The Fast and The Curious with Matt and Check

0:00Matt and Check, are you ready for your fast and curious? Yes. Okay. Do you look really serious? What's a totally useless skill you're weirdly proud of? Accents. Oh, nice. I do accents. It's so not useless. It's so funny. I love your accents. Oh, I do need to ask you to do one. Yes. What do you want? Italian. Italiano, bella, molto bene, grazie mille. German? German, I'm not great, actually. It just sounds really insulting. It's like a classic English version of a German accent, which I don't want to do. Matt, what's the biggest myth about inclusive investing? That it's charitable or suboptimal returns.

0:37Nice. It's the opposite, by the way, just to be super clear about it. It's a driver of excess returns or alpha. You can only keep one between you. Chek's MBE or Matt's marathon medals, what's staying? It's got to be the three out of sub three. It's got to be sub three. That's love, isn't it? Look at those. That is amazing. Thank you. Chek, what's more underrated in venture capital? patience or intuition patience i think intuition is overrated i think people actually intuition is built patience you've got to stay the course this is really hard evening ritual to unwind after a long day long run long run i have a bath oh nice love a bath matt what's the weirdest thing you thought about while running oh god i mean what about when you did 40k on the weekend oh yeah that was pretty horrible that's pretty heat heat deprived no i think the weirdest thing is um you've got to stop you're going to die you've got to stop you're going to die you've got to stop you're going to die so when i'm doing a speed workout your body's at the limit right and and the brain starts saying you're going to die you're going to stop you've got to stop and i've learned through coaching to get to my to tell my limiter to be quiet it's fine i'm not going to die carry on it hurts a lot people to carry on what's one leadership lesson your children have already taught you not to control everything you're still learning that one though trying to still learn that one but um ask the stupid question they ask me questions that are really simple but amazing check how do you define happiness i think working on something with purpose you know having a purpose in life is such a privilege you know my purpose is about unlocking opportunities for people and it's just it makes me happy to do that every day what time is your alarm clock set for 6 a.m seven minutes past six on two days a week seven minutes past yeah I love that.

2:24Why? Because I have to get to the gym. To maximize. I have to get to the gym at six. That freaks me out. That makes me so anxious that you're doing things to the minute. Of course. Oh, God. I need buffer. Matt, what's a common piece of advice you think founders should ignore? I think something they get told a lot is it's signaling is really important that whether or not an existing investor puts more money into the next round. And they really seem to that being a very hot button. It seems to be very sensitive to that. And it can matter a little bit, but I don't think it's as important as people think it is.

2:54What's your biggest fear? Sharks. Anything happening to my family? Yeah. I mean, not that I... That's a way bad answer. How bad do I look now? I'm worried about myself being eaten in the ocean. Jake's got... Jake's family's fine. My kids are not going to watch. Imagine if one of my family got eaten by a shark though. That would be... That would be awful. Jake, if your life had a warning label, what would it say? Fast moving train coming through or something like that. you know something goods train goods train coming through not stopping at this station if Ada Vinci had a mascot what would it be and why?

3:31Ada Lovelace she is our mascot she is your mascot and we have all the pictures of people like her on the walls of our new office including Dame Steve Stephanie Shirley who's an amazing person sorry for another time you're way better I was going to say a koala bear why? I don't really know but I think because they're incredibly cute they've got badass clause. I don't even know if they do. I love it. We're learning the differences between your relationship. Can we do her answer? No, we're going to do both because that was funny. Name one thing most venture capitalists are missing today, Matt. Humility.

4:02What's your ideal weekend? Keep it short. Going to Suffolk, seaside, swimming in the sea, amazing blue skies, running on the beach with family, eating ice cream. Yeah. Check what's the best thing a founder ever did in a pitch that won you over? I think founders that start with, this is the reasons why this is a challenging market or like a reason sort of not to invest, like really self-aware and sort of not hiding anything. That's really compelling. I like being grilled by founders because it never happens because the power dynamic is so messed up in VC. I like it when founders very occasionally grill me and I'm kind of feeling a bit sort of challenged by it, but I really like that.

4:46Yeah, I like that. That's good. What's one thing you can't live without? Oxygen. I actually, this sounds like a real like virtue signal. I can't live without exercising. Yeah. It calms me down. I'm on a, yeah, exercise. See, he keeps looking at you again. That's such a bit awesome. I know. She's so much quicker than me. Check, if you could only use one app, what would it be? I'm going to have to give a shout out to one of our portfolio companies. The Bubble app, Child Care On Demand. It's a great app. Curious, Matt. Matt, what's the first app you look at on your phone in the morning? WhatsApp.

5:20What is your dream all found to dinner guest list, living or dead? You can have two each. Michelle Obama and Johnny Wilkinson. I'd like to talk to Serena Williams about being, you know, elite performance athlete and now being a VC. And I'd probably also like to talk to another amazing badass woman, venture capital founder called Teresa Gao, who is the founder of Aspect and A-Crew as well. Matt, what's the weirdest startup name you've ever heard of? Circa 5000, which is a company we invested in. It's massively expensive, like rebranding. It used to be called Ticker. Circa 5000 means approximately the year 5000, and that's what we're building.

6:03It was a climate investing app, and so we're investing in climate to make sure the world can live. I might be getting this, like I might be butchering this, but it was something along those lines. Circa 5000. It never really landed for me. It's still trying to land with me. which one of you is more likely to accidentally send a work deck to a family member me check yeah because i'll be working and doing something in context switching yeah from her phone on a train slightly late to get to an airport this is the last one who out of the two of you is more likely to cry or laugh at a pitch matt definitely you cry regularly cry regularly i don't get all like but just because they're doing well or just like i just cry i'm a crier and um yeah yeah not just a pitch meeting just a random meeting often between us just chatting on zoom me and check yeah it's quite it's quite it's nice i never really really analyzed why that might be but next coaches i'm a crier check on matt thank you very much that is your fast and curious thank you well done thanks joe well done check

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