Latest / Founder Mode / Founder Mode Live at San Francisco Tech Week with Max Mullen (Instacart) & Andrew Ofstad (Airtable)
Transcript
- 0:00I'll start by saying you don't even have to be a believer in AI
- 0:04to care about this if you're running a company because at the
- 0:07end of the day, your customers are also consumers and they are
- 0:11using ChatGPT, Gemini and all the other, you know, AI
- 0:17assistants that are, that are out there.
- 0:19And so they're getting used to having these magical
- 0:22experiences. So it's becoming actually just
- 0:23table stakes for you to have these kind of magical
- 0:25experiences in your product too. So that's one way we think about
- 0:28it. And then I think you just
- 0:29alluded to it, but you know, couple days ago Open AI, you
- 0:32know, announced some of their endeavors in terms of making
- 0:36more of an app platform. I think others will follow.
- 0:39And I think we look at it as an opportunity to reach users as
- 0:43well, you know, and to grow. So you want to be early on these
- 0:46sort of platforms. I mean, think about the, you
- 0:48know, the push with mobile apps, which you are pioneer of, right?
- 0:52You want to have like the great app early on the App Store and
- 0:56have the first users. This is founder mode.
- 1:15I'm Jason Chaftin. Kevin Henrickson.
- 1:17And we're gonna get started. So you are probably here not to
- 1:20see us, but to see these two guys that are coming out.
- 1:23So, Kevin, why don't you introduce our our first guest?
- 1:26So our first guest is Max Max Mullen, founder of Instacart, Co
- 1:31founder of Instacart. It's funny because this Co
- 1:33founder thing is funny because like JJ is my Co founder.
- 1:35He sits back there and whenever I put founder, he always goes
- 1:38the first edit he makes is Co dash and I'm like bro, like I
- 1:42can be the founder. He's like no, no, you're the Co
- 1:44founder. Yeah, you're a Co founder.
- 1:45So it always makes me like feel a little smaller when I see that
- 1:47in Google Apps. Like I see the little edit but.
- 1:50Well, Max Max is well. That's the real founder, yeah.
- 1:54Founder of Instacart, Co founder of Instacart.
- 1:56And you know, I got to know him a bunch and I worked at
- 1:58Instacart and so excited to have him here today and then.
- 2:00Here we have Andrew who is Co founder of Air Table and and is
- 2:06also, you know, OGSF tech scene. So we are very, very lucky to
- 2:11have these two gentlemen here who built two companies that
- 2:14have really shaped how we all live and work.
- 2:17One has changed how we got groceries and the other changes
- 2:20how we do business. And forget Excel, you need
- 2:23airtable. Come on in guys, let's go.
- 2:36So it's cozy. Nobody, nobody has said anything
- 2:38but there we we drove this in here today and we thought this
- 2:42would be a nice way to set the vibe.
- 2:44What do you guys think? Is it working?
- 2:45I was in a meeting in that room and then I you're good.
- 2:49And then I got out of the meeting and there was a cyber
- 2:51truck in here. Yeah.
- 2:51I'm like, what happened? So it's funny, like last night
- 2:54he was showing me the pictures of the space because I hadn't
- 2:56actually been here, which is embarrassing to say, but I saw
- 2:58this door and I was like, is that a garage door?
- 3:01And he's like, yeah. And I was like, can you guys
- 3:02back the truck in and just park the truck and we'll do the
- 3:04podcast in the back of the truck and he's like.
- 3:07Yeah, Kevin wanted us to be in the truck bed.
- 3:10And he's like, that's not going to.
- 3:11Work. I don't.
- 3:11Think Max is going to let us bring it in?
- 3:14And I was like, well, just ask them when you get here.
- 3:15And then they got it in. Max is a nice guy.
- 3:18You guys are very persuasive. This guy especially I like.
- 3:21It I like it, I like. It so so guys, let's just let's
- 3:25just rock'n'roll into this. You both have started these
- 3:28formative, really important companies in SF tech, one of
- 3:33which is now publicly traded. So congratulations on an IPO Max
- 3:37and Air table. Hopefully we'll see that in the
- 3:39future, Andrew. So let's let's maybe get into
- 3:42like origin stories. Do you guys want to share the
- 3:45the beginning? There's some crazy stories I
- 3:47know you've experienced from your early Instacart days, but I
- 3:50think there's one story in particular that you wanted Max
- 3:53to tell him this if he's able to.
- 3:54Yeah, I, I wanted to know about there was like a Trader Joe's
- 3:57thing, like I always like, my wife and I were like, why can't
- 3:59we get groceries on Trader Joe's?
- 4:00And I was like, no, there's a story behind it, but there's
- 4:03even a crazier story of what? That was the first store on
- 4:06Instacart if I'm not mistaken. The famous, the famous Trader
- 4:08Joe's story. Yeah.
- 4:09So you're right, Kevin, of course, and we tell this story,
- 4:12I tell the story every Monday in orientation to this day.
- 4:14But in the very early days of Instacart, we did not have any
- 4:18partnerships with any retailers because we were very brand new
- 4:22and a grocery e-commerce. It was pretty nascent.
- 4:24And so a lot of retailers weren't even thinking about it
- 4:26yet. And we, we, we were launched, we
- 4:30had some early users in San Francisco and a lot of the
- 4:34groceries came from a local conventional store, but we
- 4:37didn't talk about which store. And we would pull our users and
- 4:41they would tell us, you know what, I really love shopping at
- 4:43Trader Joe's. And we would say, well, you
- 4:46know, that's like not what's on our platform.
- 4:48It's sort of these other items, you know, can you see if you can
- 4:51find, you know, a substitution for those, for those favorite
- 4:53items? And they would say, no, I got to
- 4:55have those, the specific cookies from Trader Joe's, right?
- 4:58So said if there's a lot of users that won't use Instacart
- 5:01unless their favorite retailer is on our platform, we better go
- 5:04figure out how to partner with those retailers.
- 5:07But of course, in the early days, you know, it was very hard
- 5:09to strike partnerships with retailers who weren't thinking
- 5:11about grocery e-commerce and, and particularly like, you know,
- 5:15who maybe wouldn't want to partner with a very small early,
- 5:18early startup. And so one day I went into the
- 5:21Trader Joe's and start talking to the manager and was sort of
- 5:25asking, you know, do you have a list of everything that you
- 5:27sell? Could you just sort of give us
- 5:29your catalog, right? And then we'll put it online,
- 5:33right? And we'll, and we'll like, we
- 5:34have this little start up and we'll try to deliver the, you
- 5:36know, your items to people and we'll help your store and we'll
- 5:38help our our company. And they were like, listen, we
- 5:40don't have a list. First of all, I was like, how do
- 5:42you not have a list, right? When you scan, the item
- 5:44obviously rings up on the registers and somebody's got.
- 5:46Literally the billion dollar question.
- 5:49But they truly didn't have a list, right?
- 5:51And certainly not one that they, that they had that they were
- 5:53going to give us. So I said, well, what if we,
- 5:57what if we went into the stores and just sort of started writing
- 6:00things down and taking pictures? Like how many pictures would we
- 6:02have to take kind of surreptitiously in order to
- 6:05build our own catalog? And the first thing we tried was
- 6:08like taking the pictures. And they didn't really like
- 6:10that. And it was really actually hard
- 6:11to get good quality pictures. Second thing we tried was we
- 6:14just asked them, you know, hey, could we, could we set up in the
- 6:16corner of your storage? So like a little photo studio
- 6:18and we'll just like take things gently off the shelf and put it
- 6:20over there and take a picture and bring it back.
- 6:22And like no one will even know we were there.
- 6:24Also a no. Absolutely not.
- 6:28I tried it at a different store. You know the following tactic is
- 6:30I'm a student doing a project. This student thing always works.
- 6:35I'm just a student of the. Game I'm, you know, I'm doing
- 6:37research in the grocery industry.
- 6:38And they were like, sorry, for competitive reasons, you can't
- 6:41do research in our stores. So he tried all these different
- 6:43things, got kicked out of all these different Trader Joe's
- 6:45stores and eventually went back to the original store, which is
- 6:48on Franklin Street in San Francisco.
- 6:51And we talked to the manager and we said, listen, we're doing
- 6:53this this thing. We're trying to build a catalog
- 6:55of everything that you sell in your store.
- 6:57And we would be willing to like, buy one of everything in the
- 7:01whole store to do it. And he was like, well, you know,
- 7:03that's interesting. And if and if you want to do
- 7:05that, you can do that. But don't get in the way of
- 7:08regular customers. How dare.
- 7:10You buy everything in the store and get in the way.
- 7:14And I was thinking like, I'm about to spend $20,000 in your
- 7:16store, like you should be super happy.
- 7:17But I was like, no, of course we won't get in the way of regular.
- 7:19What's the best way to do that? And he said, we'll come early in
- 7:22the day on a Thursday, which was the next day, and we'll kind of
- 7:25like open a checkout lane just for you guys.
- 7:27And I was like, perfect, we'll be back tomorrow morning on
- 7:29Thursday. So I grabbed a bunch of people.
- 7:32We came back the next day and we bought one of every single thing
- 7:35in the entire. Store it's.
- 7:37Around $20,000. There's, there's 3000 items in a
- 7:41Trader Joe's. We bought 2700 of them.
- 7:43We didn't buy the alcohol and I didn't buy any of the
- 7:46supplements. You know, there's like all these
- 7:47supplements in a Trader Joe's, like a million, a million
- 7:50different supplements of all kinds of crazy things, you know,
- 7:52and, and I was like, nobody buys those Now I'm old and I buy
- 7:55those supplements, right. So we didn't buy this and, and
- 7:592700 items. There's a lot of items.
- 8:01It turns out, you know, your, your grocery bag from Trader
- 8:03Joe's or any store, you might buy 15 things on average and it
- 8:07might occupy 2 grocery bags. OK, so now multiply that by, you
- 8:12know, 200 and it's a lot of trips.
- 8:16And so we we were back and forth buying stuff from the Trader
- 8:18Joe's for three days until we got to the.
- 8:22How'd you fit all that stuff in that tiny tray?
- 8:24They pull out, you know, the red tiny tray.
- 8:26The tiny tray. There was a lot, a lot, a lot of
- 8:28grocery bags I've never seen. You know, you, you you never
- 8:31seen your trunk. How many grocery?
- 8:32Bags. You had a cyber truck to move it
- 8:33all. Yeah, I know.
- 8:34Well, this is in 2012. This is in December 2012.
- 8:37Barely Model S. And so we're, we're stuffing
- 8:40Trader Joe's bags in the back of a Corolla and other, other
- 8:44vehicles. Yeah, yeah.
- 8:46And, and driving them over to this photo studio that we
- 8:48rented. And the, the person who took,
- 8:51who had the photo studio. And, you know, we borrowed from
- 8:53him. We were like, how do we take
- 8:54good product photography? And he's like, oh, you have to
- 8:56set it up perfectly. It's going to take you like 20
- 8:58to 30 minutes to set up each shot.
- 9:00Then you can take the picture. You take a whole bunch of
- 9:02pictures. And we're like, that's like
- 9:03definitely not fast enough. We need to get to like 30
- 9:05seconds of picture. And so we're just slinging
- 9:08groceries into this, into this, that white background, getting
- 9:12the flash all sorted out. And it took us three days to
- 9:15take the photos. And we sent them to some people
- 9:20to cut them out on a white background, right, So they could
- 9:22be perfect and, and, you know, adjust the colors and
- 9:24everything. And we typed up all the names of
- 9:27all the groceries and all the prices and, and you know, the
- 9:29locations in the store where we found them.
- 9:31We had kind of created our own little Dewey Decimal system of
- 9:34Trader Joe's, you know, like this shelf, this aisle, this
- 9:36height and all this stuff. And a couple weeks later we
- 9:40launched a version of Instacart that had a drop down menu where
- 9:44you could select between different retailers and Trader
- 9:47Joe's was, was listed there. And people really, really love
- 9:51that, right? They love seeing the name of the
- 9:52store that they could shop from. They love seeing the full
- 9:54catalog of their favorite retailer with beautiful photos.
- 9:59And we learned an incredible lesson in that moment, which is
- 10:01that many lessons actually. You know, people have a strong
- 10:04loyalty toward the grocery store that they normally shop at.
- 10:07People shop at more than one grocery store, and they want to
- 10:09see all their favorite stores listed in the same place, right?
- 10:11So a marketplace model was the right model.
- 10:14When I load up my cart on Instacart, I've got multiple
- 10:17stores, my shoppers hitting, you know, we're trying to get as
- 10:20much stuff as we can on that one trip.
- 10:22That's it's, it's got to be that way for me, you know, and I have
- 10:24loyalty to Costco. I get a big Costco Instacart
- 10:26order just queued up ready to go as soon as we're done here.
- 10:28So let's, let's get into it with Andrew this Max, I love the
- 10:32origin story. I want to hear Andrew from you
- 10:35on early air table days. You know, what was the kind of
- 10:38insight around the problem that you guys were solving?
- 10:41Right? You know, Max just talked about
- 10:432700 different products and that sounds like a little bit of a
- 10:45database and a table. How many people in this room use
- 10:47Excel, Google Sheets? Just put one arm up for.
- 10:50Yeah, Sheets people. Yeah.
- 10:52But like, it's starting use Airtable, though.
- 10:54Yeah. Now do you use Airtable?
- 10:55Yeah, everybody. So that is, that is the, it's a
- 10:58much better version of that. And it's powering so much now.
- 11:00So we'd love to hear like, how did you guys get started?
- 11:02A perhaps a fun story of the early days of Airtable.
- 11:06My Co friend and I, we're both very into HCI and how do you
- 11:09take things that are really complex like a database software
- 11:12creation and make those really easy for everybody?
- 11:15And I, I think part of that was born from just our love of being
- 11:18builders and creating software. And also my Co founder, he was
- 11:22at Salesforce, they acquired his previous company.
- 11:25He saw that most business software, it's just a database
- 11:28and you have logic and views. It's kind of like reinventing
- 11:30the same wheel every time you build a business application.
- 11:33So the challenge of taking something that's really
- 11:36complicated, this class of software development for
- 11:38businesses and making that really easy and simple and
- 11:41rounding off all the rough edges was really a big motivation for
- 11:44us. And I spent time before I Google
- 11:46Maps working on the design and really simplifying that
- 11:49interface. So yeah, we we had this big
- 11:52vision for how we'd democratize software creation and let people
- 11:55build their own apps, specifically business apps
- 11:57around the database. And to your point, the entry
- 12:01point for us, like, you know, you kind of come to realize if
- 12:03you study the history computing that the spreadsheet was this,
- 12:07you know, really killer application, not just because it
- 12:10is so useful, but it it really is programming.
- 12:12And all these people surreptitiously learn how to
- 12:14program by using a spreadsheet. And you start with these really
- 12:17simple primitives like cells, and then you kind of learn that
- 12:21you can write these formulas that reference them.
- 12:23And there are a lot of aspects to it, just the direct
- 12:25manipulation and the very visible aspect of it is kind of
- 12:28like a what you see is what you get interface that we wanted to
- 12:30replicate. So we Co opted that spreadsheet
- 12:33interface and you know, kind of re use that to to make it easy
- 12:36to build databases and just started building together.
- 12:40It took us a long time to get to an MVP and and get the product
- 12:43out there. I think either because we were
- 12:46not the fastest engineers, but also we were rounding off the
- 12:48rough edges and prototyping and that type of thing.
- 12:50So just kind of a product born from from the the vision to do
- 12:54that and and love of kind of simplifying complex things.
- 12:57Andrew, how many people told you when you were fundraising for
- 13:00your seed round? Like oh, Google Sheets will just
- 13:03add these features you don't you like have no chance here.
- 13:06Oh yeah, we, we got that a lot. I, you know, I, I think we found
- 13:10that there were two types of, of early customers.
- 13:13Either people got it completely because they understood
- 13:16databases or they kind of understood software in some form
- 13:19and it clicked for them, or they were kind of Excel or
- 13:22spreadsheet junkies and they were like, wait, why can't I
- 13:25reference any cell here? What, you know, how is this
- 13:27different than a spreadsheet? And so I think with that ladder
- 13:30class, we definitely got the hey, this just excel or or
- 13:33appear appear spreadsheet. But I think people that
- 13:36understood software foundations kind of realized that it's a
- 13:39strong foundation to build other things on top of.
- 13:42And definitely that was that was a common thing thing for us
- 13:45early on. What about in those early days
- 13:47like that, you guys shortcut it or took hacks on to kind of say
- 13:51like, man, we we'd love to go build like the proper version of
- 13:53this, but like we're like, hey, we don't have time or we need to
- 13:56get something out. So when you think about that
- 13:58MVP, like were there specific shortcuts that you sort of took
- 14:01where you're like then, you know now?
- 14:02Go fix it later, yeah? Came back and either fix them
- 14:05or, or they're still kind of survived.
- 14:06And that actually ended up being, you know, a smart sort of
- 14:09like shortcut. First thing we wanted to de
- 14:11risk, you sort of think of startups as a series of things
- 14:14you're de risking. And for us, the first was can we
- 14:16actually build something that is easy to use and as a database
- 14:19and, and has the right UX to make this a much broadly a much
- 14:23more broadly used product. And so for us, it was that was
- 14:27the main thing we're trying to do.
- 14:28So we, we had a purely front end, you know, lived in the
- 14:30browser client product for a long time before we even built a
- 14:33back end. And so all the prototyping kind
- 14:36of getting the full feature set just in the browser using local
- 14:39storage is kind of what we worked on initially.
- 14:42We were just building for ourselves.
- 14:43So it kind of worked as long as we had our laptops, we had our
- 14:46air table application. Did that ever go?
- 14:48Did you find when you finally kind of turned on real users,
- 14:50you actually had a? Yeah, we actually had
- 14:51persistence in the server and like a back end and stuff once
- 14:54we had real users. But while we were kind of de
- 14:56risking the UX side and prototyping and iterating really
- 14:59fast, I think that let us build a lot faster.
- 15:01And then we were like, oh man, we got to actually build like a
- 15:04real product in the back end and and make this like a product
- 15:08like production eyes, but initially which is purely front
- 15:11end. There's a lot of founders in the
- 15:12room and I think it's worth like double clicking on this.
- 15:16Everybody thinks of Instacart as this product that has all of
- 15:18these retailers and just really works, right.
- 15:20I mean, when even when you join in 2018, we had, you know, we,
- 15:23we were less mature. It wasn't that way at the
- 15:25beginning, Max. Yeah, you're talking about AIR
- 15:27table was like in local storage, that's like your whole product
- 15:30is a database, Yeah, you know. Dropbox.
- 15:33Just the table, no air. The the first version of Dropbox
- 15:37would like would like lose your files.
- 15:38Like the first shopper app for Instacart was a web page like a
- 15:42web view. There was no app at all.
- 15:44Like there's always hacks at the beginning.
- 15:47Yeah, I mean it's, I think there's got to be a moment maybe
- 15:50each of you could think of where you were like, oh, we're not
- 15:52crazy like this is working. Was there like a because I
- 15:55remember very distinctly when I started, I started a marketplace
- 15:57company in 2014 in LA and I was working out of Koloft, which was
- 16:02the first I think Instacart office was in that Co working
- 16:04space. And I remember Instacart, who
- 16:06are these guys? That was when I made my first
- 16:07Instacart order because it was your second market.
- 16:09And so I you know, when when did Instacart that kind of jump the
- 16:12shark for you guys? And you're like, oh, this is a
- 16:13real thing. It's we're not insane and it's
- 16:15actually going to work. And I'd love to hear Andrew at
- 16:17air table when that moment was as well.
- 16:19Yeah. I mean, I think in Andrew's
- 16:20framing, there's like a series of things you're de risking.
- 16:23The first for Instacart was like, could we even build a one
- 16:26hour grocery delivery product? Would it even work?
- 16:29Would we be on time like, and we quickly prove that.
- 16:33And then I think another objection we heard from
- 16:35investors and, and thought about ourselves was like, is this a
- 16:37product just for people in like the coasts in California and New
- 16:40York or even just in, you know, big cities?
- 16:44And it wasn't until 20/16/2017, 2018 kind of time frame when we
- 16:48started to expand to, you know, all 50 states, a lot of, you
- 16:53know, less large cities and then even some suburbs where we had a
- 16:58lot of really regular people in America using the product every
- 17:01single week. And then that's when we really
- 17:04knew it was going to be a big. House was there like a city
- 17:05where you're like, you always referenced it in meetings.
- 17:08It was like the yeah, like if it's working here.
- 17:10Then funny that you should ask, but you know, some investor at
- 17:14one point just said, listen, you know, this is, this is great if
- 17:17you're in San Francisco or New York, but like, you know, call
- 17:19me when you have moms in Kansas using it.
- 17:21And then one day I remember we hired an employee and and they
- 17:26said, hey, my mom's a big fan of Instacart.
- 17:28And they were. And I was like, where does your
- 17:29mom live? And she was like Kansas.
- 17:30And I said bro, we finally did it.
- 17:32Did you call the investor? You've been unlocked.
- 17:34Yeah, nice. What about your?
- 17:37Kind of similar story. There's a series of these kind
- 17:39of like, oh, this could be something I, I think the first
- 17:42was we would start showing the product to our friends and like
- 17:45I said before, 9 out of 10 be like, I don't really get this
- 17:47kind of like a spreadsheet, but not really.
- 17:50But we had a friend who is a he used to work at Pixar as a
- 17:54engineer and he decided to strike out in his own and be a
- 17:57like a video producer, like start doing film.
- 18:00And he was shooting a music video and he showed me this,
- 18:03this thing called shot Lister, which is a dedicated iPhone
- 18:07application for tracking like your shot, your, your shots and
- 18:10your crew and your cast. Like all the moving parts of the
- 18:13film production were like, oh, that's cool.
- 18:15He's like, man, I just wish I could add 1 field to track.
- 18:18Like who checked out this piece of equipment?
- 18:20And then we showed an air table like, Oh, this is amazing and I
- 18:22can actually like build it and customize it.
- 18:25And it had all the functionality from shout Lister, but it's
- 18:27completely flexible. And so we saw that case and
- 18:30then, you know, another early customer who is a friend of ours
- 18:32ran a non profit and they were they were about to do big sales
- 18:36force implementation and they they were saw it and they were
- 18:38like, oh, I can just use air table.
- 18:39This is amazing and I can customize it.
- 18:41So a couple of those individual small team use cases or
- 18:44individuals, and I think the one that really stuck for me later
- 18:48on and more of like a large company like this could be a big
- 18:52products context. Like where there's a lot of, you
- 18:55know, kind of financial value to be had as well.
- 18:58Is when I did a customer trip to New York and we were used to
- 19:01talking to customers over chat or like support e-mail, that
- 19:04type of thing, or even video calls.
- 19:06But I went to visit, we work at the time and we work was on
- 19:09this, you know, fast trajectory of growth.
- 19:12And I went to their office and I looked in every computer screen
- 19:14had air table on it. And I just thought to myself
- 19:16like, oh shit, I hope the server doesn't go down.
- 19:19Like people are actually using this.
- 19:22It's amazing. So seeing a whole company use
- 19:23it, or at least a whole big team was, was huge and really sticks
- 19:26in my head. It's like a transformational.
- 19:28Moment my my wife works for Disney and they're an air table
- 19:30customer Oh yeah of course she's like oh she loves air table
- 19:32she's. Awesome.
- 19:33Yeah, so that's a pretty big logo.
- 19:34Yeah, for sure. This is a big one, yeah.
- 19:36How do you how do you think about, I mean, I think that's a
- 19:39good kind of segue to like think about like this notion of speed
- 19:41versus craft, right? Like you early talked about like
- 19:44HDI and like how do we make it beautiful and perfect?
- 19:46And then it's like, OK, now we start moving faster.
- 19:48Like how did you sort of in those early days kind of pick
- 19:50that balance between like move quick, get a bunch of things
- 19:53landed versus like, no, I want to spend the time to kind of
- 19:55sand it and Polish it? Yeah, I think we we went through
- 19:58different phases of that. So there is the early prototype
- 20:00phase, get the UX right, just write crappy code, throw stuff
- 20:03out, you know, move really fast. And then at some point we're
- 20:06like, we got to build this in a more robust way.
- 20:08And once we got to that point, you wanted to get the
- 20:11foundational architecture right, just because you're going to
- 20:13build on top of that for a long time.
- 20:15You can't like RIP stuff out of customers.
- 20:17Like if they built a air table database app, you know, and you,
- 20:21you remove a field type, it's like, hey, my thing just doesn't
- 20:24work anymore. So we kind of went into more of
- 20:26like a, you know, measure twice mode.
- 20:29See, that's the Wi-Fi. Oh.
- 20:30I shouldn't say that give. Everybody your Wi-Fi password
- 20:35for. Workshop.
- 20:37It's really it's. Really, not really not that big
- 20:39of a deal. OK.
- 20:42It's because it's one of my personal values.
- 20:43Oh, OK, yeah, measure twice. So then we we had more of a
- 20:46measure twice mood and I think we went too heavy on that for a
- 20:49long time. It was like this get the perfect
- 20:50architecture, kind of inventing from first principles things
- 20:54around real time collaboration, which we kind of had to do
- 20:57because in those days it wasn't as standard of a thing.
- 20:59And you know, you have like Dropbox sync, but you didn't
- 21:01really have a really complicated kind of like highly, you know,
- 21:06high dependency tree database, you adapt to like sync in real
- 21:08time. So we got really deep on like
- 21:11the engineer and, you know, deep engineering measuring twice,
- 21:15which slowed us down a lot. But I think it the pro of that
- 21:17is we were able to hire good engineers because we had heart
- 21:19problems and I think we could talk and tell you about them
- 21:23because we struggled with them for quite a while.
- 21:25So yeah, it really depends on any kind of go through modes
- 21:27where it's build fast prototype, you're in kind of like a new
- 21:30startup, building a new S group part of the product and that
- 21:34type of thing. So for for us, it kind of went
- 21:36back and forth a lot, but it was tough too because you kind of
- 21:39build a culture around doing something in the measure twice,
- 21:42go slow, be deliberate, cerebral way.
- 21:44And then you have to change and you have to say we, we have to
- 21:47prototype more. We have to get stuff out there.
- 21:48We can always like pull it back and so on and so forth.
- 21:51So we kind of struggled sometimes with the pendulum
- 21:54shifting back and forth there. You mentioned culture and I want
- 21:56to touch on that because Max, you're like you were one of
- 21:58those people and you've written a lot about this and you talk a
- 22:01lot about it. That really helped shape the
- 22:02Instacart culture from you and your Co founders to a lot more
- 22:06people now and even the culture and thinking about how you bring
- 22:09in shoppers into that in that marketplace.
- 22:11So love to hear your thoughts on taking culture from, you know,
- 22:14three people in a room to thousands.
- 22:16When I think about culture, the first thing that I talk about
- 22:18and think about is, you know, values.
- 22:21And typically a startup has values whether they're written
- 22:24down or not. And if they're not written down,
- 22:26they're just the sum of the personal values of the founders
- 22:29of the company. And that's usually how it
- 22:30starts. Like, you know, if, if you care
- 22:32about craft and the company will care about craft.
- 22:35And so those were sort of the early values of, of, of our
- 22:38company. But then later on, you kind of
- 22:40want to be a little bit more deliberate about your values,
- 22:42want to write them down. And that's very useful when
- 22:44you're hiring people, right? So you can tell them what, what
- 22:47your values are and you can make sure they're going to be able to
- 22:49live in, in that culture. And so we've had, you know,
- 22:52different sets of values over the years.
- 22:54And just to kind of bring it back to the, this idea of sort
- 22:57of speed versus quality, like in the early days of Instacart and
- 23:01in the early days of most companies, you know, most of the
- 23:03companies that I invest in, speed is like a huge advantage,
- 23:06right? You want to have like the
- 23:08fastest cycle time you possibly can have, right?
- 23:10Some people, you know, it's a month, it's a two weeks, it's a
- 23:13week, it's a day. But like the, the faster, the
- 23:15better, you know, if you're shipping stuff every hour and
- 23:17learning stuff every hour, it compounds.
- 23:19And so that was our, our, our operating mode, right?
- 23:22When you join Kevin, like we were in speed mode and it was a
- 23:25really big, it was woven into the culture at that point.
- 23:28And then when we rewrote the value and we had a value called
- 23:30every minute counts, right? Literally, you know, one of our
- 23:32five values was every minute counts.
- 23:35And then when we rewrote the values in 2021, as we were sort
- 23:38of maturing, we realized we'd already achieved that value.
- 23:42And so we had to kind of graduate it and move on to
- 23:45values. That spoke more about how we're
- 23:47going to balance things over the long term as a larger company.
- 23:50So it's to Andrew's point is it's something that evolves and
- 23:54it's it's something that you kind of want to be really
- 23:56deliberate and thoughtful about and spend some time on.
- 23:58It's an investment you know as a founder, writing values and and
- 24:01thinking about your culture is an investment in in the future
- 24:04of your company. For Andrew, for you guys, kind
- 24:07of similar culture question, but maybe take it a step farther.
- 24:09When you think of that culture moving from like the founders to
- 24:12like hiring your first execs, like we kind of before the short
- 24:14time, like how does a company change as you start bringing and
- 24:17not just like, hey, you're growing A-Team, but you're now
- 24:19bringing in executives. It's sort of have to like, you
- 24:22know, bring their own culture from their old companies.
- 24:23Like I remember even Instacart, we bring in people from like
- 24:25Facebook or Google and we're like, wait a minute, this is now
- 24:28running in a different way. And you could sort of sense
- 24:30these like cultures that they brought with them.
- 24:31And how did you guys see that at their table?
- 24:33And have you seen that sort of impact as the company sort of
- 24:36scaled and grew? I think the the culture, like
- 24:39the most important part of that is making that part of your
- 24:41hiring. And so, you know, just people
- 24:43you bring in are the biggest carriers of your culture.
- 24:45And it kind of seems like that's how it plays out.
- 24:47Like it's not the thing you write in the wall.
- 24:49Like that doesn't really matter too much.
- 24:50Like that does matter, but make sure like the people actually
- 24:52embody that. And so especially within an
- 24:55executive, you know, to your point, it's like you're
- 24:57amplifying that they hire people, they hire people, so on
- 24:59and so forth. So I think for us, like we, we
- 25:03would try to find a good culture fit, but also like a lot of
- 25:07times you're hiring an executive because you need to change the
- 25:09culture and, and maybe bring in something different.
- 25:11I think especially with executives, it's, it's kind of
- 25:14like a good way for you to bring in other knowledge and
- 25:17expertise, so on and so forth. So I think, you know, kind of
- 25:22making sure the combination of like having the right culture to
- 25:25to fit in with what you're doing, but also bringing, you
- 25:27know, realizing they're bringing in something else, they're going
- 25:29to kind of scale out to the org. And we've kind of played that
- 25:32good and bad. And I think it's never easy to
- 25:35to figure out what those values values are, but but it's pretty
- 25:39critical. We have a handful of Instacart
- 25:40executives in the room and, and one who's on the stage, former
- 25:43one who's on the stage here. I, I do want Max you to tell a
- 25:46funny Kevin story if you have one, because you know, you guys
- 25:48brought him in and he's a character.
- 25:50And so at some point, you know, he, he did or said something
- 25:53dumb and you had to deal with it.
- 25:55You don't have to do it, but I I really do want to give Kevin a
- 25:57hard time as. Much It's easy to come up with
- 25:58dumb stuff that Kevin and Jim we're.
- 26:00Trying to find a smart. Thing, But you know, I use you
- 26:03as an example sometimes when I'm talking.
- 26:05He's going to say a nice thing. I can feel it.
- 26:07To founders about culture, because a lot of the time the
- 26:11instinct is to bring in only people that are like yourselves.
- 26:15And when you join the company you were, you represented sort
- 26:18of a different set of values and ideas.
- 26:21And it was very polarizing to some people, including to me.
- 26:24In fact, and I hate to say this, so you probably already know, I
- 26:26didn't really like you when you joined the company, you know,
- 26:29you heard, but over time I began to respect that you just had a
- 26:33different way of operating and it was a bit more of what we
- 26:36wanted to become, right? A bit more direct, a bit more
- 26:41super high urgency and, and you just had a way of managing your
- 26:45team that was just polarizing. And I think it's really
- 26:47important to be able to hire people that are different than
- 26:50that have the experience that you want to bring into your
- 26:51company and that are different than the way the people at the
- 26:53company are used to working. And maybe to think about
- 26:58changing a little bit if in toward that direction, if you
- 27:00bring in an executive and they just have another way of doing
- 27:03things. Yeah, and I think it was.
- 27:04It's funny because I did have a polarizing view.
- 27:06I still have a lot of. Polarizing view.
- 27:08You're you're lightning rod. I like it.
- 27:09But there was there was a thing that Max did that I think is
- 27:12still pretty cool. Like, and you mentioned it
- 27:13earlier in the discussion, you're like every Tuesday or
- 27:15whatever it was the onboarding day where like you come in and
- 27:17do like the founder story, like, you know, every hiring class
- 27:20goes through like Max day or Max hour where you're like, hey, I'm
- 27:22going to talk through this thing.
- 27:24And I think that sort of thread that everybody that joined our
- 27:28team, even people that I hired on my team, still got your sort
- 27:31of view of culture and how that sort of transcended from like
- 27:33day zero to whatever we were day 8, you know, year eight-year 10,
- 27:37you know, kind of as we went through it.
- 27:38And I think that piece is something that's a little unique
- 27:41where I had never seen that before because like, you know,
- 27:44it's doing a small company thing and then getting acquired.
- 27:47You kind of get like indoctrinated in the big
- 27:48companies culture. You go into Microsoft or we went
- 27:51into Yahoo many years ago and, and you would just not have this
- 27:53way to sort of like, oh, what is the culture?
- 27:56Nobody told you? Like you would just show up and
- 27:57be like, oh, I guess like Microsoft people I always make
- 28:00fun of because they like always introduce themselves with the
- 28:02number of years they've been at the company.
- 28:05We we actually had one on a podcast.
- 28:07Last week, it'll be totally out. Yeah.
- 28:08And she's like, yeah. I've been at Microsoft 26 years
- 28:10and I was like bro. I would argue that's a
- 28:13tradition. You know, that's a Microsoft.
- 28:15And every company has traditions.
- 28:17And it is through those traditions that that culture,
- 28:21you know, propagates from early employees to later employees.
- 28:24And you have to tell people what the traditions are.
- 28:27And you tell them some of the stories of the history of the
- 28:29company and you share deeper sort of deeper meanings about
- 28:32the values and bring them to life instead of them just being
- 28:35posters on the wall. And then of course, you do the
- 28:37other side. Like you weave them into your,
- 28:39your hiring scorecard, your, your promotion and evaluation
- 28:43scorecards. And you make sure that people
- 28:44know that they're actually things that people are going to
- 28:47be held accountable to versus just, again, words on the wall.
- 28:50You guys are both, you know, kind of major forces within your
- 28:54companies in terms of product, right and product leadership.
- 28:57And so I would love to talk about, we are in this moment
- 28:59right now. You can't go to an event at tech
- 29:00week, you can't go on to X, you can't go on LinkedIn without
- 29:04just seeing AI, AI, AI, AI. We're in the the peak of the
- 29:08hype cycle. Maybe, maybe not, but I really
- 29:11would love to dig into in the in the world veritable especially,
- 29:14but I think Instacart as well. You know, there is there is a
- 29:17lot happening within these companies to try to figure out
- 29:20how to leverage AI to make the products better, to make the
- 29:22user experience better. But also, how do you view what's
- 29:25happening right now and what's about to happen as you know, how
- 29:28do you embrace AI within, within the businesses and, and, and
- 29:31where do you see it going for for each of your companies?
- 29:34I'll make a disclaimer that I'm not too involved in the
- 29:36day-to-day at air table. So my, my knowledge is a bit
- 29:38dated, but I think there's definitely, you know, 22 aspects
- 29:43to, to the AI thing. And 1 is just getting, you know,
- 29:46people to use AI productively within the organization for all
- 29:49parts of it, all departments and be more efficient, do better
- 29:52work, so on and so forth. And I think the other part is
- 29:55like, how do you make the product much better?
- 29:57And I think it's, you know, I think, I think it's, it's easy
- 30:03to sort of do copycat stuff. And we're in such like an echo
- 30:06chamber. Everybody's like, you got to
- 30:08build an agent, you've got to build this chat thing.
- 30:10And I think I don't see as much at least, you know, in the
- 30:14broader, you know, set of companies I see out there doing
- 30:17a really original thinking about like, what does this mean
- 30:19specifically for my business and my customers and the things that
- 30:22matter most and applied to the problem that we work on.
- 30:25So I think we've tried to take a very original approach to it.
- 30:28And I think AI is this really powerful force for software
- 30:32creation. That's always been our our goal
- 30:34is to make software creation accessible.
- 30:36And you know, with vibe coding these things, it's it's a huge
- 30:39force multiplier on on this sort of very detailed software you
- 30:42can build and as a non developer.
- 30:45So we're, you know, we're kind of taking the, the sort of air
- 30:49table philosophy of like that's, that's make, you know, this.
- 30:54We have people expand that superpower with, with code, but
- 30:56then still give them the foundational pieces, all the
- 30:59building blocks of like a data layer and, you know, governance
- 31:02permissions, all those sort of interface and logic layers.
- 31:05Like that's, that's kind of combine the superpower of that
- 31:08plus, you know, vibe coding everything else and, and, but,
- 31:11but not just sort of like copy with everything is out there.
- 31:14So I think that's where we're at right now.
- 31:16Max, how about you? I mean, some of the earlier
- 31:18demos I saw in Open AI was like Instacart kind of on stage with
- 31:21Sam and sort of being part of those demos and being one of
- 31:23those early logos kind of is part of this kind of like as
- 31:25ChatGPT and these things took off.
- 31:26Like what is your set of view of how a is both impacted Instacart
- 31:29but then maybe a little bit even into some of the startups you're
- 31:31seeing today? I'll start by saying you don't
- 31:34even have to be a believer in AI to care about this if you're
- 31:38running a company because at the end of the day, your customers
- 31:41are also consumers and they are using ChatGPT, Gemini and all
- 31:48the other, you know, AI assistants that are, that are
- 31:50out there. And so they're getting used to
- 31:53having these magical experiences.
- 31:55So it's becoming actually just table stakes for you to have
- 31:57these kind of magical experiences in your product too.
- 31:59So that's one way we think about it.
- 32:01And then I think you just alluded to it, but you know,
- 32:03couple days ago Open AI, you know, announced some of their
- 32:07endeavors in terms of making more of an app platform.
- 32:10I think others will follow. And I think we look at it as an
- 32:14opportunity to reach users as well, you know, and to grow.
- 32:17So you want to be early on these sort of platforms.
- 32:19I mean, think about the, you know, the push with mobile apps,
- 32:23which you are pioneer of, right? You want to have like the great
- 32:25app early on the App Store and have the first users.
- 32:30Yeah. And then how about starting
- 32:31companies today? Like so it's one thing for like
- 32:33an Instacart or an air table to be like, oh, we're going to add
- 32:36AI or be or like, you know, transform AI.
- 32:38But how about like, you know, you guys both talked to a lot of
- 32:40founders and probably done a lot of Angel investments and
- 32:43investments. Like what is your sort of what
- 32:45are you seeing in this sort of like as founders are coming out
- 32:47and starting things today, like how are they using AI?
- 32:49And then like, you know, we always talk about like the AI
- 32:51Chachi BT wrapper, but like what's the real story?
- 32:54Like, where are you actually seeing people kind of innovate?
- 32:56Well, I, I got 1 framework, which is that it used to be the
- 32:59case that the ideal founding team was two people, three
- 33:02people kind of coming out of a company with an insight about
- 33:05that general business. And the main thing that they had
- 33:09was subject matter expertise that was recent.
- 33:12And the, you know, and then, then as far as building the
- 33:15company, using technology to build the company, they were
- 33:17doing what everyone else was doing.
- 33:19Today you have teams of, you know, very young founders who
- 33:23are AI native, who've been using, you know, a gentic coding
- 33:27and cursor and so forth for for a year now who can build things
- 33:32extremely fast and can make up for the fact that they don't
- 33:35necessarily have as much domain expertise.
- 33:37And I think in my experience, those younger teams are kind of
- 33:40sometimes running circles around the other teams that are kind of
- 33:43doing things in more of a waterfall way.
- 33:45So it's a huge advantage to be able to wield these new tools.
- 33:48And I basically now at this point only invest in founders
- 33:52that are doing that. Yeah, it might even.
- 33:53I think like air table is almost like a platform.
- 33:56I mean like I think of it, it's the original vibe coding
- 33:58platform, right? And I'm guessing you're not only
- 33:59seeing like founders build a round a table, but also this the
- 34:02stuff you're seeing outside of it.
- 34:04Yeah. Well, to build on Max's point,
- 34:06like it if you're a like you should index high and
- 34:09scrappiness and originality, creativity and just first
- 34:13principles thinking. I think in this AI era, and I
- 34:15think like even, you know, if, if you're a young founder, you
- 34:18don't have like a bunch of domain experience or industry
- 34:20experience could even be an advantage because you'll come at
- 34:23it from a very fresh perspective.
- 34:24And you won't be held back by ideas of what this piece of
- 34:27software looks like in the industry or how people do things
- 34:29in existing workflows is like you can, you can reinvent from
- 34:32the ground up with this new platform.
- 34:34And to your point, you can learn so quickly.
- 34:36So I think if there's a high degree of, you know, agency and
- 34:39scrappiness and creativity and originality, like you're, you're
- 34:43golden. That's that's the type of
- 34:44founder you want to invest. In Let's Talk Learning.
- 34:46So you know, you guys have both. I love the the kind of view in
- 34:50in the media of overnight success, right like all the all
- 34:53of a sudden Instacart air table household names like they just
- 34:55it just happened one night. But like you know that's not
- 34:57true. And so let's talk about the
- 34:59things that happened that, you know, if if you each could share
- 35:03that kind of $10 or maybe $10 million mistake some of your
- 35:07favorite like, oh man, we really shouldn't have done that moments
- 35:10building these formative companies for for for this for
- 35:14this group here who I saw a bunch of hands go up as
- 35:16founders, like maybe they can learn from some of your scar
- 35:18tissue and in this conversation. Yeah, they're, they're sort of
- 35:23costly directions and and visions.
- 35:26You can have like one example for us is we we spent a long
- 35:30time trying to build a platform. I think before we were ready to
- 35:32build a platform in the sense that we built this developer SDK
- 35:36where people can build their own custom apps and release them in
- 35:39a marketplace, but really didn't have any developers building on
- 35:42like writing code on their table at that time.
- 35:44So, so it didn't make a lot of sense to build a marketplace
- 35:47until we actually felt the pull from that audience.
- 35:49So that that was an expensive like detour.
- 35:51We built this, it was called the Airtable Blocks platform, I
- 35:54think a bit too early and it was based on like this vision of,
- 35:57you know, what build this thriving ecosystem and they'll
- 36:00be these flywheels and everything else and just a bit
- 36:02too theoretical. So that was a costly mistake and
- 36:06probably wasted quite a bit of time.
- 36:07But I, I think it, you know, the other side of that is you got to
- 36:09try risky things to, to succeed and to keep inflecting new
- 36:12growth curve. So, you know, no regrets.
- 36:17We, we made our fair share of mistakes.
- 36:20And my overall lesson from those is that when you, when you're in
- 36:24the right market with generally the right approach, you just
- 36:28assume you're going to be wrong. But if your if your iteration
- 36:31speed and your ability to learn from customer feedback is very
- 36:34strong and your iteration speed is very high, you make up for it
- 36:37Very very. Quickly, lots of shots on goal.
- 36:39Lots of shots on goal and also just many little adjustments
- 36:42that get you that like like a like a, you know, honing in on
- 36:46it like a heat seeking missile towards product market fit.
- 36:49And then once you get there, it's about scaling it.
- 36:50And that's sort of a different a different chapter.
- 36:53But and mainly my lessons from the post product market fit
- 36:57version of Instacart. We're just not doing things we
- 36:59did sooner, you know, not partnering with more retailers
- 37:02and being in more geographies and, you know, being better at,
- 37:06you know, using advertising as a lever to grow all those things
- 37:09sooner. Yeah.
- 37:10How about like kind of the other side, like founder therapy, like
- 37:13control burnout, like things where you just had to like, man,
- 37:16take a break and realize that you kind of hit a wall and, you
- 37:20know, did that happen at a certain point or was like a
- 37:22certain inflection thing where you can remember?
- 37:23And then and then more importantly, like how have you
- 37:25sort of like worked through that or did you work through that if
- 37:27you hit it? Yeah, I think thinking through
- 37:29the history of the company, we started in 2012.
- 37:32And so I think we finally got some traction and maybe
- 37:3620/17/2018. So it's five years of just
- 37:39grinding and without a lot, a lot of validation.
- 37:42We have like our film producer friend or like our nonprofit
- 37:45friend, little pockets of like, hey, this could really click
- 37:47passionate users. But it was quite a slog.
- 37:51And I mean, in some, some senses, we, we had the luxury to
- 37:57take our time early on and build good foundations and do what we
- 38:00thought was our best work because we weren't in a hyper
- 38:02competitive space. You know, it's like we, we
- 38:04didn't have some other company that's building like another air
- 38:07table. I mean, we had a few that that
- 38:08kind of flame came and went and flamed out and so on and so
- 38:11forth. But I think it's we, we sort of
- 38:14had a chance to breathe for the first five years of the company
- 38:17and we're building and doing what we loved.
- 38:19And then you sort of get into the whirlwind of, Hey, there's
- 38:22all these customers, you're hiring, all these teams, you're
- 38:23hyper scaling and that's phase of the company, which to me, you
- 38:27know, caused a lot more burnout or, or just like stress and
- 38:31you're, you're in more reactive mode.
- 38:33I think, especially as, as somebody who's deep on product
- 38:35and engineering, you just kind of want to get your hands into
- 38:37that again. And you're kind of dealing with
- 38:38other stuff in the company. But I think we always had a
- 38:41pretty good balance of like thinking that this is a, you
- 38:44know, this is a long term endeavor.
- 38:46It's going to be at least 10 years if you want to build what
- 38:48we set out to do. So we had that mindset and as Co
- 38:51founders, we would be forgiving of like, Hey, I need to kind of
- 38:53pull back for a little bit, you know, major life milestones
- 38:57would pop up and we kind of give some slack to one Co founder and
- 39:00so on and so forth. And so I think having those
- 39:03relationships where you can understand the person's personal
- 39:06life and kind of make that space is important as well.
- 39:08But you know, I think I I did eventually kind of burned out of
- 39:13the hands on org management side and I've kind of pulled back to
- 39:16more of a I see a role within their table and and less less
- 39:20involved day-to-day. So maybe Max is a better one to
- 39:23to speak to, you know, engagement.
- 39:26It's similar in a sense that I think you go through different
- 39:28chapters as a founder, sort of the early days.
- 39:30It's just all hands on deck, you know, 997 working all the time.
- 39:35Maybe you get the luxury of some scale and a bigger team and you
- 39:38get to pull back a little bit and be more strategic.
- 39:41I've also gone through the journey of being like a manager
- 39:44of lots of people and then IC again and then a manager again
- 39:47and and just having different functions under me and just try
- 39:50to keep it interesting and keep learning is my approach to not
- 39:53getting burnt out. I'd love to hear, you know,
- 39:57often times in these conversations you hear some of
- 39:58the same themes pop up. But, you know, give us the most
- 40:02contrarian take, you know, unpopular opinion.
- 40:04You guys have a lot of learnings from building these companies
- 40:07over the years and now investing in other companies.
- 40:11You know, we didn't shout this out, but Max, this is a
- 40:12beautiful space that you guys have built here and thank you
- 40:14for hosting us in workshop so. Nice cyber truck.
- 40:17Yeah. You know, I don't know what
- 40:19drives that thing around, but you look, I think I think it
- 40:23would be interesting to hear kind of that that, you know,
- 40:25what is something that is maybe uncommon knowledge or an
- 40:29unpopular opinion that you guys have have formed over the years
- 40:32that that needs to be set in the room of people building and and
- 40:35starting new things. I have like a very specific
- 40:39thing where it's like, you know, go build this thing.
- 40:42And because, yeah, I think generally I would encourage
- 40:47people to like, read the classics and inject some kind of
- 40:53randomness into their information diet and, and try to
- 40:57like, you know, go back in time and see what people tried in the
- 41:00past and what hasn't worked. I think for us and Airtable, a
- 41:03lot of our inspiration came from reading about the history of
- 41:06computing things like Allen Kay and Hypercard and like the Dream
- 41:09machine, all that. And I think, you know, most
- 41:14stuff that people build has been tried in the past and people
- 41:18just kind of forget about it. And we're in this new technology
- 41:21wave and I, I see a lot of companies kind of like kind of
- 41:24doing the same thing. Maybe they're doing slight,
- 41:26slightly different versions of like agents for this vertical
- 41:29map vertical. There's a ton of opportunity
- 41:31there. But I think like if you can find
- 41:33something, I mean, at least for us, like our experience was like
- 41:35being in a very non competitive space for a long time because
- 41:38we're doing something that nobody else was doing.
- 41:39Everybody else thought it was stupid, which kind of sucked,
- 41:42but it's kind of great to you. So if you can find something
- 41:44like that and you can find you can build a passion for it like
- 41:47that, that's something you should, you should just, you
- 41:49know, work on long term and have a long time horizon on and and
- 41:53you know, if you persist, you can succeed.
- 41:55You know, it really shouldn't be contrarian, but I think it's
- 41:58become contrarian that that it's a good idea to spend like more
- 42:03than 50% of your time talking to customers.
- 42:06There's a lot of, I was talking to Jagannath who was at
- 42:08Instacart for for many years, and there's a lot of founders
- 42:11that are building companies because of some hype of some
- 42:14kind, right? It could be what they think
- 42:17people want them to be building. It also could just be like
- 42:21they're building the version of the company that they think they
- 42:23can raise money for, which is not the version of the company
- 42:27that your customers want. And so customer development is
- 42:31just this really hard thing. You know, if you go and talk to
- 42:3320 people and then 20 more and then every week you have to talk
- 42:36to five more because it's a continuous process, right?
- 42:38And so a lot of times I've heard from founders who have gone and
- 42:42done some customer meetings, gotten the insight right, gone
- 42:45and build the product, shipped it and then said, well, why
- 42:48isn't it working? It's like, well, no, you have to
- 42:50talk to customers continuously all the time, right?
- 42:53So I just don't, I just think that's just a, a lesson I keep
- 42:56having to share with founders, You know, you got to do more
- 42:58customer. Development, SF comeback, like,
- 43:00you know, we've had this sort of like SF is dead, COVID killed
- 43:03it, it's bad, AI brought it back.
- 43:05Like what's your kind of take each of you on?
- 43:07Like what's SF is like, this is tech week, you know, obviously
- 43:10it's a busy week this week, but I'm curious like how you're both
- 43:14seeing that from your perspective.
- 43:15Yeah, it seems like it's back. And I think, I mean, I came here
- 43:18in 2008 and that was, you know, right after the recession and
- 43:22all that. And it is pretty dead.
- 43:24You know, for a while, the people working at Google and
- 43:26Meta and there were some startups, you know, popped up YC
- 43:29companies and what not. But it, it kind of felt a little
- 43:33bit more like people were here to work and not to live and
- 43:36didn't care about the city that much.
- 43:38And it, this kind of feels like a renaissance of people are like
- 43:41that's make San Francisco an awesome place.
- 43:43And it feels more permanent in some ways in terms of maybe it's
- 43:48like, you know, Gary Tan to being like an advocate of the
- 43:50city they didn't used to be that part of like, hey, not only is
- 43:53this the best place to build tech, but this is a great place
- 43:55to live and we can make it a great place to live.
- 43:57So that's been a positive change I think from the last kind of
- 43:59build up up until maybe, you know, 20/18/2020.
- 44:03And then this time, you know, the flip side of that is like, I
- 44:06think there is, you know, a lot of companies that will come and
- 44:09go and we're in like a, a bit of this bubble.
- 44:11And so it'll be kind of like at some point, the, the, the ocean
- 44:15will, the tide will, will go out and, and you know, probably
- 44:19probably wash out a lot of mercenaries that are just kind
- 44:21of here to, to make a buck off of AI.
- 44:23But it does feel like there's a, a positivity and optimism about
- 44:27the city itself and being a resident here.
- 44:29That wasn't the case in the past, which I appreciate.
- 44:33I mean, I, I, I obviously agree. I think I think San Francisco is
- 44:36the best place in the world to build a startup and it's only
- 44:40getting better. And if you believe that in
- 44:43person work is important and, and collaborating with your team
- 44:46in real life is an advantage and there's only one city, you can
- 44:50do that and have everybody be in one place.
- 44:52And I think that's San Francisco.
- 44:53I really actually don't think it ever wasn't.
- 44:56I think it had APR problem for a while, but I think it's a great
- 45:00place to live and I'm going to be here forever.
- 45:03Where can folks find you online and connect with you if they
- 45:05want to follow the things that you're sharing and writing about
- 45:08or or you know, where should folks go?
- 45:11I'm a offset in Twitter, but I don't tweet.
- 45:15Maybe I will someday. Let's go.
- 45:17I'm. I'm Max on Twitter.
- 45:19And I also just, he's at Max. Max.
- 45:21Yeah, he's at Max. Should we talk about that or?
- 45:23That's just. Yeah, it's kind of cool.
- 45:25You're not at Kevin. No, I'm not at Kevin.
- 45:27Yeah, I've, I've been using Twitter since the beginning of
- 45:31Twitter, but I also don't tweet that much.
- 45:33But maybe I will. Maybe.
- 45:33Well, if you follow me, I'll tweet.
- 45:35Yeah, if they get, if you would get a bunch of subscribers today
- 45:38and new Twitter followers, ex followers for.
- 45:40Yeah, for sure. That's going to be the smash
- 45:42that subscribe button. Yeah, smash it like and
- 45:45subscribe. Awesome.
- 45:46Well, this has been fantastic. Thank you, Andrew Austad.
- 45:50Thank you, Max Mullen. What an incredible conversation.
- 45:54Yeah. So you can clap for them,
- 45:55please. A lot of clapping.
- 45:58This is founder mode. Please like, subscribe, smash
- 46:01those buttons, review to tell us who you want to see next time.
- 46:04Max says we can come back now and pull the cyber truck in.
- 46:06So we're doing it. And my name is Jason Shafton.
- 46:09Kevin Henrickson. Thanks for being here everybody.
- 46:11Thanks for having us.