00:38:52 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:38:52] S0: This is the game studio or [00:38:53] S1: is that The game studio. It was a game publishing business. So the way that I would compare it to Universal Music Group. Had the distribution, we'd go find talented game developers and bring their games to the masses. By the way, drove over 20 games to number one, over 3,000,000,000 downloads. This was an incredible and we were one of the biggest at the time. I'd gotten to the business to a point where I was no longer mission critical. And at that same time, I started reflecting on myself and I was like, okay. So the business no longer needs you to succeed. And we'd also done other acquisitions that helped lead up of other game studios. So what do I really want to focus on? For me, making a family was really important to me. I was 28 when I took a step away from the business and I was like, I need to start thinking about having children. This was something that was always really important to me. Always knew I wanted to be a father. And so I took some time off from the business. It was funny, you say a year, but I wasn't really good at taking time off because three months in, I started going crazy to start building products for fun. But yeah, moved to Miami at the time because San Francisco was so depressing. COVID, everything was shut down. I went to Miami. It was supposed to be just like a a vacation for like a weekend. And I was like, oh my god. COVID doesn't exist here. Like, everything's open. And then, you know, I ended up planning my roots there and meeting the love of my life and having a family.
00:40:07 · David Senra
[00:40:07] S0: Yeah, I was there during that time too. I remember because one of my favorite pizza spots is Lucali in Sunset Harbor. And at the time, used to go up... First of all, there would be like never wait. And then they're serving away during COVID and you would put your phone number. And I kept seeing all these, like, four fifteen and two twelve area cuts because everybody from San Francisco and New York came to Miami at that point. So wait, you take a sabbatical... Like, how did you frame this with Adam? Was it a sabbatical? Like, what did say? I'm fucking done forever?
00:40:34 · Rafael Vivas
[00:40:34] S1: Yeah. So this was really good at breaking the news to him. Right? This is like, you know, Adam is like a bigger bride... A big brother to me, and so I waited for my birthday. You know? I... I'd actually been, like, diarying it for a while of kind of, like, what... Indirectly, I was actually just kind of... I kind of knew I wanted to take time off. I'd say about a year before, I was I was just writing about, like, what are the things that the business... Like, where am I to bottleneck? And where does the business need to be in a place where, like, I don't exist but here for it? So I I kind of just started marking things off the list. And before I knew it, like, everything had been accomplished and, like, you know, I I could not be around and new games were being released and revenue was growing. And so I called Adam, and I was like, hey. Like, you know, it's my birthday. It was a happy birthday, of course. I was like, yeah. I wanna take some time off in the business. And Adam is not a very emotional guy. He was just like, are you sure? I was like, yeah. He was like, well, I respect whatever you wanna do. And then we kind of, like, ended the conversation. And then what happened after that was, like, a lot of people calling me being like, what the hell are you thinking? What are you doing? My brother, this guy Harold Chud, these guys are trying to convince me to stay. They're trying to offer all me all these different packages. I was like, has nothing to do about the money. It's like the business is an immediate succeed and there's other things in my life I want to go and accomplish. I took a step away from the business. Would say from that conversation, probably it was supposed to be a six month transition, within but three months, I was I was kind of out.
00:42:00 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:42:00] S0: At the time though, did you think I'm out of AppLovin' for good? [00:42:03] S1: Oh, yeah. I thought I was gonna go off to the sunset and enjoy my life and chill on a beach and never work again. But you realize very quickly that it's a very fucking depressing life. Like, there's no purpose. [00:42:14] S0: We shouldn't have a fucking ad in every one of our episodes about this. It's like, go... These post exit founders that had never found something else to work on is like the most miserable souls to be around. [00:42:25] S1: Yeah. And to double click on it, you know, so I like... Yeah. You know, love playing video games, which you realize that like on a Wednesday afternoon, you have no one to play games with. None of your friends are around. They're all fucking productive. They're doing things, right? So you have no one to hang out with. It gets lonely. But then I started, you know, I started working on these businesses. And actually this double clicking is like what drives me. What I realized is like, I found this great tech team and we were working together and working on these products. Didn't... One, didn't care about the products we were building with. I had no connection with them. For me it was just like [00:42:54] S0: You're talking about the ones you're doing in your sabbatical? [00:42:56] S1: My my sabbatical was like, oh, I just, opportunistically, hey. I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's let's go and build into it. So that was, like, one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that that
00:42:56 · Rafael Vivas, David Senra
[00:42:56] S1: My my sabbatical was like, oh, I just, opportunistically, hey. I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's let's go and build into it. So that was, like, one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that that [00:43:09] S0: business. Ran a dating show? [00:43:10] S1: Yeah. It was love or fame. The idea was that you come and you... It's... It was on a mobile phone, and you would compete for love or fame. But imagine watching twelve hours a day of dating shows if you wanna jump out of out of a window. So so that wasn't for me. And then the second thing is, like, I don't True. [00:43:27] S0: You take time off to go on the beach or not even on the beach. Yeah. I know. [00:43:30] S1: It was [00:43:30] S0: just, like, low quality work. [00:43:32] S1: Yeah. And then... Which was horrible. And then the second thing was I, like, did not truly care about the people I was working with when I started the second... The company. So I would say, like, one of the things that's kept me here at AppLovin for so long outside of, like, helping helping our customers succeed is, like, I really deeply care about the success of Adam and the rest of our team. For me, if they don't do well, it doesn't set well with me. I will die. I will run myself into the ground to make those around me succeed. And I didn't have any of those things. And so my journey back to AppLovin was we're New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell. We're all hanging out. [00:44:18] S0: And So when you go public, you're still outside of the company?
00:44:18 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:44:18] S0: And So when you go public, you're still outside of the company? [00:44:21] S1: Still outside of the company. Great shape, by the way. So yeah. So go there. We ring the bell and like first day out, stock drops. Right? And, you know, I'm talking to people there and, you know, things... They were... The company is still growing, but, like, there was definitely some flaws within the business. And it was, like, very clear to me that, like, I need to be here. Like, this is my calling. Your purpose. This is my company. And, you know, we were drinking our sorrows away. I wouldn't say partying because it wasn't like a super happy moment. You know, you... Your IPO happens and your stock immediately drops after. And Adam, you know, he looked at me and he was like, hey, I'm hearing from people you're thinking about coming. And I was like, I'm fucking in. And then I've been here ever since. I got drawn back in through the purpose of the business, and I knew there was lot more I could be doing here. Do you [00:45:16] S0: think you would have made that decision if the business was ripping in a good spot and the stock price was going up? [00:45:22] S1: I think I would've, because at that point there would've been nothing else for me to offer to the company or no value that I could deliver. I mean, if [00:45:28] S0: So you would've stayed out of it. [00:45:29] S1: I would've stayed out of it and I would've had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me.