Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
00:20:14 · Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Michael Moritz
[00:20:14] S0: When you were asking these questions, was there any one thing or set of things that you tended to be looking for? Was it you coming away feeling as though someone had extreme drive? [00:20:24] S2: I try to paint when I have some time. I'm not a good painter, but I really enjoy it. At least the way that I paint. You make marks in different parts of the canvas and the marks seem unrelated. Maybe it's a color blue here and the color brown there. You're putting these marks and dots on the canvas. There doesn't seem to be any composition there whatsoever. And then eventually, in my case, the picture comes out and it's bad, but there's a picture at the end of it. And it's the accumulation of all these different marks. And I think that's what happens when you're talking to people about their backgrounds. You're looking for these little dots here, and then eventually you put together this portrait for yourself of the individual. [00:21:09] S0: In searching for those dots, did you come to favorite questions that you always found yourself asking?
00:21:15 · Michael Moritz
[00:21:15] S2: There's one that comes to mind, which I've always found quite revealing is to ask somebody if they think back and had a chance to do one thing differently, one action differently, what is it that they would do? And I remember one person we interviewed for Sequoia who burst into tears when I asked that question. It turned out that he'd grown up as the son of an immigrant here in America. He was Hispanic. His father was very proud to have made it here and that his child was bright, his son was bright and he was getting good marks at school. And this fella, probably when he was 12 or so, had gone down to a corner grocery store with a pal of his and stolen some candy. The shopkeeper who knew his father complained to his father, And his father took him by the ear, took him back down to the candy store, made him apologize, made him empty his pockets. The man I interviewed was so chastened, so embarrassed by bringing shame upon his family and his father just burst into tears. What's your answer to the question? What would you have done differently? You're a good interviewer. People don't listen to answers very often when they interview people. I think every child of parents feels this in one way or another. I felt it as I was writing the book that I was embarrassed. If I could erase one thing, it would be some of my interactions and dealings with my parents, which I feel ashamed about today, but there's no going back. And I spent the first sixteen, seventeen years of my life with them. But there were many things probably that I wish. And also when I was a younger man and just encounters with them that I wished had gone differently because I didn't really understand who they were and so be it.
00:23:14 · Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Michael Moritz
[00:23:14] S0: Do you think that was mostly a natural drive to create your own independence like every child goes through with their [00:23:20] S2: Yeah, I'm sure that was some of it. Arrogance was probably another part of fail of comprehension of what they themselves had experienced, what had made them who they were, which I didn't understand. [00:23:35] S0: There's this notion of very small deeds in the book. I think the character's name was Anna. Yes. Can you talk about what you learned about the impact of small deeds?
00:23:43 · Michael Moritz
[00:23:43] S2: It was more than small deeds. So this lady that you referred to, whom I knew as a child, her first name was Anna. When my father and uncle were growing up in Munich in the 1920s and the early 1930s, every sort of middle class, lower middle class household had a family servant. These were the days before washing machines and vacuum cleaners and all the rest of it. Those individuals in these households, when children were born invariably became nannies as well. For my father and my uncle, this lady Anna, who was that person in my grandfather's house, she became a surrogate. She was a nanny. She was Roman Catholic. Eventually left the employment of my grandparents. She married a railway worker in Bavaria, who was also a Roman Catholic. They built their own house with their own hands. She and her husband never forgot the Moritz family. They, in the 1930s, opened their house to my grandparents and my uncle and father at a time when it became very unpopular to have Jews come stay in rural Bavaria for their holidays. But they did it for as long as possible. They didn't have children, these two. They were horrified by the Nazis. They did everything possible to help my grandparents and my father and uncle. And then after the war, because the feelings were so intense between my father and my uncle and this lady Anna, they went back to Bavaria very soon after the end of the war, developed this very strong connection with her until she eventually died. And I remember going and staying in her house and the story of this house features in the book as well. As a young boy surrounded by the specters of the Nazi past. But this lady was, I think what they say at Yad Vashem when they bestow acknowledgments on all the people who help Jews and others during World War II. She was one of the righteous and had this ethical compass that she wouldn't allow anyone else to alter.
00:26:09 · Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Michael Moritz
[00:26:09] S0: What did you learn from these categories of people? I think you called them the resistors, the silent, and the collabos. [00:26:14] S2: This is a spectacular series that came out maybe twelve years ago, shot in France, maybe as a six series tale about life in a French village during World War II, and how some people resisted the occupation for as long as possible. Most people remained silent, and some became active collaborators with the Nazis. And during COVID, when we were all on these long Zoom calls with lots of little pictures of 10 other participants that were in the Zoom room, I always used to look at each individual whom I knew on the whole. And I kept asking myself, well, if these people have been living in the French village in the 1940s, who would have stayed silent? Who would have resisted? And who would have been collaboed? So I was judging people whom I know and whom I work with. And it was an interesting exercise. I didn't tell anybody else about it at the time, obviously, but I knew everybody on these calls well enough to know who had the sort of backbone that this lady that we were just talking about had. And they were always in the minority. [00:27:32] S0: How rare is it? Is it 1% resistors out of 100 people? How rare do you think that expression is? [00:27:38] S2: I think it's very rare because bad things happen in countries when most people stay silent. Very few actively resist. [00:27:48] S0: Do you think that most of the people that you've back in your career would be resistors?
00:27:48 · Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Michael Moritz
[00:27:48] S0: Do you think that most of the people that you've back in your career would be resistors? [00:27:54] S2: I'd have to think about that. I'd like to think so, but I'm not sure. [00:27:58] S0: Can you talk about the role that Bill Deeds played in your life? I'm always interested in these early moments of activation. And I'm curious when you first felt in life, whether it was with him or at some other time, when you first felt you were really good at something. [00:28:13] S2: I've never felt I'm really good at something. That's not false modesty on my part to this day. [00:28:18] S0: How can that be in face of the evidence? [00:28:21] S2: Well, I think everybody is plagued by doubts, maybe competitiveness. It's a failure on my part. I have a very difficult time celebrating good things and celebrating success. [00:28:33] S0: Given that you're self aware about it, have you ever