The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:04:46 · George Sivulka
[00:04:46] S0: It is fair. And I think the first time I met with Sanghin, who's one of our investors at the series b, it was like a thirty minute lunch that turned into almost two hours of us talking in-depth about, the dynamics that that I think made me have a chip on my shoulder. But in short, I was born in Staten Island, New York City, which, you know, you already have a chip on your shoulder from that. Grew up kind of around New York City in in New Jersey primarily, which a second chip. But my mom, is probably like a mafia child, born and raised Staten Island, and my dad is an immigrant from Slovakia who grew up under the Iron Curtain and then immigrated, really escaped to The United States. They both of them actually fully intended to be professional athletes. They had four children, of which only one was a boy. And so, you know, you can imagine their dismay when I was, you know, chasing butterflies on the soccer pitch, or, like, falling on my head many times, which I I have plenty of stories of me literally, like, falling over while trying to dribble a basketball. And I think, you know, my whole childhood, was I was really just a math kid. Like, not very out there. I wasn't really talkative, only really good at math. And my parents barely even knew what Stanford was. So growing up, you know, you kind of have this whole misalignment of of who I was and who I wanted to be, with who they wanted me to be. That gave me this drive and desire and passion to go out and prove myself in a way that was really tangible. Maybe not only to them, but, like, hopefully to to my own kids one day.
00:06:11 · Harry Stebbings, George Sivulka
[00:06:11] S1: Did you have friends? [00:06:12] S0: I had a lot of friends who were incredibly nerdy. So we went to a public school. Like, I was the type of kid that would would hack the school tablets to put Starcraft on everyone's computer. And then, you know, we'd all, like, not be paying attention in public school playing star... You know? So there was a there was a a large enough contingent of kids that were also not athletes. [00:06:32] S1: Before when we were chatting, you said there are three archetypes. I don't know if you're willing to go into it. [00:06:37] S0: Yeah. I'm I'm I'm But of successful [00:06:39] S1: founders that you found as a trend. Can you talk to me about the different profiles? [00:06:44] S0: I'm I'm I'm happy to. I I always joke around and say that you can you can bucket great founders into into three backgrounds. I think probably the most common is that you had kind of a messed up childhood. The second most common would be you're gay, and the third most common would be you were adopted. Look at, like, a list of of of the all time greats. Elon Musk kind of messed up childhood, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs adopted, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, you know, like, publicly gay. And and I think that all of these early life experiences end up giving you some desire, some, like, deeper passion to go out and prove yourself.
00:06:44 · George Sivulka, Harry Stebbings
[00:06:44] S0: I'm I'm I'm happy to. I I always joke around and say that you can you can bucket great founders into into three backgrounds. I think probably the most common is that you had kind of a messed up childhood. The second most common would be you're gay, and the third most common would be you were adopted. Look at, like, a list of of of the all time greats. Elon Musk kind of messed up childhood, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs adopted, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, you know, like, publicly gay. And and I think that all of these early life experiences end up giving you some desire, some, like, deeper passion to go out and prove yourself. [00:07:20] S1: I I actually very much agree with you. I always very much felt like a disappointment. My brother was always... No. Mean, it seems like my brother was always incredibly talented and good looking and tall and smart, and I was kind of just pretty average and I was fat. And my dad didn't really hang out with me. He hung out with my brother, and so I always just felt like a disappointment. A mistake What that was, papa. What [00:07:41] S0: what does does your brother do now? [00:07:43] S1: That's He works for me upstairs. [00:07:44] S0: That's that's what I'm talking about. There [00:07:46] S1: we go. Did you feel like a disappointment?
00:07:46 · Harry Stebbings, George Sivulka
[00:07:46] S1: we go. Did you feel like a disappointment? [00:07:48] S0: I think the answer is yes. I did. I felt, like, actually physically unable to do the things that I was wanted to do, or I I thought that I was good at things that weren't valued or weren't as important. All of my sisters are amazing athletes. They're all, like, know, six feet tall, and they're, you know, just incredible athletes. And and I was I was just knocked. And so it's kind of like the ugly duckling in many ways. Yeah. [00:08:11] S1: I heard that you built lasers. You cold cooled NASA. Can you talk to me about these kind of very cool early influences in your life and how it shaped you?
00:08:21 · George Sivulka
[00:08:21] S0: There's there's completely separate stories there, but I think How do you cold call NASA? This is actually a very good story. I wanted to be an astronaut. Like, that was my my number one goal, and I was I was hell bent on that. And so by the time I was, I think around 15 years old, I was going to high school in New York City, an all scholarship school where the alumni pay for everything. I was like... I was kind of tracking academically really strong, and I wanted a NASA internship. And they were offering them to college undergrads or or graduate students. And so, obviously, I applied and got rejected five times. And then there was a snow day in February where my school was closed. I I commuted into the city. I actually showed up in front of their New York City office, the NASA Goddard Institute for space studies, and I I demanded that they let me in. And the front door security guard was like, you know, kid, get the heck out. Like, what are you doing? You don't have an appointment? Like Yeah. I was like, I printed my resume out on the nicest paper. I'm wearing a suit. You've gotta let me up. And he kicked me to the curb. And so I actually sat outside. It's, like, a Hundred 10th Street in Manhattan, and it was snowing. It was, like, so, so, so cold. And I, I didn't know what to do. I started crying. And I actually called my mother because I was like, well, I'm gonna come home. And she's a salesperson. She works in medical sales. She picked up the phone and said, listen. No. You're not going anywhere. You sit your ass down, and you call every single number that you can get into the building. And so I sat on the curb, and I cold called every number on Google, you know, from from my from my old phone. And finally, someone picked up. It was one of the only people in the office that day, and they came down, met me in the lobby, and I basically pitched them on myself for two hours. Gave me an interview. I interviewed... Botched the interview because I didn't know anything about, like, kind of, like, linear algebra. I didn't know anything about physics. But I I memorized all of the titles of the posters on this professor's wall. Came back the next day. So showed up again cold and told them basically everything that I could possibly know about his specific research, he was impressed enough to let me work for him for free.
00:10:17 · George Sivulka, Harry Stebbings
And then they paid me the next year, and then I published internationally recognized research the next year. And and by that time, I think that was impressive enough to to let Stanford let me in, which which was a which was a a life changing moment. [00:10:29] S1: That is incredible. Yeah. That is also an incredibly heart wrenching moment thinking of a a little boy on the street crying. The advice of when to give up versus when to persist and fucking relentless. Me and you are both young. We've been taught you win by persistence and going for it. When is that true, when is it not? [00:10:49] S0: I think I have an unhealthy obsession with driving really hard. Yeah. I think I... You just can never give up. Like, I just don't think that's an option. You can look at every company ever and and some get to a $100,000,000 in in revenue in whatever, like, some span of time, which they probably... Their marketing team has hacked. And some, you know, end up taking really, really long periods of time. The only thing that actually changes is the rate at which you get there. And so sometimes things go in your favor, sometimes they don't. But if you're so persistent that you just continue, like, can you can bring a lemonade stand to a $100,000,000 in ARR. Like, there's nothing that's actually stopped. You can brute force your way as a founder. You screw product mark. You can literally brute force anything in the world. You just have to have that ship. You have to continue to to just pound away at at whatever is is is in your way.