Tech is getting more political—should you?

24:40And I really think it's, it's influence and power. And, you know, like the, the uncomfortable conversation that nobody really wants to have is like, I think a lot of this has to just do with class. I think we're talking about there's a religious or there's lots of talk about race and ethnic groups and a lot of these hot button issues that I think have spurred tribalism, but nowhere in the conversation am I really hearing a lot about the class breakdown of all of this it is the achilles heel of american politics and and and maybe not even just american politics like america the double-edged sword of america is that everyone believes that they too will be rich yeah what is it a temporarily embarrassed millionaire right attempt what is the everyone believes that they're a they're a millionaire who's temporarily out on their luck or something.

25:36Yeah. Okay. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, um, we're a country where everyone believes that they're going to be rich and successful. And on the one hand that spurs an incredible spirit of like dynamism and entrepreneurial energy that frankly, you just don't have in places in a lot of places in the world, like especially in Europe, when you talk to people who aren't from the States and they come to the States to build a business, the number one thing you'll hear from them over and over again is like, wow, everyone wants you to win and succeed and thinks that you will. And everyone thinks that they're like, we're all going to make it.

26:12And that's incredible. The problem is that it also means that we have a society that probably spends too much time valorizing and worshiping people who have been successful and have no class solidarity in America. We only have upward or aspirational class solidarity. I mean, so being an inventor or a founder during election season is like kind of crazy because I feel like the rules keep changing, right? It was like, don't ever talk about politics. Then it was like, bring your whole self to work. And now it's like, we are a mission driven company. And, you know, now it feels very, very vocal. So we're kind of back to that again.

26:57But I guess like something I'm curious from both of you, you know, VCs have a boss. It's sometimes your managing partner, right? But it's always your LPs. Does it really matter? Like, do LPs matter? Because one, you know, in terms of like figuring out where they stand on their politics and sort of how close you have to be or be nonpolitical. you know one that i had was for early stage venture like the timelines are so long that if you are critical of let's say a fund that you invested in you know and their politics and then they end up like being a banger of a fund and their fire hosing distributions and later they're like yeah you know what we're not going to let you into our next fund like like how do you think about bigger lps or institutional lps and kind of like this political moment this is a business and for all of the ways that we want to talk about, like, you know, oh, it's not a business.

27:51It's a family and it's a culture. And it's like, no, no, this is a business. And on both sides of the table, both with startups and startups to founder, sorry, founders to investors and investors to LPs, like there are things that you talk about to bond with people. And there are things that you talk about to make money with people. And sometimes those two things might be in conflict with one another. But like, first and foremost, this is a business and we all have to like, I don't necessarily care about the politics of the person who makes my coffee, as long as they like, you know, are polite and smile to me and like the coffee is good fucking cup of coffee.

28:32Yeah, as long as they make a fucking cup of coffee. I would imagine that a lot of LPs feel the same way about the managers that pay back. I'm sure that that is not universally true. And there is obviously behavior that like will cross the line. History is replete with examples of that happening. Rarely, though, is it about politics. It's more often about like personal indiscretions would be the polite way of saying it. So I don't know. I don't think that everyone at SLO agrees about everything. And we have a partnership that can disagree with one another. And some of our partners are more vocal than others about politics and social issues.

29:10it has not really ever come up to my knowledge with our institutional LPs. Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like there are these pitchforks, you know, calling for Sequoia's LPs to take action, you know, in response to some of the things that Sean Maguire has said. I'm like, I don't think so, guys. Like, I don't think that that's going to happen. The timelines are so long, and this is just such a blip in the sort of grand scheme of things and Sequoia's history and, of course, their performance and the strength of that relationship. But who knows? I don't know. What do you think? We only have U.S. dollars.

29:53We don't manage any money for foreign governments, which frankly makes our job and life a lot easier. it means that we don't have to make some of those trade-offs about like you know at least like foreign policy and and and whatever that other people may have to make but if you want to manage 40 billion dollars like you simply can't raise that from within the u.s so like if you just joined a new startup or a new venture firm and you hear some of the maybe more senior partners talking about politics, who they voted for, why, you know, what do you think someone today, what's like good advice for someone today to like join the conversation or, you know, is it, this is a mission driven company and keep your head down.

30:41I just don't think anything matters nearly as much as doing your job well. And if you think, and you want to make a bet with your career, that part of doing your job well is going to be getting into some, you know, network of people. And part of that is through politics, like fine and so be it. But it has to be in service of doing your job well, not the other way around. And I think any institution that's going to like survive is going to do that on the basis of its, you know, performance to some goal, even if that performance, Even if that goal is marketing and declaring yourself important and relevant, you still have to actually do that successfully.

31:25Coming into a new firm, which to be clear is very different than coming into a new startup. Startups are less political and more performance oriented because you can do stuff on a faster timeline. So you're coming into a new startup and your founders are talking about politics all the time. I don't know. I probably just think that company is not going to work out. If you join a seed stage company and they're talking about literally anything other than like winning the fight of the day for the business, I would be very concerned that they're just like not going to make it. And frankly, like just like mostly the same thing within a fund.

32:04We're like, I don't know, man, if you have a lot of time to like kick around politics in your partner meetings, like you just need. Not a lot to talk about in the portfolio. Yeah, not a lot of activity there. Well, Ashley, like you and I have both been, you know, in various internal comms roles and setting policies around like what, you know, employees say and what sort of like the norms are. How are you seeing this moment different as, you know, maybe the time that we were living through the pandemic or the time before that?

32:37Yoni Rechtman:I'm very grateful that I'm not in a comms role today. I think I've had that thought as well it wasn't fun in 2020 either right because as you said like the bar kept moving the playbooks kept sliding expectations changed a lot and and and I think it's really hard to manage like an organization of people who have very diverse views and feel strongly and some of those views are tied to their identity and you know this is not a an original thought. But looking back, I have more appreciation for Brian Armstrong's post about mission over politics, which at the time I was like, well, what is this? It is nice having my own firm company and getting to just make any decision in real time around what is a public part of my beliefs and persona and what is not.

33:29Yoni Rechtman:And I think that this is tricky to navigate that. I have a couple of takes. One is I think a lot of the people who are most political on the internet, it is not coming from a place of deeply held political beliefs. It is coming from opportunism. Right now we're in a mode, we've talked about this a lot, where venture brand building matters a lot. The individual brand matters a lot. You were talking about the similarities between tech and politics. Right now we're in a moment where the extremes are rewarded and what gets attention. And so I think a lot of people are using politics to like put themselves on the map.

34:03Yoni Rechtman:And I think that can be like a very successful strategy when you like align with this moment and make the zeitgeist your whole personality. But there's some risk to that when times change. I also think though that people are kind of betting on these next few years are the ones that are going to matter the most, especially if they are sort of deep in the AI world. And so I think people are just way more risk on with their personal brands, politics being a part of that than I've ever seen. I'm sure some people have deeply thought through beliefs, but a lot of people change their entire belief system with this moment.

34:42Yoni Rechtman:And I don't think that was necessarily a process that they went through out of the desire to go deep into politics. I think it's all about brand building. Cynical. I like it. Also probably true. I'm so cynical. People online and people in person are so different right now. I'm online sometimes. What is this industry? And then I see people in venture, in startups, in an event. I'm like, I love all these people. And so I think like, you know, social media is, and like the power game in tech right now is bringing out like, you know, certain behaviors and incentivizing certain behaviors. And politics is a great lightning rod to attach yourself to.

35:31I think that all the people who sort of, you know, take that lightning rod approach though, They have a certain amount of agency where they either are a founder, they run their own, you know, venture firm or like taking that risk. It's like contained, if that makes sense. Like you're not like a random employee inside of a large organization where you're counting on, you know, performance reviews and upward mobility and like increased opportunity there. I think that like those voices are probably a little bit more careful, if that makes sense. So I think that that's consistent with who tends to have a large following and who tends to do well on Twitter too, right?

36:15So it's like people who just don't have as many folks to answer to, I guess is maybe like supporting Yoni's point where it's like if you're actually focused on something, you're not writing out the Bill Ackman tweets of like the 17 paragraph.

36:32Yoni Rechtman:By the way, can I say there are exceptions? And I actually think Yoni is an exception. which probably is why we wanted to have him on this episode. Like really thoughtful, not antagonism for antagonism's sake, like willing to tackle nuance, but also willing to take a stand. Like there are people out there. And look what it's done for my career. Yoni just got promoted to partner. Yes. Look what it's done for my career. I've rocketed to the middle of the pack of, you know, like generic 30-year-old white guy venture capitalists. You know, that's where that's where nuance will will get you just about nowhere.

37:10I struggle to think of a of a of a great active venture firm right now where they don't have actually quite a bit of like diversity of like political sort of values, you know, on the team. I think that that is by design. I think that usually you do that, you know, to sort of make sure that you're testing every deal with the same amount of rigor. Um, and you know, they, they structure partnerships that way. I just really don't think it matters. I think that if you can't, like, I think often about the idea of like, what's the difference between teams and families and like teams come together for common purpose and families are bound together by common origin.

37:52The common purpose that we have come together and, and I should say, we have come together that I have been admitted into the partnership to work towards is like, let's make money for ourselves and our LPs. We have a way that we think we can do that best, but we definitely believe that we are in a business together for a reason. And the more time that we spend talking about things that aren't related to that, we all like each other. You should work with people that you like and you should be able to talk about whatever you want to talk about. But if you're spending all of your time, especially at an early stage company, talking about basically anything other than the work that you're there to do, you're just not going to make it.

38:32But I think that the nuance in which you are even able to articulate this part is needed. Because sometimes I think about like the new grad in 2017, 18, sort of in the in the height of the trauma of like the, you know, the first Trump presidency. And then there was like Me Too. Right. And I think a lot of companies, you know, not just in tech, but more broadly, like started to have a conversation around like, you know, What do we do to support our employees who are going through a hard time? That was like their introduction into society and the workforce and being an adult. And then now it's very different.

39:13And so, you know, as an older person, I'm like, this stuff goes up and down and you just got to like figure out what works for you and focus on the right thing. so I don't really get moved by it but having managed different cohorts of people who are different ages I just wonder how those people are doing their introduction into adulthood and the real world was during a period that wasn't the norm it was a pretty unique time and now it feels almost like a 180 it's very different Well, sort of like was it? For so much of the 20th century, Americans were promised certain things by their employers, at least in the post-war period, were promised certain things by their employers about getting taken care of and career employment and retirement benefits and rising wages and all this stuff that was actually very paternalistic and well-intentioned and for the most part followed through on until suddenly it wasn't.

40:20Like maybe the sort of touchy feely COVID blip was actually like a, you know, kind of bizarre throwback that was very short lived in the middle of like a sort of great untethering of people from their employers. That's interesting. And I think the meme today is like, nobody's coming to save you. Nobody is going to take care of you. You have to take care of yourself. And I think that that is scary for some and true for most and probably somewhat liberating and exciting for some limited number of people. Like the nature of jobs and employment is meaningfully changing. people's tenure, you know, and I'm saying all this among like a relatively small group of people, but even outside of white collar employment, like, you know, an Amazon, an Amazon warehouse has like, what, like 300 % employee churn, you know, like they, they effectively wash the entire warehouse staff every couple of months.

41:25We're just moving to a very different world or, and have been moving to a very different world in terms of like the nature of employment and labor and labor relations, probably since the 1980s and certainly accelerating after the Great Recession in 2008. So like, yeah, I don't know, your employer isn't going to take care of you. And you have to, like, frankly, always have an eye on the door and like, your resume should never be stale. No, I agree. But I do think that in such a short amount of time, we have just really seen like two extremes. and I think that that is hard to contextualize as a younger person.

42:08Like I was just a couple years out of college when 2008 happened and as it was happening, I was like, oh, this seems hard and weird and bad. But I didn't fully understand it because I couldn't take a 10 ,000-foot view yet. I was too fresh and I sort of apply that same thinking into if you're a couple years out of college, you know like this is going to leave an impression uh on you and i i'm curious about what the takeaways will be i mean i think one one story i have from my my plaid days was i was like the exec chair of the the dei committee and i remember a very very talented engineer like one that plaid definitely cared about retaining came to me and said the ceo doesn't follow any women on twitter and i'm like he follows me he's like yeah but he really only follows other white men And I'm like, why are you looking at who he's following on Twitter?

43:00Like, what are you doing? He's like, well, you know, I look at what he's liking and it is nothing, you know, aligned with my values. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, what do you, it was just such a, I felt like I remember being in that moment. I'm like, we have, we've gone to new extremes. Like, this is a, this is a moment. But that was, I think that that was a reflection of where we kind of were. So what did you say to Zach after that? I don't even think I explained that specific thing. I just said, like, look, you know, right now I think that people are looking for signs. Like they are going to look.

43:38They are searching however they can to find answers and safety and comfort that they're working at a place that aligns their values. And so I think I said something like broadly like that. And the message was understood. And look, it was important. Like, look, I think that people talk about the flip-flopping of, you know, people are so confused. Like, oh, why was this one founder, billionaire, you know, super progressive one election cycle ago, and now they got red-pilled? And it's like, I don't think it's that simple. I think that there are so many things that contribute to things like that. But, you know, in that moment, it was very much like employees' retention was really, really important.

44:19It was a fight for talent. And, you know, a lot of the it's hard to imagine now, maybe for some people, but for a lot of the the diversity initiatives and all this, it came from engineering. It came from heads of engineering who were like, we're trying to recruit the best and the brightest coming out of the top, you know, computer science programs in the country. And this is what those new grads want. And I think that that's actually probably a good answer to the question of why are you seeing so many VCs attack universities right now? And you know what the top people want today? What do they want today?

44:55$100 million signing bonuses. So I think that - Coming out of the same programs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The top AI researchers today just, I want$100 million. It's so interesting. But anyways. I too want$100 million. more than I want committees. Would you go back and study computer science? I'm not smart enough to do that.

45:21No. I would love to have some aptitude. Sadly, I have very little aptitude, so I am a venture capitalist. When I sort of knew I wanted to work in tech, it was like, well, there are three jobs. There are founders, engineers, and investors. And they're like, well, I can't be a founder because I don't have any ideas. I can't be an engineer because I'm not an engineer. Okay, so option number three, I should go be a venture capitalist. Had I known half of what I know today, I probably would have wound up in sales or operations or something that actually contributes to the company. But I didn't. So here I am 10 years later.

46:02The classic, the self-deprecating humor. I have a question for you for the last segment. of our podcast. So Ashley - That was a good transition, right? Ashley and I were teasing you about getting promoted to partner this year. And I think part of the story that made that so interesting and so great was that that was not technically a path that was available to you. I think they made that clear to you and you also were like, that's not what I want anyways, right? So just curious, how did that work out? And is there some takeaway that others have When they're told, this is an associate program and it's three years, I think that's very typical of a lot of big firms.

46:45What advice would you give to people looking to build a career in venture based on your experience? So the context here, I joined Slow about four years ago. And when I was interviewing, the conversation was, you know, Kevin, one of my partners, asked me, where do you see yourself in five years? And I said, not at Slow. And he said, great. And we had, you know, a pretty explicit conversation where I said, yeah, like, this is going to be an awesome stepping stone for me to go and raise my own fund. And he said, wonderful. Like, you know, we had really awesome people help us along the way. We want to do the same for you.

47:24Come here, get better, build a track record, build a network, and we will help you spin out and do your own thing. And, you know, for me, I thought, you know, that's what I wanted. You know, I wanted the independence and autonomy and frankly, the economics to, you know, that come with that. And for them, it obviated a lot of hard conversations about like, well, how do you think about succession and expanding the partnership and sharing, you know, carry with people in a more in a more substantial way. Then a couple years into being at Slow, I was like, hey, guys, we'd said I would be here for this amount of time.

48:01Let's just get on the same page. I kind of don't really want to leave right now. Do you want me to leave? And everyone said no. And I said, okay, so can we figure out a solution to that problem and not be like, when we did and it's fine. And I'm very happy to now be signed up as a partner at Slow and I'll be here for – I'm no longer watching the exit. So what are some takeaways there? What are some takeaways there? Yeah. I do think that anytime you're a part of a partnership, you are, as a part of a partnership, like you are both paying a tax and charging a tax, and you have to be able to understand what you're giving and getting for that.

48:42And everyone has to feel good about the trade. Doesn't mean that it has to be an equal partnership. In fact, even at an equal partnership, the same problems still exist, or the same dynamic still exists. where like, what am I getting and what am I giving? And if everyone feels good about what they're getting and giving, then like it's incumbent on you to just have an honest conversation. I don't know. I'm not – this is not like bullshit self-deprecating. I'm not very good at politics. I've never worked at a big company. I've only had two jobs my whole career, and they've both been at like pretty small firms.

49:16So I don't have a lot of experience with it. I do have a reasonable amount of experience having like direct and difficult conversations with people. It's honestly a pretty good first test of whether or not you should be somewhere for a long time is if you can or cannot have like direct and difficult conversation. I think that's a good that that's fantastic. I think that's perfect. I when you as you were saying that I'm like literally thinking of many many people you know in in my life that are trying to figure out the right time to have that conversation yeah and then months go by I'll see them and I'll check in how did that go and they're like oh yeah I still haven't had it and so I truly feel like actually what you just said is is is really valuable and to be clear we didn't have some big complex negotiation it wasn't like you know there's no there's no high drama about this at all.

50:11We had basically one conversation that was like, should I stay? A second conversation that was like, what does it look like to stay? And a third conversation that was like, okay, let's work out some of the specifics in particular. And the whole thing happened over the course of a month. It just wasn't that big of a deal. And I think it mirrors the way that we make investment decisions. It mirrors the way that we make decisions about, you know, personnel otherwise and, you know, firm building stuff. I don't know. My advice to other people is like work with people who you really like and could see yourself wanting to stick around with.

50:45And when the time comes, like on the one hand, yeah, nobody's going to like give you anything. On the other hand, if you're thinking about it in terms of like, you know, like seizure and, you know, like I have to take things, that's a really bad attitude to come into like a long-term partnership or relationship with state your needs. And if they're not met in good faith, like that's your answer. And even if you can ring concessions out of people, you probably are better off just not doing that. All right. Well, thanks for joining us this week. Um, yeah, good to see. I wish I had something more like sexy and scandalous to tell you, but no, I think that's actually hard conversations.

51:27Hard conversations I think is, is actually the, the, the most important thing that you just said there. So anyways, all right, I'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to great chat. Have questions for us, make sure to submit them at another great chat.com. See you next week.