00:03:02 · James Andersen, Mikk
[00:03:02] S1: Well, specifically, was talking about the trade offs that come in building a business. And actually, I think the thing that bothered me was you hear people all the time say, oh, you know, on my deathbed, nobody ever wished they spent more time at the office. And I hate that expression, because life isn't that simple. Know, because nobody on a deathbed, I think, ever said, Oh, I wish I hadn't built that business. Like, there are always trade offs in life, and there's a finite amount of time in the day. And for me, my family always came first, but that didn't mean there weren't times that I had to make sacrifices to do things to make this business be successful. And it's just life. You make trade offs all the time. And the thing that gave for me was I was tired all the time. Like, I had to go a million miles an hour all the time. But I'm glad I did because now I have a wonderful family. I stayed connected at all times to my kids, and I was able to build a successful business, but it didn't come it came basically at the expense of everything else. Like, I like to say, I don't have any friends except my kids' parents, my kids' friends' parents, because there's just enough time for anything else. [00:04:22] S0: And you said as well, it was all worth it. [00:04:25] S1: It was. I mean, I I... I've I've lived a full life. Like, I I didn't spend a lot of time just sitting around watching TV. Like, did things that I thought were, at least for me, were fulfilling.
00:04:25 · James Andersen, Mikk
[00:04:25] S1: It was. I mean, I I... I've I've lived a full life. Like, I I didn't spend a lot of time just sitting around watching TV. Like, did things that I thought were, at least for me, were fulfilling. [00:04:37] S0: Me and my friends, we are these guys in the early stages of our careers. And of course, we're having those conversations because kids at home. And that's why I think this conversation with a guy like yourself being a few decades ahead of us, it's important to ask those questions because you have lived through it. [00:04:57] S1: Yeah, look, you're going to miss things. You will. You can't be in your kids' lives every minute of every day. And by the way, that's probably not good for them. There's a lot of over parenting that goes on as well. Your kids need to be able to be independent early, and there's no reason why they can't do that. But it doesn't mean that you can't stay connected. Can find ways to do it. Like, before cell phones, and I'm old enough now where we didn't have cell phones when I got started, I did one little thing every night I was traveling. I'm a terrible artist, but I would draw little stick figures and send them a fax, which basically said, What did daddy do today? And my wife would read that to the boys if I wasn't home, and that was my little way of staying connected. And then when I came home, I could talk about all those things that I sent a fax about. And like I said, I only did two things. I worked on this business, or I spent time with my family. There wasn't anything else. And that was all I needed. That's all I wanted.
00:04:57 · James Andersen, Mikk
[00:04:57] S1: Yeah, look, you're going to miss things. You will. You can't be in your kids' lives every minute of every day. And by the way, that's probably not good for them. There's a lot of over parenting that goes on as well. Your kids need to be able to be independent early, and there's no reason why they can't do that. But it doesn't mean that you can't stay connected. Can find ways to do it. Like, before cell phones, and I'm old enough now where we didn't have cell phones when I got started, I did one little thing every night I was traveling. I'm a terrible artist, but I would draw little stick figures and send them a fax, which basically said, What did daddy do today? And my wife would read that to the boys if I wasn't home, and that was my little way of staying connected. And then when I came home, I could talk about all those things that I sent a fax about. And like I said, I only did two things. I worked on this business, or I spent time with my family. There wasn't anything else. And that was all I needed. That's all I wanted. [00:05:57] S0: When you're having those conversations with folks like younger folks, do you think folks really understand how much effort it requires to really build a firm like this?
00:05:57 · Mikk, James Andersen
[00:05:57] S0: When you're having those conversations with folks like younger folks, do you think folks really understand how much effort it requires to really build a firm like this? [00:06:08] S1: Well, the answer is probably no, and that makes sense. I didn't know either. And I think most entrepreneurs just put their heads down, and if they, if, look, we did a whole bunch of business playing before we started this business, and, you know, we were two weeks in and we threw it out because we were absolutely clueless. But I think if you really understood, as an entrepreneur, what can go wrong and how hard it will be, most people wouldn't do it. Because, the, you know, the chance of success, if you really lay out what all the risks and challenges are gonna be, is pretty low. But you can't think about it that way, and I didn't. I just put my head down, and you just do it, and you look back and say, Wow, that was really hard. But okay, lots of things in life are hard. Nothing in life is easy. Nothing comes without effort and risk and failure, quite honestly. And the question is, what do you do with that? Do you keep going, or do you give up? I just chose to keep going. [00:07:05] S0: Could you talk about your years in having this engineering job in Egypt? Because this is something you've been writing about as well, failure makes strength.
00:07:16 · James Andersen
[00:07:16] S1: Yeah, so when I graduated from college, I took a job with Schlumberger, which at the time, I think still is the largest oilfield service company in the world, and you have to remember, it was 1984. So I was sent to Egypt to a place called Ras Shukeir, which is a small oil town on the Gulf Of Suez. It's a six hour drive from Cairo through the desert to get there, and when I was there, again, before cell phones, before the internet, the only way we could communicate was by shortwave radio. So imagine this kid, like I grew up in New Jersey. I went to an Ivy League school. I mean, had it pretty easy, you I wanna be objective about it, and I was put into this situation, which was really kind of sink or swim. I had to figure it out, and it was lonely, because, you know, a letter was a six week effort, meaning if I sent a letter to somebody, it'd take three weeks to get there, and to get one back took another three weeks, and that worked about eighty percent of the time, because about 20% of the letters were lost. So I was really disconnected from everything that I had known, and I told myself, I hate this. I don't want to do this. But I said to myself, I can't quit until I get my first promotion, because I have to prove to myself and to everyone else that I can do this. And it, you know, I was there eight months before I got through your apprenticeship period, and I got promoted, but by that point, I had adapted. Again, they said, put your head down, create an objective, and keep going until you reach the objective. And by that point, I realized, wow, this is really an incredible experience. Nobody else I knew had an experience anything like the one that I did, and it was a formative experience for me, because it made, I proved to myself I can do basically anything. That's the lesson I took from it. So for me, it was incredible. I spent three years there, and, you know, it was a touchy thing about should I keep going, or should I go and do something else? And I just decided that I didn't wanna live the expat life my whole life, and decided to go to come back to The US. But it was absolutely incredible experience.
00:09:38 · Mikk, James Andersen
[00:09:38] S0: Okay. On the pre call as well, you said before co founding Clearview, you worked three and a half years at another PE firm. Was the time there? And maybe you can elaborate on how you went from there to coming up with an idea and the plan to go found Clearview. [00:09:59] S1: Well, think it's worth going back one more step, actually. [00:10:02] S0: Okay.