Building a Billion-Dollar Unicorn with Julia Collins

23:02I need to get out there and be a part of that. So that's what drew me out. It was knowing that we were in the middle of a revolution in the industry that I cared the most about, food. And, you know, remember I like studied biomedical engineering at Harvard. So I'm like a nerdy tech kind of a person. And I thought, oh my gosh, food plus tech, plus moving back home, plus opportunity. Like I really have to be there. When we started Zoom, we started with like a very simple premise, which is how can we feed the world without ruining the planet? What kind of technology would you need to deploy to make food safer and healthier and to make the conditions of the people who are making the food better?

23:40So that's where the robots came in. Wow. That's where the compostable packaging came in. That's where we were experimenting with drone delivery and stair climbing robots. This was back in 2015, 2016. I mean, that's so important because now sustainability just rolls off the tongue like it's part of every business that starts. But actually when you go back then, that wasn't really what was happening. That wasn't the conversation. At all. Yeah. And at that time, there was also still such an appetite for innovation and experimentation in this space. And so here's how I de-risked it for myself, right?

24:15Because I've got this stable life. I've got this beautiful tribe of friends in New York City, finally got a great apartment, cute boyfriend. So why would I leave all of that? I went out with my co-founder and we said to each other, if we can raise$5 million in one week, we should start this business. A day and a half later, we had raised$10 million. You are kidding me. Off a presentation alone, there was no proof of concept. There was no restaurant opened. It was like, here's our idea. And it was a 15 slide pitch deck. And we finagled the experience of it by renting out a restaurant with a pizza kitchen and doing the like, imagine if, imagine if storytelling, vision, and a lot of charisma.

24:56And in fairness, a baseline of experience from you having been in the restaurant business and understanding how things start, how you operationalize an idea, how you grow an idea. So you had that, but you were an unproven founder who had gone out and raised 10 million bucks. Unproven founder, good pedigree with the Danny Meyer connection. Oh, yeah. You know, I think what I learned, especially at that time, was like how to tell the story, how to really anchor in the end state and not to be afraid to bring the emotional part of the pitch. A lot of times when I see founders pitching, they're starting from the present state and they're giving you all of their credentials and they're giving you all the reasons why they're right, but they're not showing you how the world's going to be different.

25:42And they're forgetting that people invest in people. And maybe the person on the other side of the table heard 10 other pitches that day. But you want to be the one that when they go to sleep that night, they're like, I just can't stop thinking about that person. Totally.

26:02I often get asked how I thought I could go from running a marketing agency to starting a company and I knew that I had an ability to tell stories to convince because when you spend 10 years trying to you know convince companies to give you their dollars to spend on marketing you have to convince them that you have a better way of telling their story, that you have something magical. And actually when you pitch, that's what everybody's looking for. They're looking for that idea that they cannot not do. Yeah. But Emma, do you think also maybe you have the gift of the gab? Oh, I definitely have the gift of the gab.

26:39I can sell anything. I can sell things that don't work and have done that too. And we love that. I don't actually have that. That's not innate in me. Interesting. So for anybody who says, gosh, I just don't, things don't just roll off my tongue. I'm the person that if somebody disses me, I think of the comeback the next day. And I'm like, oh man, what I should have said. And even for me who doesn't have that natural gift, it worked out. Yeah. Because I think there's some things that you can practice. It's really hard to learn work ethic. It's really hard to learn charisma at a certain level, but you can learn how to paint your picture.

27:17You can learn how to tell your story. And I think surrounding yourself with really audacious people who are not afraid to be like, oh yeah, what I'm doing is I'm going to change the world gives you a little bit more permission. Absolutely. Yeah. And so you went from obviously raising$10 million to raising quite a lot more than that. Right. What happened in the middle there? Because I think what people, you know, we always imagine that there's like some sort of glory story when my experience tells me there's an enormous amount that kind of goes unsaid between that, you know, early stage kind of startup level funding to where you actually ended up?

27:53Yeah. I mean, my story with Zoom is as much glory as it is heartbreak. What happened in between that first$10 million check and the$500 million check? I mean, first in my life, I became a mom, which was not on my roadmap. I did not have children when I started Zoom. I didn't have a plan for children. And then here I am, 39 years old and pregnant for the first time. That was a big change. I had a fallout with my co-founder. You know, these two people with huge ambitions and a huge connection in the beginning, who over the course of time, just lost our way. Falling out of love with our board, going from having a board full of people who I deeply admired to really feeling disappointed.

28:34Did you leave of your own accord or were you pushed? I left of my own accord. Good for you. With a tremendous amount of heaviness. Did you have a tremendous amount of money to go along with that heaviness? Yes. Oh, good. Makes it a little bit easier now. Quite a bit easier, but I had to find the courage for that, Emma. Let me tell you something. In no part of my story did I say I came to Silicon Valley because I thought it was going to make me incredibly wealthy. I truly believed and continue to believe that my life's work is to really help heal the planet. So that is what I was thinking about.

29:08I didn't even know what a unicorn was. We weren't talking about unicorns that much 12 years ago. No, nor did I think this little company that we were building was going to get to a$2 billion valuation in the first three or four years. So there's a certain amount of like just vertigo that you experience, I think, when you're scaling that fast. Absolutely. Maybe you felt that. Absolutely. And I think that what happens is, you know, relationships change because everything changes. And, you know, when you raise that type of capital, the pressure on you as a founder, the way that the dynamics within your company shift both between you and your partners, but also between you and the board, those are real things.

29:51I haven't seen it work any other way. And we don't really talk about that enough. And of course, you don't go through that, you know, 10 times and then get better. You know, It's like you're experiencing all of those dynamics for the first time. And it's really complex stuff to walk through. It is. So even though I was able to negotiate and create this great exit, a life-changing exit for myself, something that really set me up in my life, once that was all done, here I am with this tiny baby. And I honestly, Emma, didn't know what was going to come next. Wow. I mean, the great thing for you is that so much great stuff has come next.

30:27But as you raise that unbelievable amount, because my understanding is that you left pretty soon after the huge raise, the$450 million raise. What was going on in that moment to the extent that you can speak about it? And more importantly, what are your learnings and your takeouts? Because as you walk into the next businesses that you do, there would have been like a set of learnings for you or a set of takeaways that come out of that. Yeah. I mean, Zoom had all of the markings of a unicorn company. We had brilliant leadership. We had a fantastic team. Our market timing was great. You talked about timing.

31:03If you believe in bad timing, you also have to believe in bad timing, right? The market was right for it. There was capital flowing to it. And so that was the energy, the zeitgeist of the moment. But, you know, I'm the girl who like started doing food trucks and restaurants in New York City. So there was another part of me that was really focused on like capital efficiency, low burn, product market fit. And those things were a little bit at odds. And I actually wasn't convinced that we needed that much investment that quickly, that early. But you could imagine at that time how crazy I sounded.

31:38Yeah. How crazy do you sound saying like, maybe that's a little too much money. Was there a lot of ego involved? Of course. I mean, we wound up even on that show Silicon Valley. Totally, totally. They had our pizza box. So you start to, your ego is really at odds, I think, with your sort of like soul in some ways. And were you at odds about the, not just the level of finance that you were raising, but also about the direction that the business was going into? Yes, because those two things are inextricably linked. You know that when you raise venture money, it is not a grant and it's an obligation to return it at 10x in about five years.

32:20So you better believe that you can turn$450 million into a couple of billion dollars and quickly. And boy, is that a hard thing to do. So both the scale of the investment, the timing of the investment, and really having to figure out how to have a rational strategy for turning$450 billion into several billion quickly, that caused so much tension. Of course. And it just made it really clear the conditions to be successful here don't exist. I've got so many questions for you. How were you able to exit and take some money off the table? Because of course, you had been part of creating all of this incredible value.

32:58And you don't want to just walk away from that because you're at odds with your co-founder. Yeah, I think you just have to get clarity on what your rights are, which is the first thing. I'm so fortunate that before any of this happened, I had a fantastic wealth manager who took me on before I even had wealth, which was great. And the first, she told me to do two things. One, she's like, go freeze your eggs. And I was like, not going to do that because I'm probably not having kids. The second thing is she's like, look at all of your agreements and make sure that you have the right acceleration provisions and look at all of your operating agreements.

33:32So I knew even before that point what my rights were within the company. Right. In the beginning, it's just like all love and joy. And you're like, let's do this together. And oh yeah, sign an operating agreement. I hadn't looked at that thing, Emma. Wow. I hadn't looked at it. So I was not even aware until that. So thank goodness I got that really good advice early enough. So I knew exactly what my rights were and what the triggers were and what the provisions were and what the board could and couldn't do as it related to me. So first was arming myself with the information. And then the second was becoming like stoic and steely when it came time to fight.

34:08Because you had to fight. Yes. Yeah. And it's hard to fight when your heart's breaking. Yes. That's what everybody doesn't understand. Like it's very, very, very difficult because you believe, and I, you know, if you're anything like me, like you are the business, you know, and, and, and there's a, there's an element of you that's left in there at some point. Oh yeah. I mean, we were at 350 employees. I hired most of them. Like I was in the hiring process. So there was also the saying goodbye and letting go of an incredible team. And it was just hard. It was hard also to see that the business didn't do well after I left.

34:40I'm not saying that those two things are directly related, but it would be silly not to think there wasn't some relationship. Absolutely. So I really had to fight and I really had to make my peace. But there's also that part of the strategy that you had was, you know, when you went out and raised all of that money, you weren't in total agreement with the strategy. So you must have had an inkling that it wasn't going in the direction and you would be better off moving into other things. Right. And remember also, I'm just coming out of my first experience being pregnant and having a child. Yeah, which is life changing on its own without that pressure.

35:17Especially that first time. And for anybody who is going through that, who wasn't even planning to have children, it adds an extra level of disorientation. Oh, yes. Because I hadn't thought, oh, in the future, you will be a mom. And now that's happening. There was so much change happening within me in my life at the same time that there was so much change happening at the company. And the thing, if you ask, like, how did you get through it? I started to really invest in my own spiritual practice, which is something that I had completely ignored and neglected for many, many years. And that is what got me through.

35:52That's what gave me the stoicism and the, frankly, the anger that I needed to access to show up in the big way and fight like I needed to fight. Was that part hard for you to access the anger? You don't strike me as somebody that gets very angry. Oh, I've worked on myself. Haven't we all, babe? Talented, we can be a little hot under the collar. You know, you're getting the mellowed out version of Julia. Because like the same place where the joy and the exuberance lives, there's a lot of passion and energy there. So what I hadn't been able to do was access my anger in a productive way. Fair. But it's important that you keep that intact because there are moments when you need to fight for yourself.

36:37Yes. When you need to fight for what is quite rightly yours. And I'm really happy to know that you got out of that situation with a good deal, a productive deal, that you'd surrounded yourselves with the right people. Right. What you go on to next is so amazing and exciting. And it kind of feels the little bit that I know about you, like so much more in line with all of the things that you stand for. So talk to me a little bit. So you have one child, you're on the other side. You have a breakdown in the relationship with your co-founder. So you're not talking. What is the time between you leaving Zoom and then starting on your next venture?

37:13So as soon as I left Zoom and even the months before, I started a journaling practice, which I had never had. I never liked having a journal because I felt like it was where you write down all your sad thoughts and it just makes you sad. So I didn't do it. But I began to read about Octavia Butler and all these incredible women and thinkers, Steve Jobs, who had these like journaling practices. And in those journals, you can see like the earliest division for Moonshot, which is my snack company, which is really based on the experience of having this tiny baby, being someone who was so passionate about saving the planet and realizing that I needed to do something in this lifetime to make that happen.

37:53I had this vision for changing the way food worked, which was a through line. And I thought, what if we could actually start with snacks? You know, 95 % of Americans snack every day. Snacks are the bulk of our calories. If we could change snacks, maybe we could change the world. And you'll see in those journals, like these early little glimmers of what Moonshot wanted to be. Was there any part of you that thought, I can't start another company? I can't do this again. Oh, so every day I had to battle those demons. One of the biggest ones was, will anyone want to invest in me after Zoom? And I'm so blessed that I have four investors.

38:30I was going to say the answer was yes. Yeah. The answer is - But interesting that you didn't know that. I didn't know that. That you even questioned that. I questioned it. Interesting. I questioned it. I didn't know that. What did you do differently immediately? Well, one thing I did immediately differently was I got women on my cap table. And I got Black people on my cap table. And I got queer people on my cap table. And I got people of color on my cap table. Because of the previous experience. Because I knew that they could see me in a way that my prior investors just could not or would not see me.

38:58Talk to me a little bit about that because we hear constantly how women are treated, how Black women specifically are treated in those rooms, in those conversations, when you have to go out and, you know, if you are one of the very, very few people that raise venture capital, what was your own experience like? I used to ignore the percentages because they would psych me out. And if you're going to do something and someone says, oh, by the way, only 0.2 % of people like you are successful in doing that, would you even try? So I just completely ignored the statistics. You have to. I did. And I don't want to say, Emma, that like having a woman on your cap table solves for everything.

39:41But certainly not having any women or people on your cap table can create a dynamic that's just not going to allow you to show up as your best. So that was like the most immediate change. Well, in my experience, because I do have women and I do have more importantly, black women and women of color around me at every level. What it does is shifts the conversation when from perhaps no fault of their own, but just in experience terms, conversations start happening. What happens is somebody else raises their hand with a difference of opinion. And that makes thoughtful people stop and say, oh, I hadn't considered that.

40:18I didn't see it from that point of view. Perhaps there's something else we're missing here. And so I've seen the conversation shift because there's somebody else with a different perspective in the room. That resonates quite a lot for me. I think what it did for me was I stopped performing. I stopped performing. It changed your behavior. It changed my behavior. You weren't doing a dance of what you thought the expectations were. Oh my gosh, the way I used to feel for my old board meetings, it was like a combination of going to the Met Gala and going into battle. I know that feeling. I wrote about that in my book.

40:55The not that I used to time myself in pre-board meetings. I was like an absolute mess. And my husband named it, you know, he named it employee mentality. He's like, what is wrong with you? Like you are the CEO of this company. The expectation of the board is that you are going to paint the vision, tell them what's happening and bring them along on the ride. They are not your bosses. And yet somehow I was like, I have 20 bosses here. Right, and 20 is a lot. And that's a lot of pressure. And what would happen is I wouldn't go, with what appeared to be problems that I'd already solved. Yeah. Because I know I'm like, you're supposed to ask for help.

41:33So make sure you ask for help, but don't ask for too much help. Because they'll think you're incapable. Because you don't want to look like you don't have your shit together. And that just didn't allow me to be my best self. So I think there was something in the way that I structured my new board. You know, I said no to a couple of term sheets that were higher valuations because I just didn't feel like I was going to be able to get in the room with those guys and like, really have them work for me. Your board is supposed to be working. Your board is supposed to work for you. And that is a great board come with more than just money.

42:00They come with experience and they come with a set of opportunities and the ability to create more from what it is that you're doing. They're not just there to provide the cash and you certainly aren't supposed to be in some kind of performance to them. No, but I didn't know you could ask for that. It actually took one of my like best white male founder friends saying to me, oh Julie, when I go to my board meetings, he's like, it feels like going to the spa. I was like, what am I doing wrong here? And what is going on? I think one thing that was important to me in that period between having left one thing and starting another was just who I surrounded myself with.

42:40Yes. And really developing like deep connections with other founders. Ones who are a couple of steps ahead of me in the journey. Ones who are right there with me. Ones who were behind. and that has become like my deepest, deepest source of support, information, frankly, and sometimes courage. It's almost like you get what you give, right? You have to be somebody that is willing to be vulnerable, that is willing to share information, that is willing to be honest about what's happening in your business. And it takes the walls down. People then behave with you like that. And I think when you're in this constant idea that you're in some kind of performance, you don't let people understand what it is that you're going through you don't get the truth from them and so you end up with a lack of those conversations and a lack of honesty all around you which hampers you as a founder enormously and it's never perfect it's still not perfect no I have a board member now where every time I have to get on the phone with him I have to go like do 10 push-ups before I get on the call and like eat a chocolate chip cookie afterward he drains so much energy but you don't have five of those board members so it's progress it's progress okay so back to Moonshot because Moonshot really then led to Planet Forward, right?

43:48So just, will you paint that for me so that we can understand the link between the two? Because when I read about you, what was so amazing, it's almost like you became your own first client, which is so crazy to think about, but almost like the best case study imaginable. Because it's like, if you would put your own business through it, then I would believe that I can perhaps come on board too. But I want you to explain exactly how those two companies worked with each other in the beginning. Sometimes the best things you ever build are the things that you don't even want to have to build. And that's what happened with Moonshot to Planet Ford.

44:22So people, when they think about climate change, rarely think about food. They should. It's about a third of the global greenhouse gas emissions that come from food. So Moonshot was this idea that we could flip that, that we can make food that would actually sequester carbon, restore watersheds, protect the planet. Okay, great idea. Great idea. But at some point, you've got to measure that. You know, at Skims, you measure your footprint. You're setting goals around your emissions reduction, right? You have to measure. But the tools for little businesses like Moonshot, they just didn't exist. And I didn't want to have to build a technology platform to help brands measure and improve their environmental impact.

44:59But you needed it. But I needed it. And I couldn't go pay consultants to do it. And there wasn't a good software to do it. And so out of necessity, we started hacking together. And then the spreadsheets become too cumbersome. so you're writing little bits of code and then your friends need it so they're borrowing it. And I looked up and I was like, actually, the world needs this right now. We can never have any hope of transforming our food system if we don't have the enabling technology to make that happen. And Julia, you need to be the one to do it and you need to do it now.

45:39So you're sitting there having raised money for Moonshot, Now thinking about another business, how did you make that switch? Because I think that is really the impressive part of all of this because that wasn't what you went out and said, you know, you were like, I'm going to create a snack brand. Now you're creating a tech platform. That was really hard. And what was hard about it is now you have a set of investors who have gotten really excited about a tech multiple. So here you are building a CPG brand, which is going going to have some multiple, maybe two to five, but then you're building a software platform, which back in 2021 is trading at 20x.

46:17So now you've gotten your investors really excited about a tech play, but you're holding a food business and it's working and it's growing and it's launching in Target and you're in a Target commercial. Julia, you're in a Target commercial. Whoever thought that? So what do you do when you have a business that's working, but it's misaligned with what your investor expectations now are. And this is like another moment of heartbreak. In some senses, I would have never wanted to let go of Moonshot. It was the most feel-good thing. People loved it. It tasted good. My kids knew what it was. My mom could understand what it was when I told her what I did every day.

46:49Easy. Which, by the way, she didn't at Zoom. Of course not. She used to have friends that would come up to me and say, Julia, how's it going at the pizza shop? Going great. You're like, it's going great. It's, you know, we make a lot of pizzas over there. here I go. So you did have to decide it's one or the other. How did you make that decision? Because it wasn't like moonshot was failing. It was actually on fire. Like that business was really tracking. It felt like it was, there was a lot of momentum. Right. It was truly a bit of very good fortune that Patagonia came to me. Dream buyer, by the way.

47:27You can ride it better. a sustainability girly and Patagonia wants to do anything with you, you're psyched. Well, and also just to contextualize it for everyone, Patagonia isn't like a buyer. Like, it's not like they go out and buy a bunch of companies. Like what they do and what we all know them for is that incredible product with this like baseline of sustainability and this incredible founder, but they don't acquire a lot of businesses. So even by virtue of, you know, that acquisition, that was like the gold standard of who could possibly buy a company in this space. It added credibility to what you were doing.

48:01And if you look in my journals, in those periods, you will see Patagonia written 25 to 50 times in those journals. So I do think there's an element of like letting the universe know what you're looking for, even if it seems ridiculous, writing it down, being clear about it, and then like attracting it to you. Did you set out to sell that company? Did you make the decision and then run a process to sell it? We knew that we were going to have to either do two things, either spin it off and raise capital for it and install a new CEO or sell it. There were two paths and we were like parallel processing those two paths.

48:38But essentially you'd made the decision that actually plan it forward was where your future was going to be. And this, you would find some type of off ramp for it. That's right. And I had to make my peace to know that I wasn't going to get to be moonshot, Julie. I don't know if you feel this way when you're running your companies like some amount of your identity lives in that brand. Definitely. And in that persona. Definitely. And when you leave things, it's not always just a glory dance. You can take the money and feel really gravely sad about what it is that you leave. I mean, I've had that on a couple of occasions where I've been, you know, disappointed that I'm not part of the transaction, that, you know, my identity has been wrapped up in that thing.

49:18And so it's not always just, you know, amazing. Also, there was a rebrand, right? So you build a brand, the brand has a persona, and that was a challenging thing. But so I knew at that point that my investors and I needed to go and build Planet Forward, which meant I had to find a home for Moonshot. I'm so fortunate that Patagonia had fallen in love with the brand because of what it was doing in the market and the excitement that it was creating. They independently had fallen in love with the brand. And I think it really is true that companies are bought, not sold. And the best way to find a really good buyer is to have a really good company for them to buy.

49:52I think at the point when you're like hawking your startup to buyers, the dynamics just shift pretty. Completely. It can be done. Sometimes we need a soft one. No, it can be done and it is done. But I think that's a really important distinction that you made. Companies are bought, not sold. That's why I always feel like your first offer is usually your better offer. Because we have this idea that, you know, it's like, you know, somebody offers you something for a company and there's going to be a slew of other suitors. You go out, you find out there are no suitors. And the first offer was the best offer.

50:21Right. And I think we have like a fiduciary responsibility. We have to run the process, but our gut knows. It knows. And so you sold Moonshot. Yes. Amazing. Congratulations. And all of my employees went over. My farmers got bigger contracts. My miller got bigger contracts, even the packaging. So literally the whole supply chain, which was what it was designed to do was to create a really healthy supply chain and food. It wasn't just that they bought the brand or they bought the revenue or they bought the doors. They bought the whole supply chain, which is where the impact was. And they essentially did that, not just because they loved the product and the brand, but because you had created the system for measurement to prove that this was the real deal with Planet Forward.

51:05Because you were able to say, yes, like this is what we set out to do. But by the way, I've measured it and I can prove it to you. And here's what that looks like. Right. And then the beautiful outcome is, of course, Patagonia becomes a customer of Planet Forward at the Patagonia Provisions business. Oh, you are clever. Yeah. That was like a really nice circle. You're like, oh, and by the way, I have a service over. You buy my company and you can come over here and to plan it forward. That's amazing. But also, you know, when you're playing a longer game, it influences how you show up in the transaction, right?

51:35Yes, yes, it does. So you can negotiate every deal point down to the studs and get your elbows all the way pointy and try to take every penny off the table. And that, it wasn't my style in the negotiation because I was playing a longer game. I wanted to make sure my employees were taken care of. And I wanted Patagonia as a long-term relationship, which meant that my bearing and presence in the transaction, obviously I'm negotiating the best for my company, but I'm also doing it in a way that's going to increase the likelihood that Patagonia wants to roll with me in the future. Well, and also in fairness, you were coming from a level of being extremely comfortable.

52:09Right. Right. That wasn't your big, you know, your big moment. Your big moment had already happened with Zoom. Yeah. So there's a level of flexibility that that affords you to be able to say, you know what? First of all, now you know that you are a skilled multi-founder. If you've done it twice, you can probably do it again. And you've got the comfort level from what Zoom bought you. Yeah, there is that confidence that comes from having your first big win. There's also just all the mistakes that I had made in the past. I think in that time of overcompensation, I negotiated a lot of things way too hard.

52:43I thought that that was the way to be successful. I thought that being the hardest driving negotiator was proof that I was strong, proof that I was smart. What have you learned? You have to play the long game. If you want to transact with someone over time, you are willing to be a little bit more flexible and generous. Yeah. And to always just understand, like, what's the most important thing that they're trying to accomplish? What's really the most important thing that I'm trying to accomplish? And let's meet there. And some of the things are just ways for lawyers to make more money spinning up new versions of deal docs.

53:14Yes. And they're going to burn a lot of time and energy. That is a really true point. I always quote Melody Hobson because she's such a brilliant and sophisticated negotiator. But she always talks about this idea of the over-ask, like never asking for something that you don't truly need. And so that when you say that you need something, that you really need that. So she will never ask the other side for something that she doesn't truly need. And in return, she doesn't expect that from them either. But I think that there is this idea that to be a good negotiator, that you have to be really, really tough.

53:47And actually what the best relationships are, are mutually advantageous, where you meet in the middle, everybody's happy, and you can continue to do business together down the line. And that's what you got with Patagonia. You got a built-in client for your now third startup and a buyer for your second one. Pretty genius. What do you think is the most important thing that founders can understand about raising capital? More is not more when it comes to raising capital. The bigger check does not mean that you're going to be more successful. And I really do believe that you just can't value yourself or your company based on your paper valuation.

54:29And the minute you start to believe your own hype around that, you just, you get weird. How have you given all the accolades, you know, first black woman to have a unicorn with the$450 million raise? How have you been able to uncouple yourself from those headlines and those stories about you that have been told so frequently? I am fundamentally and unapologetically a nerdy person. I really care most about ideas, technology, change, innovation. The money is a wonderful byproduct of all those things. So it just, Emma, isn't really even in my nature to fixate on that part of the equation. Actually, I did my best to ignore it for a long time.

55:15And it was a dear friend who came to me and said, you need to show up for this. Even if it doesn't matter to you and your nerdy little heart, it matters to the world. It matters to other black women to see you. My immediate reaction was not like, this is dope, oh my gosh. It was like, ooh, okay. and it took friends. And why is people saying you need to walk toward this destiny? Because it's not just a destiny for you. It's a destiny for all Black women and you need to own that. It's important. It was important. And I think as somebody that, you know, came from outside this country, like again, you seeing that it was possible, seeing that it was happening, seeing the proximity, like you were around the corner to me.

55:52I was like, well, she can do that shit. I can definitely do it. But I do think that was important. That was good advice from good friends. Yeah.

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56:37I want to talk to you a little bit about the money because you know I love to talk about money. Let's get into it. For you, what has that, what has it meant? And do you still take the same level of responsibility when it comes to thinking about your wealth now that you have a lot? I decided very early on in my life to get good about money. I really did make a decision in my 20s that I was going to be good at money even before I had money. What does that mean to you? I had an angel investing portfolio that was like a fantasy angel investing portfolio before I had any money to deploy. Thinking about all the things you would do with money.

57:13Yeah. I would write down what I would have invested in, when I would have invested in, and I would track how it performed over time to give myself a sense of whether or not I even had a nose for that kind of investing. Do you have a nose for that kind of investing? I'm all right. I'm all right. I think you're probably a much more talented angel investor than I am. I don't know why you think that. I mean, maybe, but maybe not. I think it's really interesting. So you've chosen with your money to actually invest in other founders. Are you investing in the market? Are you investing in entrepreneurs?

57:45What does it look like for you? I'm much more heavily invested in the market because what I discovered in that practice is I'm only okay at angel investing. So I'm not overweight in that part of my portfolio. I do my angel investing as an act of love and giving back to the community. I'm smart enough about who I am to know that's not going to be the thing for me. But I needed to track it and measure it and learn it, right? I learned about crypto early and taught myself that. I learned about the market. I learned about real estate. And I just taught myself like, what is a really beautiful risk adjusted, diversified portfolio for you to run your life around.

58:23And because I'm interested to understand where you learned that, because I see so many founders that make a ton of money and then they go, great, I made the money. Where did you learn that you could make that money work for you? Where I learned was, you know, wise friends, aunts, uncles, friends who had made money, mentors who were willing to talk to me about money. I had a boss once who was like, Collins, you need to get a 401k. I was like, oh, but then I won't have the money to go out and go to restaurants. He's like, just do it. So I think you can find along the journey people who are going to advise you.

58:57But the important thing is do it before you have the money. Get good at money even before you have the money. Yeah, because you had that plan early on. Yes, I had that plan early on. And I think then when the money came, I had a much more rational and disciplined approach to how to deploy it. Because there is a little bit of a mind scramble. I don't know if you experience this, you know, the first time you get money and you go to the ATM and you see, it can scramble your brain a little bit. Scramble? I was a fucking idiot. I was a total idiot. Are you crazy? I did exactly, like, I did the equivalent of, like, you know, getting spinning rims and, like, you know, no, you know, that was it, you know.

59:35You're like, I need grills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, literally in every single way. And luckily, you know, I didn't have very much. There wasn't much to lose. But I think discipline around money and being curious about money or things that are in me from a kid. And so I was able to hone that, but it definitely took, it took a long time. And that's why I always find it so impressive when somebody like you says, you know, you were thinking about your wealth and that level of thinking is really fundamental because I don't ever think that we plan enough. And luckily, you know, you've had multiple startups that have all worked out, but it could have been that they didn't.

1:00:12It could have been that, you know, your end with Zoom didn't leave you with that. And it feels to me like you would have been okay anyway because you were planning. Right. People spend more time imagining their wedding than they do imagining how they would run their family office. People spend more time in every detail of what it's going to look like to be married down to the tiniest detail before they've spent any time thinking about how they would manage their own money. And I just, that wasn't how I thought about things. And how have you been able to protect what it is that you have? I know that I'm somebody who is opportunistic.

1:00:46I love a good time. I love an opportunity. So I literally just have like an iron fence around my funny money. Like here's every year what you have in the kitty to go do your angel investing or your whatever, whatever, whatever. It's not zero, but it's not a lot, but it needs to be there. Right. And it's iron ringed And I have accountability. I have a person who will tell me no. Yeah, you need that. Everybody needs that. And then that gives me the ability to be more disciplined and pragmatic about the rest of the portfolio. But I think whether you have$5 ,000 and want to start buying crypto or$500 and want to do something, like it's important to have some amount of your money that you have a little optionality around so that you can experiment.

1:01:29And how has that changed now that you're a mother? I am teaching my kids about money. and it's interesting to see how they respond. Mostly in particular, the eight-year-old will make decisions about what not to buy versus what to buy. And he's thinking about, is this a good investment? Essentially, they get some money, they have to spend their own money. Because I always think it's so interesting when you're raising kids in a very different way to how you were perhaps brought up that it gets really tricky. You know, oftentimes I feel like, you know, it's my job to try to manufacture some hardships for my kids, but that isn't sensible either.

1:02:03And so I'm interested, like, how you even go about teaching them. But Emma, I think we do have to manufacture hard tips for our kids. Because when you don't, you look at it and you're like, that's not cute. I do think you have to manufacture a little bit of scarcity. I know. I've tried to do that. And sometimes I feel bad about it because I'm like, Emma, they're not growing up in your reality. But there's a little part of me that goes, well, this is the only way I know how. What do you think about a birthday present? Oh, okay. so I'm not one of those moms that does like 50 gifts. You know, I do the one big present that you want and a couple of little things, but I am not like a big splurger.

1:02:42Like my kid, I always want my kids wanting for something. Yeah, I think it's true. Well, here's the thing I feel a little bit guilty about, which is that when we're having birthday parties, I ask guests not to bring gifts for the boys. Yeah. And I remember my mom being like, don't block their blessings. Don't do that. But there is just like this expectation and you have to remember like my, what I tell mommy is like my life's work is to try to safeguard this planet. And people are like, well, what are the most sustainable things to buy? The most sustainable thing to buy is to not buy the thing.

1:03:13To buy nothing. Really to just think about how much we're consuming. I think also raising kids during the pandemic and frankly, sometimes being a working mom, I defaulted to like, what's the thing that I can buy to fill the need? What's the thing that I can buy that's going to delight them or entertain them? or make it easier that I missed a bedtime tonight, or make that long plane ride easier for them. And I'm really trying to unwind that for myself. It's a slippery slope. It's a real slippery slope. How did you manage it with small children? I do believe in staffing up. I think it's really important to be able to hire a team around you, find amazing people, be very, very generous, and take away some of the expectation that you have about being the one who cooks every dinner, folds every towel.

1:03:58Like that isn't necessarily the biggest value that I can have from my family. What's new in my life now is I'm also a single mom for the first time. It hasn't even been a year yet. Wow. So I'm learning a lot about what it means to be like the person at home for the boys. And it has so much less to do with making dinner for them than it has to do with like giving them an extra snuggle or just being present with them. But it isn't easy and it requires, I think, a lot of help. So I'm so interested to understand where you are right now. When you look back at your career, at your resume, you've really done some unbelievable things.

1:04:36And because of the space that you've chosen to operate in, you're having real lasting impact, I would say, because you're touching, I mean, your client list is incredible. You're working with some of the biggest, most prominent and the biggest growth companies that are out there. So what for you is important right now? I'm interested to understand where it makes sense to put your energy at this stage. Yeah. I think you've got to put your energy around what's the biggest problem of the moment. And when I started Planet Forward, the biggest problem of the moment was there wasn't the right technology to bring about a sustainable future when it came to food, fashion, and beauty.

1:05:17So that was the problem, but that was eight years ago. That's the problem that we needed to solve and not just plan it forward. Other companies have really worked hard, deployed lots. Lots of capital has been deployed. We have solved the data and technology problem. There's no shortage of technology to solve climate change. It's not the problem anymore. What's the problem now? The problem is will. The problem is sustainability has a branding issue. Nobody thinks of sustainability as like the sexiest, most luxurious, juicy future. People somehow think that being sustainable means you're going to be like a little bit hungry, like a little bit ugly, a little bit crusty, a little bit more.

1:06:02You're going to buy the thing. It's going to rip and fall apart. And that's what's causing people to like rage shop and over consume, right? And that's the biggest problem that I see now is how do we convince everyday people that the sustainable future is the sexiest, juiciest, most pleasurable future? How do we make the sustainability brand the best brand? Yeah. And how are we going to do that? Do you have an answer? I bet you do. I do have an answer, or at least the stepping stone of an answer. But I've created a nonprofit called Planet House, Planet H-A-U-S, really borrowing from Bauhaus. So you had designed, you know all about Bauhaus.

1:06:44The Bauhaus was a school of thought, came out of the Weimar Republic and they decided to rethink everything about the built world. Why do chairs need legs? Why do tables need tops? Why can't you prefabricate homes? And it was this unapologetic, innovative thinking that has created the design that we live in now. You'd be hard pressed to walk down a block without seeing the influence of Bauhaus everywhere. what if we could create a Planet House? What if we could create a new aesthetic around how products are designed, food, fashion, beauty, personal care, so that we design with principles of circularity, of low carbon, of water cleanliness into our products.

1:07:24So Planet House is a non-profit where we show the world all of the most sustainable products. We set them up in an actual house. So you, Emma, would walk into the Planet House. You'll open the fridge. You'll see all the sustainable regenerative food in there. You'll open the closet. You'll see the Skims carbon measured, you know, clothes. You'll walk into the bathroom. You'll wash your hands with the Dr. Bronner soap. And we're helping people have a real life sensory experience of what it means to choose sustainability in their everyday lives. I'm so excited about Planet House. I'm so excited for you.

1:07:57Yeah. I really am. I mean, if anybody can do it, you can do it. I have so much, I have so much faith in you. So as you look to your future now, having all of this success behind you, what do you still aspire to? I still aspire to some amount of spaciousness. I don't know if you feel sometimes like you're caught in the busyness trap. And I can't figure out whether I'm actually busy because I have to be, or I'm busy because there's another story that I'm trying to unwind, which is that only when you're really busy are you really doing it or you're really successful. So the thing that I'm hoping for in this next phase that I haven't yet achieved is just more spaciousness and time.

1:08:42Amen. Let me know when you figure that one out, love. I absolutely love it. Okay, let's do the rapid fire. What's one healthy habit or routine that you swear by? I lift really heavy weights. I lift heavier weights than you would imagine for my size and it is so good for bone density and it is so good for cortisol management and it is so good for sculpting, but lift heavy weights. There you go. End of. What's the funniest thing your kids have said to you lately? Oh my gosh. Olu, the little one who has this like raspy voice and he has like a Spanish accent. So cute. And he just took both cheeks of mine and squeezed them together and he goes, oof, you look perfect.

1:09:21Oh! And then ran away. You know, that's, I wish I could just, I need that on film. Yeah. So cute, right? So, so cute. What do you value now that you didn't when you first started? Free time, doing nothing, being lazy. Oh yeah. Yeah. All three. Yes, yes, yes. What is a book that changed your life? Oh, Braiding Sweetgrass. One of the best books anybody that can read to imagine what living in a sustainable future will and can look like. reading Sweetgrass. Oh, I love the title. I want to read it just for the title. Okay, we'll definitely put that one on our reading list. Julia, thank you so much.

1:10:01You're wonderful. Appreciate you. Thank you, Emma. That was so lovely. Oh, good.

1:10:09If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Executive producer Ashley McShann, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey, Leah Reece-Dennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Lagrasso. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Shultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black.

1:10:44Video production by Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, and Carlos Delgado. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale. Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Meikle, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you could DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E with Emma Greed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.