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Transcript of our conversation with Dave Balter:
Immad Akhund:
- Hey everyone, welcome to the Founders in Arms podcast with me, Immad Akhund, co-founder and CEO of Mercury.
Raj Suri:
- I'm Raj Suri, co-founder of Lima and Tribe. And today we have an iconic entrepreneur based in the Boston area. Dave Balter, legendary founder with, you know, founded multiple companies that have done really well and been a role model to me my whole career. So, you know, you're really starting to feel uncomfortable. How do I start, get started like, describing what you've done, Dave. It's like so many different things now at this point. When did your entrepreneur career start? I was looking at your LinkedIn yesterday. I was like, is it, did it start in the nineties? Like when; I don't think you and I have ever talked about this.
Dave Balter:
- I don't think we have. I don't think we have, first of all, you know, iconic. I mean, I don't, what, Geez man. You know, I mean, I've been called a lot of things, but I'm not, I'm not sure if I've ever made it that far, but thank you. I was told, I was told about a year ago that I had to learn how to take a compliment. So I'm practicing. Practicing. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. First, you know, the first real company was early nineties, was about 94, 95. I was a clerk in a retail store. And my co-clerk turned to me and said, I have a company. My partner hates me. Would you be my partner? And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And, and I, I learned pretty quick why his partner hated him. But, but that was the beginning. That was really the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. That was,
Raj Suri:
- What company was that? What kind of company was it?
Dave Balter:
- That was a promotional merchandise company for the entertainment industry. So we made, you know, shirts and stickers and stuff for touring bands and big movies and things like that. Very low margin business, high volume, amazing perks, you know, you know, backstage everywhere and meeting famous people and all that. But not a growth business unless you were gonna, you know, dominate the industry. And that was unlikely for us. So, yeah.
Raj Suri:
- Did you always think you'd be an entrepreneur or you kind of accidentally stumbled into it with that conversation?
Dave Balter:
- So, I stumbled into it. One of the crowning moments of our animosity towards each other as co-founders was about a year in, we had an office on Orchard Street in New York, and it was like a street front office. Anyway, we were in like a raging fight and he was yelling at me and I'm yelling at him. And he in middle said, you're only, I can't remember, you're only 24. You're not even an entrepreneur. Okay. And I didn't even, I had no idea what the term meant. I went home and I looked up what entrepreneur meant. I didn't know. I was like, what is that? I was like, so out of the loop, but I never intended. And then when that business sold, you know, it sold under duress after, after 9/11, it's, you know, we sold it, but it was, it was very painful. And I went out and tried to get a job and everybody was like, oh, you're an entrepreneur, you're not gonna, and I'm like, no, no, I really want a job. I don't wanna, yeah. You're like, I'm not even an entrepreneur. Yeah, I'm not, I don't even know what that is. My, this guy told me I'm not one. But yeah, I never intended, it was never intended.
Immad Akhund:
- Oh, so that went for seven years?
Dave Balter:
- That went, what happened was after two years we broke up. The way it went down is I said, we can't work together. I will, I was a finance arm, so I said, I'll value the company. I'll give you a number and you can either buy or sell, I don't care, but like, we gotta break up. So he said, okay, we gave, I gave him the number. He said, I'm gonna buy you. I said, great. I started another company in the same space that was more web oriented. 'cause the web was coming, you know, it was coming or, or mid nineties. And, and about three months later, my bank called and said, oh, this guy, this guy, I won't say his name, but this guy, he's asked for a loan on your capital. So I had to call him and be like, dude, you can't buy me with a loan on my money. And he's like, I can't? And I'm like, no, you can't. This is the type of dealing I had to get. Anyway, so I had to buy that company. 'cause I, I stood by my word, he's like, I have no money. So I bought that. I had the other company and then merge the two and lasted another couple years before we sold it. It's very painful.
Raj Suri:
- Ran it solo for a while, right?
Dave Balter:
- I ran it solo for the last three, three and a half years or so.
Raj Suri:
- I feel like 90s stories are so different, you know, like, you know, pre incubator people didn't know what entrepreneur was like. It's so different now, right? It's like there's a huge founder community now. Back then it was like almost no one.
Dave Balter:
- No one, and they didn't, and it was, it wasn't cool. I mean, I don't know if it's cool now, but like my friends definitely not. And others it's, it's, it's cooler now. I mean, my friends were like, why don't you get a job? You know? And I'm like, I believe me, I'd like a job. This was so painful for seven years. Like, I'd like a job. But anyway, I had cool stickers and t-shirts, so, you know, I got that out of it, yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. I guess you've done so many exits, I mean, and companies. What are you, what are you best known for? What are you most proud of?
Dave Balter:
- Well, those are two really different things. I would say probably most known for Bzzagent. Bzzagent was, you know, cover story of the New York Times magazine and you know, sort of pre primordial social media, pre-social media network of a million people that, you know, shared products and services with others. I'd say I'm most proud of, of the craft of people. You know, like, like companies are made up of, you know, figuring out how to work with a co-founder. I mean, that first journey was probably a great one for me to learn really quickly what it means to co-found a business with someone, it's a marriage and what, what does that look like? You know, what types of, what's your value set and what types of people do you want around that can work? Are they relentless? Are they responsible? So I'm most proud, I think, of trying to design cultures that can win and can be, I'm gonna say maybe enjoyable for the people that like what we do. That's a hard thing to figure out. And I think we figured it out pretty quickly.
Raj Suri:
- I think from my perspective, like, like just seeing Dave from his kind of reputation, you know, in Boston and also getting a chance to know him, like he was known as being like a formidable entrepreneur from my career when it started like 2007, he was one of the few Boston area entrepreneurs who had made it to scale at that point, like very few. It's a very small set of people.
Immad Akhund:
- I mean, and he was, very few entrepreneurs anywhere that had made it to scale in 2007.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he had kind of like one, you know, in the two thousands was kind of like a, a dead era for, for companies. But he was one of the ones who had actually made this company Bzzagent to a substantial scale with a very unique idea. I think Dave, you should talk about the idea. It was a very creative idea that, but yeah, you wanna talk about what Bzzagent did?
Dave Balter:
- Sure. I mean, I just will, I just wanna comment on something like you, first of all, I think you're amazing, Raj. Like, you can, like, I look to you as like, I'm like, what? I gotta do what that guy does. He's really good. The second is like, the journey is so full of self-doubt all the way through that. When you talk about 2000, like I'm formidable in 2007, I think of like, like I, God, I like, I can't even believe that people were letting me do what I was trying to do. And I didn't know I, like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to figure it out on the fly, you know? And so maybe it, maybe in a reflection for this, this, this discussion, but self-doubt is through everything, you know, as much as, as much as you might see something,
Immad Akhund:
- Do you feel like you still have some self doubt or like now you're over it?
Dave Balter:
- Totally, totally. Oh yeah. I mean, every stage is a different form of self-doubt. Like I'm no longer of like, can I stand something up? Can I make it work? Can I inspire people? I'm now at like, God, I'm not really great at full scale. Yeah. And I doubt that I'm the guy, you know, like, am I, am I the guy first full scale? I don't know, you know, I'm not sure, but like...
Immad Akhund:
- It's like a hedonic treadmill of like accomplishment. It's like, you're like, oh man. Like you always say yourself a bigger objective and you're like, I don't know if I could do this. Yeah,
Dave Balter:
- It's totally true. I mean, I look, you know, like, we'll use, I look to, I'm in, I'm in Crypto now with our crypto analytics business. I look, I look at Jeremy Allaire, okay, Jeremy Allaire built ColdFusion, you know, the, the, he built the, I can't remember the name of the company, but Built ColdFusion he built, he's currently running Circle, which is gonna go public in crypto. That guy's a monster. He's amazing. He scales, okay. And I'm, and I'm like, what? You know, God, can I scale? I don't know if I can scale like that. You know, it's always, it's al there's always doubt around everything. I, that's, that's, I dunno, I dunno if Raj you feel doubt?
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. There's always doubt about the next level. You know, you always wanna like, can you, can you figure it out? And I think entrepreneurs, we get bored easily, right? So we're like, we're always like, okay, we got that done and then we feel like happy for like, you know, an hour or something. And then the next day we're like, how do we get to the next, next big milestone? So that that, that, that's pretty common. And I think the doubt is actually what we, like...
Immad Akhund:
- I'm actually worried if things are too easy then I'm like, oh man, I haven't set myself a hard enough challenge and like, what am I even doing here? And like, maybe someone, you know, there's even doubt around like easy things being too easy. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah.
Raj Suri:
- We didn't become entrepreneurs. We didn't like choose to keep doing this. I mean, you know, you kind of fell into it by accident, Dave, but you've kept doing it like you've chosen to do it time and time again. Like, like four companies now. Five companies. I don't know how many companies you've done now and back to back, yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- Seven. Seven. Wow.
Dave Balter:
- Seven. Yeah. Seven.
Immad Akhund:
- I thought it'd be interesting to come back to this question of co-founders. I know I had a lot of issues with my first two companies and co-founders around them. And I guess Dave, how many of your companies have had co-founders and how many have not? And then like, did you come up with like a magic answer on like how to like have a great kinda pick a great co-founder and like,
Dave Balter:
- Well, I'll say this. The first, the first one was really terrible as we've talked about. And I've actually thought about a lot about like, running into him now or like we're, so we're probably, you know what, I don't even know what his career is, but like, I wouldn't mind having a drink with him being like, dude, that was, we were kids. And like, you know, what's your journey been? I mean, I don't know, I'm, you know, I don't hate the human, I hated the process, you know what I mean? Like, anyway, anyway in, let's see the next company, I didn't, I had four other people that I co-founded with, but I was, they were, they started as employees. I treated them like co-founders. And we, we all lasted through most of it. I still see those people, but I think the difference there, I became like a, like a autocrat. You know? It was my business with four people I sort of co associated with. And I, you know, after the exit, you know, we took care of people, but I probably, I feel a little like they, they, they weren't, they weren't treated like equity co-founders, the way you might equity co-found today. Everyone did fine, but it wasn't as obvious. We didn't like split it equally or anything after that. I did, I made a big mistake in co-founding, which is, I thought I'd had it all figured out. I see this now a lot with people. I like who I've it successful. So I'm gonna pluck the best people from each company and build a new co-founding team out of them. And what I learned there pretty quick was like every company's a different culture. Just 'cause you were an A in one culture doesn't mean you're an A in another. And when you put sometimes those two cultures together, they negate each other. And so now you have sort of like, kind of weird, they're not the same founders. So that got messy quick. I've had situations where I founded the company. I mean, we could talk about Smarterer. I founded the company, became chairman pretty quickly, put a CEO in place. And then, and then somewhere in the middle ended up dating a person in the company. She was already in the company and then she was a contractor that, this sound sounds really bad, but like, she was a contractor and I was dating her. I came, I was not running the company, but I, they asked me to come in as CEO. And so now I came in and my co-founders struggled with the fact that I was dating this person, which I struggled. I'm like, I can't, this isn't gonna work. I'm like CEO. Now that became very challenging. But those co-founders, I, those co-founders, I don't know if I, I feel like they felt equal, which I feel really bad about everybody.
Raj Suri:
- I think there's not really too many general lessons is kind of what we're learning here today.
Dave Balter:
- There's not many, lemme give you the last one. Lemme give you the last one. 'cause it's most important. FlipSide, what I did is there were two people in the last company who were really good. They fit my gaps. Okay? There were, one was a technologist, one was a data scientist. So you look for people that are gonna sort of like fill what you're not gonna do, no overlap. And they were, they were ready to take the big journey. Okay? The most of the lessons I found was people aren't really ready for the journey. And you find an imbalance of what it takes to go from zero to like success. So you need to find people that fill your gaps or vice versa. And people ready to go on the journey. Outside of that, if you have cultural alignment, you're gonna be fine. But those are the, those would probably be the three things.
Immad Akhund:
- My experience has been like, I think it's very hard to know if you can work with someone unless you've worked with them before. And I think when you're young, there's just not that many people you've worked with before that are like entrepreneurial. And then you end up kind of finding someone. And I think it's very hard to like, I mean it works obviously sometimes, but I think it's hard to go like, oh actually we've never worked together, but we are the perfect culture and we are the perfect mix of like personalities and skillset. Like the last two companies, Mercury and my previous one I did with people I'd worked with extensively with Mercury. I'd worked with the kinda two co-founders for five years before starting Mercury. So I just like, I mean, it's not, no one's perfect, but like, you know, you can work with like each other's downsides or faults.
Dave Balter:
- Can I ask you on that, would you then recommend, like, let's say you're gonna go start something and you haven't worked with the co-founder with who you might covet with, would you recommend a trial period? We're not really co-founders yet, let's just work together a bit. Like what would you recommend?
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, I mean I think the difficult part of a trial period is, it's like, you know, these startups are so long and there's like, so much like emotional volatility. Like, I just dunno how you can capture much of that in like a three month trial period. I dunno what my recommendation would be. I mean, it's better than nothing, but I, I have a hard time imagining, well, like you went through a trial period, now you really know you can work with someone. It just seems like pretty hard to do. Yeah. I like, I actually, I also think, even if you work with someone in a normal job, like, you know, what are they like as a co-founder is like probably a very different thing, right? Like, no, yeah. A job doesn't have the same kind of like, stresses on people. It's, I think it's really hard. I mean, this is why, you know, especially early startups, like this is the main reason they fail. Like it's issues and Yeah, it's hard to,
Dave Balter:
- Yeah, I would, I would say 90 days is a good time to know whether you've got, you know, some alignment. Like can you, you know, I find in the first 90 days, like the test for me, you know, it's 10 hour car ride test, but like, you're basically like, do I call this person or be like, Hey, you got a minute. You know, like there's so many people. Well there's so many people that I'm like, I don't really want to, I don't wanna deal. I'm not gonna, I don't wanna call them.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah.
Dave Balter:
- Like, and that's really important. Like, are they someone that, 'cause you're gonna have ups and downs. Is this someone you're gonna call? Is this someone you're gonna be like, let's talk about it that matters. Are you able to communicate? Yeah, that's a good test. Yeah. Yeah.
Raj Suri:
- Hmm. Very interesting. Yeah, I think, you know, one thing just about comment about people in general, I think you mentioned this. I really don't like this classification of like A, B and C that's very commonly used in Silicon Valley and, and tech industry because I think...
Immad Akhund:
- Like, Tier A, Tier B people, that kind of thing?
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think people are absolutely one or the other. I think, you know, if you put me in like some situation, I could be a C player, right? If you put me in a different situation, I could be an A player. So is like the situation and the people around you matter a lot. And, and people don't take that into account and it's very, it's very sort of black and white when people describe like the quality of other folks.
Immad Akhund:
- I feel like I remember chatting to you about this and you, you feel like anyone, well managed enough can be a tier A player, right? That's your like general belief.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Well, not anybody. Not anybody, but like, you need to have some baseline, right? But like, you know, there are people who are a, with some player and then, you know, A in some situations and then C in other situations. And I've seen this happen, like people who I've worked with who I thought were really great, go with it, someone else and they don't succeed at to the same level. And, and, and vice versa to people who I didn't work with. Well, you know, go somewhere else and succeed.
Immad Akhund:
- Well actually a really good example of of this is like, there's people who, you know, at early Mercury were killing it, right? They're like established big projects and they did. And then like at later stage in Mercury, they're just like, wow, this person's just like can't get things done. And it's like such a 'cause especially when you work with them for many years, you're like, I know this person can do these things. And it's very frustrating because I'm like, oh, I know they can do it, and why are they not like now doing the same thing that they were doing at that stage? So that is a fair point that it is very situational whether someone can be killer at your company, at your stage, in the role that you give them and all those things.
Dave Balter:
- Very rare for people to go through every stage and be highly effective. Maybe as a founder or founders. 'cause actually even as founders, it's very rare. There's people that, you know, don't last all the way to the journey or come in later or whatever. But, but I could count on maybe two hands sub two hands how many people out of all the many hundreds or whatever that have you have come through the companies that actually went through zero to all the way to the end and succeeded at every stage.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. One thing that I really dislike is this like idea of like golden handcuffs that like some companies, they, they're like, oh yeah, they know we're gonna make it. So like if you leave us the three months, you lose your stock options and like, and like have these like, you know, waterfalling equity structure. So like people are stuck at the company. I'm like, why do you want people stuck at your company? Like, that's the exact opposite. I want, I want people to leave the company if they don't want to be here. Like, I don't want people stuck here. That would be like the worst case scenario. So I don't understand why entrepreneurs think like that.
Dave Balter:
- You wanna give 'em unvested equity if they leave?
Immad Akhund:
- Well, no, no. If the vested equity, then they vested it and they, they should, it shouldn't be expired. Like there shouldn't be any incent. I mean, yes, you want incentive for them to stay, but there shouldn't be any like unnatural forced situation. I mean, it does happen if you give someone four years vesting and then your company valuation grows a lot, maybe in the fourth year there's like a very large incentive. But in some ways it's not that bad because like they've been there three years, so they're like 75% of the incentive is baked in. So it's impossible to avoid, but I think do these unnatural things where to trap people. And it's, it's always seemed like a very unhealthy way to run a company. And I've talked to employees at companies going like, Hey, I can't leave this company. I hate it here. And I'm like, well, yeah. It's like, that's not good. Like, no, everyone knows you hated that probably who works there. Like, that's like a really bad, bad situation for everyone.
Dave Balter:
- I mean, there's, there are companies, I mean, we've all heard of the companies that, you know, I'll pay you at the, I think Tony at Zappos to, you know, I'll pay you money to leave.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. That's the other extreme.
Dave Balter:
- Yeah. Like, you know, like, like if you don't wanna be here, don't worry about it. Like, I'll pay you. You know? But yeah.
Raj Suri:
- Dave, you actually wrote a book about like, like interpersonal dynamics at companies. Like can you talk about your book?
Dave Balter:
- The Humility Imperative?
Raj Suri:
- Yes, of course. Of course. I've read it many times.
Dave Balter:
- Many times. Yeah. Right, if you need to go to sleep, you know, feel free to read before bed. Yeah. Look, I think the, the title comes from sort of the, the arc of Bzzagent where I, you know, you said it iconic. There were times everybody around was like, you are, you know, whatever you, you figured it out, you know? And even with all the self-doubt, eventually you sort of are like, maybe I have. And you, you know, in my case, I stopped listening and went through a very tough reckoning of like, we could lose the company. And, you know, the humility pair was learning how to, it's not, not being confident, but how to have humility to listen to others and, and sort of understand that, you know, it's not your journey. It's everybody's journey. And so the book is, the book is comprised of many of those types of situations. You know, I'm a I'm a, you know, a studier of people. I think in, in a lot of ways I'm fascinated by organizational design and how things work. And so, you know, in the humility, prayer, there's lots of stories about, you know, of how to behave with people or, or lessons of where I had to understand this is, this is the DNA that makes people work or not work. And to, it's a set of stories. So there's, you know, can read it pretty quick.
Immad Akhund:
- Is there one good lesson you have for founders that like, you know, maybe they raise a big round and everyone's telling like, congratulations to them and they're like, you know, feeling all of this thing to like, how, how do they stay humble in that kind of situation?
Dave Balter:
- I mean, there's, there's definitely a part on, you know, raising big rounds is not, you know, that's a, that's a tactic, not a strategy. You know, like you can raise money, that's a tactic. But I, but I, I would say it's more, you know, the one that people seem to, to always bring up is something called sponge and stone, which is, I am like, I am definitely not the smartest person in the room. You know, there are people you can look around and be like, they're brilliant. Like they're the smartest in the room. I always won through sponge and stone behavior, which is sponge is like, I just get in a room and I, like, I sponge off everybody, you know, I am like picking up information I'm taking, you know, like right now the chairman of our board is this guy Chicago who teaches AI and blockchain at, at Harvard Business School. And I get in a room with him on ai and I come out and I am just like, you know, I'm now dripping information. I'm not taking it to my own, but like, I'm sponging off that guy. Like, this is just so much info, I will do that with everybody. Doesn't matter. And stone is like, sometimes you just gotta work harder than everybody else. I am not, I do not give up. I am, I am highly relentless. It that's our culture, you know, it's not burnout level, you know, but like, I, I'm gonna figure it out. And I think if people are tuned to that, it equalizes everybody's skill. Like you could be the smartest person ever and you know, have degrees out the wazoo and all the rest. But if you're, if you're, if you're a sponge in stone, you can sort of equate equally you're, you're using the tool sets, you have to go crave value. I think people just need to remember that like, it's all around you.
Raj Suri:
- It's like a cultural mantra for, for your company, basically. It's like, you know, this is how you should behave, you should be sponges, it should be stones, like this type of thing.
Dave Balter:
- Yes. Yeah, very much so.
Raj Suri:
- Interesting.
Immad Akhund:
- Okay. Yeah, very much. I like the, sorry, meta idea. I really like, if you can turn like a, an idea into like a metaphor, I find, I find it's like so much more memorable when you can like, take this thing and like, we have this metaphor at Mercury, it's, we call it the cosmic cube. And it's just like this idea of like expanding features in one axis, expanding customers sets in another axis and expanding like, quality in the third axis. But I mean, it's like, imagine if I said like, oh, we care about features, you know, types of customers and quality. It's like, it's just not as memorable as like, oh, we have the cosmic cube and this defines our product strategy. And you know, I think these like metaphors are such a powerful way to like, make things memorable and powerful at a company. So I like that sponge and stone.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. We used a boost and boast at Presto. It's not metaphor, but alliteration. It's, it's another poetic technique, boost and boast. I think I talked about it before, but Boost is about, you know, our only focus is like increasing the ROI and value to our customers about boost and boast is telling the stories of how we increasing ROI and value to new customers. And that's the only thing we care about. That's the only thing we're gonna focus on. And it made a big difference once I wrote that memo, I felt culturally for the company, and there's a memo I still, you know, I still think about because it, it, it's a, it's a great sort of first principle thinking about what it takes for a company to be successful. And there's a few others I wrote, you know, I think like that, like, you know, that that was pretty helpful. But yeah, I think poetic techniques, you know, create some, you know, memorability. You know, Dave, one thing that strikes me about you in general is like, you seem like a very high EQ person, right? Regardless, right? You probably have been high EQ for a long time, but you still feel like you've been learning and getting better at being like a leader and manager, right? Like it's kind of remarkable that, you know, in Silicon Valley you have a lot of people who high IQ but not high EQ, right? There's a lot of, that's a very common sort of person. But even high EQ people have a lot to learn, right? It's like, it's not like it comes natural. There's a lot to learn about leading, you know, it's kind of what you've experienced in your career, right?
Dave Balter:
- I mean, I would say the least still, still every day. I mean, I'm in, you're coming, you know, today we're talking and I had, I have had two people in the company close to us, close to my world. And one it was a head of product who was on my leadership team. One was a, a head of commercial development. I do a lot on the sales side. One of the head of commercials both didn't work out within 90 days. Okay. And, and there are two, two things. One is the self-doubt side where I'm like, God, like after all this time, I can't figure out how to like hire right? Or, or vet people on the way in. They were, it was values mismatch all the way through. You know, I'm an asshole obviously 'cause they didn't work, they didn't work with me. Well like, oh my God, the self-doubt, like what is happening? And then, and then on the other side is the, is the success side of it, which we talk a lot about. We have a very, very, very fragile, important culture at, at flip side. And, and the, it's like an organism that when people come in that don't, that don't match it, it's like, it's like the organism attacks it, you know, like, you know, one of our values is responsibility. And if people don't uphold their own, it becomes so evident to everybody else that like around the company, everyone's coming in and like attacking it and like, like, hey, I need this person to do this. And they get, then that person gets uncomfortable and then, then, then the organism like choose it up and spits 'em out. Okay. And so I've got two sides to it. I've got the side where I'm like, it doesn't, why can't I make it work? Like it, it should work all the time. It never works all the time, but it should work all the time. And then the other of like, maybe we have succeeded because they're both not here after 90 days and that's an art unto itself to like move fast and make change. Those are all, you know, still learning. I don't, I don't know the right answer, but we're still learning.
Raj Suri:
- Immad, you've gone through a lot of evolution as well as like a leader and manager, right? I mean, I remember, you know, you talked at, at when you were co-founding Mercury and you were starting it in the beginning and you know, this has been, this has the largest scale couple you've ever run. Like how's your journey been learning how to manage?
Immad Akhund:
- It's funny you, you said the high EQ thing because I identify as a low EQ person, so I've always seen like my, yeah, I mean I think I'm, and I like I care about people, but I'm not good at like reading people's emotions or that kind of thing. So I, I've always been kind of paranoid that I'm like a bad manager because of this. And I think actually like being paranoid that you're bad at something is actually helpful in getting better at it. So I think by now I'm probably okay at it, but I was definitely bad at it, like whatever, 10, 15 years ago when I first became a manager. And I do think there is an element of being a CEO that is like not about managing, that's about leading. And I think leading and managing are different things and it's, you know, it's better actually to not sometimes overemphasize management as a CEO. I mean like, lemme try to describe the difference, at least how I see it. I think leading is when you like put forward a vision and you like set an example of how we should do it and you know, you do whatever it takes to get there. Whereas managing I think is a lot more, like, at least in my impression, is doing one-on-ones understanding what someone is going through, trying to like give them the, you know, I guess go back to what you said Raj, like try to set them up for success and all those things. And both of them are obviously really important, but I think sometimes people think they're the same thing and get like a little bit stuck in like, oh, I'm a great manager. You know, I, I think the manager mode founder mode thing kind of goes back to that. Although, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a great manager either, but like I think it's the consequence of only being a manager and not being a leader are like bad as well. At least that's like a learning for me.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Dave, as I recall, you've had many doubts it sounds like you have about being CEO of your companies, right? Like you've been a founder of many companies and you're, you still have these doubts even though you have so much experience being CEO. Why is that?
Dave Balter:
- If I knew why I'd solve it, I mean, I'm like, you know, I live because every day is like a, you know, a wide awake new journey that you're, you know, you're, I don't wanna say you're, I mean you have a lot of playbooks that you use and you understand how to get from A to B every day. You're making very important split decisions about, you know, big things to do or not do, or little things to do or not do. I think part of my self-doubt comes so like I feel good about that. I think my self-doubt comes from the fact that I am extremely hands-on. And the downside of that is it feels to me like I can't get out of being in the weeds enough. And, you know, and I, you know, like I, when I say that to people in the company, like, no, no, you're like, you gotta, I need you on this part. And I'm like, yeah, but I, if I was really good I wouldn't doing that anymore. You know, like, like someone else would be doing that. And so the doubt always comes at like, am I holding back? 'cause I'm, I won't let go of the things I'm good at. You know, you gotta fire yourself, all that stuff. I dunno.
Immad Akhund:
- Did you find the idea of founder mode, like a little empowering because like, I guess that's all about being in the weeds and or did you reject the idea?
Dave Balter:
- My co-founders like, you know, really loved it. They were, they were like, they were like, we need to tell everybody that. Like, this is just what we're doing and we are this, I found it, I found it an excuse. It's like I need, alright, we need an excuse for being like intolerable; founder mode. It's like, oh, we're in founder mode, so you guys gotta be okay with us. Like, so come on. I think it's an interesting idea. I do think I, okay, here's maybe, maybe underneath it, I think that too quickly, as companies scale, the, the founder's behaviors that got you from zero to one or whatever it is, Are quickly deemed a little bit, you know, like no longer cool or relevant in the company. Like you, the, you know, the like take huge risk and make, make broad decisions and just like do stuff no longer feels okay. Okay. And so it is, it is treated almost at a certain stage. Like, you gotta go over here a bit and be a good manager and like step above it and like let people do their thing. They may, they maybe don't think the same way. And I think, I think people stop doing it too fast. That is sure, that is for sure. It's, everything is always a dichotomy. So it's do you stop doing it too fast or do you keep meddling? You know, and, and which of those is right, you know, at different times are probably different things.
Raj Suri:
- But there's this very interesting question that I've thought about deeply and I don't think it's been answered well in general. Like, it's like, what is the role of a CEO, right? And like, there's all these different things, you know, VCs will give you like a few bullets. Like you gotta raise, you know, you gotta make sure there's cash, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. I've always thought it's very simple. It just to make the company work. And that is the only thing that the CEO is responsible for and, and, and whatever it takes to make the company work, the CEO must do it. And so whether that's getting in the weeds and like figuring out problems, sometimes that's, that's needed, but sometimes it's also needed for the CEO to step back and hire a great team and like let them do their thing. So like, there's no right or wrong answer, but it is very time dependent and situation dependent. But if you just follow this north star of like the CEO must do what it takes to make the company work, then every you know, it, everything sort of makes sense, at least to me, right? Like it's like, okay, you know, some, you know, sales isn't working, I gotta go and double down on sales.
Immad Akhund:
- It's just unfulfilling there, Raj because it's like, what am I supposed to learn from that? It's like, do whatever it takes, like, let's go.
Raj Suri:
- Well, the CEO would know what's broken and what's not broken. At least you know, a good CEO would know. So, and, you have to go and work on what's not working basically.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. And do you mind if we do a hard fork in this conversation? I'm just interested in Dave's take on this, obviously elections coming up in five days or so. I feel like, you know, crypto people in general, like more on the Trump side. What's your, what's your take someone in the crypto industry?
Raj Suri:
- He's a big MAGA guy, Dave.
Dave Balter:
- Gosh, God, you're killing me. I'll do my own fork and then I'll come back to it. I have, we have spent the better part of a year, I'm in Massachusetts, we have on the ballot this year, question four, which is the legalization of psychedelics for mental health in that, you know, prop not retail, properly prescribed for mental health. This needs to happen. So I'm gonna, this is my plug. We'll see what happens in five days.
Immad Akhund:
- Well the FDA just rejected MDMA therapy.
Dave Balter:
- That's correct. Yeah. We were involved in some of that too. And I don't wanna say for the right reasons, I think, I think it's a good process. Synthetics are different from plants and I think that's a good process anyway. I care a lot about plant medicine. I'm more interested in that happening in this election than almost anything. So I'll just say that.
Immad Akhund:
- And that's just, that's just in Massachusetts, like that's just a local...
Dave Balter:
- So yeah, state initiative, there's, so MDMA was federal and that goes through the FDA, there's a sort of faction of the psychedelic science space that is like, the only way to get there is through the states. So Oregon has been legalized Colorado, this would be the first east coast state to, to put a practice in each state is learning, you know, you know, this is, this is 21 plus decrim, you know, no, no retail, which I'm, which was very important to me, but each state has a little different, so yeah, just Massachusetts though. There are others that will follow suit, I am sure anyway, on the election, you know, this is really tough. I mean, I will just, you know, I'll make enemies or not wherever I go, but like, you know, fuck Trump. I'm just gonna say that all the way through. I mean, this is, you know, evil lives among us and you know, we're all watching really, I think terrible things. That's my point of view. I'm just gonna put it out there. It is. I will reflect one conversation with somebody in our industry with my wife and the per a friend of ours in the space who said, I, I have to vote for Trump. And she said, why? He said, because it's my business and he's, he supports my business and my business will get killed otherwise. And she said, yeah, but what about your daughters? And he said, yeah, my wife's pretty upset with me. Okay. And that sticks with me where, where there are people who will choose maybe, you know, their business over life, which I am very, I very much struggle with that. So I am, I am not a Trump supporter. I don't, I don't like politics really at all. I will tell you that to begin with. I don't find any of it refreshing. I'm not like so much a fan of the other side, but I, I do not believe that dividing a nation and, and rhetoric and lies are the way to get there.
Immad Akhund:
- I guess like worth diving a little bit more into why they think their business won't survive under the Democrats. And I think maybe people outside crypto don't get it, but like, I think a lot of crypto people feel there's been like basically a war on crypto for the last four years by the,
Dave Balter:
- There has SEC chairman Gensler has been, I mean just, you know, litigating, you know, you know, helping people sort of like succeed through litigation or not, not succeed through litigation. I mean it's, it has been, no rules have been laid out. It has been very unclear. And yeah, the SEC under the Democratic framing has been terrible. It's been terrible for the industry.
Immad Akhund:
- And for some reason Elizabeth Warren was like super anti crypto, right?
Dave Balter:
- She's anti crypto for all sorts of reasons. I don't know.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah what is the reason? I don't actually know.
Raj Suri:
- She's Massachusetts too, by the way.
Dave Balter:
- Yeah, yeah. She's Massachusetts too. Because look, the downside of crypto is that without regulation and when there's so much money around, there are people that are, are, you know, people could get taken. Her thing is like the average person get taken advantage of. And I could point to a thousand ways that happens in non crypto, by the way. But that is true. Like crypto's a wild west and someone could get taken advantage of and she's, that's her platform, you know. But the way to get there isn't through a lack of clarity by the SEC and then litigation of everybody, you know, the, the Coinbase goes to the SEC who says you should go public, like we are proving everything, you should go public. And then they, and then the SEC turns around later and Sues Coinbase for, you know, like, wait a second, you're the ones who approved it. You know, like, that's not a great way to do it. Now here, here's the problem. On the other side, Trump has realized that if he, if he, there's a lot of voters who like crypto and single issue voters, and if I say I'm gonna do crypto, wow, they're gonna come on my side. Okay? The problem with that for me is, first of all, the guy never tells the truth. So who the hell knows what happens on the other side once he's in? But more importantly, I think he's gonna be a disaster for crypto because he's gonna be doing things that make the negative side of it worse. He's already got like shit coins he's making that are terrible, that he's taking 75% of the profit from. If he does that over and over, that's only gonna hurt the industry. Like, that's not gonna help us. That's only gonna make it more wild west. And so, like, it smells good on the way in. I don't think it's gonna help us in the long run become a sustainable industry. And that, that's important to me. Strong opinions. You brought up politics now. I'm now like rowdy.
Immad Akhund:
- Not ambiguous in your perspective. I mean, do you, do you think that well the Democrats could change their position and be, I mean I think this year they've, I guess coming up to the politics that they've been a way way more friendly to crypto right?
Dave Balter:
- Here is the great thing that Trump has done. He put it on the center stage. It is a mass market awareness thing. Now the Democrat's hands have been forced effectively to realize this is real. There's a lot of people that care about it. There is a lack of clarity. And I think, yeah, it's brought everybody else to the table. So that is good. Like it's at the, it's at the right level Now.
Immad Akhund:
- There's also very little to win by being anti crypto. Like, it's not like there's another set of people that are like, wow, I'm a single issue voter on anti crypto. Right? There's no, it's any downside.
Raj Suri:
- It's a little bit like legalization of marijuana and stuff like that, like, or other things. It's like some people care about it, really care about it. The people don't care about it. Don't care about it that much.
Dave Balter:
- Don't care about it. That's right. So I think, I think we'll see a change, I think Gensler's, you know, moving on or whatever, and we'll see a change. You've got, you know, if people in the SEC there people on the, you know, at the level of com commissioners who are anti-Gensler stance, they're kind, you know.
Immad Akhund:
- Doesn't the SEC like basically lose every case that they go after on this thing? Like I guess they, there's a lot of cases where they don't even go.
Dave Balter:
- They've lost a lot, but they've won, you know, like cz at finance, there was like a 4 billion.
Immad Akhund:
- Oh yeah, that was huge. Yeah.
Dave Balter:
- Yeah. There's a couple that they're winning. They lose most of the ones when you like, get under the covers and see the ones where they're sort of just attacking people. 'cause Yeah, what, you know, whatever they're, they're, you know, those ones they lose, you know, and there's been, there's been all sorts of that stuff happening, but they've won a few and you know, and I, and I think, you know, like take, not in the, in the US but at, you know, three arrow capital, you know, which definitely defrauded investors, much like it happens, by the way, hedge funds. Yeah. Like the SEC should be stopping that. That is terrible stuff. Like, don't do that. But for the good actors, they should, they should give them rules to work with him.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. I always wonder why the SEC and, and just generally government arms don't cooperate more with business. Like, they don't have like business liaisons, they don't have like productive conversations. Like they talk mostly through litigate litigation, you know, and like, and lawyers, right? Versus like, there's no feels like there's no like business people in the government who want to just have a conversation, like, how can we make this better for the country?
Immad Akhund:
- I mean, I think there is normally a reasonable amount of calibration collaboration. I think that's like probably a little far. I think there was a feeling in 2020 ish that like big tech was too big and that government was like, you know, cares about little people. And then I think this idea of like, what is big tech? And little tech was not like really, so there was, I think at least my sense of it was the Democrats came in with a mandate to say like, tech is anti people and we have to control it and like restrict it. And that made it like more of a us versus them kind of thing versus like previous regulatory administrations. At least that's my sense of it.
Raj Suri:
- Immad, you haven't commented on the election publicly, I think. Do you have endorsement you'd like to make today?
Immad Akhund:
- I don't like either politician, so I'm not, I am not making any endorsements. And in California, you know what's actually insane in San Francisco and California is the number of things they ask you to vote on. I'm like, the city college admin? I'm like, I don't even know who these people are. I don't like, I am not at all like, capable of figuring out who these people are. I wish there was just like, I mean probably like, I used to when I was a kid I was like direct democracy, you know, technology will make it so we can vote every single week. I will open my phone and I'll vote on every issue. And as a, as an adult, I'm like, wow, Republic, you know, Republics work very well and we should not do direct democracy at all. I'm just like, I wish in San Francisco I just voted on the mayor and the mayor just made decisions. And then like, it was like, yeah, does the, and they all sound very reasonable. It's like, the government now needs 10 billion more dollars to pay for water. And I'm like, yeah, of course they need 10 billion to pay for water, but like, what about all the other money they're getting? Like, why do I need to decide this 10 billion is the right allocation of money for water. It's just like this crazy process. And I like, I had to like do research and like I had like two or three voter guides open all like, you know, to be a responsible voter in San Francisco is like a pretty complicated process.
Dave Balter:
- You just gotta choose on whether you like the person's name or not. I mean truly we've all been there. You open up like a councilman for X and you're looking at two names. You're like, I don't even know who's who on this. Do I vote? How do I vote? I'll pick the top one. I don't, you know, like it's, yeah, I agree. It's, it can be very hard. Yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. I mean I hope people are not voting on whether they like the name.
Dave Balter:
- For sure. People do for sure. Yeah. Yeah,
Raj Suri:
- For sure. It's really, it's definitely a downside of democracy. And by the way, I mean the ballots themselves are like so old school like you, you thinking we can even see videos or something like that. Like of, of people there, there's really nothing there except like a paragraph. Right? And then you gotta see who else endorsed them. Nowadays I just follow the voter guides. I, you know, the Grow SF one, it's a tech one and stuff. Amazing. You probably looked at that one.
Immad Akhund:
- Well it's funny, there's a GrowSF one and then there's a Pirate Wars one for SF in California. And I kind of like opening them both because they, the things that they agree on are normally correct and then the things that disagree on deserve research one is like a very, the gross stuff is still fairly democratic. And the other one is like, I guess conservative but still California conservative. But it's kind of, if you have both of them open, then you can like be informed better. I don't like following anything. I like to be independently minded, at least in theory.
Dave Balter:
- I like that. Good entrepreneur right there.
Immad Akhund:
- This seems like a good, good point to wrap it.
Raj Suri:
- This is the first time you guys have met, right?
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, yeah. First time. Really good meeting you Dave.
Dave Balter:
- First of many. This will be...
Immad Akhund:
- I hope so.
Dave Balter:
- We'll be talking about this in 20 years. Like remember that time we talked about politics and now the world is over because you know, somebody blew it up? But at least we'll be here talking about entrepreneurship.
Immad Akhund:
- Maybe, maybe our minds in a computer vat will be talking to each other.
Dave Balter:
- Yes, yes, yes. You're AI. Yeah. And I'm my AI and we'll be, yeah. Okay.
Raj Suri:
- Well thank you everyone. Thanks everyone for listening. Okay. And yeah, follow us on all the social sites and join our Tribe group. Thank you everyone for listening.
Immad Akhund:
- Alright, bye everyone.
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