Founders in Arms
00:18:22 · Rajat Suri, Immad Akhund
[00:18:22] S2: No. No. It's not... Mean, this is... I think it's very normal. You know, I I cofounded Lyft and we had a very, you know, fierce competition with Uber. I had another company Presto, which had another fierce competition. You know, it's normal. It's called FUD. Right? Fear and certainty doubt. You put it out there and like, you know, you try to create you try to create doubt about competitors and, know, it's it's normal in politics and Keith Rabois is very political. You know, it's like it's like, you know, negative campaigning And it's also actually a very good tactic in business. And, you know, I've been part of it. I've been receiving and I've also delivered and, you know, like we've it it it [00:19:04] S1: it You've delivered FUD? Like, it goes like [00:19:07] S2: I I became an expert in FUD. [00:19:09] S1: Against Uber or where was [00:19:11] S2: the FUD you were delivering? At Presto when I was CEO, like, we had an arch rival who was kicking our butt and, you know, like, we we were being destroyed by them. We're... It was existential. And and, you know, they put out a lot of FUD about us, and they started destroying us. [00:19:26] S1: Oh, it defensive FUD. [00:19:28] S2: Yeah. Yeah. And then... And like, you know, they just spread it to customers. Right? They they, you know, they'll say, oh, you know, this company is small. You know, their CEO is junior, and, you know, like, you know, and they'll put up a lot of, like, it's negative campaigning. Same what we see in US politics.
00:19:28 · Rajat Suri, Jack Zhang, Immad Akhund
[00:19:28] S2: Yeah. Yeah. And then... And like, you know, they just spread it to customers. Right? They they, you know, they'll say, oh, you know, this company is small. You know, their CEO is junior, and, you know, like, you know, and they'll put up a lot of, like, it's negative campaigning. Same what we see in US politics. [00:19:42] S0: We don't I mean, I I... I've I've definitely seen that in the early days. You know, people, you know, talk about, you know, we're laundering money, and we have bad compliance and all that type of stuff. Right? So I think these sort of tactics, like, it's it's... You know, I've seen that. But, like, just like making... Like cooking something up completely untrue and then just like, you know, I think like, then like [00:20:04] S1: I think the the the places that that you're vulnerable, right, are like, number one, you have enterprise customers and obviously, if they see it and they see a risk, then, like, you know, they might feel like they need to find alternatives. And number two, you have all these regulators that, like, you know, they'll go read the news and they'll be like, oh, man, we need to, like, really get on top of this and, like, what could go go wrong? So I think fintech companies, especially like enterprise fintech companies are, like, especially vulnerable to to FUD. So, yeah, I think
00:20:04 · Immad Akhund, Jack Zhang
[00:20:04] S1: I think the the the places that that you're vulnerable, right, are like, number one, you have enterprise customers and obviously, if they see it and they see a risk, then, like, you know, they might feel like they need to find alternatives. And number two, you have all these regulators that, like, you know, they'll go read the news and they'll be like, oh, man, we need to, like, really get on top of this and, like, what could go go wrong? So I think fintech companies, especially like enterprise fintech companies are, like, especially vulnerable to to FUD. So, yeah, I think [00:20:32] S0: Actually actually, it's actually quite the the opposite. I mean, most of our customers are actually are comfortable as soon as we basically, you know, because we have term and condition of a contract that, you know, to state... Clearly stating that data residency and data prediction policy, and then, you know, we have technological sort of solution to, you know, to to kind of do this as well, deal with this as well. Right? So, you know, regulator are in constant sort of dialogue with us. So we we we regulate it, and then we invest in the the the the kind of compliance and everything, like, so early on as a infrastructure player. And the regulator actually know exactly what we're doing. Right? So there's no kind of concern there. It's more from, like, a public policy and kind of corporate affairs point of view, like, almost like a brand thing that we need to we need to deal with. And so
00:20:32 · Jack Zhang, Immad Akhund
[00:20:32] S0: Actually actually, it's actually quite the the opposite. I mean, most of our customers are actually are comfortable as soon as we basically, you know, because we have term and condition of a contract that, you know, to state... Clearly stating that data residency and data prediction policy, and then, you know, we have technological sort of solution to, you know, to to kind of do this as well, deal with this as well. Right? So, you know, regulator are in constant sort of dialogue with us. So we we we regulate it, and then we invest in the the the the kind of compliance and everything, like, so early on as a infrastructure player. And the regulator actually know exactly what we're doing. Right? So there's no kind of concern there. It's more from, like, a public policy and kind of corporate affairs point of view, like, almost like a brand thing that we need to we need to deal with. And so [00:21:20] S1: that is So Raj, like, every now and then a competitor does this to Mercury, and obviously, Jack's experienced it. You know, my view on it is like, hey, ignore these guys, like, you know, just focus on building a business, focus on customers, and and don't think about it. But like you're saying, actually, you should like stand up for yourself and like Yeah. Be countified and like be defensive and like not just ignore it. Like what's your... I I guess where do you ignore it and where do you go like actually fuck you guys. Like you're wrong for these reasons and actually you're the ones that that are doing this for blah blah blah.
00:21:53 · Rajat Suri
[00:21:53] S2: No. I I my thinking on this has evolved a lot. Right? So first of all, if it's a small competitor, you don't worry about it. You just ignore it. Right? If it's a serious competitor, right, like, you don't back down. Like, you you know, you you... The key to FUD is that, like, it's not things that are true, but it's things that could be true. And and so that's what they're trying to do, you know, with the Air Rocks. It's like, oh, you know, clearly, Jack is Chinese. Right? You know? And, like, you know, he has... The company is in Asia. Our companies are based in US. What could be true is that like, yeah, he's... You know, his company is China. It has all these issues. So I just read the tweet for the first time right now. Right? And so you're trying to create doubt about the company. Right? And and so it it just could be true. This is like true in in political campaigns. You know, Trump is actually really good at this. He creates a lot of FUD because he finds like things that could be true about the other person. But if it's true or not, doesn't... Almost doesn't matter. Right? So the key to to countering that is actually having a, a very simple retort. Like, the more you talk, the more it seems like you're, like, trying to, like, like, you know, avoid the issue or or, like, you know, explain your way out of the issue. So you need to have a very simple, like, retort to it. And then and then you need to counter with other FUD for you, you know, that distracts from the initial FUD. So this is what I found works really well. It's like, a, have a very simple retort. It's not true. Blah blah blah. That's it. And then, you know, and then the other FUD starts with this. And then, you know, then you have to... You you need to counter with other negative. You can't counter negative campaigning from a serious competitor with just positive stuff. Like
00:23:31 · Jack Zhang, Rajat Suri, Immad Akhund
[00:23:31] S0: I I [00:23:31] S2: ignore that. [00:23:32] S1: Yeah. This whole story kind of reminded me of the rippling deal saga as well. And I wonder if there is, like, a a new phase in Silicon Valley where this is becoming like a thing where, you know, like, yeah, companies that are like above or getting close to like 10,000,000,000 valuations like kinda like, you know, throwing FUD at each other. I feel like this happens in other industries and Silicon Valley has generally like stayed stayed out of it. [00:23:58] S2: It's very common. [00:23:59] S1: Like, I feel like, you know, generally tech entrepreneurs are like a little bit more, I don't know, like non zero something thinking and like like... Yeah. I'd like to think we wouldn't do this, but but yeah, maybe this is like a new normal. [00:24:13] S2: It's an advanced business tactic.