00:34:30 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Mati Staniszewski
[00:34:30] S1: 100,000,000? 100,000,000. 100,000,000 of only secondaries. Yep. Why? Was... Slash, was it a hard decision? [00:34:38] S0: Not hard decision. The the goal is simple. Like, we, you know, we we are here for the long term. We want to build something that will that will stand the test of time, but that also will require the next five, ten years of us continuously pushing. And and we want people to be aligned on that long term. And by making it true that, a, equity is valuable. Two, you can have early liquidity, so you take some risk. You get some of the rewards from that risk, but you are incentivized to work with us on even bigger outcome. Mhmm. And and I think it really helps. Like, I... You know, and I'm sure many companies are are saying that too, but I I do think we have so many extremely passionate missionary like people that that are in here for for that long term. And and for them, the change in the capital will not change their motivations in terms of of of work, which is the, I think, the most common piece that people people mention. And and we haven't. We've seen, like, people are even more aligned. Like, how do we get us now to... As a proxy of the impact we wanna create, how do we get ElevenLabs to 11 squared or a $121,000,000,000 company where where I think it's possible, and I think we can. And now people people are people are here for the long term. [00:35:57] S1: Where do you draw the line? [00:36:00] S0: I think you... The... It's [00:36:02] S1: It's tricky. Right?
00:36:02 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Mati Staniszewski
[00:36:02] S1: It's tricky. Right? [00:36:02] S0: It's it's like... I'm sure at some point, it will be tricky. Yeah. The current one, most... In in the same way, like, in sports, if you if you if you if you hire the most... The best high performance athletes, for them, if they are doing well, they want to be part of the winning team. That's kind of one. That's what we need to do. But two, the kind of the money equation doesn't change. You still want the performance of your game for the years to come. And and I don't... I think the same is... Applies to... Like, if you if you set the culture in the right way and then you have the people that are are performing next to you in a in a great way, then it it shouldn't change that motivation either. Mhmm. I think the the the harder one, as you think about that, it's it's harder if it's not going well. And and, of course, for a short period of time, if you... If you've said it well, you you you you can withstand that. But if it's a longer period of time, then I think it will get challenging because then a combination of you taking... Although, maybe not because you're still having, you know, a big incentive to make it great over long term. [00:37:07] S1: Yeah. Well... And you're not taking up rounds. You're not doing up rounds at that point if it's not going well.
00:37:07 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Mati Staniszewski
[00:37:07] S1: Yeah. Well... And you're not taking up rounds. You're not doing up rounds at that point if it's not going well. [00:37:11] S0: Exactly. So you kind of are. Yeah. So so even in that case, you you you you you you you shouldn't. I'm sure the motivation will be a little bit harder, but but I really believe in our team. I think they will be able to go through the hard and... You know, the hard times are never as as... So the bad times are probably never as bad as they are or as they seem at the moment, and the good times aren't as good as they seem. So you kind of are a bit closer to the median or to the average of the times. And and I think it's true here as well. [00:37:43] S1: The... So I... So on the bad times, they're never as bad as they seem. I agree. However, I know that. I've internalized that. I deeply believe that Everything that I've ever been anxious about basically in my entire life either hasn't come true or was not a big deal. And knowing everything that I know, still, I run into... Let's just say with the company that we're ringing on now, I run into something, and I'm like, oh my god. Like, I do not... Like, it just feels terrible. Like, I can't, in that moment, face a bad time and be like, this isn't gonna feel bad. Like, I know in
00:37:43 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Mati Staniszewski
[00:37:43] S1: The... So I... So on the bad times, they're never as bad as they seem. I agree. However, I know that. I've internalized that. I deeply believe that Everything that I've ever been anxious about basically in my entire life either hasn't come true or was not a big deal. And knowing everything that I know, still, I run into... Let's just say with the company that we're ringing on now, I run into something, and I'm like, oh my god. Like, I do not... Like, it just feels terrible. Like, I can't, in that moment, face a bad time and be like, this isn't gonna feel bad. Like, I know in [00:38:15] S0: a But I think it's good. I think it's good. It's like you you you care. That's why I think it's like the same way for me too. It's like... And I... And for many people around, it's like you still care, so every single kind of direction takes additional emotional impact. I think, you know, you can still stay level headed and make the decisions. I think that's the important important part, but
00:38:15 · Mati Staniszewski, Joubin Mirzadegan
[00:38:15] S0: a But I think it's good. I think it's good. It's like you you you care. That's why I think it's like the same way for me too. It's like... And I... And for many people around, it's like you still care, so every single kind of direction takes additional emotional impact. I think, you know, you can still stay level headed and make the decisions. I think that's the important important part, but [00:38:41] S1: but it seems you know that... Yeah. Yeah. My my my observation is that there are so many decisions to be made. Right. So many decisions to be made that, like, each one of them on their own, you don't even notice that you're making these decisions. But over time, they just kind of like... It's just like a like... It's like a quarter percentage of energy on every single decision. You know? And then over time, you just, like, sum all of those up. And you're, like, draining or depleting some reservoir of decision making energy Right. That you have Right. In order to, like, kind of like, when the one comes, that's like, oh, you know? You're like, well, I just made, like, 50 decisions yesterday. You know?
00:39:23 · Mati Staniszewski
[00:39:23] S0: It's like Yeah. It's it's... We... I've I've went through a few of these conversations recently with a few people that were ICs for a long time and now are leading parts of the work, and they just feel that from being able to what felt like meaningful work, they're replying to constant pings or tiny things across. And and I... So first of all, for sure, I see, like, you know, the kind of the more you get, the more you will get asked for decisions across. But but then I think the two things are are are important to to help out. One is you you have the, of course, the different segments of the company that applies in different ways. I think in our case, we have an amazing set of leads across that will effectively take a lot of those micro decisions and that kind of trust them completely. They will do extremely well. That in turn means that the the bad things get filtered out always back to to you. Mhmm. And then the second thing is that you you... It's like, I I think there's this kind of balance of, like, which decisions you should really take versus the individual should take, and it was, like, plus minus 10%. They should just run of it. In our case, what we are trying to, like, instill for everybody that we are small teams. This will only work if people take ownership and try to make a lot of those decisions themselves. We are assuming, and we are trying to put them in a position where we fully trust them, and then they they they they can flourish. They won't be punished by doing that and running ahead, but but they feel empowered to to, like, run towards the fire, take take decisions, fix it, not try to ask their their, like, you know, fuel these up on, like, is it is it right and and kind of go through that iteration cycle relatively quickly. Mhmm. Very... Of course, very... Now as a company, we run the company on micro teams. So we have 330 people. On the product side, it's, like, 20 teams of five to 10 people working on different segments of the product work. And and they are executing, and and and and then they kind of need to live with the part that you need to take more of decisions, but then in turn, it it it works well.