sean engelking & suraj mehta / humanrace capital

0:00To be honest, I think after both of us left United, I told Sean and I think he told me, let's just take a break.

0:07Suraj Mehta: Like, we're not going to rush into anything. Six months later, he gives me a call. He's like, I think we should do it.

0:13Sean Engelking: Because in that six months, I'll be perfectly honest, I was just like, let's do it again. We got to win. It's under ego. Like, we have other ideas. We've got, like, folks lining up to give us money. Like, come on, let's do it.

0:24Suraj Mehta: Yeah.

0:24Sean Engelking: And having not worked in a venture setting, like as you mentioned before, you know, Siraj is sort of in and out of venture. Yeah. I didn't really have the sort of like the pedagogical knowledge, the context of how could I operationalize sort of my own skills, you know, for the benefit of founders. And he really just sort of made it very clear in that lunch that he said, remember that time where you were, you know, like, I can't wait to take the suit off and get on the train back home so that I can run my company and get back to New York and take the meetings in the morning. He said, remember that feeling?

0:57Sean Engelking: Like, we didn't have the resources or the folks around us. Like, we had supportive folks, but they were not, they weren't investors that knew how to provide the infrastructure that we needed to understand if something was necessary or not. It just became a very easy decision after that point, to be perfectly honest. It was, let's build the fund that we wish we had.

1:17Suraj Mehta: And I think also we learned a lot during our operating time, engaging with the government, understanding that what's out in public is not reality in a lot of ways. There could be this new bill, and everyone's talking about it. Oh, my God, it's going to pass. And then you talk to the real people in the room, and it's a completely different story. Okay, Siraj, Sean, welcome to the SlicePod, where we uncover the stories of fresh emerging managers across the early venture landscape. You two are general partners of Human Race Capital, an early stage fund investing in founders building in regulated sectors.

1:53Suraj Mehta: Before all of this, you were building Starship, the health savings account company that sold to Optum Financial, which was part of United Health Group in 2012, right? 2022. 2022, that's what I meant. Literally, that is what I meant. Sean is co-founder and CEO, Siraj running operations and partnerships. Let's begin where we always do. Was human race always the plan? Who talked who into it? Yeah, good question. It was not the plan. It was more of a calling, you know, dating back to when I was a partner at Finders Startups. I was investing in a lot of healthcare companies, a lot of companies in the regulated area.

2:31Suraj Mehta: And then, you know, I just noticed that, you know, there was a lot of questions about regulation And we, as a partner at Fionnard Startups, I had no idea how to help them personally. And then when Sean and I teamed up together, we got into a very regulated industry in the health savings account industry. Only a small slice of the country had access to them. And, you know, I'll let you take it from there.

2:57Sean Engelking: Well, I mean, the industry was controlled by four companies. So it's sort of everybody's fat and happy. And anytime you had any innovation in the space, they would acquire you and sort of take you out as quickly as they could. and kind of effectively prop up this sort of monopoly for really, you know, a small slice of the, you know, the American public. And for us, we kind of felt like this David and Goliath story where we were really trying to bring the things you expect from your any other financial services, you know, company that you have. So imagine opening up the finance little folder in your phone.

3:27Sean Engelking: It does all these things like Apple Pay and it has an app to first of all, like when we started, the industry didn't have any of that. It didn't have Apple Pay. It didn't have some of the most basic things that you would expect. It was the complete armpit of the financial services world. And for us, you know, the origin story was we want to do all that. And I guess when we started, I mean, that was kind of the naivety, I think, of the founder. We were like, why can't it do all this stuff? Realize you have to rebuild Rome in order to make it possible. And that took us to Washington. That took us to building a team around the country.

4:00Sean Engelking: And it really helped us understand if you're in this case building a health savings account, which is more or less a debit card, but a slight twist on the typical kind of debit card model, everything we did required some sort of special permission or some approval. And it was always some guy at KPMG that was like any gray question got kicked off to for this industry. And we ended up more or less steeped the industry by accident. And we had to figure out who's actually moving buttons here. If we want to stop using the fax machine, how do we get this? How can we make this possible? And that really allowed us to start befriending lobbyists and politicians and just kind of the who's who in the industry.

4:47Sean Engelking: And one of the big kind of lucky breaks we had in that particular industry was they all literally meet once a quarter and talk about things like what they wanted to see happen and what innovation should look like. And, you know, very quickly, you kind of realize that what everybody's motivations are. And we were able to figure out as a young company, I think I know how to like get some kind of salvation in this. And then we started briefing congressional offices and, you know, fast forward to post series A, Uber is our biggest customer. We had great investors, we had, you know, a great team, we had a really interesting idea, we had momentum, We had all the things that startups really need.

5:26Sean Engelking: But what we didn't really have was a sense of like, will this music stop if we can't kind of figure out how to do the things that would let us scale? Again, getting rid of the fax machine, allowing us to do Apple Pay. Are we on the right banking partner? Do we have the right banking partners? And, you know, this is nothing new to any startup that's ever navigated the fintech world. But for us, it was quite interesting because it was a little bit different for everybody. And the genesis for us of starting Human Race came from that. When we realized that we had a pretty star-studded group of investors that were on paper, no stranger to government, and they didn't know how to help us or they didn't want to help us.

6:03Sean Engelking: And we just kind of rolled it our own. We just did it ourself. And we come back to the beginning of human race. I think one of the things we thought about was we should just do what a lot of founders do and have another win, do it again. And we just couldn't get over how irritating it was to not have the support that much later stage companies expect to have. The government affairs person that you hire at the Series B, so to speak. Like we have started to see this trend of companies in more like venture-backed companies in more increasingly complicated regulated spaces confronting policy considerations earlier and earlier in the process to the point where if you are just trying to use AI to file your taxes or something, you're probably regulated the moment you start.

6:54Sean Engelking: And there is certainly an agency in D.C. that is being tasked with figuring out what are the kids up to on the West Coast, so to speak. And we became very confident and pretty motivated and I think over time pretty radicalized that let's get the band back together, the folks that allowed us to get some legislation passed when we were running our startup. And let's operationalize this in the context of a venture fund.

7:18Suraj Mehta: Sean, let's start with your personal background and how we'll get into more of how human race has gotten to where it is today. But I know there's a lot beneath that, everything that you just said, and it has to be something personal. I feel like a lot of healthcare founders, healthcare investors, it is typically something very personal to them. And I know you've said healthcare affordability is a personal mission for you, that you watch medical debt affect your own family, that your father went through bankruptcy over medical bills, and that it could have been avoided if he'd known how to use an HSA, if more people were educated.

7:56Suraj Mehta: Take us back. How did watching that growing up affect you?

8:00Sean Engelking: You did your homework, first of all. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, I grew up in farm country, Indiana. So like all typical founders, I'm just kidding. I think what was interesting about growing up, you know, middle class, humble beginnings is that you, I think most folks are increasingly aware of the more price sensitive. I mean, I guess I'll push back because my father's bankruptcy happened later in life. But I was aware, I think, of that, the general economic insecurity growing up. And that makes you, I think, really aware of, you know, what a certain kind of struggle is. I think one of the things we actually hired for when we were running Starship was we really tried to find ways to screen for empathy, ultimately.

8:46Sean Engelking: And I think one of the easiest ways to suss that out with somebody is to figure out, have you come in contact with real life? A single mother, an orphan, has you come out? Have you had a medical issue at some point? It's a really easy way to kind of help figure out, do you give a damn? And I think, frankly, when I went back and kind of audited my sort of, my desire to try to sort of build an organization that had a lot of folks that really cared about that stuff, was really born out of the fact that I probably had some kind of tip on my shoulder myself regarding that. I was the first in my family to go to college and ended up pursuing economics and never actually worked in as an economist.

9:27Suraj Mehta: And then, Suraj. Yeah. Your background, your origin seems to be a bit more winding, although Sean, yours is winding as well. Pretty winding. So it's UC Irvine, computer science, class of 2009, also a beautiful time to graduate. Graduated in 2009. Are you done? Early engineer at Palo Alto Networks. Then in 2012, you co-founded BabyScripts, which was your first startup. I'm a CTO, which was maternal health, one of the most regulated corners of healthcare, I assume. Years before digital health was even fashionable or really talked about. then a summer at 137 Ventures, Talkdesk, co-founding delegate in 2017, a stint as an EIR and a venture partner at 500 Startups in Southeast Asia, and then Starship.

10:12Suraj Mehta: Yeah, how does one person end up touching all of these different things before, you know, the age of 35? Yeah, I would say when I first started my career, I was pre-med, actually. I used to remind, and I did want to be a doctor. The problem is I hated blood. So I actually left Cambridge I went there for neuroscience and I went into computer science. I went to Paul's Networks and, you know, just went to for, you know, the actual like learning of how to work in a company. That company went public and I thought every startup goes public. So I started a company myself, you know, and I actually moved to D.C.

10:48Suraj Mehta: There was I was at a TechCrunch Disrupt Conference. I'm building my own company and then I met these other two founders that were building something in the genomic space. and I was doing something more in the direct-to-consumer healthcare space. And we merged this idea together called Baby Scripts. And I moved to D.C. for this, which was, at that time, what are you doing? My parents would call me and say, I don't really understand the D.C. move. I had a lot of people back from the Bay saying, I don't get it. I thought it was really important to be close to government at that time. The ACA just came out.

11:20Suraj Mehta: Obama was doing a lot of investing in healthcare companies. I got to meet the CTO of the United States at the time, Todd Park. He was one of the builders of the ACA. It was actually very informative to be very close to D.C., building a healthcare startup, and it's something that I took back with me. It gave me a different viewpoint, being outside of the Bay Area and doing something else elsewhere. And then I went into doing other things. After I left BabyScripts, actually, I was pretty confused about what to do next. I joined Finder Startups, and I went back into healthcare investing and building.

11:51Suraj Mehta: While I was at Fire and Startups, and this kind of goes back to my origin story with Sean, he was one of the portfolio companies that I invested and advised. And in the middle of that whole journey, I actually found out I got cancer at age 30. And from that experience, I had to take a year off from work. And I called up Sean. I was like, hey, I want to go back into healthcare building. And one of the things as an entrepreneur that I always face, and I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs faces all across is the lack of access to health insurance. And that's one of the reasons why my cancer, I never noticed it early on, because I just never had health insurance because I was a founder.

12:29Suraj Mehta: So, you know, long story short, I'm fine now, by the way. Great. Yeah. But it was, it changed everything for me in terms of where I go and what I do and what I invest my time in. And that's a lot of the origin story of why human race capital is named human race. We want to invest in things that are really important and that affect people on their daily lives. When you were thinking about joining Sean, what did you see in Sean and Starship that made you be like, yeah, that's the right move? Yeah, that's a great question. He was the only call I made, to be honest. He had this deep passion that, you know, and a deep, like, background of pain.

13:12Suraj Mehta: I'll say. And I think those are the two components to any successful founder. It's something that Sean and I both look for in when we were looking for companies. What is it that you've gone through that it led you here? And especially in the context of healthcare and financial services, I think that is most important. I mean, the rest is history now. We're still working together. 15 years later, I don't know how long it's been now. And I know a couple of years later in 22, you guys sold to UnitedHealth, because technically opt them. And I'm curious, like selling to a$400 billion conglomerate, it's kind of like they live inside regulation like fish live inside water.

13:49Suraj Mehta: What did you learn inside UHG, the both of you, that you don't think you could have ever learned being outside of it until you were truly in it? Can you give us an example of something that you watched UnitedHealth do with regulation that a startup just could never do? Well, they have a full policy team, much bigger than we did. would might be surprised to do a lot of love you but um i think that's a very loaded question because it changes all the time and a lot of a lot of times these corporations that you know engage on policy they're really just trying to make sure it's status quo i mean sean and i were on a federal affairs call with like 30 employees that into it that was their entire federal affairs team only for them to say yeah we believe in this but we're never going to sign anything for it.

14:40Suraj Mehta: And that is traditionally how a lot of the big corporations work from a policy perspective. And, you know, as startups, you can kind of lean in and do whatever you want. But from a, you know, a big company perspective, you really can't. And so you're really just trying to make sure that, you know, you understand what's going on in DC or at the state level, but it's never going to change the way that your business model works. In some ways, it sounds like it might even be an advantage to be a startup. I think so. Which is the inverse of what I would think initially.

15:11Sean Engelking: I mean, these large companies, I think, no. I mean, there's a slightly more cynical view of it is that they're sclerotic and they can only move as fast as a large organization can move. And some companies that are household names are very famous for being able to move much faster. And I think the model that the United Health Group kind of organizes itself around is sort of acquiring interesting ideas from outside to be able to innovate within. And, you know, I joke that, you know, with our friends that when you saw that the Optim app has Apple Pay, then that's us. But otherwise, you know, you couldn't really tell.

15:44Sean Engelking: A lot of the underlying engine that we had is what was ultimately used. So it's always fun for, you know, any founder to see that. You need to get parted off in that way. But, you know, it was, it gave us the scale that we wanted to see, you know, more of the world that we wanted to see happen. So it really was a great acquisition in that way.

16:02Suraj Mehta: Yeah. And then how do we go from that to let's start a fund? I think, how did that, what was the conversation? We had been talking about it when we were at Starship and we knew we were getting acquired. I mean, the UnitedHealthcare M &A process took around six months. So we had some time to think about, you know, what's next. But even before that, I would say Sean and I kept coming back to the idea we would leave a board meeting and we would explain the situation in D.C. as it relates to HSAs. and what we're seeing. And I think it just kind of went one ear at the other, to be honest. And that's, you know, nothing to say, say anything bad about them.

16:42Suraj Mehta: But I think that's a lot of the venture capitalists in the market. They just, you know, I think there's been a little bit more of an embedded force with the VCU landscape and DC, maybe more on like the big, big VC landscape. But, you know, nonetheless, I think it helped us understand that there is this other lens that not a lot of other venture funds have. We should really think about doing this. How can we do this? I've had some experience in venture. We knew a lot of venture people in our network. It took us some time to really figure out whether or not we were going to do it. To be honest, I think after both of us left United, I told Sean, and I think he told me, let's just take a break.

17:24Suraj Mehta: We're not going to rush into anything. Six months later, he gives me a call. He's like, I think we should do it. So, and then he comes to my city and we were at lunch and he's like, so what do you want to do? And I was like, what do you want to do? And we kind of, you know. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? Yeah, and we landed at the same spot.

17:46Sean Engelking: Because in that six months, I'll be perfectly honest, I was just like, let's do it again. We've got to win. It's under ego. Like, we have other ideas. We've got, like, folks lining up to give us money. Like, come on, let's do it.

17:57Suraj Mehta: Yeah.

17:57Sean Engelking: And having not worked in a venture setting, like as you mentioned before, you know, Siraj is sort of in and out of venture.

18:05Suraj Mehta: Yeah.

18:05Sean Engelking: You know, I didn't really have the sort of like the pedagogical knowledge, the context of how could I operationalize sort of my own skills, you know, for the benefit of founders. And he really just sort of made it very clear in that lunch that he said, look, you know, we can remember that time where you were, you know, like, I can't wait to take the suit off and get on the train back home so that I can run my company and get back to New York and take the meetings in the morning. is to remember that feeling. Like we didn't have the resources or the folks around us. Like we had supportive folks, but they weren't investors that knew how to provide the infrastructure that we needed to understand if something was necessary or not.

18:49Sean Engelking: It just became a very easy decision after that point, to be perfectly honest. It was, let's build the fund that we wish we had.

18:54Suraj Mehta: And I think also we learned a lot during our operating time, engaging with the government, understanding that what's out in public is not reality in a lot of ways. There could be this new bill and everyone's talking about it. Oh my God, it's going to pass. And then you talk to the real people in the room and it's a completely different story. And so understanding really what's going on is I think crucial. And I think a lot of people, especially, you know, smaller funds just don't have this in their arsenal. It's only the big funds that do. And they're at an advantage. What does a perfect human race founder look like to you?

19:35Suraj Mehta: Like, what gives it away that, yes, this is the perfect athlete? The Gemini. Capricorn rising. Virgo rising.

19:47Suraj Mehta: I mean, as a start.

19:48Sean Engelking: Yeah. Everything else is secondary. Forgive me. I think there's, we tend to see, like, we like to be the first check. We're often, let's say, you know, the checks after, like, a small friends and family round or something. And usually by that point, they've figured out some kind of sense of, I think I built a skateboard and people are buying it. And, you know, it needs to be obviously a bit more than that. But, you know, we have a sense of when we're A-B testing this or that. Like, they've started to sort of organize around what do we think this is. So because for us, you know, we don't want to end up sort of investing in a company that they learn through the process that they shouldn't even be in this space entirely.

20:30Sean Engelking: So I think once they have a sense of we know what the product is, we know we have a sense of a business model, we're A-B testing stuff, we've worked around that. We think we can drop into that process and really be incredibly useful of helping them think through this issue. you know, Siraj's background, my background, and sort of different versions of healthcare or financial, financialized healthcare. We think we can be super helpful there. And so being able to take direction somewhere in there is the like, do you give a damn component of this? Because you will hit a wall at some point. And that tenacity that has developed through just real human grit rears itself.

21:06Sean Engelking: And you can be there to be supportive for a founder whenever they need that. But the ability to execute, you know, there's a killer instinct that, you know, you just know it. You can just tell.

21:18Suraj Mehta: You can tell when they're hungry. I would say, you know, we typically like it when founders understand why we exist, too. We're a pretty differentiated fund. If they don't really understand why we're doing something on the policy side, probably not a good fit. and if you are in a regulated business and you think like that, that's a double not good fit. And some founders sell it. They're like, hey, we just want money, and so we'll say whatever we need to say. But we can suss through that because we understand their knowledge and their understanding of the policy landscape as it relates to their business.

21:54Suraj Mehta: And if they have a pretty clear and really deep understanding, that gives us the confidence that we can be helpful and we can accelerate that on top of it and that foundational model. Where can the thesis break? Like, what are the things that you're worried about? Like, you know, there's obviously a lot of changing things. Administration changes a ton. Like you mentioned, things that happen in small rooms really matter. And one person's decision can change quite a bit. So how are you guys thinking about this as things are shifting so much? It's been a whirlwind, I'll say, I think for both of us because things are changing really quickly.

22:33Suraj Mehta: And I think, you know, to the core of your question, how does it break? I think if you are too general as a fund, then it can break because there's too much going on. You know, well, I think when you think about the policy world, innovation's happening at hyperspeed. And to be honest, policy just cannot keep up right now. And I think we're not necessarily also where the venture model breaks, but where I think, you know, The relationship between policy and tech break, that is a concern, I think, at the moment, because things are moving very quickly. The way that our policy infrastructure works is very hard to get things done.

23:12Suraj Mehta: Things will have to break in tech for there to be changes in policy.

23:16Sean Engelking: In this new cycle where AI is going to sort of eat the world if it's not software this time, what does that look like? Can we help guide that? There's a lot of government agencies that are tasked with figuring out how on earth is this going to happen because it's going to affect everyday lives. If we're not going to take the time to explain this to the vast majority of Americans, then that is breaking. I think somewhere in there is just a fundamental failure on the part of a few industries of really taking the time and explaining the point of this. If anything, we spent the last decade trying to tell people about how it's going to kill us all in sort of that AI dumerism narrative.

23:50Sean Engelking: And now all of a sudden it's like, no, no, no, we need this. Of course, we have to have it as well. So having a consistent narrative, being able to invest in the right companies, and then being able to sort of coordinate that narrative at the inception of a company, I think is a good time to start. Imagine if you've been talking about this with certain regulators over time for the last two years. And by the time you're hitting scale, you're hitting a series A. And I don't know, you've signed huge contracts, maybe even with the government. People understand what it does. And now it's not so scary.

24:17Suraj Mehta: Yeah.

24:18Sean Engelking: And so we're kind of having this conversation so far about what do the founders get out of it? What do RLPs get out of it? What do the investors get out of it? But there's another narrative, which is what are lawmakers getting out of this? You know, it is an incredible benefit for them to be able to hear from small businesses, you know, not open AI or whatever, when they want to have a conversation about how new tech is going to be used.

24:43Suraj Mehta: Yeah.

24:43Sean Engelking: And I just think there's just a huge missing voice here that helps us as a country, but it helps us as a fund invest in awesome companies. And frankly, in some cases, it even provides deal flow from the other coast, so to speak, which has been fun.

24:58Suraj Mehta: Then on a practical side and the funds like, you know, all funds say we help beyond capital, but Yalza is very clear. It's like we help with policy and, you know, market access. Can you give us an example of what that actually looks like? How you guys, you know, structure all of this? How do you help? Yeah, we're, I think it's a work in progress, to be honest. But I'll say that we've done things like build a nonprofit that is adjacent to the fund that helps us formalize a group of startups that are trying to, you know, push for more impact, more regulatory frameworks as it relates to businesses that are in AI and interfacing with other agencies that are regulated, like healthcare and financial services.

25:42Suraj Mehta: And I think that's like a step that we made last year. And we want to continue to do that. But from an operational level as a fund, helping startups on a day-to-day, I think it's more of most startups at this stage, at the early stage are looking for two things. They're looking for information and on what's going on as it relates to their business. And secondly, they're looking at, oh, hey, that rule that just changed, you know, how can we let them know how it impacts my business just to see what happens? And those are pretty quick, easy fixes that we can do without needing to do a policy change or anything like that.

26:22Suraj Mehta: And there are so many things like that in the government that you can do that's untapped that I think is repeatable and that we can continue to do at an early stage. Amazing. It's just the two of you running this.

26:34Sean Engelking: I mean, I think it's a really, I'm not sure if I cut you off, but it's a really important point, which is we consider ourselves more of a head of an octopus in terms of we are working with founders and we know how to help get them to a point where they can get to a priced round. You know, we're trying to get, like, that's not interesting in that way. A lot of venture funds do that, obviously. But if you have something that is keeping you up at night because the state of Pennsylvania is getting upset about this, and we might need to help figure out where this is coming from. That's something that we will do on the side.

27:01Sean Engelking: So we consider ourselves a bit of the head of the octopus in that we can do all three.

27:06Suraj Mehta: Yeah, it's a huge octopus. Yeah. How have you, this is my favorite part, which is the mathy part of it all, how have you constructed it? Because it is just the two of you doing this, like as the head of the octopus, with a small font, smaller than most people would think to be able to run a platform like this. I'm curious how you guys got to this model. You mean the model of what? Yeah, fund model. Like take this and run with it. Like it's just more so like talk about portfolio construction, how many investments, check sizes, like why is that meaningful to the founder? When we had first started the fund, we had first thought about contemplated doing 35 companies and making small bets in a bunch of companies and helping us like really build a brand and a platform.

27:49Suraj Mehta: Then it became the question of how do we actually be helpful to them from a policy perspective? How do we scale an operation? I think it goes back to the model of the proposed construction. And we reduced it down to from 35 to 25. And then slowly it started shrinking over time because we realized that it is just two of us. It is we have a small policy team. we should be even more hyper-focused on the areas that we really believe in, that we can be helpful. And so it's even shrinking now more to now 12 companies make bigger bets in those companies to fit the venture model and help scale over time in terms of the businesses that we're really focused on.

28:34Suraj Mehta: And we can be really supportive in that regard. I mean, Sean and I are just two people and even 12 seems like a lot from a philosophy perspective, but it's really not because most of the time we're a phone call away when they need us from a policy perspective. Otherwise, we're just helping them on day-to-day operations. Where do you guys want to take this from here? What does Fund2 and beyond look like?

28:57Sean Engelking: I think we'll do more. We'll do more of the same. I think we'll obviously have more infrastructure. I think we see, I mean, this is a beta test, right? We have a sense of what investments we are going to make and have already started to make and how we can make refinements and how we engage and leverage the policy team. You know, I mean, we're not changing laws. We're not in the business of doing that. We're in the business of information. So we can pretty easily see, I think, Fund 2, somebody sort of owning that, which is sort of a little bit in and out of Silicon Valley. We have one person in mind, actually.

29:34Sean Engelking: And the, you know, being able to, for us to actually get leverage from and operationalize sort of that arm of the business, but really still focusing on the investments that we want to make and making sure a market is ready.

29:47Suraj Mehta: Okay, rapid fire questions. I'll hit you both with one first. So you have to give different answers, not the same one. And then I'll go one by one. What's a contrarian belief about venture that would make other GPs roll their eyes at?

30:00Sean Engelking: More reg. I think regulations provide rules of the road. It helps people work backwards from a model that we can use. For example, how are we going to use AI in the doctor's office? it would help a lot if we had much more clarity around exactly how this can be leveraged, for example. I think policy is timing.

30:18Suraj Mehta: And I strongly believe that. There has been a lot of cases where companies are like, oh, the timing's not right, but what does that really mean? And to me, it's macroeconomics and policy. Okay. Sean, best advice you've ever received as a new GP?

30:33Sean Engelking: As a new GP? If you can do it in two minutes, do it. you're going to get bombarded with emails or this or that just do it

30:40Suraj Mehta: my dad's rule in life and i still suck at it sean saraj thank you so much for your time today really appreciate it i think thank you for having us yeah i think the special sauce that you both hold is the translation between policy and tech a special thing that you earned by doing it the hard way by building starship together and helping other founders along the way. To wrap it all up, what did we miss that you would be upset leaving here today not talking about? Or the one thing that you woke up this morning being like, I'm going to talk about that today?

31:16Sean Engelking: I often find myself saying, if you've thought about biotech as an LP, if you're an LP and you looked at biotech or if you looked at defense or deep tech, some of the things that we do exist because those are incredibly complicating things. People kind of generally understood that, yeah, that sounds really complicating if you're going to be working on government contracts and working in incredibly heavily regulated industries. Generally speaking, we think we provide something like that to a bunch of stuff in the middle that's going to touch everyday lives that people don't really think about it that way.

31:46Sean Engelking: But there's all these government agencies for food safety and all sorts of things. All of that is going to get touched by these brand new, like this by AI, to put it one way. And those are going to be the really interesting businesses. The foundational model stuff, I like to say, is kind of boring. I mean, it's very impressive and it's very cool and governments are involved, but how that gets applied to our everyday lives, I think, is going to be really interesting. And we're really excited about helping founders nurture that, nurture founders to be able to create that.

32:17Suraj Mehta: I would say that in the context of venture investing, AI, there is this notion for a lot of venture capitalists to pour money into mainstream things like AI. I think what I want to add to this today is unless we can really figure out the right regulatory frameworks for AI, none of those companies are going to be able to scale. It's going to be this open question of whether or not other companies are going to become an open AI one day. That's something that's going to hopefully happen one day. But people in tech are often just building and breaking things and then asking for forgiveness later. And I think those days are going away.

32:58Suraj Mehta: Cool. I hear a lot of tummies rumbling. Yeah, definitely. We're going to go eat. Yeah. Bye, everyone. Thank you.