The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:08:55 · Vidit Agarwal, Grace Brown
[00:08:55] S0: Yes. Yes. Because you and I are also Australians. Right? Okay. Interesting. And how would I'm really curious if I met your, like, high school teachers and asked them to describe the Young Grace, how would they have described you? [00:09:09] S1: Oh my god. I actually have messages and emails from my high school teachers saying they're not surprised where I've ended up. It's so funny. One of my... I had an engineering teacher. He messaged me on LinkedIn and said something to the effect... I can't remember exact words, but something to the effect of your quirkiness and just whatever that quality is of my personality has really just, you know, kind of stayed... I've stayed true to that all the way through university and through to my career. Like, he says he's just not at all surprised where I ended up. He always said I was... All the teachers would say I talk too much. I love talking. I was always a kid that got put in the back of the class for talking to too many other people, which is funny because now I do a lot of talks now, and so I always wanna be like, hey. I actually do talking for a living now, which is kinda funny. But, yeah, I think the teachers knew that I was a little bit... I don't wanna say I was, like, different, but I was just I always took... In high school, I took the STEM classes, so accelerated math, physics. And I was always the more extroverted chart student in these classes because generally a lot of more reserved students would take... Choose these classes. So I did always stand out in my classes a little bit for that reason.
00:09:09 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
[00:09:09] S1: Oh my god. I actually have messages and emails from my high school teachers saying they're not surprised where I've ended up. It's so funny. One of my... I had an engineering teacher. He messaged me on LinkedIn and said something to the effect... I can't remember exact words, but something to the effect of your quirkiness and just whatever that quality is of my personality has really just, you know, kind of stayed... I've stayed true to that all the way through university and through to my career. Like, he says he's just not at all surprised where I ended up. He always said I was... All the teachers would say I talk too much. I love talking. I was always a kid that got put in the back of the class for talking to too many other people, which is funny because now I do a lot of talks now, and so I always wanna be like, hey. I actually do talking for a living now, which is kinda funny. But, yeah, I think the teachers knew that I was a little bit... I don't wanna say I was, like, different, but I was just I always took... In high school, I took the STEM classes, so accelerated math, physics. And I was always the more extroverted chart student in these classes because generally a lot of more reserved students would take... Choose these classes. So I did always stand out in my classes a little bit for that reason. [00:10:15] S0: And you were the only child, right? [00:10:18] S1: Yes, I grew [00:10:19] S0: up as an only [00:10:20] S1: I grew up as an only child.
00:10:20 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
[00:10:20] S1: I grew up as an only child. [00:10:22] S0: Yeah, yeah, I asked that more in the context of are your siblings the same? But of course, in your context, that doesn't apply. So that's fine. The one that came up a lot in my research is skateboarding. We've always said like you always love skateboarding. Some people said it, some people had no idea, and I was surprised to learn that. I didn't know that about you. How early in life did the skateboarding interest, I guess? How early in life did that start?
00:10:47 · Grace Brown
[00:10:47] S1: That's so funny. I didn't start skateboard. It was a really big part of my life just before Andromeda, actually. I didn't start until I was about 18. When I was younger, loved rollerblade. Like I said, I had lots of hobbies. I love playing piano. I played the flute. I played all sorts of sports. I loved swimming. I was also very competitive from a really young age. But, yeah, skateboarding, I started when I was about 18. It actually wasn't meant to be a hobby. I was living in Melbourne at the time, and, like, just going from area to area across campus seemed really inefficient to me, like walking from a to b. And so I got myself an electric skateboard just to get to classes faster and get to the grocery store faster. I didn't realize I didn't actually know how to ride a skateboard. And so when it came, I was like, oh, crap. I actually have to learn how to do this now. And I just fell in love with it as a hobby and as an activity. Yeah. And it just... I ended up building my own electric skateboard after that. So I joined, like, this hobbyist community that loved hacking and building things and doing a lot of different tricks on the skateboard. So we bought these, like, gloves, and they had pucks on them, and we'd slide around on the concrete. So that was a lot of fun. It was quite exhilarating. And I still love skateboarding today. I don't do it as often. But once I started the company, that's when my... The time that I'd spent skateboarding went down significantly. I'm so surprised that came up.
00:12:06 · Vidit Agarwal, Grace Brown
[00:12:06] S0: That did come up from a few people, so so clearly you've told them about it. Did you just say you built your own skateboard, your own electric skateboard? [00:12:14] S1: Yeah. Yeah. I built my own electric electric skateboard. I just... It was really [00:12:18] S0: that easy. It can't be that easy to build that. Right? [00:12:21] S1: I feel like it wasn't too hard. It kind of is just like Legos almost. You buy all the parts that you need or the tools that you need. And I I was... Like I said, I was part of a community, so if I had any questions, there was always someone I could go to and ask, is this the right battery? What about these hub motors? Should I even use hub motors? Or should I use a belt driven system? You know, I had... So I had lots of resources around me. So it didn't feel hard. But... Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. That was that was a really significant project for me, and I had so much fun. [00:12:51] S0: That that is so, so cool and so so different to the usual sports that that I think most of us are into. Right? I actually want to touch on your... The other one that came up quite a bit and I think people really appreciate you for it is your imagination and even like how you think about things. Think one of the things someone said to me is if someone says brownie points, you will repeat it back as cookie. [00:13:15] S1: Oh, cookie mugger.
00:13:15 · Grace Brown, Vidit Agarwal
[00:13:15] S1: Oh, cookie mugger. [00:13:16] S0: Yeah, and I was like that is great. Was like that and the person who told me this said that is reflective of your imagination and frankly, why you've built the company you're building is because you think in a multidimensional way. Did you realize that about yourself early on? [00:13:30] S1: I think I know who said that actually. But no, I didn't. I I actually really appreciate that. That is how I kind of think, fortunately or unfortunately. I've... When I grew up, I knew I had a lot of unpopular opinions on even very trivial things, like, not even very controversial things. And people would always be like... You know? I don't know. And I guess in that way, felt a little bit different to the people around me. Yeah, But, but I guess I guess it does translate through to business and everything else in life because my view on things are slightly less conventional. But it... But I I guess I never realized how significant that might come across externally. That... That's an interesting point. I'm gonna reflect on that. [00:14:08] S0: Well, think most people are trying to fit in. Right? That's probably why, like like, most of us try and be a replica of the world. I think anytime someone comes around and it comes by and they aren't a replica of everyone else, I think people are curious. [00:14:24] S1: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm going to try and pick up and notice it a little bit more. But yeah, that is very interesting.