The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:52:06 · Vidit Agarwal
[00:52:06] S0: Is it also interesting where I assume a lot of the people you're hiring are older than you. Right? They're reporting to you as a CEO. I've heard this with a lot of other folks, and a lot of successful companies, quote unquote, let's say they've IPO ed or worth a big valuation or their product is really loved, even Mark Zuckerberg, he's in his in his 30s, think, at some point in his 30s. But he has earned that respect where people much older than him report to him and like he is revered. I've never met the guy, but that's what people say. I'm sure that'll probably happen with you too. How has that journey been? Because I know that can be tricky, right? Because that just creates biases that people have around, oh, why is my CEO a certain stage in their life versus I'm in a different stage?
00:52:55 · Grace Brown
[00:52:55] S1: Yeah. I think the... When I look at... At least where I am today and when I look at the people who report directly to me, I know everyone says they've hired the best team, but I really do think I've hired some really great people underneath me, particularly my executive team. They all have, relatively speaking, like, very low... Little to no ego, like, very low ego at least, and they're and they're just really great people. And everyone in the company, not just my direct reports, have this unusually high attraction to the mission. Like, we are a very mission oriented team, and I think I communicated that message quite clearly to to really the world. But... And I think the people who report directly to me, they... I don't think age has really ever even come up. I do feel like a peer with all of my execs even though most of them are twenty years older than me. So it's not really come up as a point too often. I would say the one part... And this is... I I never put this more on an age thing, but I would say because they've had such... They've had more lived experience than I've had, and they've had different experiences and different lives and different workplaces, one of the many reasons I hire them is to bring that experience into Andromeda. But I have heard from many people, I've been around the block. I see how it goes. This is how it's done. And it's like, we're going through a different block that doesn't have to go that way. And I've asked many people who report to me directly as to not let the cynicism of experience flow through them. I think everyone knows this. Like, one of the greatest advantages of being, quote, inexperienced is, yeah, you don't have... You don't know too much for your own good. And I I definitely observed that. There are some things where I'm like, we're gonna go after this and, you know, the doubt that comes from. It doesn't even show up for me. And so so, yeah, I think that's been... That's probably been a theme that's occurred amongst the people who work underneath me. But I think one thing I do in my interviews for people who work underneath me is there are people who I've interviewed who do talk about coming in and... I guess it it changes based on their language, but coming in, they're like, I'm gonna show you how to do it. And not in the sense of their role, but I I can tell that they almost feel this...
00:55:02 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
It's not always directly patronizing, but it's like, I'm gonna show you how it's done, and I have to show grace and guide grace. And that does come through in interviews, and I don't hire people like that because that's not what I'm looking for. [00:55:16] S0: Mhmm. Yeah. And and and I was gonna say you've done a good job at bringing those people around you as coaches, right, either in a formal capacity or informal capacity. I spoke to some of them for research. Then I know you've just brought on even on your board, you've of course, we talked about Yuri earlier, you've also brought on I think, I don't know if I got the person's name, someone really credible from the robotics and Apple ecosystem. Jessie. So you've done that as I guess pseudo coaches, right? I know some of the board members say they're more than coaches, but I think you've done a smart job there at finding those people that can sit around you that don't report to you, but can catch your blind spots maybe.
00:55:56 · Grace Brown
[00:55:56] S1: Yes. That's actually... So I can't remember who, but someone once told me that my greatest strength is acquiring mentors. And it's never something I actually went out and tried to figure out how to do. It was more... If I had a problem, I would want... I I would wanna collaborate on solving the problem with the person who I think is best to solve that problem. And so I was always really good at finding the people who had the right experience to solve whichever challenge it was that I was experiencing at the time. And, actually, like, with Abi, before it even started as a business, I'd reached out. I was like, who are the best people in robotics? Well, there are fantastic robotics engineers at Amazon. So I found a pathway into connecting with the robotics team at Amazon when we were... When I was still just a student. And I pitched them the idea of building Abi. I was like, wanna build this humanoid robot. Here's what I wanted to do. Here's all the different reasons why I wanna create her, and I don't really know how to exactly. Here are the parts that I'm thinking, and what are your thoughts? And, actually, a lot of the feedback from the robotics team was that I was very junior. Like, I was, I don't know, like, second, third year, and they advised me to build a different kind of robot. Like, one that was a lot more simple, wheel based, and had a lot less functionality and was just very different to what I imagined for Abi. And told them, no. Don't wanna build that robot. I wanna build this kind of robot. So could you help me build this kind of robot? And they're... I didn't realize it at the time, but they were really thinking that it was beyond me as a project, and I didn't sense that. They were very polite, I guess, in their feedback to me. But then two years later, some of those robotics engineers came to me and they were like, I'm so glad you didn't take my advice because you've built Abi faster than I could have imagined you could have ever learned to build her, and this is incredible. And, you know, some of them we've actually hired.
00:57:39 · Vidit Agarwal, Grace Brown
[00:57:39] S0: So good. So good. And it goes back to what you said earlier, which I completely agree with is, I firmly believe to be a founder, you have to be delusional to some extent, where if you knew all the downsides, you wouldn't do it. Right? It's the same in my own business. If I knew all the risks and the pain that I've had to suffer, I wouldn't do it. It's easier to be in a job and get a fixed salary and have annual leave and have the weekends off, right? So I think that delusion, and I think the self belief, I think that's the other thing here is self belief because there's this term that I think a lot about as revisionist history, where when someone's successful, everyone says, Oh, we knew that person was gonna be successful. But if you met that person along the way, they would have been like, I don't think Vidit or Grace have it in them. I don't think this is gonna work out. When it does, everyone's like, Oh, I knew they were gonna be successful. And I always go like, That is so interesting about human nature, we all do it. That [00:58:34] S1: is fascinating. It is... Yeah. It is fascinating. It's just like startups, people say great and successful startups don't always look like great bets in the early days because if they did, like, they just don't. If you even look at Uber, Uber was the first thing you're taught as a child, don't get in the car with strangers. And then Uber comes around, and that's exactly what you're doing. So...
00:58:34 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
[00:58:34] S1: is fascinating. It is... Yeah. It is fascinating. It's just like startups, people say great and successful startups don't always look like great bets in the early days because if they did, like, they just don't. If you even look at Uber, Uber was the first thing you're taught as a child, don't get in the car with strangers. And then Uber comes around, and that's exactly what you're doing. So... [00:58:53] S0: Totally. Well, look at even open AI and Anthropic. Just recently, there's been news about Anthropic s one. Right? Most VCs didn't believe in it. Most VCs missed the first early rounds, then they came in later on when there was credibility, and that might be the biggest IPO in human history. Right? So a company like that didn't get believed for years.