Natalie Fratto: The Truth About Going Viral l Trailblazers Podcast Episode 51

0:00Erica Wenger: Today on the show, I am so excited to be joined by Natalie Fratto. Natalie is the founder and creator of Charts and Crafts, where she hand draws short explainers of some of the most technically complicated companies on the planet. AI infrastructure, data centers, energy space. It's a deceptively simple format for genuinely hard subject matter, and it has worked a lot. She's built an audience of more than 400 ,000 across platforms, most of it in just the last two months. Natalie started out doing semiconductor M &A at IBM, went through Y Combinator in 2015, and then spent a decade in finance at Goldman Sachs and Silicon Valley Bank.

0:31Erica Wenger: That cross-sector vantage point, sitting at the intersection of deep tech and the money that funds it, is a big part of what makes her explainer's land. She's also a widely read voice on adaptability. Her TED Talk, Three Ways to Measure Your Adaptability and How to Improve It, has racked up more than 4 million views, making the case that how well you respond to change may matter more than raw IQ or EQ. And she's written about technology for Fortune, Fast Company, and Vice. Let's welcome Natalie. Thanks, Erica. Thanks for being here. What a bio. That was fun to hear. Thank you so much. I love reading the bios because when I read it back to people, usually they like just send it to us and they don't actually reread it every time.

1:06Erica Wenger: It's pretty crazy to think about how much has happened. It's such a different experience to have somebody tell you your bio. And it's also so funny to be like, oh, that's I feel embarrassed. But thank you. And it feels like name droppy and it feels whatever. But it's so impressive. And I'm sure that follower count, you have to update like every few days when you send your bio out. You experience this. It is so funny to see how asymmetry can happen on the Internet right now. I think most of that is driven by two discrete videos, which maybe that's always how it happens. But I'm learning that. I think most things in life are the power law.

1:42Erica Wenger: Yeah, it's true. And like it's scary because with the power law comes this feeling of luck. Like I'm experiencing that. like you know one portfolio company that does insanely well right and that's actually the name of the game in venture and in tech and social but then you're like can i do it again right is it me is it just the thing is it once i'm working on believing even when you read that by i'm working on believing that the thing that is special exists inside you and so you don't do precious with this version or this company or that thing you just did but recognize that all of that flows from the power source of what you will have more of in the future too i love that and you also have a jumping off point now that just gets infinitely higher like that's the beauty of social is that it's compounded so much that 400 000 is the least amount of followers you'll ever have fun to think about yeah like weird like i feel this way about mr beast too i'm like he's only gonna get bigger think about it and you you're only gonna get bigger like you you will never be smaller unless you delete it all and say screw it i'm like moving to thailand or something like you're only gonna get bigger what i really appreciate this is like a tension on that I really appreciate coming to this in my 30s.

2:48I, in a lot of ways, I feel like this new media business content journey is a coming back to my child self. And I feel like had this happened to me or had I started this in my early 20s before I'd had a career in finance, this tech company, all of these other elements, I would metabolize it very differently. Also, I would have less rich material to draw from. But I think I was talking to somebody else about, you know, somebody else is like social media blow up in their like early 20s before brain was fully formed. And they're like, it rocks them. I am used to being in rooms with founders, used to being around money and watching how money flows.

3:28And I think that helps not only the content, but like my perception of this universe.

3:32Erica Wenger: Yeah. But you have to also be careful no matter your age that you maintain that sense. And this is for me, too. And for anyone who has a following of like walk into a room, you're just a person. And I think it starts to be I've seen this a lot more with creators lately because for some reason, like tech creators and business creators are taking off. Yeah. Or maybe you have a good couple investments where there's this like elevation and this ego. And so it's like always reminding yourself, how do you stay grounded, down to earth, humble regardless? Yeah. You know, and I'm not worried about you.

4:01Erica Wenger: I think in general. Yeah. Right now I have become the most niche famous for a video on Databricks, which is very cool. But it's hard to get a big head about being like a Databricks celebrity. But you're very like, OK, so you like a very particular like style. Yeah. You have beautiful hair, which now is straight, but usually quite curly. Yes. I feel like you're so recognizable. Like, I feel like if I didn't know you and I saw you on the street, I'd be like, I think that's Natalie. That is so kind. And that has only happened to be once so far last weekend at my friend Peter's house. And it was just like, I think he gets his these videos because he is friends with my friend Peter and probably your friend Peter, too.

4:37Erica Wenger: Just you wait. Just you wait. I'm once you go to more tech things you're going to start I mean I can already see it you're going to start getting a lot of like hey I've been following you for a while that's kind it's very kind it's honestly the kindness okay um we like to start every interview with a bit of an icebreaker okay we're going to get right to the heart of it you can take this question in a personal direction or professional direction whatever you want but when you look back on your journey so far obviously minimal content long time finance long time founding what has been the hardest part of your journey?

5:05Erica Wenger: Like what was the part that you thought almost broke you?

5:13Erica Wenger: And it can, by the way, go back to childhood too. I mean, it's, it's what, I mean, you think about that question, what comes up for you? I really think I'm still, have you seen that chart? That's like the Dunning-Kruger, like, you know, you start through thinking you're invincible and then you go through the valley of realizing you don't know anything and then you come out the other side. It's like a fishhook. yeah for people that don't know I think I'm still somewhere in the part of the curve where it's so thrilling to me that I get to draw as a job and make finance money doing it and uh just tipping over into the point where I realize I don't know enough for the waters I'm about to tread into so I think the hard part is about to come more than it has happened yet with this, I am bracing myself for the next level of imposter syndrome that comes when like I'm starting to get to talk to these companies that I think are like the SpaceX and NVIDIAs of the world where I'm like, I cannot believe somebody like me is you would work with me to ask like what this topic is about.

6:16And I think that's going to be the more challenging part. Also, on a personal note, doing all this with a toddler has been really hard. So just figuring out how to create a new business that is inherently creative while having a founder husband and a one and a half year old's has been a trip that that is also very hard candidly yeah personal life plays a role

6:39Erica Wenger: yeah you know um it's not easy it's funny too i would imagine like when you're making your videos you have to like edit out the sounds of like crying babies and toddlers running around um otherwise you know if you like listen closely maybe we can like hear it in the background or something. I really do think a lot about, I'm not of the opinion that she should be online, especially in these videos. But I think a lot about, I'm curious how you think about this too, what we owe our audience in terms of our full self and how much of that makes sense. I know I follow people. And if I'm interested in what you want to say about companies, I also probably want to know what you did last weekend, but I'm really still learning what my own comfort is with that yeah i've had i've had a lot of conversations about this i think it's so personal yeah and i think you can be successful doing both right um there's like highly highly successful just lifestyle creators that don't talk about work because maybe they don't work yeah and knowledge creators who like all they do is their work thing and they really hide the face and don't talk about the life right the honest answer is probably you should do a little bit of both um the kid thing is challenging like the kid face the kid thing you and i are so deep in the ai world it's like that stuff never leaves once it's out there so I don't know um but yeah I'm figuring that out and like always checking in with the people closest to me right like you know I now have like nieces and nephews and family and people who didn't ask for this and a fiance soon to be husband and I don't know you've got to also check in with them of like hey we like took a cute picture at this wedding can I post that to not just like 200 people but like hundreds of thousands of people yeah and they didn't really think that that was going to happen but is that okay yeah so that's kind of been my approach my mom even i i posted a screenshot of a text from my mom just being supportive and she was like oh my gosh how many thousands people are gonna see that i'm like it's text but it's but it's true that i need to ask for her permission my husband's permission it's a new it's a new muscle i'm figuring that out too i did the same thing with like my mom like a funny video of her dressing up in like a costume and i kind of am like she ended up liking the story oh you did it was good right and it was like that was cute of her also i think it's really cute that your mother and mother-in-law have that relationship that was like the lens i was like oh that's adorable that they know each other mine are too far away to have a relationship like that yeah that's i'm very lucky i think and that's cute that that was your takeaway too that oh she's there but that actually like my reaction to that i am interested in that version of your life and i think those thoughts when i look at your content like that is useful yeah yeah when you build a brand yeah so for everyone who is not aware of this instagram story all on color my mother-in-law was an ob-gyn and she retired and we threw her like a crazy retirement party and my mom showed up to the party in a uterus costume it's truly hilarious did she have a uterus costume amazon ordered it yeah i would have loved if she had it preparing for this moment when you would maybe marry somebody exactly whose mother happened to maybe be an obgyn um that's hysterical but yeah so anyway um yeah i share bits yeah i'm still figuring it out and like we'll keep talking about it um but yeah i don't know i think it is important to show more 360 but in a way that other people are comfortable.

9:39I also think what helps me get comfortable with all of this and produce good work is really viewing myself as a new media business owner more than a content creator. I still cringe at the idea of creator. I'm trying to get over that, but I actually just don't think it's the right vehicle to understand what I'm trying to do. I am in service of the stories I want to tell. And that happens to be via short form video for now, but I am not inherently a creator, which helps me feel like on Tuesday morning, I don't have to post on Wednesday night. And I don't have to think about doing something to a trending audio.

10:10I will not be dancing. It is a media business that happens to hit you in that way. And I think that's for one thing I've really noticed is, and you've experienced this too, for enterprise businesses, the CEOs are on Instagram, scrolling like any of us at 10pm on a Wednesday night. We want to consume business content in that vehicle too. So it's a true media business just hitting you where you are.

10:37Erica Wenger: Yeah, it's funny. So a guest who recently came on, their head of comms found me through social media. Right. And I think a lot of people think, wait, what? No, everyone's on Twitter. And everyone, you know, like the head of comms or the head of marketing or the decision maker that you want to pay for your thing or to support you and get you the podcast guest or the big deal. They're on Instagram too. Totally. Everyone's on Instagram. And it's changing. I worked with Databricks after I did a video on Databricks that did very well. and someone there mentioned to me, oh, we've never actually succeeded at doing anything creatory on Instagram.

11:10This is the first time we've broken through on that platform. And while that's flattering and awesome, I think it's the first of the next thousand times they're about to go viral on Instagram. Clearly there is demand to hear about Databricks on that platform, but it was like a floodgate opening moment.

11:25Erica Wenger: Well, then this also just means like it's the start of a crazy floodgate for you because you are the first to do it. One thing I've learned talking to GPs on the show and in my own experience as a GP, your back office is a signal. How fast you close deals, how clean the LP experience is, how your K-1s land, investors notice all of it. The more buttoned up you are, the more likely they are to give you more money in the future. That's why I want to talk about Sidecar. Sidecar is the SPV platform built for fund managers who want institutional quality execution without hiring a full back office team.

11:55Erica Wenger: They'll review your deal within hours, handle full secondary transaction support, and give you transparent pricing up front. No platform carry. Also, your LK relationships stay private, which is super important. It is not a marketplace. If you're running a professional fund, your infrastructure should look like it. Sidecar makes that possible without the overhead. Check them out at sidecar.io slash partners slash trailblazers. I want to talk to you a little bit about what you call yourself. So you mentioned like your new media business. Creator feels a little icky. Yeah. What is the multi-hyphen that you call yourself?

12:25Because as someone who has gotten to know you a bit, Illustrator feels right to me.

12:30Erica Wenger: But it almost feels as though it undermines the technical and financial chops of your background, which I think actually when we look at knowledge creators out there, the ones who are doing the best, in my opinion, are, you know, had 10 years plus building companies and working at banks and all that, run their own firms, run their own companies. Right. So talk to me about like, how do you describe it to people? And is there like a multi-hyphenate you come back to? We can workshop this live because no, there's not a multi-hyphenate that I'm attached to yet. I find myself saying that I'm a data storyteller, which I like because I think in the Venn diagram of why I'm good at this, there are three things.

13:08I'm good at these. Yes, because I'm good at drawing. I do think that helps. I hope that it is an ASMR experience. I love like those videos on, you know, and the crackling of soap. if you didn't grow up in the internet I don't think I you would fully appreciate how much I think about the ASMR quality of it so like it is inherently visual and very art driven so that is one piece and then there is uh the storytelling element I think a lot about scripting I think a lot about writing I really want to elevate and get better that I've been talking to a lot of friends about becoming um movies level good at thinking about a hero's arc in a short form video there's a lot of work and learning I want to do in that space.

13:53And then the third piece is business acumen. I really think about companies. I didn't notice this so much. My husband is a physicist. And he said, I thought I was describing the tech of these businesses, which I do. But he's like, no, no, you're very much coming at it with Goldman brain. I always end up being like, why is money flowing here? Why are they set up to succeed? People keep asking me for investment advice. I will never be giving that. I will never be giving you stock trades. But it makes sense to me that people are asking those questions because it's clear. My taste in companies is you need to pay attention to this.

14:27Here's technology that's interesting. Here's why it's visually stimulating. And here's money that's slowing toward it.

14:32Erica Wenger: I feel like and you might think that this is shocking because it sounds like you're when your husband pointed this out you did too but like I think the finding great businesses like that third bucket is like really the main thing and then you just happen to be able to like explain the technology in a great way and explain it in a visual way but like you pick good companies like that's also so much of I think what hits is like you know the the AjiMoto stuff you did which was so interesting and you're talking we'll get into all of that yeah you're looking at the balance sheet you're like looking at the cash You're like you're not picking company where you're like, wow, doesn't this sound cool?

15:06Erica Wenger: Oh, wait, it's just an idea or it's doing a million dollars revenue. Like it's not it's not nascent stuff. You're picking like the big behemoths because you know what's big and you know what's growing. I so again, going back to being grateful that I came to this having had a career. All of my recent jobs at Silicon Valley Bank, at Goldman, even at YC, like were based on seeing things in companies that were not immediately obvious yet. I love early stage tech. I actually deeply love technology. And so for me, it's like I was thinking I would love to play one of those games where you just like name a startup that does X, Y, Z with anyone, anytime.

15:43So I'm constantly thinking about that anyway, and I just never had a place to put it until this topic. What I am curious about in my next evolution of this media business is the first viral series was all top private tech companies. Everyone knows NVIDIA, SpaceX, Databricks. Those are names that are household, but you may not really understand. So there was some, the job I had to do there was explain what it actually is for a thing that you had familiarity. The next piece of what I really want to do is point out and describe the next SpaceX NVIDIA Databricks that you may not have the same familiarity with.

16:20I used to think that was not going to be successful because maybe the reason they were doing well as it's SpaceX. But the Ajinomoto and Toto Toilets ones I did have given me conviction that people like interesting stories about technology. And my job there is to evidence it in a different way versus just rely on name recognition.

16:40Erica Wenger: I think it's gonna be so fun to see you experiment with all of it and to see what excites you. I think, you know, and you know, I'm gonna say this, but like you have to value the heck out of you promoting a smaller company or like a midsize company because you bring so much credibility. Like there's something to be said for like, if you're profiling all these like big companies right and then you profile like a series c startup yeah then it's like whoa maybe the series c startups actually like nvidia level but i just don't know about it because i'm out of the loop right so there's some interesting thing there about like brand and credibility and like because you started with such reputable names you almost want to keep that bar and so maybe it's like you get equity in the business so then when you promote it it feels like okay the rise i'm giving it feels you know like it aligns with my interest But yeah, we'll keep talking about it.

17:23Erica Wenger: One other thing I think could be cool, just selfishly, what I want to see is, you know, like what you think they make money at, but what they really actually do. And like, I think there's a lot of confusion around like business models and rethinking of business models. Like obviously everyone and their mother has done an ads play. Yeah. And that was like the heyday for the past decade. What is like usage based pricing mean now? And like, how are your favorite companies changing their business model? This isn't related to AI, but my favorite example of this is Red Bull. I, my very first job was a Red Bull girl, which by the way, was the best job I've ever had.

17:56I got paid like$16 an hour to go to Red Bull media tents all across the country and like run things like Red Bull Fluketog. So fun. I actually think there was like an arc where I got offered a Red Bull internship and decided, no, I should probably be a professional business person. But again, I think the sublimated Red Bull marketing girl brain like never left me. red bull is one of my favorite companies because you think they sell cans of red bull they sell cool they sell extreme sports they sell a lifestyle you might have an affinity i do not drink red bull but i have a deep affinity for that brand and what that brand tells me about who i am and it's completely divorced from the product and they've done such a good job at that stripe feels like that to me also where stripe has um they are beyond capitalism in some way though they do not sell payment products to you if you talk to anyone who works at stripe or you consume things about stripe they're talking about a post-economic world where the gdp of the internet has increased you're gonna do these really human beautiful things they have this like awesome podcast.

19:05They're thinking about books. Like they do another job of divorcing this sort of benign product from the way that you experience their brand. And to me, that signals premium, exciting, successful. I think that is an undervalued trait that earlier stage companies can do. Like think what would Red Bull or what would Stripe sell at this moment?

19:23Erica Wenger: You know, it's funny, as you're saying this, we've never talked about this before, but I almost think of you as like a better version of a website and let me explain I'll explain yeah so like obviously everyone and their mother can create a quick landing page copy of their landing pages there's a million startups doing that now and so like what you land on as a human can look like everyone else and it's really hard to capture attention and to explain what the essence of Stripe is right like I go to stripe.com what am I seeing yes like I don't know I'm seeing like a few words a few images if I'm a human again having agents go to websites is a whole other conversation but if we're going to still use this like humans going to websites analogy, I'm missing a lot of that, you know, maybe with like my typography and maybe with my flow, my member testimonials.

20:07Erica Wenger: But you miss a lot of this depth of like what Stripe really is that I think your videos bring out. And it's an interesting idea, like not that they're going to like plaster your video in the center of their website, but like this could be the onboarding material. This could be like before we interview someone, One, all you have access to is sort of like public information in our website. But actually, this is like the deeper dive. Totally. You're so right. So I don't know that they still do. But one of my favorite moments was I did a video on Base Power, the energy company early on. And somebody there told me that they send this video when they're doing an install to explain why it matters.

20:45And I love that use case where it is incredibly accessible. and it's something that the company thinks they can stand behind. Databricks is a similar thing. I had so many emails saying, I sent this to my mom. I use this for customer sales. Like this is a good front door to XYZ. Like it is, I actually also really like your point that if we're in a dead internet for humans and agents are doing this other thing, what is the use of the internet for you and me as humans? I don't need to spend 10 minutes understanding Stripe's website. I would like to consume a human packaging of here's why this matters so I can take it back offline in the real world where it's going to impact my life.

21:24Erica Wenger: 100%. And this is also part of the reason why Instagram is so exciting because you're talking about base power in a way that isn't like Twitter lingo. You're talking about base power in a way that someone who's getting it installed in their home in the middle of Texas maybe works in a completely different industry. Maybe they're a physician and they happen to just want better batteries, can totally understand it, experience it, has an account, all that stuff. Okay, my maybe counterintuitive belief here, though, is that those are not different audiences. I think people either believe I'm talking to the in crowd in tech, or my mom.

21:56My mom is as smart and capable as anyone in tech. And I think I always want that audience to feel smart, my mom, like, you get this, it's not that hard. And also, the smartest engineer at that company to say, oh, that was actually really accurate. it. I do not think that is an impossible job to like weave that and tie it really nicely. I think people, when they aren't spending time or don't actually understand it, they like to tell themselves some fanciful story that it's too technical for that common audience, or I'm not smart enough to understand that technical thing. And I just fundamentally don't believe that's true.

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23:43Erica Wenger: It's an AI-powered notepad for meetings, and it's connected to every single call on my calendar. Before each call, it shows me a well-researched brief so I know who I'm meeting with and the full context going in. During the call, I jot down whatever stands out, maybe it's a keyword or a decision I make, and Granola handles the rest. It'll transcribe in the background on the call and then turns my rough notes into clean, structured takeaways the second we hang up. There's also no bots joining calls, It just works in the background. I use Granola for several things. If I finish a meeting with a potential investor in my fund, I'll ask Granola, what could I have done better to get my point across?

24:16Erica Wenger: If I'm meeting with a founder I like, I'll ask Granola to point out any major green flags or maybe red flags I may not have already caught. For people with a lot of deep meetings and decisions that require endless context, Granola is a game changer. Actually, we're running Granola on today's episode, so you can read the full show notes at granola.ai slash trailblazers. New users get three months completely free. That's granola.ai slash trailblazers Well, this reminds me a little bit of like your rule that you've told me that you've you don't like analogies You're like anti-analogy Yep And I would love for you to tell people like a little bit more why you feel that way Why your videos don't have analogies because it's so easy to say i'm the uber for x right and the postmates for y Right.

24:52Erica Wenger: Tell me a little more about that. Yeah, I hate analogies. I am on a crusade against analogies When I write a script I go back and read it and hunt for places where I feel like i've leaned on an analogy and then I assume I'm using a crutch. Basically, an analogy to me is, if somebody says an analogy to me, I feel offended, I feel patronized, like they're assuming I can't understand the actual content. Whether that is true or not, that's my feeling. So when I write something, I say, instead of doing it's X for Y, what is the actual fundamental building block of this topic? Get as dumb simple as I can without any jargon and then build from there which to me does service to the very smart audience of saying I know you can understand this I'm not going to sidestep it for you I believe that we can get there together and you know that's why I basically always hunt for them and make sure I cut them out I love that and if people need to look something up they can look something up and then they come back to your video like you don't also have to dumb it down at all points yeah you can just execute the video in a way that you think they'll understand and if they need to opt out and opt back in that's on them very tactically I also have two ways of communicating in videos I write and draw and I talk so there's uh captions there's writing there's a lot of different avenues that I can pull on to speak like if I'm talking about chips you know chip people really want me to use certain language like I need to say 3d and I need to say it's an inference chip that does xyz like I got yelled at because I said you know chips have legs and oh god and they were like they're not legs actually and i'm like right but they are effectively legs um but there's an analogy effectively yeah you know what i mean yeah that's true so like so actually they were right on that one i shouldn't have said legs but like it's hard to always spot them yeah because it's also so much in our vernacular right we like to make things simple for people or like comparative you know what i should have done that case i'm sure there's a technical term that's not legs but it's something in between there i should have gone to find that other term that wasn't the jargony one but it's one layer below it but you learn yeah you learn and then you also tell people like legs felt like it worked but actually it's another example of this analogy that i'm trying to stay away from yeah yeah good call it um i want to talk about proof of creative work this kind of goes to our little bit of our earlier conversation about um you know sort of like agent scanning websites so what does a human want to consume and i'm really really excited about this idea of like proving that you've done something this is why i think strava just to like go to a totally separate industry people love like i love my fiance he's the greatest he loves a strava instagram story of his 10 mile run because first of all he's super fit and like he deserves to put that on his instagram story the masculine urge to post your job yeah and i'm like fair like you're so fit you know kudos to you i benefit from this okay it's a good thing but like why do we feel like we need to prove things it's because as ai takes over we want to show that we wrote the thing we drew the thing we thought of the thing we made the thing it was human hours and so i'd love to get your take I feel like you are the epitome of proof of creative work because you truly film your work and I don't think everyone knows how many hours you put into these so we'd love to hear both yeah like what the process is like and then what your take is on like proof of creative work and is it creators like we'll come creators illustrators like yourself or is it software tell me a little bit more about your thoughts sure I love the concept of proof of creative work that is the HR approved term I've been trying to make the term process porn happen nobody likes it yeah it feels was a little HR unapproved.

28:19It has not caught on. So I'm going to try it here. But it is process important to me. Like I am so appreciative of watching humans human. And it's more, I'm sure there is some compulsion in me to prove to you that I drew it. That is absolutely a driving motivator. But I also believe there's a compulsion in you to connect to me as a human who did the thing. And I think that's the more beautiful level of it. We are in a moment of AI sloppocalypse. Everything is generated or worse. Yeah, it's real. And we think it's AI. I get so many comments that are like, it's AI because I saw her like the little yellow tape went away.

28:59I'm like, yeah, I stopped filming, pulled the tape off and then filmed it again. Magic. But I think we really feel connected to each other when you watch humans do human things. And that's becoming really precious as the AI gets or take over everything. So I think it's a way to hold on to that. And then I think it's also a motivating force where I've also gotten a lot of comments where people say, this has made me pick up the guitar again, or what pen is that I really want to draw something else. I personally have become so much more human by evidencing this human process. I'm better at drawing.

29:37I'm better at thinking. I'm learning video creation, which is a whole other art form. and watching each other enter into this messy, murky, blurry line. I made a mistake here moment helps encourage more of that. And I think it's not it's more than a trend. It's like a hearkening back to what makes us really human.

29:58Erica Wenger: I love that. And I love this idea, too, that like we can watch you get better. Like, I think that that's so interesting. I mean, obviously, models and Ailey like watch you get better, but a lot of it's not so personalized. But like, I love the idea that like I can watch you draw a chip today and then in six months I watch you draw another chip and I'm like oh she drew that chip better yeah she shaded it kind of better yes or oh she got a new stencil yes oh I like that yes and so it's this idea also I think even beyond the drawing itself that I can watch a human improve and we're so much models improving I think the idea of like human improvement rooting for the underdog watching someone get better at their craft that is so rewarding as a human there's something funny about my time as I get better at drawing too which I find interesting I assume or people assume that I would be getting faster at these videos, I'm actually getting slower.

30:46And it is because my bar is continuing to rise. I now know last time I drew a chip with three dimensionality, I drew the, you know, copper wiring on top and like it was multi-leveled. Next time, if I do a flat, you know, square, maybe the audience won't care, but I'll notice that I could have done a better job at that.

31:09Erica Wenger: I'm telling you, they'll notice. Yeah. And that's so much of the journey is it's you it's being like oh she's getting better at drawing yeah oh her voice sounds happier maybe something good happened this past weekend like it's all that little stuff that i think makes people want to root for you and follow you i also think this is related it's not necessarily the proof of humanity but there's this other concept that i think about a lot now about i think i have a really high need for cognition have you heard about this like the philosophical like or sorry like psychological some people have a high need for cognition others don't have you probably fit in the former camp but tell me you for sure do without knowing anymore um basically we're all wired differently some of us have a higher need for cognition or deep thinking i think my brain really craves the hard work and it's all of these stories to me are like puzzles i read research and i just see drawings and it to me i get to carve a story that weaves in what is the most visual first?

32:08What do you need to know? What can I cut? What would I want to learn? What am I missing? It is truly like doing a puzzle. So I find that the more technical or inaccessible ones that I don't understand are more exciting to me than what I think I can knock out of the park. And I love that. It to me is like, as things get easier with AI, this need for cognition is a safeguard to making sure that we improve, that we become more adaptable. I might talk again on like the adaptability quotient. Like we're responsible for what goes into our brains. And as things get easier, you have to find ways to continue to get better at stuff or else, you know, you're left behind.

32:48Erica Wenger: I think that's why people are excited to follow you because it feels like a little dose of learning something new, you know, because of course someone maybe that sees a Databricks video works at Databricks and they're like, OK, cool. I already know this. I don't even need to watch it or maybe I do watch it. But you're giving people that dose of deep thinking, which I think they very much crave. But it's just a hit because you only need two minutes. Yeah. I want to talk about using AI in your creative work and some of the principles there. So that is something that you and I have briefly talked about.

33:13Erica Wenger: Yeah. Even in this interview. How do you think about the role of AI? Like, yes, we love the idea of everything being human led. For sure. You and I are two humans here. This is not AI podcast. Although that is a new thing I saw this week to hold their conversation. I don't love that. Did you watch it? I did not but there are like several VCs that are like do you know about this yeah yeah I don't think I saw what you saw but I know conceptually that it's happening yeah there's like several VCs that I really respect who are joining this like yeah which like I totally respect them lineup it's a surprising lineup I respect them but I don't necessarily like support the initiative that's how I feel I kind of think it's brave of them because they're gonna get a lot of that I wouldn't say no to it but it I'm not sure I would use it as a form and I'm not sure I would consume it but I think anytime you have that gut reaction of I don't think this is good I think it's worth investigating more deeply because every technology feels like that at first I completely agree with you and I think it's figuring out what's the thing that feels scary and new but we should do it right and what's the thing that feels like oh maybe this is like not the right use case but how would we get to the right use case if they don't try it like that first we like dip our toe in and we're like, oh, we didn't like that.

34:22Erica Wenger: Yeah. Now we move on. Yeah. Or maybe it gets better. It gets more human like. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. Maybe by the time this podcast comes out, I'll be like obsessed with it. I don't know. The 2026 primaries are taking shape. And if you have a strong opinion about how they're going to go, Calci lets you actually trade on it. Calci is the largest prediction market in the US, federally regulated and available in all 50 states. You're not betting against a house. You're trading against other people in a live market, taking yes or no positions on real world events. Elections, federal interest rates, economic data, you name it.

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35:55Erica Wenger: No setup, no integrations, no fixing weird transcription errors. And it works across Gmail, Slack, NoShane, Claude, iMessage, wherever you type. And unlike the built-in dictation on your phone, Whisperflow removes all filler words, mid-sentence corrections, and jargon. What I personally love about it too is that it perfectly matches my style. So I often type in all lowercase letters, so it'll type like that. I also say things like LMK, which means let me know in shorthand, and it'll auto-adjust it from let me know to LMK. Like many of you, I also do a lot of brain dumping into LLMs. So instead of typing it all out, I actually just speak my windy train of thought into whisper flow, which is infinitely faster than trying to get my fingers to keep up with the pace of my thoughts.

36:34Erica Wenger: If you do any serious writing or just send a lot of messages and emails, using Whisperflow is a no-brainer. Get one whole month of Whisperflow Pro completely free at ref.whisperflow.ai. But I want to hear your principles on this. What is the role of AI? Do you use AI currently? And when do you for sure not use it and for sure do use it? Okay. I have been thinking a lot about codifying my rules for AI in creative work or explicitly AI and writing. I think this is a big topic. There are kind of three. The first rule I have for myself, it's not a rule. These are governing philosophies. My first governing philosophy for AI and creative work is that thing we talked about before.

37:12I individually have a high need for cognition. I want to deeply think. I enjoy the process of learning something difficult. And if I used AI too heavily in that process, I would rob myself of that joyous struggle of learning something for myself so selfishly i shouldn't rob myself of the thing that gives me that joyous struggle second uh this one i borrowed from my friend cleo abram huge youtuber yeah couldn't respect her more in every dimension but she said something um about how your muscles when you're working out i'm like your fiance i also like whoop girl like you're into it yeah i got my garment i I have too much social fear to like post these everywhere.

37:55But like I am secretly a bro in that way. Your muscles need time under tension in order to improve. If you are outsourcing that working out process to somebody else, your muscles will not improve. In the same way, you're responsible for feeding your brain with the material that makes you more adaptable. Like I do believe that people have a ability to adapt, but you need to train neuroplasticity in your brain. So you're not getting time under tension if you rely on AI too heavily. So like thematically, I believe those two things. Both of those being said, I also think this one comes from Yoni Slo, probably a friend of yours also.

38:34Yeah, of course. He, I think he termed this like AI is a motorcycle for the mind. There are bikes for the mind. It's a motorcycle. What I take that to mean is that it gets you where you're headed fast. That's not inherently good or bad. You just need to be aware of, you know, that it is a tool and what you're using it for. So with that principle, I absolutely use AI for explicit things. I do not use AI to write scripts or LinkedIn posts or anything like that. But I absolutely use AI in a very specific way to pull research, to push my thinking, to help me explore around corners or like add information or concepts that I wasn't thinking about.

39:18So basically, I treat it like a really smart research editor, have it pull tons and tons of data that I parse through directly myself. I don't think I should let it read all of that, but it helps me call the universe of things. It knows what I'm looking for, kind of. And we help, you know, create a scaffold of things for me to read and dive into. And then I use it as an editor on the back end. So I think absolutely I would not be able to produce the level of output, both in quality and volume, without using AI. but it's really important to me that I meet my own philosophical goals for how it gets done.

39:51Erica Wenger: Yeah. And defining those goals, which is so much of it. And like, those are going to evolve over time as you build a team. If you build a team, you know, like what do, what do I believe? What do we believe? That's even more than the thing of following it. It's also interesting. So that's, those are my principles for my own creation of work. I also think a lot about my own consumption and somebody tweeted this or I don't know where it was the other day about you need to judge the work, not the tool. I shouldn't care if you use AI to make something. I just should care that I can see you, the human, through it.

40:23It is representative of what you think and feel. And the consumption of it to me transmits something that was interesting, pushes my thinking, makes me feel more connected and more human to you. That should be the bar. However we get there shouldn't matter in the end.

40:37Erica Wenger: You know, it's funny. I think all of this AI talk is going to bring back a resurgence of philosophy. It's very connected already. I mean, the number of AI labs, big tech companies that have in-house philosophers. Again, when you get post-economic, what else is there to think about except for what makes us human? Like, we are what's left. It's philosophy and it's like big pharma and like healthcare and like living forever. Like, what else is there? I mean, it's funny. Like, I think a lot of that, like, what are we going to invest in? Like, if we believe in a lot of these assumptions that big tech believes, yeah, it's like we're going to sit around and think all day and hope to live forever.

41:10Have you, I don't know if you're a sci-fi nerd, have you read the Culture Series or do you know about this? I have not.

41:16Erica Wenger: I don't do sci-fi. I do business self-help and romance fiction. Great. I love that for you. Yeah. Most of my TV consumption is Survivor. So I don't mean this in any comparative way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me. So the Culture Series, my, again, AI founder, physicist husband turned me on to this. I don't know if it's Ian Banks or Ian Banks, but it's a really fascinating series of post-economic scarcity societies. so he thinks a lot about what will happen to all of us as a culture if if all of that's a given and interestingly there are still wars there is still competition there are still individual needs but just through a lens of like finding meaning it's sort of fascinating and i think it's right i think there's a lot of really deep thought that went into how we will all operate in that way um As a side note, a lot of the SpaceX rockets are named after ships in the culture series.

42:14Really? Yeah. They have really funny names and they're all, the ships are sentient, which is interesting. Like the books were written a long time ago or maybe not that recently, but like a lot of AI truth I can see through it. But they have their own society of ships. It's a whole, it's a great book. I'm very intrigued. Player of Games is the one that I think is the best entry. if you're interested. The player of games. Okay.

42:38Erica Wenger: I might like hit you up and let you know. I find this stuff so interesting. It's also like, and we're going to get, we're getting kind of meta here, but like how much of this is psychology, like how we are as humans versus sociology, how we are with each other. And those aren't the perfect definitions of those things, but it's kind of like, you know, the individual versus the collective. I think that's it. That's so much of it. You know, like you say, competition and wars still continue. That's sociology. Like whenever you have more than one person, you're going to have conflict. You're going to have a need for one person to win one person to lose yeah um it's so interesting i want to talk to you about you as a child okay little natalie yeah um you strike me as someone who you've got the iq you've got the eq you've got a lot of great traits but one thing i want to talk about is this like left and right brain you're like a plus left brain technical finance business logical a plus right brain like and i was actually like even prepared for this like i obviously i watch your videos but i like went deep oh gosh i went deep i mean i went deep enough i didn't go deep deep but like you're a really really really good drawer thanks really good thanks like i used to take painting classes and like i think of myself as not too bad you're very good let's take a class together let's take a class um how do you think of yourself and like little natalie was she both was she one has one come later one always been there tell me a little bit about that

44:00i i don't know if i believe in left brain right brain exactly but i think the through line is that i'm really really curious and i'm really really competitive with myself and that spills out onto both sides of the fence um i absolutely was a kid artist i credit my mom with this she my mom is incredible she's like i hope for everyone to have a mom like mine and she kept like a stocked closet a craft closet in our basement at all times with every piece of cardboard every piece of colored paper every kind of art supply like i think she had while she did not have infinite financial supplies she would have spent all of them on art supplies i think she's a sublimated artist she's getting back into it now um my dad is quite artistic too even though he was like a total jock you know basketball player guy what kind of art are they both into

44:51Erica Wenger: do like creating like what do they do you say artist but is that like sculpting is that pottery is that painting um my mom is starting to paint again my dad made really cool jewelry in his youth but they're both like my mom's a real estate agent and my dad worked in i don't finance stuff like it's not the i think we all have really sublimated selves i really think it's funny when people ask me if i'm an artist i don't associate i don't feel that way at all i really think through these videos I've been like oh I kind of remember how to do perspective drawing and like really a month ago I was much worse than I am at it now and I hope that I'm much better six months from now but the act of doing makes you an artist the act of creating makes you a creator like I think that is more true than I am a classical train that somebody asked me today if I was like if I'm a researcher and I'm like no but I guess yes because that is actually what I spend my days on now um um to answer you more directly about high school or like my kid self i did everything i was class president i was like on the um constitutional debate team if you even had that not surprised uh and i played multiple sports i was never like outlier good at it but i've always liked sports like team captain vibes like i think i was just like suzy high school also fun fact on our Michigan connections.

46:10Yeah. American Pie is based on my high school. So like amazing. If you could paint a canonical. Yeah. High school experience like I was going for it. That was me. Incredible.

46:21Erica Wenger: Yeah. I feel like it's very Michigan though. It's very like all Americana. Right. Like yeah classic. Yeah. My husband grew up in Beijing Shanghai like Beijing. That's not true. Beijing Hong Kong Mauritius India. And he came to Grand Rapids Michigan where I'm from for the first time and was like dumbfounded that people ride their bikes, that the mailboxes are actually at the edge of the street corner. Yeah. I took him to a lot of the American pie spots and I was like, ta-da, America. Epic. Yeah. So epic. And I feel the way in New York too, we have our own version of like, it's in the movies. Yeah.

46:53Yeah. I do think that helps ground me too. Like Michigan is a great place to grow up to like, like I don't like how to get big headed about things.

47:00Erica Wenger: It's like, you know, that's why they're the best. That's why I'm marrying someone from there. It's the best. People from Michigan are the best. They're the best, including you. So I want to ask you about your blow up moment. So over 400 ,000 followers in just a couple months. When did that happen? Was it Databricks? Was it something else? And talk to me about how quickly things grew. Databricks is definitely the video that I think put me on the map for this. That was probably a month and a half ago now. So not very long. I didn't expect that it was going to do that well at all. For me, I got excited that I wanted to understand Databricks.

47:37We know it's a valuable company, but I didn't know what they did. And so that was the source. And now that that has worked so well, that is what I look for in new videos. I'm like, ooh, I want to learn that. Or, ooh, that's complicated. That's a cue for me to dig in more. But Databricks blew every expectation I had of what could happen for this kind of content out of the water. it has probably 6 million views now completely organic um i'm so proud of it and it's been really fun to have that open a floodgate for companies wanting like the databricks treatment basically um yeah that i think i gained 150 000 followers on instagram in the matter of a week the Ajinomoto one that I did um last week had a similar effect to a smaller scale I think I gained like 50 ,000 followers from that one unbelievable it's weird also I feel like the

48:35Erica Wenger: Instagram algorithm has changed so much to be focused on discovery so I think that's so much of it too people are I mean all the different trends we're talking about but I also think people are just like craving new and novel and you really met that need I would love to talk to you about this some other time too like the number of I feel like that used to be true that if you wanted to build a durable business you would need to think about who your followers are and I don't really think that much about who it is because most videos seem to be net new audiences each time so I just think it's got to get good it's got to be good it's got to be interesting if you hit it fresh will you get hooked and want to learn more about this and the people who like that kind of content hopefully will say well they also people are so busy and they see so much that like it's something crazy like only 10 % of your followers will actually even see any one post yeah so there's also this concept of like repeatability that i know is like really in vogue now that like you know you can post the same thing multiple times actually yeah not the exact same but um same enough and then trial reels is a whole other conversation you don't dabble in substack at all so i have a beehive okay newsletter shout out beehive they sponsor the podcast and we love beehive use our code um and i love beehive love why do you do that the reason i ask is it's a lot of work to write in addition to doing the videos the podcast everything else how do you think about that from a business perspective because i'm thinking through that now i have so many opinions i mean our so we do like short form social um then we do these essays which is beehive we do the podcast which is another and then we're doing this sort of like speaking lane which is a little newer um i think they also have different purposes right so like you know And different audiences.

50:12Erica Wenger: And different audiences. Yeah. Like my long form is really, really good for giving people homework. It's kind of a quirky thing, but I'll explain. Basically, I obviously because I have my fund, I raise from investors. I have to convince founders to take my money. Yeah. I want people to understand my point of view as a firm. I use my writing as my way to be like, this is what we believe. This is what we think. And so it's my like stamp in the ground of like, this is what I thought. And by the way, when you all come around to it in three or four years, look at the date. I called it before you. There's something there's something very interesting in venture where it's actually like you really both from an investment standpoint and from a concepts like writing standpoint, you really want to be early to things.

50:52Erica Wenger: And so I think especially as a fund manager, it's like unique to us. So I think for me, you know, I wrote a piece in 2023 that like is now everyone's like, oh, my God, this is a thing. And I'm like, dude, I said that three years ago. Yeah, I said so. So I think that's part of it. And then, yeah, the homework thing, because I have stakeholders that I don't want to necessarily spend like a bunch of time getting up to speed. I want people to see it on their own. For you, though, I think it could be a great way to own your audience outside of, you know, these platforms. That's why people tell me to do it.

51:24Erica Wenger: And you can monetize a lot, which is like a whole other conversation. You make a lot of money in newsletters. Like I know people that like completely their whole life is paid for because they do a lot of affiliate links and that's a whole other conversation. But yeah, table it for now, but I table it for now. Yeah. Fascinating to me. Yeah. We can talk about it more. Here's a problem I hear constantly from operators. The data exists. The answers are somewhere in there, but getting to that, actually pulling a useful insight without bugging the data team or learning SQL takes way too long or just does not happen.

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52:22Erica Wenger: It's funny too, because I feel like every time I look over my operator friend's shoulders, whether they're in product or marketing or ops, they often have a Hex dashboard pulled up. it's a great tool trailblazers listeners get an exclusive 30-day free trial at hex.ai slash trailblazers i could keep peppering with questions but let's get to our trailblazer trade-offs okay um let me know whatever comes to mind first book in hand or podcast in ears book in hand i don't i stop listening to podcasts except for trailblazers you'll listen to this one i i really though i like even if i were walking over here i would just stop listening and start thinking my own thoughts on top of it i'm either if it's if you see me with headphones on it's deep focus spotify playlist that's it that's the i'm a psychopath that's the only thing i listen to on spotify or physical reading though candidly i do think i'm a little bit brain rotted from reading long books i also have a toddler so you need to have that like relief of just like focus on it's long essays i i will be reading if you see me something like paki mccormick not boring like i love a long tech essay yeah paki crushes love he's doing great stuff it's funny i'm actually like I put airpods in and with nothing because I just as a signal like please don't bother me but I just like to think I drive with no music no anything a lot of the time it's good for your brain it's good for your brain higher slow or fire fast higher never solo work for yourself I do right now yeah um I'm sure this is it go ebbs and flows right I came out of finance working with big teams I love having colleagues I love being able to like bother somebody at the desk, but I do not envy people.

53:54My husband, for example, building big teams. It's just, it's amazing and incredible and a ton of work. And I really think we're in a moment now where you can expand yourself so fully as one person. I will not hire somebody until I am bleeding out. And I think there's a lot of ways you can scaffold around yourself without hiring.

54:13Erica Wenger: Fractional. Yeah. Queen of fractional. I totally hear you. 10 small wins or one big moonshot. 10 small wins equals a moonshot. Okay. You have to do the little things first. I think videos are a good example of this. It requires daily, small, continual, constant work. And I think that's the only way, you know, people are able to hit moonshots. You do have to prove it to yourself minute over minute. How many videos did you do before the Databricks won? Or was it pretty quick? Maybe 15, maybe 10 or 15. I don't know exactly. 10 small wins, then one big moonshot. shot yeah and then maybe actually there's probably some math between that one and then the last one that did very well and how many that is too i'm sure it's science and whatever the number is like this is the beauty of being quantitative as a person like you just know your percentage like okay three percent of the time it hits yeah okay so i just of the you know 30 videos i make one will do well but i have to make 30 you're i like i'm tempted to draw this out for you i did this og chart way back in the day which is like progress over perfection and it's basically this like it's power law or anything about like batting average basically if you do a hundred things you're bound to have more hits than if you do 10 things that you slave over i am so a believer of this and i think once you know that number then every rejection every no every not hit is just like okay i guess i'm just getting closer to the one that will yeah you know you just like take the emotion out of it 100 which i think is so much of this kind of stuff being early or being right

55:45the right answer feels like being early i do care about being right and i am working on that um if you ask my husband i am always right and there's no such thing i guess i guess this isn't really i don't understand the paradigm because i both are true um being early is definitely more

56:03Erica Wenger: fun i feel like you are also the quintessential you've been early like you've definitely hopped on this trend. Now, your videos are also right. But I feel like you as a human right now are like the early person. I don't actually care, by the way, like I'm not a fund manager. So it doesn't bother me if I cover a company that doesn't end up being cool. In a lot of ways, I think I would wear that as a badge of honor that I'm interested in things I'm authentically interested in. I believe the reason my videos do well is because you can tell through it that I actually am team founder. I actually am team technology, which I don't think is true for a lot of people who cover technology.

56:35So being not an insider in terms of like, I get the good gossip, an insider in terms of like, I am rooting for you. I am rooting for you to win. And I'm one of you. And I'm one of you. And if it doesn't, like, that is the chance you're taking. Like there's a one of the early companies, Substrate, that I covered is a chip company that's going up against big guys. We want them to win. They're an American company that has, I think the founder has said, I have a 1 % chance of success. That's well enough. Like that's enough chance to make this worthwhile for my entire life's mission like that to me is so much cooler than talking about somebody who has a 97 99 chance of winning yeah and it also like it builds your brand because you're

57:15Erica Wenger: also finding these companies and like building your own taste which is really cool for people to see um okay what is the best teacher a mentor or a mistake um definitely mistake for sure

57:34i i'm pausing because i think i like to say that failure is a really good teacher but honestly i think i'm just starting to get to a point my life where i'm willing to fail more i absolutely have a hard relationship with the idea of not being good enough or not like being polished there's a um somebody told me that like the stanford paradigm is like a duck right so like They're totally poised over and then completely fluttering their legs underwater. I do think I have a lot of that. I really want you to perceive me as having my shit together. Hence the notebook. And I am working on that because I think often about how, not much more successful, but how much more interesting life would be if I were willing to be publicly a failure more often.

58:22I think I am totally hamstrung by that fear.

58:26Erica Wenger: I think it's human nature. Yeah. But I'm working on it. I think it's so enviable a trait in people who are willing to put themselves in that spot. And my husband, who I tremendously respect, is so much braver than me. I aspire to be that constantly. Can I ask you a personal question? Always. On air, especially. On air, especially. Please, for everyone. And we can also edit it out. Is that one of the reasons why? And that's a leading question. You decided to make a new account for your charts and graphs. or i'm gonna say that again hold on um is that one of the reasons why you made a new account for charts and crafts instead of your personal like because i will say this i got an email from someone a couple days ago who said i can see that you're crushing with content i know i have to do it but i just can't fathom posting on my main one and i want to make a new one and i had said do it on the main one do it do it on the one that you've been doing do it people are gonna like it already because they know you or they're your friends you went they went to college with you or whatever what's your take on that because i you know i don't like i'm not going to put it out there what your actual other instagram is but yeah you know but i have one but you have another yeah and so what's your take on that um is there a fear of failure there yes and that arc was very different that wasn't the primary driver for starting a new one so my the main reason i don't do it on my personal one is i have a lot of baby pictures there and i am not gonna that to me is my like digital repository that i'm gonna remember these cute little pictures of her um so that is like governing reason but also i had made a charts and crafts account called charts and crafts back in covid when i was drawing static just note charts um and that was you know a fun covid sublimated self that and making tiny furniture which i would also like to talk to you about um wait can i buy some no but no but i'd love to show you photos like a little this like this tiny i made a replica of my apartment i'll show you we can put it in the show notes because i would literally love anyone to look at it.

1:00:20Oh my god, I'm so proud of you. It is my proudest achievement. Okay, you'll have to send us the photo. Like four months during COVID, I was like upholstering a tiny sofa out of a ring box. I could tell you what this really quickly, this tangent. I love tiny things. And the tiny furniture was so satisfying because it's not dissimilar from videos where I can now look at an object like this camera, that light and say, how would I render that tiny? Like what material would I use to make that light source? And what material could do a wood grain like this. Like it really helps me experience the world in a different way.

1:00:52And then also you have this beautiful tiny little thing that you told. So I had the account going back. I had the account during COVID. But then when I started to take it more seriously this spring, I got a lot of feedback from other friends that said, you need to make your name, not charts and crafts, because even though that is the business that you name that you want to go with, people follow people. You need to use your name. You need to put your face in it. sorry toots that's the way it works and so that was the real reason that it's my name and not my separate account it just already existed and i ported that into you know this

1:01:28Erica Wenger: new one so interesting but they were right thank god they gave you that advice when they did they're so right you know they're so right tiny furnitures are holding a conversation i cannot wait to see this photo and i can't wait for everyone else to see this i know they're waiting on beta bra um okay next is the future of ai abundance or chaos who's to say but i think that hope is a choice. I, okay, I am not religious anymore, but I was religious as a kid. And I, growing up in Michigan, I think it just happens to you. And I really remember this book that I read when I was 13, that was a book about Christianity.

1:02:08And the guy says, effectively, you're jumping on a trampoline either way, you're going to like leap into the air with faith of some sort, you either believe it totally exists or that it doesn't at all. Like, wouldn't you choose to believe in the world that is more positive and abundant? It's like, if you have a choice, why not imagine and solve for the one that you want to happen? I also believe that the universe is a mysterious thing and thoughts are things. And the more that we speak that into being and assume it's going to happen, the more that's going to come back to us.

1:02:42Erica Wenger: I love that. It's like a more philosophical version of like manifestation. But it's like this idea that like you can see the world the way you want it or the Oprah line. And it's like, if you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. Completely. I do not perceive myself to be a woo-woo person, but I'm super interested in like quantum mechanics and quantum. And I think it all, it's all a circle. It all comes back to. It's energy. Yeah. There's something that's governing all of us and take it seriously. Well, I love this like hope is a choice. I think that's also like the headline too.

1:03:11Erica Wenger: like you can believe what you want to believe and that's so much of your videos right of like look at all the cool stuff that is going well yeah i love that killer product or loyal niche audience i don't see how those are different i can't imagine having a killer product and not a niche audience if you can only have one a niche audience because i think that assumes you have a good product and you can build for people who love it if you have a product that you think is awesome but you don't have a niche audience i'm suspicious you don't have that okay i hear you vc or bootstrapping all of my friends are vcs and i will not take vc uh bootstrapping yeah bootstrapping i love it it also depends on the thing like you can of course yeah but your thing is but i'm trying to answer you directly instead of saying it depends i know trust me everyone everyone's almost like both yeah i'm like that's not the game no bootstrapping no okay yeah for sure never post on social media again well this is kind of an easy one for you never post on social media again or never fundraise another dollar again yeah i think it would be so cool to never ever raise money i think it's more difficult having been in those shoes having been married to somebody like who's always been a founder i think will always be a founder it's a lot of burden to have other people's money and expectations of a not even billion dollar company a 10 a hundred billion dollar company weighing you down.

1:04:35I think there is so much freedom in me getting to decide where I take this without thinking about somebody else's money.

1:04:41Erica Wenger: Yeah. And it's so personal. Like, I think it's like, do you want to carry that burden or do you not? And I think a lot of people would choose freedom. Yeah. The way that they would choose hope. Okay. Last question. Is AI overhyped or underhyped? Under. Definitely. Overhated, but for good reason. I actually think we should continue to hate on it because that's how discourse yields better results also but i i think we're still at like the first inning of how big this thing's gonna get for you get a lot of hate on like promoting ai um sometimes not i think there is some divorcing that happens where i'm talking about a company as a container so some of those companies as containers definitely get a lot of hate i have talked about palantir i have talked about and real people have opinions about those companies i believe i've talked about culturally no matter what you believe about those companies i think it is helpful to be educated about them and i think they are so big and so known that it is worth our time investing in them but maybe that belief although i haven't stated it so directly carries through to the way people treat me i am not getting a lot of negative hate it's very interesting i mean i think no matter who you are what you believe the idea of seeking knowledge not just headlines but seeking like deeper knowledge watching your videos for two to three minutes will prepare them for whatever their point of view right whether they're team calci which by the way also shout out sponsors the podcast we love calci but um you know whether they're like team palantir not team palantir whatever it is yep they will be armed with info and that's so much of also what i think social media struggles with is giving people like the meat and not the headline yep yeah natalie thanks for being here thanks erica this was so fun this was so fun i've been doing this Trailblazers podcast.

1:06:25Erica Wenger: If you found this conversation valuable, please follow along on socials, share with a friend, leave a review, all the things. Most of all, please subscribe to our channel. It helps more contrarian builders find us and supports the work we're doing here. To learn more about what we're doing, you can visit trailblazerspod.com or my venture capital firm parkrangerscap.com or just follow along on socials at Erica underscore winger. Until next time, keep trailblazing.