Operators Ep 16 Transcript
Delian: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name is Delian and I'm a principal at Founders Fund, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. This is Operators where I interview non VC, non CEO, non founder operators that make the startup world go round. Today I'm interviewing Emil Michael, former chief business officer at Uber. Prior to joining Uber Emil worked at two other successful tech companies, Tellme Networks which was acquired by Microsoft and Klout which was acquired by Lithium. He also worked for the Secretary of Defense for a term and started his career with a brief stint at Goldman Sachs. I hope you enjoy the show. Cool. Emil thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today, really excited to have you.
Emil Michael: [00:00:51] Good to be here.
Delian: [00:00:52] Well, you've had, uh, quite the storied career and I always, uh, enjoy starting things, these things off by like rewinding all the way to the beginning, which is you first started off, uh, in the world of, you know, Goldman Sachs, uh, in I, iBanking, uh, but only stuck around for a year which is probably a smart call rather than staying around for too long. Uh, what made you decide pretty quickly that that wasn't sort of the career path you wanted?
Emil Michael: [00:01:11] You know, I went to Goldman Sachs right out of law school. That's good, because when I went to law school, I was like, "Holy cow, I do not wanna be a lawyer getting paid by the hour or by every six minute increments." So I was like, "Okay, at least I'll do banking." And I had a lot of student loans, it was lucrative and I got there and, uh, it was the heyday of, of, uh, the first tech bubble, '98 to '99. But I just looked around and, you know, you, when you're young in those places, you're like, can you imagine yourself being one of those senior bankers 20 years from now and be happy? And it just wasn't for me. You know, the, that was, uh, wearing suits and all, you know, all, the whole New York thing and, uh, was just not my, not my bag.
Delian: [00:01:53] So was it seeing sort of the heyday of like the tech boom which kinda got you interested in tech and then you ended up at, uh, Tellme, which would, you could tell a little bit about, the listeners about sort of what Tellme was about and then also kind of how you discovered it, how you ended up there.
Emil Michael: [00:02:05] Yeah. So, so I went to law school at Stanford from '95 to '98, so if you were at Stanford at that time that was like the super early days of tech. So I was working with, uh, Tony Hsieh and Ali Partovi and [Alford Lane 00:02:19] on, uh, their first company that got sold to Microsoft, the Internet Link Exchange in sort of my spare time. And so there's just so much enthusiasm around it and so I got to New York for banking and I was like, "I gotta get back there." And Hadi Partovi, uh, you guys know him and his brother Ali Partovi, they're twins, we were all fraternity brothers in college and he'd found Tellme and he's like, "You gotta, you know, if you're gonna come here, come, come to Tellme." And Tellme was supposed to be a use your voice to surf the internet company at the time, because we didn't have data on our phones, internet connections were slow, it was gonna use speech recognition. It turns out speech re- speech recognition technology was, was ahea- was, uh, behind, you know, it was ahead of its time in terms of what we wanted it to do relative to what it could do. Um, but we built a business and it was, it was, it was a great experience.
Delian: [00:03:09] That's awesome. Yeah. I guess maybe can you walk through a little bit of just like what you did over the nine years there, primarily, like things you feel like you learned? I mean, it sounds like that's sort of your first, like, you know, professional move. What do you, was their sorta core area of expertise that you feel like you built up over your stint there?
Emil Michael: [00:03:24] Yeah. So, so I, you know, I was hired without portfolio. My title was director, uh, but I quickly, um, got into business development, corporate development doing deals. So, you know, I'm 26 and my first deal is, uh, is I raised like 60 million bucks from, from AT&T at like a 800 million valuation. This is '99 which was just mind, you know, mind blowing, um, at the time. So it was just the thrill of that got me more into sorta deals and if you have a legal background like I studied accounting finance, like, you know, doing deals when you have those kinds of skillsets, you're at, you can actually do, uh, do them pretty well. So I coach other people who wanna do business to have a Corp Dev to get some of those vertical skillsets, even learn, take a call, class in law so you know how to do a contract. Um, and I did that and we had enough money to survive the internet burst and then we built it to 100 million dollars in revenue per year. And then we sold it to Microsoft in 2007 for like 800 million, which was, thank God it was in '08 'cause it would have been worth, you know, a f- a tiny fraction of that.
Delian: [00:04:32] And I assume, yeah, post Microsoft acquisition looks like you didn't really stick around for too long. The golden handcuffs weren't, uh, weren't making you stay there for too much.
Emil Michael: [00:04:39] A year and a half. So it was '07. I stayed until kinda end of '08. Uh, but yeah, that, you know, that was, obviously people who've gotten acquired by big companies know it could be, it could be a time to recharge. [laughs].
Delian: [00:04:53] Yeah, it makes sense. Um, and so you took a little bit of like a kinda, you know, political, you know, break, it seems like and then you got back into the world of tech this time. I believe you were the actual one of the founders basically of, uh, Klout, uh, early on.
Emil Michael: [00:05:04] No, I was, uh, I wa- I joined as the n- as COO. You know, it would be, it would have been 30 or 40 people.
Delian: [00:05:13] Oh, okay. Okay.
Emil Michael: [00:05:14] Yeah.
Delian: [00:05:14] So it was already relatively established. Okay.
Emil Michael: [00:05:14] Yeah.
Delian: [00:05:14] And I guess, yeah-
Emil Michael: [00:05:14] Yeah.
Delian: [00:05:14] ... What, what, what made the like opportunity for Klout, uh, you know, attractive? What, what, what, what brought you there?
Emil Michael: [00:05:20] Yeah. I mean, I was in DC at the time finishing up this White House fellowship thing and I started looking to get back into the Valley. And, you know, again, Klout was kind of ahead of its time too and I was, I thought what Klout was, it was not kinda what the world knew about it. It was, how do you cut through the noise on social media? Who's important and who knows what they're talking about and who doesn't? And we still have that problem today, but, [laughs], but that was the idea. I was fascinated with that idea because I saw the growth of that, that industry and that's why I joined, but it was a quick ride. It was like a year before we were able to sell that.
Delian: [00:05:54] And I guess you, and obviously you've gone through a sales process before. I imagined that one was, you know, relatively different. I mean, the, you know, I assume to revenue line wasn't nearly as large and also it was more-
Emil Michael: [00:06:04] Yeah.
Delian: [00:06:04] ... baked into, you know, social. Like, were there any, I guess, like big lessons that you feel like you learned from the Tellme acquisition that you helped when you were sort of guiding Klout through acquisition that sort of gave you like, "Ah, I know how to structure these types of deals and guide this thing to a solid exit."
Emil Michael: [00:06:17] For sure. I mean, and, and the thing that all field people should know and, you know, should learn is, is creating as much comp- competitive tension as you can, that causes things to move forward at, at, at a speedy pace, but also maximize value. And so that's sort of obvious, but people can ignore it because they fall in love. I wanna wor- I wanna be acquired by your company. I wanna work with you. And even if you do, if you allow that to kind of keep you from, from actually checking your options in a more, um, objective way, that's where compa- that's where entrepreneurs make mistakes.
Delian: [00:06:54] I feel like one of the sorta classic sayings in, uh, the world of acquisitions is that companies are bought not sold. Uh, which would, you know, I think generally seem to imply that people are, you know, uh, uh, approached with proactive offers of, "We would like to buy your company." As opposed to anybody actually being able to run like a sales process. But I think here you're actually implying like, no, there's actually an art to like running a sales process and there's a way to do this. I guess. Can you break down sort of what, at what stage at a startup's lifetime do you think it actually makes sense? Or is it, is it potentially attractive to actually go for like an acquisition? And then yeah, maybe just like, what i- what is the process? What do you need to prepare for it? How do you actually create that type of like, you know, tension and timing? Who do you go for? I'd love to think through like, what's your framework for guiding a company, you know, through a process like that?
Emil Michael: [00:07:39] Uh, yeah. So I, you know, Bill Campbell, who's the so famous coach in Silicon Valley and I used to have this debate all the time where he would say, he'd be, "Oh, great companies are bought not sold." And I totally disagreed because you have to put yourself in a position where you have that option. Um, and that is actually a long-term process. And so as the chief business guy at my, at all the companies, I was, I was, and including Uber, I always built relationships with potential acquirers, not as early as possible doing commercial deals, getting to know them so that if and when the time came for an event I had relationships to pull in and call right away because these things move fast and create that tension.
So the relationship building thing is becoming a little bit of a lost art in the Valley, like the business development function. And I think it's mis- i- it's a, it's a mistake because those kinds of investments, uh, are re- you know, can pay off or they can not pay off, but when you get acquired and we... The first bid for Tellme it was 300 million and we got it to 800 million. Right. So you think about the value creation that tension, uh, created, it's kind of amazing.
Delian: [00:08:46] Why, why do you say that the art of, uh, like, business development is getting like lost in Silicon Valley? Like, why do you think that is and where do you think certain companies are missing out by not, you know, focusing on developing that?
Emil Michael: [00:08:57] I think because, uh, because companies have, uh, more direct access to consumers and to enterprises, you know, a small group slack coming kinda, uh, it's up through the bottom not through the IT department and all that. Um, you have a lot of product oriented CEOs who are like, "What, what, what kinda deals am I gonna do? Like what? I don't get what a deal, what does a business development deal mean? I don't understand." Um, and so, and if they do, it's sort of very lightweight, uh, and it's not strategic. It doesn't potentially move the business forward in a fundamental way. And I think almost every company can use a small group of strategy, business people to be out there hunting for new ideas, new opportunities and new relationships
Delian: [00:09:44] Makes sense. And it sounds like, you know, if somebody were trying to, you know, get themselves set up for a role like that, your point is that, that it's a multifaceted role, it's relationships, it's legal, it's contracts, it's business sides. And so if somebody wanted to set up for this, you'd actually recommend that they sort of go out and build almost like a, a brief amount of sort of each of those individual skillsets so you can kinda put it all together in order to be successful in a role like that.
Emil Michael: [00:10:05] Yeah, for sure. I mean, and, and, you know, and you could do that on the job. So what I tell junior business people are like, "Okay." They're like, "Yeah, the handshake on a deal or a term sheet on a deal, I'm going to hand it off to a lawyer." So I say, "No, don't hand it off to lawyers. You go with the lawyers, learn what a limitation liability clause means or, you know, an indemnity means so that you understand it." If you have basic understandings of those things, you will know better how to do the next deal. So it's sort of paying attention to things that are not sort of directly in your, in your lane so that you can absorb them.
Delian: [00:10:35] And do you have a sense of like, you know, if somebody is like pure fresh grad, right, like they just got a student for law-
Emil Michael: [00:10:40] Yeah.
Delian: [00:10:40] ... let's say like this year, what do you think is like the ideal, let's say, like company archetype or role they should be focusing on? It's like their very first. Like, is it literally just jumping straight into Biz Dev or is it actually maybe working as a, you know, GC or something like that? Like, what do you think is, you know, if you were now, you know, a, a, a Stanford law fresh grad and you're trying to learn about Biz Dev sort of as quickly as possible, how would you do it?
Emil Michael: [00:11:01] I mean, I wouldn't go to law school again if I had to, [laughs], start all over again, but, uh, but you know, whether it's business school or law school, I would say, um, that people would come from that ilk and they're, who are not technical. You know, you could do Biz Dev. I wouldn't go into legal departments, uh, necessarily unless you really wanted to be an actual lawyer, because, you know, that's a, that is a discipline and a licensed profession that has its own sort of, you know, uh, situation, whether you're in a law firm or in house. I would say, you know, you could take a product management job or a Biz Dev job, but something where you have output that's measurable. I closed these deals and they resulted in this many new subs or this much money in the bank or this. I rolled out this product with these features and it got this many users. Do something tangible, don't go McKinsey style like, "Hey, give me a pitch deck on strategy, company strategy," and that's your output. Yeah.
Delian: [00:11:52] Right, right, right. Have output that's like actual real either business or product outputs. You understand how this stuff-
Emil Michael: [00:11:56] Yeah.
Delian: [00:11:56] ... runs.
Emil Michael: [00:11:56] Yeah.
Delian: [00:11:58] Um, cool. So I guess, yeah, in 2013, after the, you know, whole experience with Klout, you, uh, decided to join Uber, which obviously was the, uh, the ride of a lifetime. Um, yeah, I guess, how did you, you know, discover Uber and maybe given that both, let's say, like, Tellme and Klout were, um, had this feeling of, uh, maybe their upside is capped 'cause they were too ahead of their time? Did you think about that practically as you were considering basically whether or not Uber was potentially like too ahead of it's time or what gave you confidence, um, that the upside was much greater, uh, in this opportunity, vis-a-vis, I'm sure at the time, you probably had a ton of other opportunities beyond just Uber that you could have considered?
Emil Michael: [00:12:32] Right. Yeah. So same stories, it's that I, I met Travis actually back in 2011 when Uber was like eight, nine people, made the big mistake of not joining then. Um, you know, eight or nine people in, in 2011 is a big deal. Ironically, the guy who introduced us was Bill Gurley from Benchmark, um, because he thought, you know, he knew me because Benchmark was an investor in Tellme and he was like, "Hey, you know Travis is a business guy and someone who understands law and policy and those sorts of things." And I met Travis and I thought it was, you know, a black car service for rich people in 2011. Um, [laughs], but I really liked him so we became friends. So we were friends for a couple of years and the tipping point for me in 2013, where I knew it was gonna be huge is when UberX happened, because UberX was the holy cow, you're unlocking the world's supply of cars. This is a different ball game and your time slicing people. This is not the limo driver who's doing 50 hours a week. And that happened in sort of February, March of 2013 and I was like back. I was like, "Okay, Travis, I'm ready." And then, and then we started working together.
Delian: [00:13:38] That's awesome. And so at that point, I believe they had like basically already raised their Series E, C. They were like operating in I think multiple cities-
Emil Michael: [00:13:44] It was B.
Delian: [00:13:44] ... across-
Emil Michael: [00:13:45] It was in between-
Delian: [00:13:45] B.
Emil Michael: [00:13:46] ... B and C thankfully. Yeah. [laughs].
Delian: [00:13:47] Cool. Okay. So you got, you got that slightly lower PPS. Uh, but they'd launched by, more, more cities than beyond just the Bay Area-
Emil Michael: [00:13:53] Yeah.
Delian: [00:13:53] ... right, at that poin?
Emil Michael: [00:13:54] Oh, yeah.
Delian: [00:13:54] Um.
Emil Michael: [00:13:54] Yeah.
Delian: [00:13:55] So I guess, yeah, what were the things that I guess Travis felt like, uh, maybe were, you know, missing or gaps, and even, it sounds like a little bit of business, a little bit of law, which obviously makes sense. But were there already some, let's say, like fires under his belt that you like, you know, uh, were immediately dying to help put out?
Emil Michael: [00:14:09] Well, so, um, I think the way we talked about it at the time was, you know, Travis is an engineer, you know, by, by training. He, he actually ran an enterprise software company before Uber, you, you know, one of the things that was a derivation of his first startup. Um, but you know, he would prefer to be doing product engineering facing, you know, go in and talk to other CEOs, being out there and doing that, he can do it and did it great, but he'd prefer not to. So he's like, "You are the face of the business community Emil and we don't know exactly what that means, but we'll figure it out together." And so I started with no employees. He also, at the time, I remember telling me, he was like, "I don't need help fundraising, we're good. [laughs]. And, and you Know, this is, you know, before I helped him raise or led $15 billion worth of fundraisers after that, right. But it was sort of undetermined. It was just, you're gonna be the business guy and you're gonna figure it out.
Delian: [00:15:02] I love that. I guess, before we dive too deep into, uh, you know, Uber, um, and, and sort of what you worked on there, I know that, you know, there was a lot of controversy surrounding Uber, your time at the company, and you've already publicly apologized for some of these incidents. But I guess, you know, if you were to, if you were to share some overall, let's say like, you know, lessons learned from those mistakes and those lessons that could help potentially other execs, execs, it's super competitive, you know, hard work ethic, high growth companies. What would be some of those, I guess like, you know, lessons learned to be?
Emil Michael: [00:15:33] Yeah. I mean, I was fairly naive for... I was 40 years old so I wasn't that young, but I'd been at two companies that were not, the world didn't know that, you know, these company is Klout or Tellme. The world knew Uber very early on in its life cycle, so I didn't realize the magnif- the, the effect of the world watching you and how the, uh, how like any action you take could be magnified in, in, in terms of its badness or its goodness. And so you, so you have to be careful, care- you can't be careless. Um, and that kind of goes everywhere and the first mistake I made was like some journalists came to a dinner and claimed he didn't, it wasn't an off the record comment. Uh, you know, on an off the record conversation you're lying, but my bad for not, for not acting as if everything is on the record all the time.
Um, and I was just musing and, you know, we were having a late night drink in New York and sort of was, was careless. Uh, so don't be careless, especially if you're, [laughs], on the spotlight is one lesson. The other lesson is, you know, um, loyalty of your team and your investors is really important and when there's a lot of money at stake, people do weird things. P- you know, people who you thought, you know, were your friends or people who you thought would, would support you with, on all that, but when, you know, when they believe money is at stake, everything's, everything changes. So I got my first dose of like high-end corporate politics that I didn't expect.
Delian: [00:17:01] Yeah. I feel like one thing that is sometimes hard to like appreciate is most people think of tech always as a relatively, um, you know, non zero sum game where they're sort of "infinite value" to be created. So it's part of why I love Silicon Valley. Everybody sort of pays it forward. But I feel like sometimes when you're at the precipice of a very large IPO, it all of a sudden starts to become very zero sum and people's incentives and behaviors really start to change. I guess, what do you think is the right way to like prepare yourself for that without also, I guess, getting, you know, too, you know, burned and paranoid and not getting to participate in what's great about Silicon Valley, i.e. the non-zero some aspect of it?
Emil Michael: [00:17:38] Yeah. That's a good point. It's a great question. Um, you know, I do think early investors who, who are with a company af- after it's gone hyper growth, they do get loss aversion and it's hard not to, right, because you invest $30 million in something, it looks like 8 billion. You start to wake up in the middle of the night, [laughs], going, "Holy cow, what, what's going on with this company?" Because it means everything's your reputation, to your firm, to your LPs, to, to your own wealth creation. So that problem, like the only way I've thought about solving is like, could you do term limits for early board members or like, once it reaches this valuation you sort of rotate off, you become an observer, you know, something.
Uh, the other lesson I learned is we were really tight on liquidity at Uber. We didn't want anyone selling stock, investors, employees, nothing, because we thought it competed with our ability to do primary fundraisers. The problem is that creates this tension again. You get, no, there's no outlet. So had I do it all over again, I probably would have created avenues for people to sell shares, because as entrepreneurs we have a 20 year outlook. They don't have that. They, they don't, they can't. They have funds to, in, in LPs and so on. So those are two bits of advice.
Delian: [00:18:49] Yeah. It does seem like one of the big shifts. It feels like over the past, I'd say like five years, especially in these companies that are staying, uh, private, hyper, hyper late, is that a lot of them have a very liquid secondary market, almost like a scheduled tender offer on like a once a quarter basis. And it feels like that does kind of help deal with that issue 'cause then with the early investor, if it's like, look, if you're worried about how the company is going, just recognize your liquidity then. Um, and I guess, yeah, obviously, maybe, you know, Uber's so capital, was so capital intensive, um, that, you know, the risk, the primary was actually real. But I guess maybe you don't really know until you just, you know, try it and see what happens with the tender offers versus the primary.
Emil Michael: [00:19:27] Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I think those, I think there's, there's the right balance 'cause there's the right balance of liquidity because it is a motivator for employees to like look forward to a liquidity event. Um, but yes, the, you know, if I had do it all over again, we would have created more opportunities for liquidity for, for people who didn't wanna be along for the second part of the ride, you know.
Delian: [00:19:46] Yeah. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. Uber isn't necessarily the company that would immediately come to mind that let's say succeeded due to like integral, like, you know, partnerships and relationships with other like large, uh, large businesses. But I know that during your time there, you did create, you know, partnerships with AmEx, with AT&T and Toyota. I guess, how did you think about sort of like building up those relationships, forming those partnerships? How did those types of partnerships at a, at a scale of like something like Uber is versus Tellme differ and then how did you also prioritize that as a, you know, let's say as an exec team, relative to just like continuing to launch more cities and continue to put more boots on the ground? A partnership with AmEx is obviously a very different ball game than just more boots on the ground.
Emil Michael: [00:20:27] Yeah. So my team was always the smallest team that reported to Travis. So the idea you're still always, it's a small team because too many Biz Dev people around meetings they start bad deals, so, and, and deals that sort of take the company off sideways or just, just, and panache for engineering, you know, whatever. So small, highly capable teams t- tend to be more experienced on average than other teams. And then you do deals that are... My, my sort of bar to my team was, this is gonna take, create a step function change in our ability to acquire you, uh, riders or drivers. Um, uh, and that was the sort of, you know, th- theoretical metrics. So for example, the AmEx deal, like what was that about, people were like, "Oh, points."
I said, "No." AmEx was doing, they were subsidizing rides, so our theory was drive the price of rides down, we get more volume on top. So instead of spending our cash, giving, uh, uh, whatever, uh, subsidies, have someone else subsidize it and then, then what they get is someone using their AmEx card. And we did that US for awhile. They spent 100 million dollars on rides. So you think about like, "Holy shit, they saved us $100 million. That's amazing." So you, so I, I, w- we called [inaudible 00:21:37] and Travis saying let's call them Barney deals. "Don't do the Barney deals." He's like, "I love you, man. Let's just, let's hang and have fun, like do a real partnership or not, not one at all."
Delian: [00:21:46] And would you say the AmEx one is maybe the one that you're like most proud of in terms of like a corporate to corporate partnership? Or sort of which one would you sort of look back on most fondly in terms of effect on the net, you know, Uber business?
Emil Michael: [00:21:56] Yeah. I mean, we did, you know, the, the, when we, you know, because we invested heavily in autonomous car, uh, technology, doing the deals with the auto manufacturers around the world who were terrified of Waymo, it was a big deal. I mean, th- those brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, automobile expertise, really made us credible and they're very complex deals. And we were doing deals with companies that were mortally threatened by us because ride share was going to destroy car ownership. So that was, those were tricky complex deals, um, but I'm proud of them. And then the financing deals were sort of extraordinary. So those, those were, you know, those were the big ones, but those are Corp Dev not Biz Dev.
Delian: [00:22:36] I feel like, you know, if I were to have place a bet in 2015, I would have almost certainly said that Uber was gonna be at the forefront of like the self-driving car race. And honestly, I would probably say, still say that that would have been the case if Travis was at the helm. I guess., can you talk a little bit about how a company can't always go after such technically ambitious projects and such Biz Dev ambitious projects when it's no longer founder led and sort of how not having the like sort of founder credibility prevents you from taking such big swings?
Emil Michael: [00:23:10] Yeah. I mean, uh, well, so number one, for everyone including Travis, me included, who are in a, in a driverless car division, Waymo, Cruise, the tech is just farther away than everyone thought, right? Period. It's just like from a, from a pure technical achievement standpoint. However, de- despite that yes, had Travis and I still been there, we would have been farther along. We would have been way more competitive than we are, than Uber is today. Number one, because that he was an engineer so he understood what hard problems had to get solved and when you were getting BSed by engineers, which is a skill that only, mostly only other engineers have. [laughs].
So I do think, you know, we learned from Ya- Yahoo, eBay when the founder is gone, the real, so a lot of the real innovation sort of goes with it. Um, and that is not the owner's fault. That's just how it is.
Delian: [00:24:08] Totally, totally. Uh, I think one of the other sort of biggest accomplishments while you were at Uber was bringing the service into other aspects of the world, which was both a, obviously a operational challenge in terms of getting boots on the ground, but also a ton of, you know, government relations, regulations. Can you talk about maybe the, you know, dynamics of getting Uber into sort of like Russia and China, the cultural differences, the regulatory differences, the government relations that you had to go through. I imagine those were incredibly complex processes to be a part of.
Emil Michael: [00:24:33] Man, I've got the, the best mo- the most fun I had at Uber was, was building over China. I mean, that was just wild because the rules aren't written down. So you could try to learn the rules. [laughs]. You kind of learn by doing. And you had a local competitor so here's this American interloper coming into China, hiring lots of only Chinese people to work at Uber China. Who, by the way, they like working for a branded American company, some cachet to that. You know, spending money against a local competitor in every big city in China and it was sort of revolutionary, so I would go meet mayors. And if you're a mayor in China, you like the American company because you want competition. You don't want a monopoly. You don't want Didi or well, you love that Uber's there. And it was such a wild ride. We spent $2 billion in subsidies inside of 24 months. Just, I mean, [laughs], right.
Delian: [00:25:27] Mind boggling scale. [laughs].
Emil Michael: [00:25:29] Mind boggling scale. I may end up selling the company for 8 billion in two years. So it was like, you know, it was a great ride. I got to know Jack Ma. I mean, you go do business battle with Jack Ma, with Martin Lau from Tencent. You know, Tencent shut off our WeChat app. And we knew it was, the Chinese form of competition is like UFC fighting. It is no joke, you know. [laughs]. So, you know, there's very few rules.
Delian: [00:25:52] Yeah. I was going to say, it seems like it's a completely different world, both in terms of just like, let's say the average work ethic of the average like worker at the company, but then also, yeah, nothing's really written down. Laws aren't really laws unless the CCP chooses to enforce them and so it kind of just feels like, you know, all bets are off and sort of whoever is willing to throw the dirtiest punch kind of wins. Um, I guess like what, ho- maybe, maybe this is more of like a macro question, but like, do you think that gives China an advantage because they have that sort of like ruthless work ethic and sort of UFC fighting culture versus Silicon Valley, which honestly is like, I think pretty damn soft at this point?
Emil Michael: [00:26:25] [laughs]. For sure. I mean, like burnout, yeah, there's some, there is some level which dimini- you get diminishing returns or negative returns on hours per work. But there's, I guarantee you, if I, if you're working eight hours and I'm working at 12 hours a day, I'm going to win and that's what they do. So it's not like they're still going to sleep and can get eight hours and whatever, it's just that four hour difference is 50% more than your eight hours so that matters, [laughs], you know.
Delian: [00:26:55] Yeah, yeah. I, uh, I hope we get back to that harder culture in Silicon Valley at some point. Uh, one thing that I guess we like, you know, didn't really touch on, uh, earlier is, uh, you did spend about a year and a half as a special citizen, assistant to the Secretary of Defense from like, you know, '09 to '11. Did that, you know, government, your time in that government job sort of help you during these types of efforts, whether it was in the United States dealing with the local regulators or sort of internationally, uh, you know, dealing with, uh, you know, uh, uh, foreign regulators and foreign bodies and mayors of Chinese towns and things like that?
Emil Michael: [00:27:26] It definitely, um, brought me into the world of politics at a high level that I hadn't seen before. You know, I was in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantanamo Bay and I'm meeting with generals or presidents or prime ministers, you know, not the principal and I'm on the, on the side, but seeing that interaction, uh, because in these, in countries like China, politics and business are so fused that you need to meet the politicians to succeed. Like, there's no s- no theoretical separation, so it prepared for sort of that formality to go into every meeting with a mayor or a, you know, a party member, you know. It was tea and then, you know, there a for- a certain formality in a way of cadence and politeness and stuff that I learned from that experience.
Delian: [00:28:11] And yeah, I guess, did that help you? You know, I don't know how much you can talk about it, but orchestrating like the sale in China, which not bad. I mean, I think, you know, at the time as Uber was going into it, I feel like it was getting a ton of criticism for the level of, you know, subsidies that you guys were giving. But the net outcome, I think, ended up being basically amazing where you got to exit China and still have like a, you know, significant stake in the, you know, biggest net company there and got to ride that all play off. Like, you know, I don't remember-
Emil Michael: [00:28:36] Yeah.
Delian: [00:28:36] ... looking at the exact details, but now that feels like it's a absolutely great outcome. I guess, can you talk about sort of how that deal got orchestrated and you know, whether those types of customs and following those types of rules and understanding, um, the nuances there helped sort of bring it apart?
Emil Michael: [00:28:50] Um, yeah, so I, you know, we knew what we were doing, we knew were spending money on what we were forcing and we knew that if we had a bigger pile, eventually you got the first guy with the smaller pile to buy you, um, so we did. We were excellently the best in the world at fundraising, so we were like, "Okay, we're gonna do this China thing." And owning 20% or 30% of Didi, which is a Chinese monopoly for 1.3 billion people for ride share is gonna be really valuable. So, you know, we kind of knew what we were doing and the press... Any, [inaudible 00:29:23], anyone who was like, "Oh, it was a bad deal to sell to Didi," just doesn't know what they're talking about. It was, uh, it was one of the greatest deals done of its time.
The way it started is Jean Liu, who's the number two there, sort of my equivalent to Didi, you know, I kept the, again, kept the relationship with, up with her from the early days of Uber, where we weren't competing at and she was coming to the us. And, um, you know, we, we, in, yeah, I think it was the re- St Regis, she got a room, closed the shades for a week, we hammered out a deal. Um, you know, I'm not remembering, a cross, a cross border $8 billion merger where knowing the world could know about it. Like, Whoa. So we did it, we did beginning the first, from first meeting to close was 60 days.
Delian: [00:30:02] Wow. That is, uh, that's fast for like 100 million dollar deal let alone for an $8 billion deal. [laughs].
Emil Michael: [00:30:04] [laughs]. Yeah, yeah.
Delian: [00:30:06] That must have been a-
Emil Michael: [00:30:09] It was wild.
Delian: [00:30:11] ... ride. [laughs]. That was-
Emil Michael: [00:30:13] It was, it was like, and there was so much suspicion and mistrust that like you had to get over that. Um, so it was a real, it was, it was an incredible experience.
Delian: [00:30:25] And yeah. I guess you feel like you could have pulled that off, if not for that sort of like early relationship that you had with her way before you guys were even competing. Like, do you feel like having that sort of long-term mindset on those types of relationships is what allowed you to get over those sort of like, you know, trust and, uh, close a deal like that?
Emil Michael: [00:30:39] Absolutely. It's the, like, you know, and I, and I don't mean to seem like so old school, that relationships are the only thing that matters because they're not, but the, they, they do matter because you're not, you know, you're not, just not coming in cold. Right. You're coming in with a reputation, a history. You know, you, I'm very tensive. Like when we, every time I'm on time for her calls. Like I ma- I made sure that that relationship was as good as it's supposed to be for death competitors. And so that if the time came to, you know, we knew how to talk to each other.
Delian: [00:31:09] Yeah, makes sense.
Emil Michael: [00:31:09] Oh, you're gonna love this.
Delian: [00:31:10] Oh, yeah.
Emil Michael: [00:31:11] I hired her, I hired her cousin to be my number, my right-hand woman in China, so you think, think about the brutal competi- like they used to do Sunday dinners and they stopped because-
Delian: [00:31:23] Because of the competition.
Emil Michael: [00:31:24] ... [crosstalk 00:31:25] Uber. [laughs].
Delian: [00:31:25] That's amazing. I assume that you hired her before the deal happened, so, uh-
Emil Michael: [00:31:29] Yeah. Before the deal-
Delian: [00:31:30] ... yeah.
Emil Michael: [00:31:30] ... happened.
Delian: [00:31:30] That's great. Well done. I'm sure that made the deal even more attractive because then the cousin reports to her rather than the cousin beating her.
Emil Michael: [00:31:37] Yeah. [inaudible 00:31:38].
Delian: [00:31:38] Uh, that's so great. Um, so yeah, I mean, you kind of, you know, touched on this a little bit, but part of the reason you guys were able to execute that strategy is because you guys were such like masterful fundraisers. I feel like the art of sort of fundraising and the art of, uh, you know, selling a company to potential acquirers, there's a lot of sort of similarities and overlaps, right? You're making the company, uh, seem attractive, you're portraying the story, you're building up momentum. Um, I guess, where do you think, you know, where, where are the extreme similarities and where are the extreme differences in the world of like corporate M&A, Biz Dev versus, uh, you know, versus VC fundraising?
Emil Michael: [00:32:12] Um, they're q- quite different. I'd say that c- the corporate fundraising thing is, as you know as a VC yourself, there's a scarcity element you've to create. Um, but there's, you know, it's, there's some times when the startup has more leverage than the VC and there was that moment in time where we did. And so, um, so it's sort of not that repeatable, I don't think. But, you know, we just, you know, and maybe it came across as arrogant at the time, but like we made people come to us, v- venture come, yeah, come to us. But in exchange, we gave a two hour detailed presentation with every number they could possibly want, every cohort and whenever. So the trade was, you come to us we'll give you all the information and, but then we're gonna give you a short time to decide and, yeah, we were gonna be rigid about things. So there was a, an element of balance of that that was sort of an artwork of how to do it. Um, and in, in, in fundraising, that's a kind of funnel, funnel thing. You wanna get enough at the top so that people show up at the bottom. M&A is different. And so it's a one-on-one kind of thing, right? It's a little, it's a, it's much different and the, the chances of failure of M&A are much higher than chances of, of fundraising, right.
Delian: [00:33:28] And I guess, what gave you confidence that you guys had that leverage? Like, was it just like, was it just knowing the underlying business metrics and knowing how VCs thought? Was it getting early signals from the market and be like, "Ooh, okay. Like, we've, we've, we've got enough interest here that we can really run our sort of like own process." Because yeah, it's relatively unprecedented, you know, even most of the super, super hot companies at the end of the day, they come to FF typically. We don't go to them.
Emil Michael: [00:33:51] Yeah, yeah. Um, so number one, all the VCs were using Uber at the time so the ma- I remember imagining, you know, in 2014, it was one of these, like, you know, it was magic at the time. You push a button and that car showed up, right. So it was perfect for the Sand Hill Road crowd coming up to the city, right. So they were just obsessed with the product, so that created some, some enthusiasm. And then, yeah, the un- the underlying metrics were insane. They were, they were negative turn. Every time you got to user, they used it, you know, once this month, then twice, then seven then eight then 10. So they actually used it more as time went on, not less. Um, and so we knew we had the flywheel, so then you're like, "Okay, we have flywheel and people were starting to realize that." And that gave us sort of more of a choice.
Delian: [00:34:41] That's awesome. Uh, one of the programs that I also wanted to chat, you know, briefly about what was you started this program called, uh, Uber Military, uh, which seems like it kind of marries your work and, you know, the sort of, uh, you know, d- uh, government/defense, uh, with Uber. Um, can you tell us a little bit about sort of what that program did and why are you so passionate about starting it?
Emil Michael: [00:35:00] Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the, the things about this White House fellowship program that I did was the idea was that you take some public service ethic and you bring it back to your original industry, right. Um, so being in the defense department, it was easy to sort of get the, understand how that's lived and worked. And, you know, the, you know, some of the things were sort of extraordinary, right. If you go to Afghanistan and you see 19 year olds there or you're, even though you read about it or you know it, it's just different to feel it and, and see it. And then you go around military bases and you kind of see car loan sharks, there's all kinds of stuff that preys on the veteran community. And so I was like, "Okay, well, one of the things that happens when they come back on base is they can't, they, you know, they need money in between jobs and all this stuff."
So we created an Uber Military to sort of recruit them into this. So we give them preferential rates, sort of commissioned treatments. We did things to encourage them and we did, and we got Robert Gates and, uh, Admiral Mullen, all the big military guests to start an advisory board and help us recruit. And we ended up like paying them out like half a billion dollars in the first two years, stuff like that.
Delian: [00:36:07] That's amazing. Does the program still continue today? Like, is it still, still operating?
Emil Michael: [00:36:10] I don't think so.
Delian: [00:36:12] Okay.
Emil Michael: [00:36:12] I don't think so.
Delian: [00:36:12] Awesome. [crosstalk 00:36:13].
Emil Michael: [00:36:13] It was gone. You know, mili- military and Silicon Valley, you know, are not, [laughs], they're, they're not sort of in the same place these days.
Delian: [00:36:20] Yeah. I think Founders Fund is one of the few places that tries to marry it pretty well. [laughs].
Emil Michael: [00:36:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Delian: [00:36:25] Um, so, you know, obviously there was, um, you know, the momentous, you know, occasion of Travis finally leaving Uber and, uh, you stuck around for a little while afterwards. Um, I guess, how did you think about sort of when to leave, how to leave after that? You know, do you, was there ever a debate in your mind of like, "Is there a way to sort of, um, you know, keep, keep running this and figure how to do it without the founder?" Is there a, you know, Steve Jobs eventually returned story and maybe I stick around eventually, you know, Travis is able to come back in or what, what, what made you, I guess, decide to leave Uber, like, you know, kind of give, gi- make you give up hope there?
Emil Michael: [00:36:56] I mean, I le- I was gone the week before him, uh.
Delian: [00:37:00] Oh, my bad, my bad. Misremembering-
Emil Michael: [00:37:01] No, no. It's okay.
Delian: [00:37:02] ... the timeline.
Emil Michael: [00:37:02] I, I was the, uh, you know, you ever heard that, uh, you ever heard that, uh, what's that show in Baltimore. If you, if you go shoot the king you best not miss, uh.
Delian: [00:37:13] Right, right, right, right.
Emil Michael: [00:37:14] [crosstalk 00:37:16].
Delian: [00:37:15] Yeah. It's right and it really is literally that, yeah, that phrase. If you go for the king-
Emil Michael: [00:37:18] Um.
Delian: [00:37:18] ... you best not miss.
Emil Michael: [00:37:19] [laughs]. Uh, so people were gunning for him and I was in the way, so, [laughs], so he and I were sort of a package deal, uh, out of the, out of the place at the same time, which was unfortunate.
Delian: [00:37:30] Yeah. Yeah. Um, quite, yeah, I guess, quite, I mean, uh, we talked about it a little bit earlier, but I guess like, that's the, that's the peak of, uh, uh, you know, corporate politics, I guess, is that the, the, the process that you went through.
Emil Michael: [00:37:43] Yeah, yeah. It was, it was in 2017, wasn't were, I mean, not there weren't mistakes, um, but man, that was, that was sort of, uh, that was, that was the peak, you know, that I've seen in the Valley since then.
Delian: [00:37:54] Yeah. One of the things that I was talk about it is like, you know, and, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I'm, I'm pretty sure that like at the end of the day, Travis did have like the "legal control." Like he didn't have to step down legally, no matter sort of what the investors did, but in some ways it's like legal control only goes as far as the people that you have around the table. And if they just keep putting the right stories in the press, eventually you sort of, you know, get pressured even in a non-legal way. I guess, how do you think about like, as founders or sort of starting up the companies and thinking about investor controls and things like that? Like I sometimes tell people, I'm like, "Yeah, you can put in all of this nuance and everything into these like documents, but at the end of the day, like you get enough, like, you know, external pressure and pressure from your employees, it sort of becomes a, you know, a pressure cooker even if you have the legal structure there."
Emil Michael: [00:38:39] Uh, I'm a little b- I have a more entrepreneurial view of, of that question. You know, and the real, the, the real story about the, the Travis thing was darker, right? It was, his mom had died in a, in a boat accident 10, 10, 12 days, his dad was in the hospital, the VC guys kind of cornered them alone in a hotel room when he was sort of devastated, made him sign, like sign something or else they threatened to, to do bad PR. It was re -it was sort of, it was coercive, right. It wasn't normal. Um, it wasn't sort of something that happens every day to entrepreneurs, right. So the sort of, I don't know if you can analogize much from that, except to say that if you're strong and you can get control as an entrepreneur, you should, um, because you're right. If you're really bad, eventually you we'll get popped out no matter what. It just, whereas the case may happen, Adam Newman didn't control... Like there is no case I've seen where investments didn't actually like truly devote every resource to getting someone out there that hasn't succeeded. That doesn't mean it can't stop lame attempts, but it's hard to stop full throttle attempts.
Delian: [00:39:38] Right. The point being like, ideally just make the barrier to entry as high as possible in terms of people taking those actions-
Emil Michael: [00:39:44] Yeah.
Delian: [00:39:45] ... so like, okay, if you're gonna do something as like morally decrepit as like, go and fly out to wherever it was, Chicago and-
Emil Michael: [00:39:51] Yeah.
Delian: [00:39:51] ... you know, uh, get this guy to sign something while he's mourning, then like you really gotta be willing to stoop to some moral lows to get to that point.
Emil Michael: [00:39:59] Yeah, that's right.
Delian: [00:40:00] Yeah.
Emil Michael: [00:40:00] That's right.
Delian: [00:40:01] Um, so since leaving Uber, you know, I think you spent a lot of your time sort of coaching and mentoring. Um, you know, I'd love to kind of hear h- w- what's motivated you to sort of, you know, do so? What types of companies do you like getting involved in? Um, you know, how have you sort of been like spending your time since then?
Emil Michael: [00:40:19] Yeah. Um, well, you know, what motivated me is like Bill Campbell was my coach so it was sort of the pay it forward thing. And he was, you know, Steve Jobs's coach and Eric Smith's and he sort of hadn't coached a grea- you know, a lot of people and I was super lucky to have him as a coach early on and so that's sort of the impetus. Um, so yeah, I'm on the board of Homebound, uh, which is a San Francisco based company, uh, I'm on the board of Loft, which is sort of open door of-
Delian: [00:40:45] Homebound is, uh, Nikki, right, uh?
Emil Michael: [00:40:47] Yeah. Yeah.
Delian: [00:40:47] She's awesome. She's like one of my-
Emil Michael: [00:40:49] Yeah.
Delian: [00:40:49] ... favorite founders. She showed up to like a KV, uh, partner meeting once and I think she was like, literally like eight and a half months pregnant or something like that.
Emil Michael: [00:40:56] [laugh]. She's a bad ass.
Delian: [00:40:57] And she literally was just like cracking the weapon. She was like, "Look, this baby's coming out of me like the next week, like, I need you guys to give me a term sheet before I go into labor." And I was like, "Oh my God, you are so cool."
Emil Michael: [00:41:05] Yeah. She's a bad ass. I really like her. So I did some formal things. I prefer to do less formal things 'cause I like sort of being in the back. Uh, one of the companies I've worked, spent a lot of time with is goPuff. In 2017 it was sort of $200 million company. They just closed the deal at 4 billion market cap, 20 acts in three years. They're actually doing the hard work of owning inventory that they deliver to you, so Instacart sits on top of supermarkets, these guys do convenience right from their warehouse and all. Um, so I really enjoyed that young entrepreneurs and chili, chip on their shoulder because they're not in the Valley. So I, I kinda like that kinda ethic. It's kinda awesome to work with.
Um, so that's sort of, you know, another company I spend time, I spend time with Revolut in the UK. This like Fintech company, because it has a great CEO of one of the best prioritize I've worked with. Uh, I'm really looking for people who wanna, who are highly ambitious globally, um, and who are thinking big, not small. Like, you know, 'cause that's what's fun, uh, to do that and I, I, you know, do these relationships over years. They're not sort of, you know, short-term transactional ones.
Delian: [00:41:24] And do you feel like your future looks like sort of continuing to operate kind of a one man shop of just like doing sort of personal investing and coaching entrepreneurs directly? Are you thinking about like at some point sort of putting together a firm? Do you think you'll get back into the world of operating?
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] I, uh, I just, I, I'm CEO of a SPAC now, so that went public two weeks ago. We raised $300 million. Um, so this is my current, um, you know, and popular in, in for people like me attempt at sort of seeing if you can blend some of these things together, uh, doing an acquisition, a deal, maybe take on sort of a meatier role than just being a board member, helping a company through that process and doing hyper-growth. So we'll see how that goes. Um, and I'm now incubating companies, so incubating and I do this back thing. Um, I miss the operating stuff now and again, but man, like being a CEO in the Valley in some of these highly politically charged companies, whew, um, that's definitely, I mean, I try to imagine myself, what would I do at Uber. I was like, "I don't know if I could be at Uber given the environment today." It's sort of hard to imagine, right. So it's hard to operate because there's so many restrictions, there's so, there's so much unknowns about what to do, if that's wrong or right, you know.
Delian: [00:41:24] Yeah. It's been interesting to see the like cultural wars of Silicon Valley. We've got like, I think, like Coinbase on like, you know, one there trying to stay. It's like apolitical as possible, then you've got like probably Expensify on the other extreme and they're like sending every single customer a email telling them who they have to vote for. Uh, just, you know, on the extreme end of politicizing. Um, so yeah-
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Wow.
Delian: [00:41:24] ... it's a wild-
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Wild-
Delian: [00:41:24] ... wild-
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] ... wild out there.
Delian: [00:41:24] It's wild out there. And speaking of it being wild out here, we talked about this a little bit before I maybe like started the recording, but, um, obviously you're no longer sort of based in Silicon Valley. Uh, yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on like, how do you think an ecosystem like Miami is doing in a, let's say like post COVID or maybe Silicon Valley exodus world, and then, you know, what do you generally think, uh, think will happen in terms of like the world of where, where, where do the next best Ubers, et cetera, you know, get made? Do you think that they're still going to be primarily around the Bay Area? Do you think it's much more dispersed? Where do you think benefits the most and um, how do you think that changes how people think about building companies?
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] You know, the people who are moving to Miami and myself included are on the back nine of their career not the front nine. So like if you're going to be in tech, there's still not enough engineering sort of talent to really build something really big, um, having an ecosystem around it. Uh, you know, there's a few companies here, Magic Leap and you know, a couple, but there really, you know, there's not sort of a dense ecosystem. So like the investor class or former exec class move here. Um, look, I hope that changes. It'd be great. Uh, certainly you can do investing in board stuff from Miami now better than before 'cause the remote stuff is fine. People don't, you know, care as much. I still am bullish like you are on Silicon Valley being a, a place for talent. Maybe, uh, you know, I do think the next big startups are probably gonna come more in China than anywhere. Um, you know, I think Bruce Dylan's got a shot at coming up, you know, being a, being sort of something in the next 10 years, but I still think Silicon Valley has just the densest talents and I, I don't buy that people are leaving there forever.
Delian: [00:41:24] Makes sense, makes sense.
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Yeah.
Delian: [00:41:24] Um, yeah, I mean, we talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the podcast, but you know, if there were sort of, you know, founders that are listening to this or, uh, you know, new grad sort of Stanford law, you know, sort of younger, younger kids coming out to Silicon Valley for the first time that, you know, sort of admire your ride at Uber and uh, hope to one day, you know, uh, you know, have a similar ride in their life. Maybe just like, you know, biggest lessons, how do you take shots, when to take shots? You know, it's, I think one of the things that I always say is like, "You gotta stick around in Silicon Valley, you know, for a long time, because maybe it's not the Tellme, maybe it's not the Klout, but it's finally your third shot that's like the big shot. Like what are your, I guess, like biggest lessons to the kids that wanna end up in a, you know, position like yours eventually?
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I agree with that philosophy that there is somewhat of a funnel to it. Um, and, you know, if you're not a fou- if you're not the idea person and you're someone sort of on the commercial side, there is somewhat of like, stay there, feel the company is until you, and build enough relationships with people to know who you are and they know you're good and the VCs know you and so on because it is a relatively small network out there on the commercial side, the thousands of people who people know who are getting these top jobs at these hot companies and you know, you can do it. You just gotta be around for a while. And I, that is, I'm not trying to say people should be, um, they shouldn't be job hopping because you don't learn anything when you job hop.
So you kind of have to have this balance of like, okay, this may not be the greatest company in the world, but I'm gonna stick around and learn something enough and build enough relationships and spend my free time doing this, that and the other. So I put myself in the game and finding the next, next cool thing.
Delian: [00:41:24] Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think like you wanna make sure that you're actually spending enough time, that people can rely on you and you'll learn from them. But I also think that it looks like so much easier to start to get better and better at choosing what your next opportunity will be the more time you spend here, because you get to know all of the great founders, all the great VCs, you start to pick up their filters, what they're doing and then all of a sudden you get access to those, you get the credibility for those. Like, you're almost like in some ways I feel like if you just stay here for 25 years consistently working your ass off, you don't even have to have that high IQ, you just have some gut instinct on like sort of what are the cool things and what are the cool people. And like you just go and help them out and like na, na, you'll actually end up doing like way better than 99.9% of the rest of the population.
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] I think that's right. And, and the other thing is don't get jealous that other people get lucky. Some people get lucky their first time, they get lucky twice, you know, it just, you know, it just happens. Like you end up at, um, uh, you know, a rocket ship and you don't have to be that good. Um, and there's always a temptation to say like, "Why isn't that me?" And like, that is the wrong sorta attitude to have. It's just getting better all the time, better, better all the time.
Delian: [00:41:24] I also agree.
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] And that's sort of the part of the entitlement thing that does worry me about San Francisco, like I'm entitled to, you know, being on a rocket ship. [laughs].
Delian: [00:41:24] Right, right.
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] [crosstalk 00:47:58].
Delian: [00:41:24] I'm entitled to the money ball bouncing on me. Like, maybe-
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Yeah.
Delian: [00:41:24] ... you're not. [laughs].
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] Right, right. [laughs]. Maybe you're not. No, you just have to work your ass off and get there.
Delian: [00:41:24] Exactly, exactly. Well, Emil thank you so much for taking the time to hop onto the podcast today. I really appreciated the conversation.
Emil Michael: [00:41:24] It was a lot of fun. Thanks Delian. Nice to see you.
Delian: [00:41:24] Thanks for listening everyone. If you'd like to support the podcast, please sign up for a paid Substack subscription, which we use to pay for transcripts, mics and other improvements. If you have any comments or feedback on what kinds of questions I should ask, who should come on the show or anything else, please do let me know. Have a great rest of your day.