Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology
00:24:16 · James Pringle, Hector Mason, Shah Ramezani
[00:24:16] S0: Any tips on how to do that? How do you... [00:24:19] S2: Ask me for a friend. [00:24:20] S0: Yeah. How do you compartmentalize something? [00:24:23] S1: I guess, honestly, you're losing power. No. You don't need like, honestly, you don't need much to be happy. Like, you have to have your world of business, finance, whatever, like make a lot of money with it. And then and then you have this world where have your, you know, old friends that just, you know, because they remind you how much you don't need much to be happy. Like, you know, there's a lunch and very basic stuff, you know, and live a simple life. Like, don't don't need to have, you know, just like be with your old friends on the weekends. I don't know, go and line up for like a falafel or something. It literally like it's like that. Like it's not much to be to be happy. Nothing material will ever make you happy and invest in a health. I mean, obviously, health is one of my my bed and touch base on that. But I stopped drinking alcohol five years ago. I don't drink any caffeine. I train every day, sometimes like twice if I can. But that is the most important thing as a founder, because if you manage your head, everything will fall in order. And it's mostly a lot of comes internal chemical reaction. So anything like that is so important. Like, I I obsess about it. Like, I have physios, two, three physios a week. Everything needs to be optimized to a point that I feel well. If I feel well, I can think properly, and I I will also be in a better mood. [00:25:26] S0: Amazing.
00:25:26 · James Pringle, Shah Ramezani
[00:25:26] S0: Amazing. [00:25:26] S1: And that's pure happiness. Like, health is pure happiness. Yeah. [00:25:29] S0: Yeah. Awesome. Shah, thank you so much for sharing that. We're we're gonna move on to our final two questions. So the first is a future unicorn predictions. If you'd seen another company that you thought could be massive. [00:25:41] S1: Funny you said that because I I talked to you earlier about this. I was like, honestly, all the companies I deal with are all unicorns. I'm like, okay. Which ones are not unicorns and are gonna be unicorns? And why are they not unicorns yet? So, I mean, to be honest, like, there's one company I would mention. There's some I know I don't... I I can't share. So maybe a one company I could talk about. There is one of our partners. They're called Catena Labs. It's founded by the former co founder of Circle. They're doing it for the first agentic bank. So they just got their, I think, banking or at least they got the conditional approval for bank charter. Again, strong team. They know the space. They've... You know, he cofounded Circle. So I think no doubt he will get there. And, yeah, we're doing a bunch of deals with them and excited about, you know, announcing something. [00:26:16] S0: Is that Sean Neville? Is that the [00:26:18] S1: right person? Exactly. I think that that that would be definitely one that I think. Awesome. We'll definitely make it. [00:26:23] S0: Yeah. Backed by a sixteen z crypto and Accel Capital. [00:26:28] S1: Yeah. Awesome.
00:26:28 · Shah Ramezani, James Pringle
[00:26:28] S1: Yeah. Awesome. [00:26:29] S0: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It sounds really interesting. Our final question, and it's just a bit of fun to end the show. You could have dinner with any three people, who would they be? [00:26:38] S1: Obviously, I'm so into AI right now, so I would definitely have Andrej Karpathy and then Boris Cherny from Claude Code. And then also Elon because I just respect him as a founder, and his views are always very interesting to listen to. So, yeah, I think that would be amazing dinner. [00:26:55] S0: Yeah. A 100%. I mean, since since the flying car, I think we've done two or three episodes and everyone said Elon. But, I mean, he he gets mentioned a lot as it is, but even now, it's like [00:27:06] S1: He's just a good showman. Like, I think he's, like, part of a lot of being a founder is, like, a manifestation thing, and he's, like, a master of that. And I I mean, think about it, like, Tesla stock is so valued, and and I think people didn't understand for a while, like, okay. According to your numbers, every third person should have a Tesla, that's not the case. And it's like, okay. Let's spin off, like, this humanoid story. You know? He will always figure us... He knows how to play the game. Yeah. And and he will get there always. You know? So [00:27:29] S0: Yeah. He's he's a machine. Unbelievable. [00:27:32] S1: Yeah.
00:27:32 · Shah Ramezani, James Pringle
[00:27:32] S1: Yeah. [00:27:32] S0: Awesome. Shah, thank you so much. It's been great having you on. We've really loved it. There's a bunch in there. Obviously, we started the episode talking about hiring and culture and retaining that talent bar. And I think there was so much in that that we could have gone on even more about it, but you really helped to explain what you guys have done in practical terms to execute on that. And then obviously the inflection and insight into where stablecoins were gonna be at a time where maybe less people were looking at the market, I think is a true sign of someone who's focused on the problem they wanna solve and, not getting too caught up with what everyone else is thinking. And I think it takes a lot of bravery and self conviction to to keep going through that, and you're obviously reaping the rewards of it now, which is great to see. So thank you so much for coming on [00:28:20] S1: and sharing your Riding Unicorn story. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah.
00:28:20 · Shah Ramezani, James Pringle
[00:28:20] S1: and sharing your Riding Unicorn story. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. [00:28:23] S0: That's it for this week. Thanks very much for listening. To stay up to date with the latest episodes, please follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Also have a newsletter called Riding Unicorns, which is another great way to get every episode direct to your inbox. Please tell your friends about it, and we'll see you on the next episode. This episode is sponsored by Seapoint, the business account built for startups. If you're a startup founder fed up with finance admin, you need Seapoint. Seapoint is different to neobanks because it connects all your bank accounts and your Stripe account to see your cash position, burn, and runway instantly. It automates bookkeeping by pulling invoices and receipts from your whole team's inboxes, so you just sync the whole lot to Xero and pay outstanding bills with a click. Plus, it has a 3.51% yield on treasury and real human customer support. Find out more at seapoint.co. That's seaprint.co. Use code unicorn for a free month. Seapoint offers money market funds managed by BlackRock. Rate recorded at 10/01/2026. Rates are variable and subject to change. Capital at risk.