Chamath & Nathalie on Leaving California, Tech Investments & Their Marriage | KMP Ep.24

0:00Katie Miller:You went from being a large Democrat donor to now a very outspoken proponent on the other side of the aisle. How did you get there yourself? For me, it was an evolution where I was like, I can't believe I'm being lied to by this group of people whose sole responsibility is to hold truth to power. That, I mean, red-pilled me, I guess, in a way. At the end of last year, I had an incredible thing happen. This business that I helped start 10 years ago. Grok. Grok. And, you know, we sold it to NVIDIA. $20 billion. dollars, incredible validation, all of this success. Katie, I felt super like down. Like the entire internet was celebrating you and saying Chamath must be having the best day of his life.

0:38I have felt the happiest before something great has happened. And then afterwards I feel worse than before.

0:44Katie Miller:When you guys met, was he this outspoken about his viewpoints? When I met him, he was very opinionated. That was there for sure. That meant a lot to me because it showed me what it meant to be fearless in the market of ideas. Instead, I've always wanted to be more measured. That's why I always win the arguments.

1:16Katie Miller:Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller podcast. We're so excited to be in Palo Alto today, joined by Chamath and his beautiful wife, Natalie. Thank you so much for this. Thank you. Thanks, Katie. So we're sitting here in Palo Alto. You have been incredibly outspoken in recent days about all of the wealth moving out of California. Your home is beautiful. Thank you. Do you think that you guys would also too leave California if the billionaire tax passed? I think that is our big fear. It's sort of the nightmare. We're kind of going through the phases of denial, acceptance, grief, however you call it.

1:54But I mean, right now we're committed to staying and trying to show people why this is a really terrible idea.

2:00Katie Miller:You went from being a large Democrat donor to now a very outspoken proponent on the other side of the aisle. When you are so influential to other VCs and other people with high net worth here in California and you really shaped their public opinion and public perception. How did you get there yourself? Was there a moment you woke up and you're like, okay, it's all different? There was. This is not about politics for me. It's about the truth. There was a moment where I was basically like everybody else and pretty brainwashed. My media diet was very much the same as everybody else's. I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

2:45I watched a little bit of CNN, a little bit of CNBC, a little bit of MSNBC, a little bit of CBS. Economist every now and then you encounter it on a plane and you think you know what's going on. And I had a perception of Donald Trump initially from the moment he walked down the staircase in Trump Tower to announce. And then over the course of six or seven years, I realized that some of those fundamental things that I was told about him were just totally false and there was enough content online where I was almost afraid but it started with Charlottesville I was almost afraid to look at it because I'm like I think I was lied to and then I saw it I saw what he said but then I saw the portrayal I had originally believed that portrayal until I saw the truth.

3:37And then I just started to go down that rabbit hole. So for me, it was an evolution where I was like, I can't believe I'm being lied to by this group of people whose sole responsibility is to hold truth to power. The key word there is truth to power, not your perception or your desires. And I just think that that, I mean, red pilled me, I guess, in a way.

4:00Katie Miller:When you guys met, was he this outspoken about his viewpoints? Because I think most people don't know that you're an accomplished businesswoman, Natalie, amongst yourself, and that you've done a lot in your career prior to the two of you meeting. Sure. I love my job. I love working, but I still think there's much more to accomplish. So I would tone down the adjective, but thank you. When I met him, he was very opinionated. That was there for sure. sometimes, I think it's a question of instinct. Some people just instinctively go. And what he taught me was the capability of iteration. When I met him, my views were softer.

4:47Well, they still are. I try always to keep optionality to be wrong, to weigh probabilities, to weigh up the risks, he had no idea of what risk meant. And that meant a lot to me because it showed me what it meant to be fearless in the market of ideas. And in this way, I've noticed this journey. I've noticed him change. I've noticed him integrate a lot more of the things that were important for me, like measurement, judgment, but he factored them in with experience instead of starting off from the idea of wanting to be right. Instead, I've always wanted to be more measured. That's why I always win the arguments.

5:35How'd you guys meet? This is an incredible story. There was a period in my life where I had a pretty traditional investment business. and I had a pretty talented career, but there was a moment where I felt like something was missing, and there was a person that I hired to work for me whose whole goal was to scale the business, and the way that he perceived it was create a patina, and it was Bill Clinton's son-in-law, and he was a very good person and tried to do a lot with us, has gone on to be very successful at a different firm. But he's the one that connected us. And he said, you know, these guys are a great family.

6:26They're based in Italy. And she's going to be here, the CEO of the holding company. And I was like, well, what time? And he's like, 9 a.m. And I was like, yeah, that's too early for me. And then he's like, no, but listen, this is a pharma business and they're incredibly important. I think he said, what did he say? At a certain point, Mark and I were friends, and he definitely overplayed the situation. He was like, oh, she's a very important pharma in Europe, you know, multiplied by 10. And Chamath was like, still no. And then at the end of the day, he was like, look. He was so exasperated. She's really hot.

7:02She's super hot. And so he showed me, he showed him a picture of me, and Chamath looked at the picture and said, pass. Not my type. so we did not meet so we did not meet i only because katie was really early in the morning it was 9 a.m and it's like nobody in california you know you you work till two three you've seen

7:21Katie Miller:i agree the work culture in palo alto is significantly different you work till two three four a.m in the morning fair the before and after i now wake him up at 5 a.m because i work with a european business and so i want to start my days i have to start my days early so those times are long past behind us and it's it's just charming but anyways that's not how we met that's how we did not meet that's not but then that night we were both at the same restaurant we struck up a conversation she came to the office the next day and i had an all glass office in palo alto every room was all glass and i remember her saying i need to leave to fly back to italy but can we just talk for a few minutes about some of these things that that i've just learned about sitting here with you guys and i walked in behind her into an all-glass room and couldn't close the door i just like looked at her and i was like and i kind of like lost myself very became very nervous like a child i just kind of sat there like nervous like a and and she's like this is really weird he's like acting nervous and the door isn't closed but that's that was the moment i didn't realize it at the time but very subconsciously i think that that's what i so what he's missing from the narrative is that from that moment also nothing happened for like nine more months in which he also set me up with other people like when I say nothing happened it's not that you know that moment gets deep into you and something really motivational shifts no uh and then we became friends and then we talked about everything possible and life continued and then many many many, many months later, I realized, well, actually, we had lunch together in a place, and suddenly he leaves me in the middle of lunch and says, sorry, I need to go by.

9:12And this was also sudden. And so I was preoccupied. Now we're talking like, I've been knowing him at that point for like six, nine months, I can't remember so significant amount of time. I'm like, what's going on? I just got up, we were at the Dorchester or something, Berkeley at the Berkeley hotel having lunch and in the middle of lunch I literally got up and I'm like I'm feeling sick I must go goodbye and I just walked out and went to my room so I texted him later and and I said are you okay and he said well I really felt like I was sick I just needed to vomit and I'm like oh I'm so sorry do you have a bug and he's like no it's like I realized I think i like you it was like high school that was really like high school and i it's a terrible

9:55Katie Miller:idea i don't think that's accurate and and we moved on and another month passed and then you guys how long was it from that point did you end up having kids together oh my god well then like a month later we started dating and then honestly like within 10 months when when Then we kissed for this first time. I think after a few months, then we kissed. It's not clear how that happened because the idea was like this is... And then I moved to California for business reasons. And seven days later, I got pregnant. That was nine years ago, eight and a half years ago. Well, yes. And one of not really thinking about things twice and then ending up to be lucky.

10:41Katie Miller:and ended up working out beautifully because now you're married and have a house of five children. It's incredible because, you know, I was coming off of a divorce. So it was, you know, I had like zero self-confidence and self-esteem at that point. And I also didn't know like how to be in a relationship because clearly the first time didn't work. And so I've learned a lot from her. It took a long time because I, you know, you're just, nobody's trained. There's no playbook that says, here's how to be in a relationship. And then here in Silicon Valley, it was all kind of platitudes, like what it means to be in a couple that works.

11:17And it was all BS. So I've learned a lot actually how to do it. It's been a negotiation for sure.

11:25Katie Miller:Have you brought in lessons from your last marriage into this one that you can help tell other people who are either going through a divorce or who are trying to do this again about how to make a successful marriage and relationship the second time? Well, I mean, I think what I learned from that is there is an incredible amount that can go unsaid that must never go unsaid. And it's like you just got to put it all out there and talk about it. And look, I grew up in an Asian household, right? And so these are stoic people. They don't say anything. They just internalize everything. And the anger and the resentment builds.

12:04This one over here. Well, me instead. She's like, she'll throw shit. Like, I mean, she's not afraid. Some people have warehouse where to store resentment. I don't have that warehouse. It's just missing. So I give it back on the table. And this is very, I think it's very useful if you have to deal with somebody as special as Chema. Chema is truly, truly special. He's got a very, very big heart. But he's sometimes unaware. He is not very, very empathetic. Say what you really want to say. he's dumb as hell no I'm kidding this is like the constant thing she's like you're so incredible she always says you're such a genius but you're an idiot no he what's the dumbest thing he's ever

12:51Katie Miller:done oh gosh are you serious yeah I do let's just let's go oh god I would have to think about it because I there because it's so many like you mean today or in the last week I would have to focus on of like a narrow window um hold on what's the last super dumb thing that you did you did like what was the last time we had a huge fight yeah i don't know we used to have these like we used to have like so i didn't know how to fight i don't know if you know how to fight i do you do know how to fight i do it's a really important thing to know how to do with your spouse except my husband and i will say this and like i know he'll get mad when i divulge this because he doesn't like when i day gold or personal life on air but i make other people do it yeah but no when we fight he typically goes quiet which is not the interpretation that he would give off publicly is that he does not fight back yeah he just goes like he's very respectful and quiet and that makes me more mad and more upset and i think we're very similar and that so i don't have that i just came up with two things okay great let's go sorry as you were talking you inspired two things one is a playful things so when chamath has nothing to do like the classic weekend his mind is fixated on how do i get her to snap um so he organizes traps like organize he starts one day and this can be a long con the the whole purpose is to get me to snap and to call him by his birth name chamath versus how i normally call him i call him amore uh when she calls me by my name it's like when you call your kids by their name they know they know them you know they know that you're in business and this is what i live for on the weekends if nothing's going on and so how long does it take for her to call me by my name and so he just wants to what are her trigger points and he will start saying things that he doesn't even really want like let's say we've been out for a whole week we've been traveling we've been working uh late and we've been out i don't like to eat out too many times during the week it doesn't make me feel good i feel i lose a little bit of uh control over my calorie intake or sugar intake or whatever.

14:58And he knows that for me it's a sensitive spot. And so he'll say even worse, like, oh, you've heard about this incredible restaurant? It's really nice to go with our friends. Unless you feel like, I mean, you don't have to say yes if you have psychological problems. But otherwise it would be really nice. And it's like, what? And this is like the fifth time. And he will like say small things like, actually, I've heard this menu. Have you ever heard about this place? And we'll say three, four times. Then he will invite other people on the con. And it's like, hey, Mark or whatever, come home. And then can you name this restaurant a couple of times, please?

15:45Until she gets the message. And so until I finally say, look, I've been here. I've been doing everything you wanted all week. We've been to four restaurants already. Now, can we avoid this fit? And then I start laughing. But when we fight seriously, he goes into silent mode, which I take as punishment. And he doesn't need to do anything because I self-punish very well. And he will then call me things like, you're so histrionic. Like it doesn't, the idea is not to say something which is really bad. It's to say something that is so subtle that will haunt me for the rest of my days,

16:21Katie Miller:even though he never thought it. Totally. I totally appreciate this. We fight very similarly. We're finally, I'll get so triggered that I will lose it. And then the person just sits there quietly. And it was like, no, you're the one that's, you know. By the way, can I tell you where it comes from for me? Where? Like I, you know, just growing up the way that I grew up, didn't really have a lot of friends. Parents fought a lot. I was always very afraid of, I don't want to be rejected by Nat. And so I would just never. So even in a real fight, like when we're not playing around, I get very quiet because I do get in this mode of like what if she leaves and I and I get really and Then we kind of like sort it out But it takes a while and she has to lead if she didn't lead we wouldn't have resolved anything Normally what happens in our fights is that he gets a little insecure by a something could be anything could be an email could be a tweet could be a Piece of news anything really and then he's he feels smaller and so he wants to make me feel smaller and he makes me feel smaller and because I'm have different kinds of insecurities I don't think I'm structured insecure at all but I will feel small and in those moments I feel a little insecure for five six minutes and then I think why did he do this to me and so I snap back and I get mad at him and then I always have the responsibility to de-escalate my getting furious and understand that he's the one who's really hurt and try to unpack that with him.

17:47So I'm like, okay, sit down. Okay. What happened? Tell me everything from the beginning.

17:52Katie Miller:Sounds like a very healthy marriage though. I will say that. It's like, it's a very healthy conversation to have. I'll tell you, she has to do this a lot for me, which I think is like, it's a gift. At the end of last year, I had an incredible thing happen. this business that I helped start 10 years ago. Grock. Grock. And, you know, we sold it to NVIDIA. $20 billion. Incredible validation. All of this success. Katie, I felt super, like, down. And she could feel it. So she could feel it. And her father felt it on the phone. And her father says to her, he just seems like he's a little down. And I was trying to figure out, like, what is going on?

18:35And I'm like, I'm like, I said to Nat, I think I'm depressed. And she's like this, okay, why are you depressed? I don't know. You know, I think about all the things that didn't go right. And then, you know, and she, and then she kind of like helps me navigate it to a much simpler explanation, which is like, you know, there's just a lot of other stuff going on. And we're really in the middle of a bunch of important things that you've invested your whole life in doing. And it just doesn't feel like you've gotten to the end of it, but you've made a lot of progress if you actually look back. And she's like, you got to just take the win here, buddy.

19:09Katie Miller:Like the entire internet was celebrating you and saying Chamath must be having the best day of his life. He sold Brock. He's made so much money off this initial investment. I felt like this. Isn't that crazy? It is. I think for how many people who are out here who are trying to get into venture or who are investing and who only hit to hit it as big as one time as you did, could they ever be so lucky? Yeah. I mean, while it's so fascinating to see the flip side of that. it's like every like it's it's weird like i have felt the happiest before something great has happened before the facebook ipo but you know before the warriors won a championship all these things that i've been lucky to be involved in before the slack ipo and then afterwards i feel worse than before and now i think she's kind of nat's been helping me kind of shape i think that The story is a little larger and there is the story of the single shot that people can see or assume or there's the one story.

20:10But then Chamath has had a very wide range of stories. So while something is more in the face of other people, there's just a lot of other stories in the background. And those other stories might be less successful or less easy. or even the stories that become successful, what did it take to get there and what is the backside story? So I think that he said it once and it became a meme, but it's actually a good, accurate way of depicting it, which is when you're in the arena trying things, like I am in the arena trying things and he is. So there is no space to just wrap the whole package and say, okay, this is a judgment, this is the end because you're in the middle and there's like five of things that are broken and there's five things that need to fix need to be fixed and there's just so yes if one thing goes it's really important to make sure that we can focus on that and make sure that that's a celebrated but that takes nothing away from all the things that instead need attention and need his constant energy and modality and modality is an important one because he needs to be really with his head down, just in the engineering, in the machine room, really focused.

21:33And sometimes all of the world of X and the world outside sometimes gives you a sensation of being high or being low for whatever reason. And this is what Chamath and I try to work a lot to be shielded from because it doesn't change the everyday.

21:53Katie Miller:How do you handle, you know, you are so public, you make a lot of public comments on X. How do you handle the, I would say, legacy media news machine that comes from that? How does that affect you? Do you guys read it? Does it, I'm sure you're reading the negativity. We all see it, but it's how do you handle it when it comes your way? And how does it affect you? um well i'll take this because um chamath is a star in this he does not care me on the other hand not so good uh so i actually look it up and i don't look it up because um because i want to be hurt or i want to hurt him but because i really trust sentiments and sometimes if you read a lot of negative comment i want to understand where it's coming from and divide.

22:45Sometimes it's a lie. Sometimes people have an idea which is based from something that is utterly untrue, 100 % untrue. But truth doesn't come in black or white. It often comes in shades. And so I'm always seeking for opportunities to improve. And sometimes we talk about it and he's very definitive. I'm like, I don't want to talk to you. This is completely wrong. And then slowly, slowly, you can see that like a door is opening. Do you ever tell him to delete a tweet? Oh, my God. The funniest thing. I'll tell this story. I'm pretty like I tweet what I want or I post what I want to post. Sure. I've been triggered very rarely.

23:28And then one time I got triggered by this person and he had been riding me. I just couldn't. And I couldn't get him off me. and then finally I basically called him fat and stupid okay I said you're fat and you're stupid that's what I said to his reply I said you're an idiot you're fat and you're stupid something like that and it was like 7 45 in the morning and I know this because then I started my workout and I felt great I'm like yes I put this idiot in his place let me go start working up 7 46 my phone rings and she's like take it down and I'm like what she's like I'm like you're monitoring my posts she's like no but something in the universe told me to check Twitter I saw this thing it's unnecessary take it down and I'm like oh fine so I'm sure I didn't say unnecessary but But yes, that was a change.

24:26I don't check his tweets. I don't look at it often. But sometimes, you know, when you, I don't know, you wake up and you're like, hmm. And I think I was in a meeting, so I wouldn't normally use my phone to go somewhere else. But I had a feeling. And that's when I checked and it was not good. Yeah.

24:46Katie Miller:What's the smallest investment you've made back or made for a company where you felt very personally invested, that did well, that actually gave you that sensation that we just talked about of feeling fulfillment and joy comparatively to what I would consider a grok being a huge deal that's made you lots of money and is a giant success story and you not feeling that same comparison joy? I think that the tension that I've always struggled with is the things that I do aren't always the things that I think I should do. And the latter is a bunch of high-minded ideas about how the world should just be better and more rational.

25:27The problem is that doing those things are very difficult because the amount of money that it takes to do those things or the amount of regulatory change or the amount of other people's support is so large as to be basically for every other human being other than Elon, impossible.

25:43Katie Miller:Okay, but what's the deal? So I did like a breast cancer thing where a third of all breast cancer surgeries, like lumpectomies, are ridden with an error, which means that for every 10, three women have to get another lumpectomy because they leave cancer behind. Of those three, another one. And so we built a machine that uses a type of imaging that is 10 to 1 ,000 times better. We just got FDA approval. It's like a very small thing. makes me feel like really, like I've done something. Yeah, you've done something for the world. Yeah. And it's technical. It's hard. It took us three years. Yeah, like I like that kind of stuff.

26:25The company actually that, the basis of Starlink is a company that Elon acquired called Swarm. And it was a guy from Apple and his co-founder, Sarah Spangelo. we were the original capital in this thing working out of our office incubating these little satellites sending them up in little planes at apollo alto to test them and then you know he scooped it up and it just became a huge part of starlink so to see that success for them so those kinds of things make me really happy like you've changed the world it's like where i'm like a little part of it you know i'm a little part of this big story

27:01Katie Miller:so i'm sure when someone sees you now you're more recognizable than you used to be yeah ever since the podcast. What is a successful pitch look like for somebody who comes up to you on the street, not who gets a meeting, who's sitting in your office and pitching you, but when you've said, fine, you can have my number? The single biggest determinant of success is the agency of the person. And the reason is that you just go through so many trials and tribulations. I remember before Sarah and Ben sold Swarm to SpaceX, we got a cease and desist letter from the FCC. I mean, look, when you're a young 28-year-old founding team and not a lot of money in the bank and you get a cease and desist from the United States federal government, you basically shut down and go home.

27:52But they didn't. And that's an internal decision. So the thing that I care about, oftentimes what I ask people is, tell me about how you grew up. Tell me about your relationship with your parents. What did your parents do? What are your siblings like? And all I'm trying to figure out is if there was hardship somewhere where you just had to decide, you know what, not me. I'm going to make it. And that's the skill. You apply it to any market, that person is more likely to be successful than in the most obvious market. That's the successful pitch. It's just that sense of like, this MF-er is going to make it.