELA: So I think it's a bit of both. So I think at CapitalG, it's certainly like across the board, all of the above. So I think we've made some great investments that have been in like established industries, like things like cybersecurity, where, there's some big disruption in some area of security that is gonna, there's gonna be a new cloud vendor that takes that market share.
LAELA: It's an existing market and let's go evaluate the best next gen vendor and make that so we've done a ton of those and I've done a few of those myself. But I think I've tended, I love market creation opportunities as well. Like I love really thinking about, and UiPath is a great example of that was not, Hey, let's go find an r p a vendor, or let's go find an automation vendor.
LAELA: That was, Hey, we know there is this [00:27:00] huge problem inside. Of ev companies of every size that the amount of software is proliferating across these companies. The applications don't speak to each other. There's a bunch of inefficiency that, that, knowledge workers have and how they move data across systems, how they get the job done.
LAELA: There has to be a better way to do this. Like how do we solve systems talking to each other? How do we make knowledge workers more efficient? 'cause there's a shortage of coders. There's a short of analysts more from the problem statement point of view, like talking to CIOs, talking to to CEOs about like, how are the ways that they can improve how their business is run?
LAELA: And then thinking, what are the technologies that can solve that? So I look at the automation investments and the no-code investments as solving customer first and company first or. World first problems and figuring out and seeing the sort of momentum that comes from that very ROI based investments.
LAELA: So I've done [00:28:00] both. Like I think and I think across CapitalG we've done both as well, but I think you look for different things when you're thinking about what's a market creation investment and then what's a hey, I am really aware that there's some secular tailwind cloud transition that's gonna create a new winner in a big profit pool we know exists.
LOGAN: Is there a commonality across the companies you've invested in? You mentioned category creation as an interesting one. If you were to draw a through line across the companies you've invested in, everything from, whatnot and Duolingo to Stripe, gusto and webflow and all that, it. Is the through line that you would draw, is it the category creation element?
LOGAN: Is it the founder type that you gravitate to? Is it the size of the opportunity that you see? I'm sure there's multiple inputs but-
LAELA: Yeah. certainly multiple inputs. But one thing that we haven't maybe talked about that I think is a through line in a lot of these companies is that first it's the founder for sure.
LAELA: It's for me because I'm a very I love people, I love I love partnering with[00:29:00] with founders and those, all those companies that you just mentioned are people that I deeply admire, amazing entrepreneurs who I felt like I and CapitalG could really be great partners for them.
LAELA: And they were also excited to partner with us. I've been on the Duolingo board, I think for. Nine years now. So these, to me, are like really long-term investments. So that is first and foremost. But the other thing that I think has stood out in almost all the investments I've made is that you look there is something really compelling around the value to the customers or users that you really early on.
LAELA: And that most commonly shows up in things like, the cohort n d r, like look at companies like Stripe or whatnot, and you just see there's, they're totally different businesses, but what you can see is just an engagement in their core customers. You saw the same in UiPath, like J and it shows up in really high engagement data, really high revenue growth data on the enterprise side.
LAELA: And to me that [00:30:00] signal is just, this is. This isn't just, oh, I bought a package of software and I kept it. This is, wow, this software or this new habit or a service on the consumer side has really changed my life. And there is going to be a ton from a business model perspective, a ton of future growth in existing customers that are going to to me those are the companies that have outlier growth is where there's just a embedded potential in their existing customers to grow.
LAELA: And those are the ones that that grow at disproportionately fast rates and usually are in end markets much longer than you expect. And are that from a business model perspective are get to profitability and hyper growth in a much more efficient way.
LOGAN: I hadn't thought of this before, but as you were rattling off names, it also seems like you have a disproportionate number of immigrant founders.
LOGAN: Have you ever thought of that?
LAELA: Oh, interesting. I'm an immigrant, so maybe I was born in Jamaica, so there, yeah, there you go. I don't know. I'd never [00:31:00] thought of it like that.
LOGAN: Yeah, there you go. How do you personally go about getting to a decision and underwriting your own investments?
LOGAN: We talked a little bit about the Cap G investment framework. Yeah. But at a personal level how do you think about it?
LAELA: This is one of the things that I do actually think, be curious. Your thought too that, is an intangible thing about just being an investor. Maybe being a good investor is like, how do you get to.
LAELA: The yes or no after, especially growth stage investing. 'cause you have so much data, you have so much that is exciting about the deal. And then there's always doubt if nothing else for the last several years, like valuations have taken a lot of the fun out of the decision making process.
LAELA: 'cause you have to believe so much is going to happen to to to make an attractive investor. Or investment. For me, I it ends up being intuition in that final stage. It ends up. Really developing conviction in myself on the most important [00:32:00] things to pay attention to because nothing is perfect.
LAELA: So it, but we take, examples like UiPath, when I first did that investment in the series B, it was those customer cohorts and the early customers that I spoke to with such enthusiasm around how the software and the platform was impacting their their business and how excited they were to spend more.
LAELA: And that was so compelling that the company was growing so fast that there was lots of things that weren't working right when they'd grown from something. When I did the investment, I think it was like seven to 35 million in a r in that previous 12 months, and. So you can imagine lots of things that every company like that are broken and concerning and could be flags and you don't know how big the market is.
LAELA: And there, people, there's always conflicting data around how differentiated products and platforms are. So I find in making the final investment, a lot of the judgment comes back to quieting the noise [00:33:00] around things that are less important than the most important thing. And in that case, as an example I really felt the most important thing was this enthusiasm that I was hearing from customers and the data around expansion knew that was to get done.
LAELA: And every single other deal there's something like that where it really comes down to you can talk yourself in circles about five or six things, but you have to ultimately say, This is the one or two things, one or two things that I think really matters. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a call on that.
LOGAN: Yeah. I've gotten myself upside down I thought. I've evolved as anyone does, as an investor. And where I've landed, and I think this will be consistent, hopefully this stands the test of time.
LOGAN: But where I've landed is where I've struggled is when I've had false precision around what the exit could look like and being like, oh, this is a three to five x investment. And at the end of [00:34:00] the day, we've seen multiples go such so haywire over the course of the last three years that false precision was inaccurate no matter what the assumption was wrong in some way.
LOGAN: And so where I've landed is we'll underwrite investments with three to five x with 10 x plus upside, but. Where I've landed is 10 needs to be a world in which I can believe 20 or 30, or just something that is the ball goes really far. And then also I ask myself, do I really believe this is an important company?
LOGAN: Yeah. And important is this very ethereal thing. What does that actually mean? What, who to important to who, whatever. But that's the. Taste answer that I've landed on. And that could be it's some elements of market and founder and customer feedback and all that stuff. But do I think that there's a real shot when you walked in here, we have a bunch of the logos on our doors as we come in and do I think this company has a real shot at being one of those that we have hanging on for people to see when they walk through the door?
LOGAN: And if not, then it's probably not the right [00:35:00] investment. But it's taken me a little while to land there. And I had a lot of false precision along the way of what I thought multiples would be.
LAELA: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's a really interesting place to land. And one thing that I was thinking about as you were saying that is just the, the 80 20 rule in life is forever humbling, I think in terms of of what and I think you're right. One of the things that, that I've learned over time doing this the last 10 years is that you see how again, companies like Stripe that we've been talking about, there's just how big and incredible some companies are in the end markets that they're serving are.
LAELA: And you wanna believe that, that. More, companies fit into that category. And I think when you look back historically, that's not always the case.
LOGAN: Yeah. Power law and compounding are two like hard things to internalize. They're just like not very natural for the brain to process. And then you see it all laid out and you're like, okay I get it.
LOGAN: But like, how much [00:36:00] value can be accumulated if something really works?
LAELA: Yeah, completely. And keeping that bar really high when you're making a new investment, I think makes a lot of sense.
LOGAN: What about things that you haven't got there on? Not any names specifically, but if you were to go back and say, Hey, here are the commonalities of mistakes I made along the way that turned out to be really important businesses.
LAELA: The biggest ones have been ones where we really did under an eye underestimated just how big the end market was.
LOGAN: The what can go right.
LAELA: The what can go right and it doesn't tend to be I think what I've observed over time is that, Usually when you're wrong.
LAELA: The thing was already So it was, Hey, this company we passed on price or something to your point too much precision. Because it just didn't look like even we knew it was a great company, it just didn't look like it was gonna be an attractive investment because you had to assume so much growth to get to get a good return.
LAELA: And I think it was in, in underestimating how long [00:37:00] those really big winners could compound for, has been, is always the hardest thing to get wrong. And I've seen that and this is maybe where the, again, the entrepreneurial optimism comes in. The companies that come in and say, Hey, this product's working, we're gonna launch the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth.
LAELA: Most of the time that does not work as well as everyone hopes occasionally. We've been wrong on that. And I see that and occasionally we've been right on that and made the bet. But I think it's harder to do second acts than, than it seems. But also wonderful things for longer and bigger than than you see 'em.
LAELA: And to your point, also, we've seen the upside and the downside of multiples on the exit path. So I, the bar that I bring to all our investments is this has gotta be a business that you'd be excited to own for another five years, after. And if you're not, it probably you're trying to time the, [00:38:00] this is probably not the right thing.
LOGAN: We've referenced Duolingo, you've been on the board there for how long?
LAELA: Oh gosh. Nine years.
LOGAN: There haven't been many independent, standalone consumer businesses in the last decade that have gone public. Yeah. What have you learned about building an enduring consumer business from watching that one so closely.
LAELA: Yeah. That has been one of the great joys of my life to partner with who's the founder there on that whole team. I've learned And it's also
LOGAN: he is very complimentary of you. I've seen some of the quotes in the press stuff. Yeah. But he attributes a lot of support and success to you as well.
LAELA: thanks. I appreciate that. And it's, yeah, it's very mutual. It's been an amazing partnership and I've learned so much from that team. And I think it really comes down to they have been incredibly mission focused and incredibly product and user focus from the very beginning. They've been just relentless in their passion for and [00:39:00] focus on teaching languages to.
LAELA: Anyone who wants to learn them around the globe and to continue to really figure out how to make the product both fun and effective in doing that. So bringing this amazing mix of product experts, language learning experts, and then building this incredible innovation machines. So I think they got both the expertise around around how to just intuitively having amazing product people and then having the right expertise around teaching language and then an incredible innovation machine on their speed of experimentation.
LAELA: Is Nothing I've seen in any other company, like the number of ab tests that they run in a given quarter it like dwarfs the speed of innovation at most other companies. And that's just to me what I love about what they've built is they have built both the a plus process around it as well as the a plus like skill and expertise around it.
LAELA: So it's been a, as a result they've and they're in a huge market, [00:40:00] again, like billions and billions of people learning languages globally. And to build the world's best education platform to do that is just a massive So I think it's the, it's, The building blocks of what you'd say a great company has at a series A, like great product people, great process, but just to see them relentlessly focus on that and be able to scale that as they added in new talent and expanded to a bunch of different languages and now expanded to a bunch of different education verticals.
LAELA: Always being on the cutting edge of technology as well. You look even to the latest, they were like one of the first consumer companies to, to come out with an AI enabled product. Build off open so they're just, they're since day one to today the cutting And then they have a great brand, like as you see, like they're very, they're they've been all in from an authenticity perspective.
LOGAN: great Twitter
LAELA: Yeah. Yeah. I know They rival you,
LOGAN: [00:41:00] Yeah. I wish I could get to that level brand Twitter is a very hard thing to do. We've debated whether or not it's actually even really doable.
LOGAN: There's five examples of which Duolingo iss one of doing brand Twitter. It's hard. It's really hard to do.
LAELA: really hard to do. I remember when I worked at YouTube way back in the day when, companies would come in and say, how do you build a viral video? And those type of things are really hard to explain.
LAELA: And to me it comes from authenticity and genuine creativity and and really understanding what your brand stands for. And, people, which
LOGAN: I don't know if I made this up but it was, it's my perception that you and CapitalG like doing concentrated betts. Is that a fair characterization?
LAELA: Yeah, I would say our model is because we're very partner, partnership driven, so we wanna add a bunch of value to the companies and we're very thesis driven, so we like to make large betts.
LAELA: We'll typically invest anywhere from 75 to multiple millions in each do and partner over the long haul. Yeah, so it ends up [00:42:00] being reasonably concentrated portfolio, but we're also a fairly large fund at this point, so we're doing, quite a few deals.
LOGAN: Does that go back to the compounding point and just like the power law that we were talking about? Is that-
LAELA: Yeah, it's mostly we believe in the power law. We really wanna be in the world's most consequential technology companies. We want to be able to partner deeply, and so we wanna be able to spend the time and resources bring these advisors that I spoke about at Google to our companies.
LAELA: An example of that is I think we've had we a couple of years ago when we like everyone I guess we're realizing AI was gonna have a major transformative effect on our existing portfolio companies as well as new ones being created. Google has an internal training that they offer to all of their engineers around ai.
LAELA: And so we started offering that same training to engineers in our So we trained over 1200 engineers within our portfolio on this Google specific AI training. So it's like examples like that where we really feel like we have value that we can [00:43:00] add. And we're very Thoughtful investors in terms of we do a lot of work before we make an investment.
LAELA: It just it aligns well to making big investments in individual companies.
LOGAN: What about dev talent development and Yeah. People getting into the industry. So it seems like you all have followed some elements of your path that you've taken operators and train them as investors, but also I think you have some career investors as well.
LOGAN: How do you think about developing. Talent within the venture ecosystem.
LAELA: Yeah. I love this question 'cause I really think this is a secret sauce of one of the things that capital T has done well and a job is to think about team composition and I think it, a secret sauce to building an incredible investment team is to really get a diversity of experiences in the room.
LAELA: So one of the greatest gifts to me when I started at CapitalG 10 years ago was my partner Gene France, who has, we [00:44:00] joined CapitalG about the same time as he is a couple months before me. And he had been a career investor. He worked at TPG for a long time, really an amazing investor.
LAELA: I mean he's led, CrowdStrike and Zscaler and so many of our incredible investments at CapitalG. And we had totally different backgrounds. I had, this operating background. He had this really sense of investing background and we became very good friends and incredible. Partners to each other and really complimentary.
LAELA: And the type of questions I would ask an investment committee were very different from the type of questions he would ask. And I think we were able to offer perspectives to our portfolio companies that were complimentary. And it really we've talked a lot about the external learning curve of an investor, how you learn, being on the boards of these companies and through your mistakes and through your successes.
LAELA: And I think having a diverse team inside the firm just accelerates that learning curve so much more. So I felt it directly as I was. Learning how to operate in this [00:45:00] world. And I think and that and I see it now within our sort of next generation of investors at CapitalG, we've tried to build a similar mix.
LAELA: We have a partner on our team, Jill Chase, who is a c e o of a company prior to coming to investing. It had had never invested before CapitalG. And then we have other partners that have. Only grown up at h and f and Advent and other really great investment firms. And you see it in the halls.
LAELA: Them learning from each other, them seeing the complimentary things that each other bring. And I don't know, I think it's, there's no better way to build a team then to bring as many relevant experiences as you can in the door and build a collaborative culture where there's people help from each other.
LAELA: Otherwise, it's just, more of the same, and then you can operate in that lane. But I don't know, it limits eliminates the latter possibility. So I believe in it. And I also think, from a mission perspective, having a thinking about bringing in the diversity of experiences also opens the door to bringing in more diverse [00:46:00] people which is also good for the industry.
LOGAN: Because you're not beholden to investment banking.
LAELA: Exactly. Investment banking classes who tend to look more similar and from more similar backgrounds. And as you open up the aperture to what type of talent you're looking for, you can also bring in not just diverse expertise, but diversity So there's a bunch of, I think, great reasons to do it.
LAELA: And and, yeah, I care a lot about and I think I'm proud of what we’re doing.
LOGAN: what advice do you have for young folks that want to get into the industry? I struggle with this at times because people will ask can you talk to me about your path?
LOGAN: And I'm like, sure, yeah, I can. But that's not particularly relevant today. That worked 10 years ago. And so thinking about what actual advice to give to a, maybe it's someone in banking or at a company that wants to get into the industry, or a junior person at a venture fund today. Do you have-
LAELA: Yeah. and I get [00:47:00] asked this question a lot too, and I think it, it is a hard question, but I will tell you, to me, one of the things that I think people don't always appreciate about investing, and I don't know you think on this slogan, but it there's an element that you have to be scrappier and a lot more of a hustler than I think people realize.
LAELA: Like you have to find ways to To get yourself in rooms that you weren't invited to upfront. You have to think of more thoughtful and more creative things to to ask entrepreneurs and ways to add value, especially at the growth stage where these are companies that are, have a lot of choices.
LAELA: The very best companies in the world have a lot of choices on who they bring on as an investing partner. So it takes effort and to think about how you can truly be a relevant partner to them and how you can even get a conversation with them. I liked it. First of all, tell people that, 'cause a lot of people, I think that maybe investing is a little bit more glamorous than it is from the outside.
LAELA: And so the advice I also give [00:48:00] to people is, Demonstrate that sh show how you're getting in rooms, how you're, whether you're angel investing or advising or even demonstrating how do you uniquely figure out, and you can tell even how someone gets to you. Like I'm sure you probably looking, get asked a bunch of for your time on this topic.
LAELA: Like what type, how did they get to you and how valuable did they make that meeting for you? And what sort of insightful or creative things did they bring? And so a lot of the off the beaten track or maybe less traditional path investors that we've hired, how they got to me and how they showed up in that first meeting, or how I saw them get to entrepreneurs or how they showed up in that first deal.
LAELA: Like you can tell I think who's got some of that special sauce?
LOGAN: It's a, yeah it's a great call out. The one that I'll typically give, I think the grit thing is really important. There were definitely points in time that, that a handful of CEOs probably one to issue restraining orders on me from my level of [00:49:00] persistence.
LOGAN: Heard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I there is that one that actually so I do think the grit element of all of that is is a super important one. And then also I found if you could pick something that you think will be more, if you're a junior within a firm or trying to get, with, trying to join a firm, picking something that you think.
LOGAN: Will be more important in the future than it is today and building some level of domain expertise in that. And it could be selling to developers, right? Or it could be at risk healthcare businesses, or it could be whatever it is. Pick something that you think is in the path of progress and run.
LOGAN: To that point in time, and I found people too often pick what's hot today. Yeah. And then you're already late. If you, if everyone's already doing it, if it's ai then you're behind the curve and everyone else wants to do it. And so how are you gonna stand out? So pick that one domain that you're gonna uniquely know well, and then at some point if you're right, then [00:50:00] someone will want that skillset or that knowledge within the industry.
LOGAN: And you obviously need to grind to get to people. Yeah. I found people are less persistent than they should be. Like the number of I guess I, I shouldn't say this, but I have ignored. Emails that if they don't put in any level of like personalization and whatever, it's just, I'm not, you get a lot of emails right?
LOGAN: And it's but if you put in thought
LAELA: were gonna get the most personalized emails.
LOGAN: I know. I'm setting myself up for honestly my weakness and I,
LAELA: You’re a generative AI target.
LOGAN: All people need to do is just be like, I'm such a, I'm such a simple outbound per, just say you like the podcast. And then it's that's it.
LOGAN: I'm like, how much time do you have? Let's let's go on a walk together.
LAELA: all day Sunday.
LOGAN: you free on Sunday? I'll block my afternoon. We can talk about the podcast. No, but it is, there is something to that of like just personalizing the thoughtfulness of it. Yeah. And I it's amazing how low the bar clearing the bar can be if you just put in a little bit more time and thought to it.
LAELA: I completely agree with that. The other thing I think that's really interesting about what you said and I agree with is I think another thing that's underappreciated about investing is that you do have to make a call. So you have to make, like making that call or I'm going to, become an expert in targeting developers to your example or at risk healthcare, it's you have to put a stake in the ground before it is consensus obvious I think both internally and externally to be there when the puck gets there.
LAELA: And you're right some of the time, and you're wrong some of the time, but I see people that get frozen by their they, almost analysis paralysis, paradox of sure they're right. Yeah. And that also does not scale once you get inside the investment firm because you have to operate with a lot more uncertainty to get things done.
LOGAN: Now, perspective on the venture industry today. Ah, yes. It's weird. It's a weird market we live in.
LAELA: It's, yeah.
LOGAN: So you joined the industry?
LAELA: In 2013. Okay. So
LOGAN: we're about the same. I was 2014 I feel like I’ve-
LAELA: remember those good old days?
LOGAN: Yeah. [00:52:00] Everyone, I will say the totality of the time, everyone always says this is so expensive.
LOGAN: I think the last two years or 2021 specifically it was so expensive. I think time has proven that. I also think I've learned maybe more in the last two and a half or as much and as I did in the first six or seven in the industry. What's your perspective on the state of play as we sit here in July of 2023?
LAELA: Yeah. So I agree. Radically different last two years than the kind of eight years before that. I think it I have the Lucky position, of being on a couple public boards and then all these private boards. So it's been it's been interesting to just see the public companies are like way past this.
LAELA: They've like moved on, right? There was a correction to valuation multiples. There were some operating changes that had to happen. There was at a acceptance of reality and then they've moved on. It's interesting to juxtapose that with a lot of the private companies who I think have been more in, in a more almost [00:53:00] frozen state for a while.
LAELA: They've obviously had to make a lot of operating changes because been some degree in slowdown in businesses, depends on the individual one. And then there's been this macro push towards profitability and, shift away from the growth of it all cost mentality. So entrepreneurs have had to make hard.
LAELA: Operating decisions. And those, I think a lot of restructurings that have been difficult and painful and I think a lot of changes inside the company. But from a an external capital perspective a lot of it has been largely frozen. So I think what that means for you and I, when I think of the, this sort of deal flow in traditional growth series B to d down, from a volume and dollars perspective. And most of those companies are staying at their 2021 valuations in their hearts and minds, if not reality. And many of the best ones have significant [00:54:00] cash that they might not have to raise for many years. So I think what that's meant for growth stage investors, for us we've done a lot of existing of investing within our existing portfolio.
LAELA: So companies we know really well that. Wanted more capital for various reasons. There have been some growth deals that have done and we've been investing, and I think as we talked about before, there's been some more interesting private equity type deals that we've done. And overall the, if you said state of the industry, it is slower and there's still a disconnect between public market valuations and private market valuations.
LAELA: There's still companies that amount of There's a, I'm seeing the most interesting things actually in the sort of pre IPO pipeline or those companies and there's starting to be excitement, heating back up. That's quite recent, I think the last couple of months of people thinking, Hey, maybe the IPO window might open up.
LAELA: And you see those companies. At [00:55:00] least the CEOs I talked to are closer to the public market companies on just wanting to accept reality. They're like, this is what my valuation is.
LOGAN: Let's just, we can comp it very clearly against some other business. We don't, it's not in the jar over here that says 2021 on it.
LAELA: We don't care what happened in 2021. They see the amazing companies that are public that are, have been corrected. They just want to, they wanna move on with it. And they know they have, if you're in a, a lot of the companies that are really in the IPO pipeline are great businesses. They have confidence in their business and their business model, and they just, they want they want, they, they know the next step is just to understand their public market, evaluation.
LAELA: So I see those starting to heat up and we'll see in terms of like maybe there's some secondary transactions that are starting to happen, I think more in those companies. And and if the IPO window doesn't open up, I would imagine that some of those companies will do additional private raises.
LAELA: So that's, some of the trends. [00:56:00] So we've still been very active. I think we're excited that and curious your perspective, but as we look into 2024 and we look at, our analyses on on a lot of these companies, some many more will need to start raising. And so we think volume is gonna pick back up pretty considerably going into next year, and we're starting to see it.
LOGAN: That was our prognosis. We felt like Q three, Q four, but in particular Q one, Q two, if you just look at some swags on estimated burn rates and cash out, and when people are gonna need to go back and test the market and take their medicine or not.
LOGAN: My, my one piece of advice for all companies is don't don't. Assume what your value, what you think your valuation should be based on your prior round or some other comp in the market. Let the market dictate it. Because I think I've had conversations where founders have said, yeah, we're still, we're looking for X on our multiple of our last round, and.
LOGAN: It's a weirdly easy [00:57:00] disqualification. It's both the valuation, you might not hit it, but two, the psychology of the founder. That if they're still so focused on oh, we want to two x our last valuation when we're in this super upside down world, it just shows that they don't quite get it right.
LOGAN: And so if there's some lesson I would I would give to any founder listening to this that's gonna go raise in the next 12 months, just don't just take what the market says. Say you're gonna let the market speak for itself, and then you'll get options on there because you might be wrong to the upside, and you might be wrong to the downside.
LOGAN: But getting people to do work is the hardest thing to do. Make them, 'cause we only have so many cycles that we can really dig into. Yeah. And if you're giving them a reason to disqualify it from the start, that's probably not the Yeah. The best way to go raise
LAELA: No, I agree with the general sentiment for everybody, for investors, for entrepreneurs, like it's just accepting reality when there's big changes, I think is the most, it can be a difficult process and I think, but in my experience, dragging that out for [00:58:00] longer does more pain than good.
LAELA: So I, I agree. Like I think the best thing that any, I think founder can do is find amazing capital partners that believe in the long-term vision and, bring them on at a fair price and then get on with growing the business. I think that's, that stands the test of time over every ma macro cycle.
LOGAN: Now I have to ask about artificial intelligence. What what's your perspective on the industry or the opportunity
LAELA: Yeah, so I think probably like everybody I am think there. I'm very excited about the, every day it really is an, in Google, we get some internal like looks even at some of the pre-launch stuff. And it is truly incredible, especially this generative AI stuff. More recently the potential use cases that are really disruptive and value creating in the way that we work, in the way that we consume content.
LAELA: And so I'm excited [00:59:00] about those the potential for I think that Existing technology companies that have users, that have distribution, that have infrastructure that are leaning forward on adopting this technology are incredibly well positioned. So when I put my investor hat on, I think I mentioned Duolingo, I think of the companies like Duolingo, UiPath, that, that are so well positioned to adopt because they're still cutting edge, they still have great technologists, they're innovative, they can move quickly.
LAELA: And so the biggest question I have is I'm a hundred percent sold on how big the, and transformative this, these, this long-term. Trend is going to be and I think we're in the early innings of seeing where the value accrues and I think value can accrue to existing fast moving innovative companies and value will accrue to new startups.
LAELA: It's been we've made a handful, not all of them are val announced AI [01:00:00] investments, and I think we've gone earlier than we have traditionally because we're so excited about the trend. I think the growth stage because of the cost, especially of large language models is so prohibitively expensive at this point that, it's the valuations of the rounds have been.
LAELA: Confusing to say the least. So as well, yeah. So I think it hasn't been, we're still in such early innings that to me, where I'm focusing my team and we're spending a lot of time trying to get as smart as we can make betts where we can and really look at this as a long term play, encourage our existing portfolios to be early adopters of, and be leaders in the market around AI applications.
LAELA: And then I think the investments will come, but it certainly for growth stage investors we're in the early days.
LOGAN: Is that the sector you mentioned every 18 to 24 months kind of repotting the sectors you spend in, is that the one that you're spending
LAELA: I've been spending a lot of time It's also great time to spend a lot of time in that sec in this sector. 'cause I think it's a, [01:01:00] like a, we have a. Great expertise within Google Advisors to help us. And this is gonna be something we all have to understand deeply as we go forward. The next, for the rest of the time that you and I will be investing Logan, I think this it'll be a good use of time.
LOGAN: Now I want to end on the personal side here. So you were born, we alluded to this before, you were born in Jamaica, but grew up in Florida
LAELA: I was the original, the OG Florida scene.
LOGAN: Totally. A hundred percent a one person tech scene
LAELA: Exactly.
LOGAN: Wait so can you take me through, it seems like you had an unusual you studied biochemical sciences. Yeah. You went to Kenya, so what
LAELA: Good. You've done a good podcast research slogan.
LOGAN: It’s what I do.
LOGAN: Can you, just from a storytelling standpoint how'd you go from Jamaica?
LOGAN: Why were you in Jamaica? How'd you end up in Florida? Yeah. Maybe take us all the way through that.
LAELA: Sure. How long do you got here? All right.
LOGAN: I, listen, I, we can lay flat on the couch.
LAELA: Exactly. All right. I'll try to, I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Yeah. I'm not sure your listeners will be as [01:02:00] interested, but I appreciate you.
LOGAN: I don't know. it's an interesting, I don't th I, I don't know how many Jamaican born VCs there are. There we go.
LAELA: I'm not sure about that either. Yeah my parents met on a beach in Jamaica, my dad's Jamaica, and my mom's from England. And I was born in Jamaica and then my parents immigrated to Miami when I was. Young kid. So I did all my schooling in, in, public school in Broward County, south Florida.
LAELA: I then I went to Harvard. I played basketball. So basketball was my first love. So I grew up playing basketball and I played college basketball at Harvard. And I think because I had Immigrant parents. I always had a very global outlook to the world. So when I was graduating college, I I wanted to live and work overseas.
LAELA: So I lived in Ireland in Dublin. I lived in Kenya for a short period of time. I worked for an education nonprofit there. So I, in addition to caring a lot about entrepreneurship and technology and business creation, I care a lot about social justice education, global education. [01:03:00] So I worked on a number of organizations that were working in various aspects of human rights and education.
LAELA: And then eventually came back and went to went to business school and got more involved in the tech sector after so that's the abridged version.
LOGAN: Are there elements of either basketball or Kenya or Ireland or, yeah. What what lessons did you internalize that maybe you’re-
LAELA: Invest in Irish entrepreneurs.
LOGAN: Yeah, that's a good one. Stripe?
LAELA: Yeah. I don't think I knew that when I was living in Dublin. I think what I always, what I think was similar about my kind of early career and how I approach investing, first of all, I love new things. Like I've always went, moved to countries and took new jobs where I was challenged and could learn a lot.
LAELA: And the challenge was even sort getting in the door and learning something new and and also a very global outlook. So I think that, talked about themes across my investments, but I think [01:04:00] when you look at Duolingo or UiPath is another good example. And one of the secret sauces of UiPath Romanian founder you know, Daniel was so focused on the global markets from the beginning and had offices and customers in international markets way before.
LAELA: The typical US-based software company would. So I think that type of global outlook and non-traditional thinking and maybe a little bit of, outside outsider thinking, I think has been it tends to be the people that I've, I gravitate towards. And I think, you talked about grit and resilience and creativity.
LAELA: And I think a lot of those, elements are the people I've been attracted to and entrepreneurs and business building and that I've been attracted to and all aspects of, in my life, before and after
LOGAN: thank you for doing this.
LAELA: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
[01:05:00]