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James Barlia- Reshaping DC Real Estate with Tech Innovation (#133) · Icons of DC Area Real Estate

• 0:00
  John Coe - host: Hi, I am John Coe and welcome to icons of DC Area Real Estate, a one-on-one interview show featuring the backgrounds career trajectories and insights of the top luminaries in the Washington DC area real estate market. The purpose of the show was to explore their journeys, how they got started, the pivotal moments that shaped their careers and the lessons they've learned along the way.
• 0:35
  John Coe - host: We also dive into their current work industry trends and some fascinating behind the scenes stories that bring unique perspective to our industry, commercial real estate. Before we dive into today's conversation, I'd like to share some exciting news, the icons of DC Area Real Estate Podcast. Is now part of the iconic journey in CREA nonprofit dedicated to supporting professionals at every stage of their real estate careers.
• 1:08
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• 1:45
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• 2:13
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• 2:40
  John Coe - host: Thank you for being part of this journey. And now let's get started with today's guest. Welcome to another episode of Icons of DC Area Real Estate. For today's show, we have a unique guest joining us, James Barley, who is currently the executive director of Station dc, an initiative described as a private members club for Frontier tech innovators, investors, and policy makers focused on advancing American National Interest Station.
• 3:13
  John Coe - host: DC provides a physical space in union market for work meetings and events, along with education, mentorship, and policy intelligence to help members advance their missions. The mission of Station DC is to shape a future where American technological leadership endures and where DC is at the forefront of frontier innovation.
• 3:38
  John Coe - host: Before station leading station DC James was the vice president of Revolutions Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Led by Steve Case, the founder of a OL, and focuses on investing in startups located outside the traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. James. Path to the venture capital was influenced by growing up here in DC with an entrepreneurial father and early experiences learning about various companies and business models.
• 4:11
  John Coe - host: We've invited James to the podcast because of his role, role leading station dc, which is seen as an incubator for tech talent in the DC area. This initiative is as a potential to be a driver in bringing employment and subsequently real estate growth to the city. James aims to inspire confidence in those solving critical national problems and make their lives easier.
• 4:39
  John Coe - host: While also contributing to the economic development resilience opportunity, and divers diversification away from the federal government in DC and the region. In this episode, we'll delve into James origin story and what drew him to the venture capital space. We'll discuss the resilience and adaptability of the DC tech ecosystem, which reflecting on events like the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which was previously a haven for DC founders will also explore the impact of large tech expansions like Amazon's HQ two in Arlington on the surrounding residential and commercial real estate markets in the DC metro area.
• 5:20
  John Coe - host: Given the high vacancy in commercial real estate in DC and the ongoing downtown redevelopment efforts aimed at changing office buildings into residential. We'll discuss innovative ways tech startups might utilize these reimagined spaces and the role of venture capital. In this transition, James anticipates a potential influx of startups in DC created by individuals leaving tech companies driven partly by the need to engage with policymakers in Washington on regulated industries and national interest sectors.
• 5:56
  John Coe - host: The trend is expected to influence the demand for different types of real estate, for both commercial operations and housing. For founders and employees, we'll explore the unique strengths and opportunities. DC offers the tech ecosystem to attract investment and foster growth in key technological sectors, leveraging existing diverse SE sectors like government, finance, and life sciences.
• 6:23
  John Coe - host: We'll also touch upon the Washington DC Metro real estate market, noting trends like rising inventory. Fluctuating buyer demand, changing home prices in various sub-markets, and the influence of federal workforce shifts and potential layoffs. Finally, James will offer his perspective on the most important advice for young professionals aiming to build successful careers and contribute to the region's growth in the coming years.
• 6:50
  John Coe - host: So without further ado, please join me in introducing James Barley. James Barley, welcome to icons of DC area real estate. Thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it.
• 7:04
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 7:06
  John Coe - host: So you are by far the youngest guest for this podcast, and I wanted to invite you because of your new role leading station dc basically an incubator for tech talent in the DC area, as well as a potential driver to bringing employment and subsequently real estate growth to the city.
• 7:26
  John Coe - host: Please share your role as you see it. The mission of Station DC at a high level as we will delve into more detail later.
• 7:35
  James Barley - guest: Sure. Well, first, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I am, I know. I'm the, the youngest guest by far. Hopefully I'm a little bit of a lightning rod. I feel like that's my intention with a lot of the conversations that I joined.
• 7:48
  James Barley - guest: I, I generally think that if I'm the dumbest person in the room at all times that I'm doing something right. And I also can hopefully be the most provocative person in the room and kind of like question how we often think about solving problems. So, um, the, currently the executive director of Station DC officially joined a few months ago, although I've been batting this idea around with our founding team for basically a year and a half.
• 8:15
  James Barley - guest: I mean, I think my role primarily is to inspire confidence in folks that are solving really important, really critical and pressing problems. The national interest and not just inspire confidence, but help make their life easier a little bit. But what, what we are at Station DC is we are, we're a private members club for frontier tech innovators, investors, and policy makers that are advancing American national interest.
• 8:41
  James Barley - guest: What we do is we have a physical space that is being built out in Union Market. It's 13,000 square feet right above pastis. It can be used for daily work, for private meetings, for, you know, mid-size gatherings and, you know, 500 person summits. We host our own events and so that's anything from a 500 person summit to a 25 person invite only policy dinner.
• 9:04
  James Barley - guest: We provide education and mentorship, and we provide policy intelligence that can all be used to, you know, advance the missions of our members. I think in broad strokes, our mission is to help shape a future where American technological leadership endures. Where DC is at the forefront of frontier innovation.
• 9:24
  James Barley - guest: I think if we do that, there is certainly an economic development trend or aspect to our success, and that we're attracting and retaining more business here. We're creating more economic resilience in the city or in the district. And in the region. We're creating more economic opportunity in the district.
• 9:43
  James Barley - guest: And in the region. We're creating some economic diversification away from the federal government, and hopefully we are like, we're setting the district up for long-term success in that we're creating jobs of the future. We're attracting and we're retaining talent, and we're positioning ourselves to be the most important, to continue to be the most important, most powerful city in the world, but also to be, you know, the most innovative, most inventive, and you know, best place in the world to raise a family.
• 10:11
  John Coe - host: That's great. Thank you. Thanks.
• 10:13
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 10:13
  John Coe - host: So when you were vice president and you were. Right before here, vice President of Revolution's, rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Mm-hmm. Which is Steve Case's Company. That's, he started to go outside actually the, the area to go raise money to invest in, you know, Midwest and Southern and you know, more secondary market funds.
• 10:38
  John Coe - host: What pivotal experiences or values from your upbringing and early career led you to focus on investing in startups outside of the traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley?
• 10:48
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm.
• 10:48
  John Coe - host: Could you elaborate on your origin story and the initial spark that drew you to venture capital space, if you could.
• 10:54
  James Barley - guest: Sure.
• 10:55
  James Barley - guest: So I grew up in dc I'm a black sheep. I grew up originally in like Cathedral Heights and then we moved up towards Au Park in Spring Valley and my dad is an entrepreneur. Started his career actually in real estate, in the real estate business and then pivoted to start a renewable energy company. I, I wanna say it was like 20 years ago.
• 11:15
  James Barley - guest: And so it was probably call it like the first wave of like clean tech or green tech, you know, 10 years before, maybe a few years after it was, you know, super hot and 10 years before. It was really cool. Now, and I don't know, you see that as a little kid and like, you want to, you know, you want to copy that and like imitate it.
• 11:34
  James Barley - guest: Is he
• 11:34
  John Coe - host: still doing
• 11:35
  James Barley - guest: it? He's not still doing it now he is. I don't know, consulting, advising startups, but like the conversation frequently around the dinner table was about what he was doing. He, you know, a couple times, like I would, I went with him on business trips. He had a facility in North Carolina, I wanna say in Pennsylvania and Oregon, and I saw the one out in Oregon.
• 11:54
  James Barley - guest: So it was cool, like, you know, go with your dad and like see him do his work and also see him solve problems that are like critically important, which is like, we need more energy, we need more sustainable, durable, reliable energy. And that's what he was working on. Was
• 12:06
  John Coe - host: he using alternative sources? Is that what he was Yeah,
• 12:08
  James Barley - guest: I'm gonna, I, I don't know the right term.
• 12:10
  James Barley - guest: I don't think it's biofuel, but they were taking cow manure, cow and pig manure and burning it and interesting capturing the methane and then selling that to the grid. So it was pretty wild, I guess. But, so I saw that and then, you know, like I'm around the neighborhood, you know, wash cars, power wash, lawn, mow, like with my friends.
• 12:29
  James Barley - guest: And then in high school I. I would say there was like a reasonably crucible moment and credit to my teacher at the time, mark Sein. I started a toothpaste company, which was really like a school project gone wrong. There's a company that's now called Bite Toothpaste, where they're these like solidified toothpaste, tablets that you can order on subscription.
• 12:49
  James Barley - guest: That is exactly what we were intending to do. We saw the Dollar Shave Club got acquired for a billion dollars and me and my classmates were basically like, what else do you order on repeat? And like buy, I was, it was a bolus.
• 13:02
  John Coe - host: A bolus? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In Tell Uhhuh. Sure.
• 13:05
  James Barley - guest: And we were you, we were basically, that was like the, that was the thesis was what do people buy on like a monthly cadence?
• 13:11
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. And how can we turn this into a subscription? We failed miserably in the course of like two years. During that though, we met an individual who, he was an angel investor. I actually think he ran a. The like entrepreneurship center at University of Maryland. His name was Jason, Jason Reky, and somewhere along the lines, we met with him like every month or so.
• 13:32
  James Barley - guest: I just learned more and more about what he was doing, which it felt like he was like a professional learner. Like all he had to do was learn about companies and people and markets and business models and get to understand people like very deeply and then invest in them and dedicate time, resources, and dollars to 'em.
• 13:51
  James Barley - guest: And I always thought, I thought that that was like pretty noble. So that's when the seed was planted. Few years later, I interned at 1776, which was like the original tech incubator in dc. First day I showed up was sitting shoulder to shoulder with founders that were solving, you know, one was creating like a smart gun technology to lock like firearms.
• 14:13
  James Barley - guest: Another one was, you know, creating like an energy financing company. And another one was, you know, helping. Create more resilience supply chains in Africa. And I was like, this is cool. These are the people that I want to surround myself with. Mm-hmm. And the rest has essentially been history since there. I went to Tulane University after that.
• 14:31
  James Barley - guest: I worked for a firm called Greenspring Associates, and it was really when I was at Greenspring that I like learned about the rise of the rest thesis. So Green Spring is a fund to funds and a growth equity firm. So we would invest in venture capital funds here in dc, in Baltimore. In Baltimore. We would invest in venture capital firms, identify the top performing companies in those funds, and then invest in those companies directly.
• 14:52
  James Barley - guest: So take multiple bites outta the apple. When I was there, I was mainly investing in seed funds and impact focused venture capital funds.
• 14:59
  John Coe - host: Who's behind that phone? That group?
• 15:01
  James Barley - guest: Ashton Newhall was. He was the founder of it. Mm-hmm. I was, Ashley Newhall, Jim Lamb were the like tow managing partners when I was there.
• 15:09
  James Barley - guest: And then I reported and I worked very closely with John Averitt and Hunter Somerville who were GPS there. Adaire Newhall, who's a GP there, say on K. So was it
• 15:18
  John Coe - host: a venture capital firm in
• 15:19
  James Barley - guest: essence? Yeah. Yeah, it was. Okay. Anyways, you know, it was probably a year in there and we started to be a little bit more intentional about investing in venture capital funds that were investing outside of San Francisco, New York City and Boston.
• 15:33
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. Because we looked at our returns from a like company perspective, and the majority of our returns were generated from ExactTarget, which is a software company that's based in Indianapolis and Chewy, which was a software, you know, like e-commerce company that's based in, I think St. Petersburg, Florida.
• 15:53
  James Barley - guest: If the fund investing was a mechanism to create the flywheel to invest directly into the companies, we wanted to invest in funds that were investing outside the traditional geographies. That's when I learned about Revolution. I ended up being in a meeting with the partners of Revolution's Growth Fund.
• 16:10
  James Barley - guest: They're talking about Rise of the Rest, which is this new burgeoning strategy to invest in early stage companies outside San Francisco, New York City, and Boston. And it was based in DC and they happened to be hiring at the time because their associate was leaving to go to business school and stars aligned.
• 16:29
  James Barley - guest: I reached out to the team, had some chemistry with David Hall and Anna Mason, and believed in the team, believed in the strategy, and believed in the mission. And I joined there about four and a half, five years ago and have been doing that full time up until three or four months ago.
• 16:46
  John Coe - host: What did you learn there?
• 16:47
  James Barley - guest: I learn, I mean, innovation is everywhere. Like it is not, it is very much so distributed throughout the country and it is not concentrated to just San Francisco and New York City and Boston. Mm-hmm. Uh, I learned that there, there can't, like, place can definitely be a competitive advantage. I think why, you know, if you think about why businesses are based in any specific city, it's because there is a network effect that is specific to their industry or specific to their company in that city.
• 17:14
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. And that there is talent, capital, knowledge, and customers that are all based there. Yep. And so if thought of appropriately there is, there is an investment thesis to be built that is like all around place and capturing alpha and non-traditional geographies. I learned, I mean this is like, it sounds so obvious, but like people matter.
• 17:32
  James Barley - guest: People are everything. Like I think after the first few investments that I made that, you know, ended up. Not generating a ton of dollars back to the fund or any dollars at all. Yeah. I was like really obsessed with the idea and I wasn't necessarily obsessed with like the people or the markets. And so I started to read a lot of like psychology and philosophy and history books and you know, like every in, in any diligence process that we had, it was almost entirely focused around the individuals and the people and like understanding what their motivation was and like why they had a chip on their shoulder and, you know, what they wanted to prove and who they wanted to prove it to.
• 18:08
  John Coe - host: What patterns were you looking for among the, uh, investments that you guys made and what did you, what discerned why you made an investment with someone and why you didn't?
• 18:21
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, I mean, I think there's like, there were like two primary levers. The first is I'll talk about the individuals first. Like there, there they were out to prove something to someone and it was more often than not something that cannot.
• 18:37
  James Barley - guest: Cannot actually be proved to the person that they wanna prove it to. Like for example, they might have had a bad breakup earlier in their life. They might have a bad relationship with one or multiple of their parents or their siblings. They had a chip on their shoulder, maybe they were bullied, maybe they didn't fit in.
• 18:50
  James Barley - guest: Like, and they were proving to, it was really to themselves that they were capable of what they think they're capable of. But in a way, like psychologically, you're trying to prove it to someone else. So we're kind looking for, for people who are like almost like had to screw loose in a good way. And, and then also like they're just, I guess a different way of saying that is like, are so intrinsically motivated that when their back is against the wall, they're still gonna wake up every day.
• 19:15
  James Barley - guest: So
• 19:15
  John Coe - host: an Elon Musk type person Yes. Is what you're
• 19:18
  James Barley - guest: looking for. I mean, sure. Yeah. It'd be great to invest in ex Elon Musk someone Yeah. That's so intrinsically motivated that they will just Right. Like put forth a relentless effort every single day, um, in advancing their mission. And then I think I. On the market side of things, we were looking for people who understood, who saw something that others didn't years before others saw it.
• 19:38
  James Barley - guest: And so they have some unique insight that is
• 19:41
  John Coe - host: discerning that. Yeah. What you just said
• 19:44
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 19:45
  John Coe - host: Is not one meeting. It's gotta take time, not take time to figure that
• 19:48
  James Barley - guest: out. Yeah.
• 19:49
  John Coe - host: So, you know, were there trigger points that you got a sense that, okay, this guy or this lady's got it, she's, she
• 19:56
  James Barley - guest: or she's gonna gonna
• 19:58
  John Coe - host: be the, the right person?
• 20:00
  James Barley - guest: I mean, I feel like one thing I learned is like the first probably year or so of investing Yep. I would start with very basic questions like, tell me about the problem and this solution and you know, like, what are the market dynamics and who are you competing with and what's your business model and like, what's the go-to market strategy?
• 20:15
  James Barley - guest: And it was, I was like, I think I was really just trying to like fundamentally understand what it's, that they were doing. Probably like a year or so in, I started to pivot and like, I mean the, the quality of the answer is directly or like correlated to the quality of the question. Of course. And I would start asking questions like.
• 20:32
  James Barley - guest: Tell me about your childhood, and you know what, that's why. Tell me about a cruc moment. Like, why did you end up going to this college or Yeah. You know, you kind of like listen for these like subtle cues about why it is they made a specific decision that they made and then you start to like really peel back the layers and understand them as people.
• 20:50
  James Barley - guest: And, but that takes, like, that takes time. You don't get to know someone in 30 minutes. You get to know someone over the course of several meetings. Ideally in person, you sit with 'em, you share a meeting with 'em, see how they interact with the wait staff. Like take time. Also references are very important.
• 21:05
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. Both like, you know, reference chat or like references that they give you. And then off book references you see who you're connected with or who they may have worked with in the past that you know, and you know, you can kind of reach out to those folks and try to build like a 360 perspective on the individuals.
• 21:21
  James Barley - guest: But I don't know. I also think that. There's a lot of it that's gut. There's a lot of venture. That's luck too. But a lot of like understanding people is kind of like gut and intuition. Yeah. And like it is someone who's like deeply passionate about something and thinks about things differently. I think you can, you pick up on that pretty quickly and then hopefully you just can, you know, over the course of the conversations that you have or interactions that you have, you're building like a more complete picture.
• 21:48
  James Barley - guest: Interesting. Of why that person is how they are. So
• 21:52
  John Coe - host: I don't know if you've ever read or followed Paul Graham. Mm-hmm. Found it. Supply combination.
• 21:56
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, for sure.
• 21:57
  John Coe - host: So he wrote a long essay about how he chooses his investment strategies. Yeah. And he says in 10 minutes. Mm-hmm. He and his wife concern who they're gonna invest in.
• 22:09
  John Coe - host: And he has a process doing that. And it's mostly his wife's. She, he said she is better at picking. And it's a gut feeling. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. But in 10 minutes they do it. And I said, it just, it seems to me that's almost incomprehensible. Yeah. That you can make, you know. But he said their bets are not that big and they're, they go into this Combinator Pro you're familiar with.
• 22:32
  John Coe - host: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why
• 22:33
  James Barley - guest: it's the best model in venture capital.
• 22:35
  John Coe - host: It's
• 22:36
  James Barley - guest: because it's
• 22:36
  John Coe - host: really a training exercise and they could kick people out over that process. Yeah. If it doesn't work. Yeah. But it's in essence, tiny experiments with people to kind of pick
• 22:46
  James Barley - guest: mm-hmm. To see what it works. 10 minutes is quick. I feel like you can have like an intuition, your intuition can lead you to believe something in 10 minutes, but then, I don't know, at least I would love to continue to like build a complete picture.
• 22:58
  John Coe - host: Interesting. I just asked that question over, over time, but I mean, I
• 23:00
  James Barley - guest: think you can, you can learn things pretty quickly. I also think like with any relationship, like, I don't know, some people, there are some conversations that you have where like it's a clear narrative and, and the individual is like maybe more closed off and trying to, you know, present as something different.
• 23:16
  James Barley - guest: And then. That's something different than they are. And then in some conversations people show up to the meeting and they're like, let me tell you about why I wanna do this. I was, you know, X, y, Z happened when I was 10 years old and it totally changed the trajectory of my life. And you know, I've always wanted to solve this problem.
• 23:32
  James Barley - guest: And then I worked in this industry for 10 years and I learned about it and you know, next thing you know, I have this like totally novel solution to this like really critically important problem.
• 23:42
  John Coe - host: Great. So considering the collapse of Silicone Valley Bank, an institution that was a haven for DC founders, what key insights did you gain about the resilience and adaptability of the DC tech ecosystem?
• 23:58
  John Coe - host: How do you believe this event has shaped the approach of your generation towards financial planning and risk management within the startup world?
• 24:09
  John Coe - host: Because that was a quote from you. Oh really? Is that, is that sound?
• 24:14
  James Barley - guest: I mean, like it was, I don't know if Black Swan is the right term, but that plus COVID, three years earlier, Silicon Valley make was 23 or 24. I think it was 23. It was 23. That plus the pandemic three years earlier. I mean, like, you even layer in some of the like uncertainty right now and some of the, you know, some of the policies that are like shaping, you know, everyday business.
• 24:38
  James Barley - guest: It, it's a little bit of like a reality check for founders and that there are, I mean, hopefully it allows individuals to think more about what the, like catastrophic risk can, can be for their business and then plan for that. So, you know, I do think like immediately following the SVB collapse, like treasury management and like treasury ops became a lot more visible and like almost in some cases became its own like dedicated slide in a board deck, just so.
• 25:11
  James Barley - guest: There was peace of mind for founders and board members that like the, I mean, yeah, that like their, their bank account was, their bank accounts were like, like appropriately mitigating risk.
• 25:25
  John Coe - host: So is that even an issue when you made your initial investments with your founders?
• 25:31
  James Barley - guest: I don't think that I was thinking about it.
• 25:33
  James Barley - guest: I mean, like treasury management, I don't think that I was thinking I probably should have been, but I wasn't. Yeah, and I mean, it, it like, you know, adversity creates, it creates resilience and like, it was certainly a shock to the system. And I also think it demonstrated, you know, founders were like really supporting each other.
• 25:51
  James Barley - guest: I know that there were group texts that were started and founders were referring each other to their, you know, banking partners and helping each other out. Venture firms were help helping each other out. I also think there were venture firms that were like. Really quickly acting and like providing these like overnight, you know, bridge loans to companies mm-hmm.
• 26:08
  James Barley - guest: To shore up their balance sheet and provide them with more runway. But I mean, if anything, like, it just creates, like, it created a new environment where like, or not a new environment, just an evol, an evolution of the previous environment, which is like, like more paranoia and like paranoia being kind of the new runway and like having to think about all of these like, catastrophic risks to the business.
• 26:30
  James Barley - guest: But I mean. Things don't always happen for the best, but you can always make the best outta things that happen. Like the good founders are gonna be one that learn from that experience and then compare themselves to the future
• 26:41
  John Coe - host: industry. The industry worked around that issue.
• 26:43
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, very, very, very quickly. I mean, I remember the weekend I was in the office the entire weekend.
• 26:47
  James Barley - guest: We were going through our entire portfolio figuring out who had exposure, who didn't have exposure, those who didn't have exposure, you know, who else was on the cap table, how can we work together to basically like bridge the gap for the next week, three weeks, six weeks. And it ended up, you know, kind of, sort of working itself out pretty quickly, but it was the cruise weekend.
• 27:05
  John Coe - host: So with the opening of Amazon's HQ two in Arlington, how do you assess the, the direct and indirect impact of such large tech expansions in the surrounding residential and commercial real estate markets in in the DC metro area? What specific opportunities or challenges do you foresee emerging from,
• 27:26
  James Barley - guest: I mean, the ripple effects of something.
• 27:29
  James Barley - guest: Like HQ two should be undeniable in that it hopefully would attract more talent here. That talent needs more places to live, which means that real estate prices increase assuming, you know, supply kind of holds. Also, those individuals, you know, need to send their children to schools. If they're having families, they need a coffee shop to go to.
• 27:54
  James Barley - guest: Like the ripple effects economically should be a wonderful thing. I do think specifically, like I think Amazon HQ two, it was marketed as bringing 25,000 jobs here, and I don't necessarily, I wanna say the number's closer to 10,000. I know phase two is paused right now. I do know that like Arlington, Arlington County's median home price since whenever the project kicked off, or even since when h when HPT opened, I, I believe it has continued to increase.
• 28:24
  James Barley - guest: I don't, I don't have enough of the data around. Retail performance, but I mean like in broad strokes should be a great thing. I also think that like chasing whales is an economic development strategy. They're like very splashy and very visible winds when actually like a more efficient, potentially more effective strategy is instead of like whale hunting, like high volume, high velocity bet's on smaller businesses and startups because small businesses grow into big businesses and net new jobs are actually not created by like the magnificent seven or the same stocks.
• 28:58
  James Barley - guest: Net new jobs are created by startups and small businesses that are growing. And so, I mean, my hope is that like, yes, it's amazing. I'm, I don't want it to get lost. I'm super pumped that Amazon is here and all the talent they have is here. But I also hope that like all of the local governments can learn from the experience and hopefully use it to like adjust how we think about how.
• 29:23
  James Barley - guest: Investing time, dollars and resources and attracting and retaining future business here. And my hope is that it is very aggressively leaning towards startups,
• 29:33
  John Coe - host: small businesses, frontier innovation. So to some extent it was a, it was a massive stimulant perhaps to the ecosystem of tech in the region? I believe so.
• 29:43
  John Coe - host: Yeah.
• 29:43
  James Barley - guest: I
• 29:43
  John Coe - host: mean, I, I think so. Okay. I don't know.
• 29:46
  James Barley - guest: I don't know. I, I don't know any anecdotes of like Amazon founders that are spinning out or Amazon employees that are spinning out and starting their own companies. But I think economically speaking, like in absolute terms, home prices increased. I think retail performance increased.
• 30:01
  James Barley - guest: So like it was
• 30:02
  John Coe - host: a net good thing. Well, JBG Smith is betting big on that performance and I hope it works out. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Given your perspective on high vacancy in commercial real estate in DC and the ongoing downtown development redevelopment efforts. What innovative ways do you envision tech startups potentially utilizing these reimagined spaces?
• 30:24
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm.
• 30:25
  John Coe - host: And what role can venture capital play in facilitating such transitions?
• 30:31
  James Barley - guest: So anecdotally, I've been meeting with a lot of founders over the past few months as perspective station DC members. And a pretty consistent piece of feedback that I receive. And this is like international, like national, international founders.
• 30:47
  James Barley - guest: These are not founders that are based in addition to founders that are based in dc They're often looking for flexible, flexible office space. 'cause again, they're like small businesses and maybe they start with five employees. Mm-hmm. And you know, they're, they are successful and so they need to scale that five to 25.
• 31:03
  James Barley - guest: And so they need like flexible office space that can support that growth. And I'm thinking very specifically about an example of a company that's based in Tel Aviv that is expanding aggressively into the United States. You know, primarily selling into federal government and, you know, Pentagon. And they're building out a team here, and they're like, we're probably gonna start with three people, but that three is gonna turn 25 very, very quickly.
• 31:29
  James Barley - guest: Like, we don't want to be locked into mm-hmm. Uh, an office space that can't service our needs moving forward. So, I mean, that is, that's like a primary factor. I do think, you know, I think I actually do, I think it's an Elon Musk like approach to problem solving where it's basically like, don't tell me why it, why we can't do this.
• 31:48
  James Barley - guest: Tell me like what it would take to make this work. And I think as we, as we like reimagine fiscal space, I mean, you mentioned what we were talking about this earlier, about like putting data centers downtown or putting like a small modular nuclear reactor downtown. Like why, what would it take to make that work?
• 32:03
  James Barley - guest: I just think like it creates. It will require a lot more creativity. I know that Mayor Bowser, I think, has a program where it's like, I think repurposing federal, off federal office buildings and creating more housing there. I think there's some types, abatement.
• 32:17
  John Coe - host: Let's aim this at my audience a little bit here.
• 32:20
  John Coe - host: Sure. So in addition to, to the young professionals, and there are some landlords that listen to this podcast as well, that own properties in downtown Washington. Yep. So if, if you were giving advice to them, you just talked about flexibility and space. Yeah. What would you do, what would you offer to them to think about and if they haven't already, as far as their office space to accommodate potential growth tenants and what, what could facilitate that for, for users?
• 32:53
  James Barley - guest: Hmm. What advice would you give? I mean, lease, lease terms, like more flexibility and lease terms, leaving more in the upside than the downside. It's hard to say. I don't think it's one size fits one. Like, I guess my one piece of advice would be do what you can to get in front of founders and like those potential tenants and just listen to them.
• 33:12
  James Barley - guest: Like ask them what their questions are. Ask 'em what's keeping 'em up at night. Ask them why they wouldn't be a tenant in, you know, your property. And then see if there's a solution that you can create to like
• 33:24
  John Coe - host: attract those way Space is procured in this city typically is through the brokerage community.
• 33:30
  John Coe - host: Sure. So to me, I would sense that you'd wanna network with them Yeah. Be able to work with them mm-hmm. Carefully and educate them on being able to translate what the user needs to the, to the landlord per say. The landlords may not have the time. To focus on finding the tenants per se. Some do, some have their own internal brokerage units to do that.
• 33:55
  John Coe - host: Yeah. But if it's a large user, what you're talking about are five to 10,000 square foot users probably. Yeah. Yeah. That it takes time to do that. Mm-hmm. So if you're a hustling young broker mm-hmm. Let's say, yeah. Those are the kind of people you're wanting to, to network with, to grow. Yeah, absolutely. And then of course the, the relationships there, foster growth, obviously.
• 34:16
  John Coe - host: Yeah. It all compound the ecosystem.
• 34:17
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 34:17
  John Coe - host: It
• 34:18
  James Barley - guest: all compounds. And then, you know, you do a good job. As, as a landlord, you do good by your tenants. They're gonna tell other tenants or they're gonna tell other prospective tenants that they should be working with you. And it kind of creates like this compounding effect.
• 34:31
  James Barley - guest: But I also totally defer to you on, like, I don't, well, I'm not a, I'm not a real estate expert by any means, but my advice would be guys front of these tenants and listen to them. Food for
• 34:40
  John Coe - host: thought for your group Yeah. For station DC potentially is to set up a way for founders that you meet mm-hmm. To interact with the real estate community.
• 34:50
  John Coe - host: Yeah. In a way to make it very clear to them what they, what they need. Yeah. Their flexibility, what terms work for them. And then, you know, you know, these people that own buildings have to finance them.
• 35:02
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm.
• 35:03
  John Coe - host: And to raise money, you have to have some certainty of, of, of income. Yeah. So if you don't have certainty of income, it's hard to get a lease negotiated and done.
• 35:13
  John Coe - host: Sure. To some extent you can speculate on a tenant. If it goes outta business in a year, that doesn't give much security to the investors behind the buildings. That's right. So it's a, if, if you put your real estate ownership hat on. Yeah. So this is, it's a dynamic, a group like yours could understand what I'm saying.
• 35:32
  John Coe - host: I mean, I also have, see what I'm saying? High
• 35:34
  James Barley - guest: appetite for? For big appetite. For risk. So I think about this a little bit differently. Yeah. I don't know how you mitigate that. Maybe it's like multipurpose.
• 35:41
  John Coe - host: Uh, well, normally it's a multi mix space. A mix. You know, if you have, just like in venture capital, you have a bucket of investments that you make.
• 35:50
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. You maybe get successful with 10 to 20% of those investments maybe, and the rest don't make it. Yep. Real estate investors can't afford that kind of a risk spectrum, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has to be much tighter than that. More like the other extreme, 80% have to succeed probably. Yeah. For them to be viable.
• 36:09
  John Coe - host: So there's the framework i'd I set forth for you to think through. Yeah. Because your group could be an intermediary between real estate and tech. Oh, absolutely. And that's, so that's the whole idea.
• 36:19
  James Barley - guest: That is our, that is, okay. One of the outcomes that we hope we're successful at achieving. All right,
• 36:26
  John Coe - host: so this is where I'm going with this conversation, so you understand what I'm trying to get to here.
• 36:31
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. You mentioned a potential influx of startups in dcs created by individuals having tech companies. What factors do you believe are driving this trend, and how do you think this will influence the demand for different types of real estate? Both for commercial operations and for founders and employees and themselves in the DC region.
• 36:51
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm.
• 36:52
  James Barley - guest: Let's see. I think what's driving the trend is, I'll give a very specific example. Okay. You look at inauguration and sitting one row behind president was Jeff Bezos, mark Zuckerberg, Sam Alman, I don't know who else, but you know, five of the CEOs of the biggest tech companies in the world. Like they are very clearly playing the policy game.
• 37:14
  James Barley - guest: And they are also innovating in sectors that are absolutely critical to our national security and to like American national interests. Our adversaries are becoming more adversarial or more aggressive, and we are faced with problems in space energy, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, defense, national security that require like very innovative solutions.
• 37:38
  James Barley - guest: If you are successful in innovating, you know, if you have a solution that works. In order to really unlock like meaningful scale and distribution in any of those sectors and really in any regulated industry, which, if you are innovating in technology, you will probably be regulated at some point. You have to come to DC and you have to build relationships in Washington DC because you, you are either going to shape the policy to your advantage or someone else is, and you can't get caught in your back feet.
• 38:04
  James Barley - guest: And so I think that is creating an environment where more founders are spending time in Washington DC and sometimes that means that they just need, you know, there's one or two employees or maybe they're coming here once a quarter or so. But again, if they're successful, they're going to be spending more and more time in DC And so there needs to be like this flexibility and a product or multiple products or groups like ours that provide that gateway, like to the city.
• 38:33
  James Barley - guest: So I think that's, that is like what is really driving the demand, which is like innovative innovation and you know, critical industries. And the fact that. I think Silicon Valley has woken up to the fact that like DC is not an adversary. If anything, we, and when I say we, I mean like the federal government and the regulators here are a necessary ally for them.
• 38:55
  James Barley - guest: And so it creates a world where there's a lot more founders spending time here and potentially even like building their companies here because as I said earlier, there is, you know, in any place that they're locating, they're looking for, founders are primarily looking for talent, customers, knowledge and capital.
• 39:14
  James Barley - guest: And I actually think DC has, has all of those things.
• 39:17
  John Coe - host: Interestingly, last year I heard a podcast with Mark Andreessen. Mm-hmm. And Ben Horowitz on their a, whatever the name of their podcast it's called, and they talked about the upcoming election at the time, thinking that who listens to, to the tech industry right now, better than anyone else, and believe it or not.
• 39:41
  John Coe - host: They believe that the Trump administration was gonna be the better choice at the time
• 39:45
  James Barley - guest: Yep.
• 39:46
  John Coe - host: To come in because they have more of a private sector imp, you know, look at things Yeah. Than, than the Biden, you know, Harris group had, and I don't want to get into politics here, but I just want to say that since Trump has been elected, he's done some things that not necessarily are beneficial to business.
• 40:09
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. In the trade technologies and things. Mm-hmm. So it's been kind of a mixed bag from a business perspective so far. My question is how is D how is DC gonna change and will there be a different mindset here because of that administration here? And how does tech, how tech looks at it? Will there have some that administration have some impact on that from a tech standpoint?
• 40:33
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, I mean, if you look at the administration itself, there are a lot of former tech founders and investors that are in the admin. Like, you know, David Sachs, Michael JD Vance, and Elon. Musk. And Elon. Yeah. I mean, you know, it creates a lot more visibility. I mean, like if you, if you think about the second and third order effects of, so you know, there are those folks that are also spending a lot more time here.
• 40:55
  James Barley - guest: That means that they're like their friends and their investors and folks that they invest with and their portfolio companies are also spending more time here. Andrews and Horowitz, they have an office here. General Catalyst set it up to set up an office here. There are a lot of firms that are kind of building these like satellite DC offices, and that's creating a trend again, like more capitalists spending time here.
• 41:17
  James Barley - guest: Whether it's, whether they're actually like setting up investment teams here or just as, or just policy offices. That kind of like moves both directions, but it creates a lot more visibility. I also think like if you actually think about the, you know, the influence of some of the like federal layoffs and how that, you know, how that like should shape the DC economy again, like there, we, we absolutely have to have more like economic diversification away from the federal government.
• 41:50
  James Barley - guest: Yes. Like it is an, it is not just a moral issue, it is like an economic development issue. It is a national competitiveness issue. We cannot rely on the government as much as we have historically. There's a lot of talent that's available. My hope is that we at station C can be like a megaphone for all of the wonderful companies that are building here.
• 42:11
  James Barley - guest: Help them. Almost higher, like the next generation of great talent that they're looking for. And then we can be more economically resilient and there's more opportunity here where it's not just people come here because they are working for the government, but maybe they come here because they are working with the government to solve really, really big, important problems.
• 42:32
  John Coe - host: That's great. Reflecting on your journey into the tech and venture capital world, were there specific individuals, mentors or events that significantly influenced your path? What early experiences solidified your, your interest in fostering innovation and supporting entrepreneurship?
• 42:54
  James Barley - guest: I mean, my dad initially see that growing up, but like I would say first influence in entrepreneurship and innovation. I. Specifically in Venture, Jake Kin, he's on our board. He's an investor. He is a founding partner of a firm called Shore Wind Capital, anchored by David Rubenstein. They invest in, you know, like foundational industries.
• 43:18
  James Barley - guest: He's been very much so like a mentor and supporter of mine for my entire career. That's great. First two bosses I ever had at Greenspring were Anthony G. Brown and Steven West. They taught me how to work hard. You know, there's a lot of folks that I like text with and chat with on a day-to-day basis. But you know, Anna Mason, who's also on our board, David Hall, who's my you boss at Revolution, Steve at Revolution.
• 43:46
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. You know, the rest of the team at Green springing too. I don't know, like there's a lot of there I've been, I'm very fortunate and grateful that there, I've had the chance to interact with a lot of like very smart people who've been very generous with
• 43:57
  John Coe - host: the, who motivated you to, to get into philosophy and, you know, the broader perspective and the multidisciplinary approach to the business Chief investing, I don't know if it
• 44:05
  James Barley - guest: was
• 44:06
  John Coe - host: one person
• 44:07
  James Barley - guest: individually, but if you study the, like greatest investors of all time mm-hmm.
• 44:13
  James Barley - guest: Your greatest venture investors of all time and you listen to, you read what they write and you listen to podcasts that they, that they do. A lot of times. I actually think it was like a Doug Onion interview on invest, like the best. He was just like, he spent, they spent probably 45 minutes, or sorry, an hour and 45 minutes just talking about how he evaluates individuals.
• 44:35
  James Barley - guest: I was like, oh, that's weird. Like they never talked about business models. Who is Doug the
• 44:38
  John Coe - host: founder of?
• 44:39
  James Barley - guest: He was the former chairman or maybe current chairman of Sequoia. Sequoia. That's what I thought. They're
• 44:44
  John Coe - host: one
• 44:44
  James Barley - guest: of the anchor
• 44:45
  John Coe - host: firms.
• 44:45
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, it was Don Valentine and dad, Doug Leon and Mike Maritz. And I don't know, like the more that you study the most successful investors, venture capital investors ever, the more you like realize that they spend a lot of their time opining or learning about individuals and markets.
• 45:03
  James Barley - guest: And so then I started reading. I also, I also like, I think quickly realized that a lot of, like a venture capital investor's job is almost like investigative journalism. Yes. And like you, you have to have like a strong foundational understanding of like psychology. And so I started reading more psychology, which then kind of like led me down the path, path of like philosophy.
• 45:26
  James Barley - guest: Which then led me down. Mm-hmm. I basically only read psychology biographies or history all pretty much exclusively nonfiction. Um, and that was all catalyzed by me just like absorbing information from,
• 45:40
  John Coe - host: and that's
• 45:40
  James Barley - guest: people
• 45:41
  John Coe - host: studying people studying people basically entirely. Yeah. Yeah. Which I enjoy as well.
• 45:47
  John Coe - host: Yeah. The best considerably. Yeah. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing here. Mm-hmm. So with venture capital funding heavily, uh, directed towards AI startups in the Bay Area, what unique strengths and opportunities can the DC Tech and ecosystem leverage to attract similar investment and foster growth in its own key technological sectors considering the region's distinct characteristics and industries?
• 46:19
  James Barley - guest: I think it's deeply important that we played our strengths. Yes. I mean, when we're investing in companies and we were, you know, investing in companies like we would always ask ourselves, what is this founder or what, what are these team, what is this team's unique advantage? And like why, how are they going to exploit that advantage?
• 46:37
  James Barley - guest: I don't necessarily think that's how cities has have historically thought about growth. I often think that there's almost like this over diversification of like resources and dollars and investment where I do, whereas I think cities should just lean into what they really do really, really, really well.
• 46:55
  James Barley - guest: Like we have the biggest customer in the entire world based in dc, the federal government. We also have pretty much every Fortune 500 has a presence here. We also have world class universities, which creates world class talent. We've done a really bad job of retaining that talent. We have world class talent.
• 47:11
  James Barley - guest: We have, there have been like tech successes, all the, you know, you can track all the way back to like a OL and then recently you can look at Kava and, you know, late stage companies like Arcadia and aade and you know, fiscal note, which went public or respected a few years ago. But I think Venture Global was acquired somewhat recently, or maybe it went public somewhat recently.
• 47:37
  James Barley - guest: Like there's this, you know, there are a bunch of late stage companies, which again, like strong talent base at all of those. Hopefully their liquidity events, which then put dollars more, you know, back into people's pockets and they wanna reinvest those in the next generation, you know, reinvest in the next generation of real estate and talent and economic development here.
• 47:55
  James Barley - guest: But it's it like, we need to lean into our strengths. And our strengths are like ideas and institutions. And so like, how can we exploit those strengths? How can we make those ideas and those people that have ideas. And the institutions and the people that are running those institutions more accessible to founders and people that are solving problems like to the future makers as well as the future shapers and like the policy writers.
• 48:22
  James Barley - guest: And like that is like, that is like a fundamental thesis for Stitchy dcs. Like we are trying to help exploit the competitive advantage of Washington d, Washington, DC, both for the region, also for America, also for the West, like, and if we're successful, hopefully we can have this very, very small but important influence on the direction of the district, the region, the country.
• 48:51
  John Coe - host: You mentioned the universities in the area. Mm-hmm. They do have a group, apparently a consortium group that works together. Mm-hmm. But I don't, I haven't seen anything come out of that. It's had any effective economic development driver for this area. Do you think that Station DC could be a catalyst to, to inspire them to make a concerted effort to keep their graduates in the Washington DC area to foster the growth here in this environment?
• 49:26
  James Barley - guest: I hope, I mean, I don't, I don't know what coalition it is that you're talking about, but I'll, after this, I'll research it. I forgot what it's called, but there is a, I mean, we're, we will have interns, so, um, exactly. You know, we're gonna have an internship program, which hopefully creates kind of like a front door to tech and innovation in the city.
• 49:45
  James Barley - guest: We, we've already collaborated with the University of Georgetown, Georgetown University, and like some of the clubs there and hosting events. Again, like, our hope is that a lot of our interns come from DC universities, whether that's Georgetown and gw, Howard Trinity, UDC, Catholic. You know, and then we can kind of believe it or not.
• 50:06
  James Barley - guest: And then it's like University of Maryland, George,
• 50:07
  John Coe - host: George Mason. Yeah. Um, I mean, Virginia Tech just built a huge campus right next to, you know, HQ two, I, I wanna say DC's, I mean DC's, I
• 50:16
  James Barley - guest: think like undergraduate retention rate is one of, it's like some of the worst in the country.
• 50:21
  John Coe - host: And why have you determined that?
• 50:22
  James Barley - guest: I,
• 50:22
  John Coe - host: I
• 50:23
  James Barley - guest: don't, I don't really know. I mean, I think it's probably awareness of the fact that there are great companies here. And so, I mean, we've, like, we, we have some events that were, that are in the works, which are, I, I don't like the word job fair, but it's essentially like, how do we make these, how do we make sure that the founders, 'cause the founders are always at the center of everything we do.
• 50:43
  James Barley - guest: How do we make sure that students know about these founders Exactly. These companies, because they're Exactly, they're hiring, like they're looking for top talent. Yes. And I think the issue is, and like the common narrative is if you're. If you're like, you know, top 1% student and you're interested in tech and entrepreneurship and innovation, like just go to San Francisco or focus your time recruiting in San Francisco, New York and Boston.
• 51:05
  James Barley - guest: And if we can capture one to 10% of that leakage and keep some of those really talented, like future leaders here working for tech companies here in dc they see what great looks like. They spin out, they start their own company. One of those companies is successful. Like that is, that's huge. And so our hope is that we can help accelerate that flywheel of like keeping talent in the area.
• 51:33
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. You anticipated a, a strong 2024 for the Techster with the IPO window potentially opening. That has not happened in a big way yet. No. With the uncertainty driven by the new administration. Has the financial optimism in tech and AI growth offset these challenges offering tangible opportunities for real estate growth and investment in the DC region for your generation and what specific sectors might benefit most?
• 52:03
  James Barley - guest: I predict a lot of things and a lot of times I'm wrong. That's what I've learned. It's the way life fits investor. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. The more things that I like throw into the, the more opinions that I like throw, you know, into the world, the, the more in absolute terms that I'll just be wrong. I mean, I think Figma just filed it's S one, so like, hopefully, and I, I hope that it's a successful
• 52:26
  John Coe - host: who is Figma?
• 52:27
  James Barley - guest: They are like a prototyping company. They like help designers design products or websites or decks or whatever it may be. I'm hopeful that that's a successful IPO in the near future. I don't, I mean, I think uncertainty has ripple effects across all sectors. Like I'm not entirely sure that it's creating, I mean, I would hope that any, like never waste a good crisis and all opportunity, all crises or like uncertain environments can, there's some spin zone where like you can spin it into an opportunity.
• 53:03
  James Barley - guest: I do think that like the ripple effects of uncertainty impact both like venture as well as, or you know, venture the startup ecosystem as well as real estate. So I'm not necessarily sure there's like a flight to quality in terms of like how dollars are being spent from LPs. But I, I don't think the cats at the bat we have.
• 53:24
  John Coe - host: Do you think this is an opportunity for your group to really stimulate ideas because of the uncertainty? What you can show a path maybe to people that are un you know, especially young people that are trying to think about their future. Can you show a path to them to make, oh, here's a way to kind of proceed
• 53:43
  James Barley - guest: to the future.
• 53:43
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. I mean, I hope that people are starting to think differently about solutions. And again, like the framework should be like, what would it take? Or like, how can we make this happen? Instead of like, well, why can't this happen? Exactly. I, I don't know. Like it's a mindset that was brought, like Yeah, like a rational optimism.
• 54:01
  James Barley - guest: It's a mindset about the world and the way the world works and so Exactly. If successful, I believe that Station DC can have a small influence in that mindset and that approach to problem solving, but I, I really don't know. I think we'll probably have to
• 54:18
  John Coe - host: wait a few years until the data supports it. Just start the momentum.
• 54:23
  John Coe - host: Exactly. In light of the federal budget cuts. Potential layoffs mentioned in the, in the context of the DC housing market.
• 54:30
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm.
• 54:31
  John Coe - host: How do you see the stability of the d, the government sector interacting with the growth of the private tech sector in shaping the future of DC's real estate landscape and overall economic resilience for your generation?
• 54:47
  James Barley - guest: I mean, I, again, I sound like a little bit of a broken record here, but I just, I feel like it's a wake up call to our region and that, like, what's the long term strategy here? Yeah. Like, if we were to have this conversation, I don't know, a handful of years ago, I would be really curious to hear what people would say.
• 55:07
  James Barley - guest: The long term, like the, the long term economic growth strategy is a handful of years ago, maybe 10, maybe, you know, 10, 15 years ago versus now. I, I like, there's like, there's been a wake up call. People are like, oh crap, there is there. We can't just be this like, yes, we're a government town. We'll probably always be a government or government adjacent town, but how can we use those advantages to create more opportunity and like diversity here?
• 55:32
  John Coe - host: The key word in my question was generation. So the, my question is, what's next? I'm a boomer. Yeah. You're a millennial. Yeah. You're, you're maybe even a Gen Z. Yeah. So to me, the next leadership in this region is millennial leadership. Yeah, totally. It has, it hasn't risen yet though. And so I'm, I'm, I'm wondering what's gonna catalyze that, that, and how are they gonna lead?
• 56:06
  James Barley - guest: I, I, I mean, I would, I would slightly challenge that, like I think Zach at Monumental is doing a great job. I think Michael Cohen, that, you know, the learner family is family office is doing a. A great job kind of positioning themselves. And you look at like Kean from Arcadia, they're millennials, aren't they?
• 56:25
  James Barley - guest: From Prefax Again, they're millennials. Are they not? They're millennials. Yeah. Okay. I mean if you actually, like if you look at our board, there's a lot of folks that I think are like, you know, some of these like emerging leaders, I think Grant Beand from Red Cell and previously Rally Health. What's the mindset?
• 56:42
  James Barley - guest: I think it's, I think it's like, it is like a problem solve, a problem solving, like action oriented approach. Good. Instead of just, you know, let's not sit around and op like and think and talk about things like let's just go roll our sleeves up and like start doing things. And also like doing it together, whereas it's not like an individual, I mean, I think though like the previous generation was kind of like, you know, Steve, Ted, David Rubinstein, but these are like individuals that A OL at its peak was worth $300 billion, I think like inflation adjusted.
• 57:16
  James Barley - guest: That's probably like. 500, $600 billion, like, I don't know what the exact math is, but there's a huge outcomes.
• 57:22
  John Coe - host: But boomers have a different approach.
• 57:23
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. And so I think there's a, a, there is like a acceptance of risk, at least in the people that I surround myself with. And I'm sure I'm in a little bit of an echo chamber.
• 57:33
  James Barley - guest: But there is like a risk oriented approach to problem solving and also like an action oriented approach to problem solving and, and doing it and doing it together where it's not like me versus you, but it's like this competition is good for all of us. So embracing that competition
• 57:49
  John Coe - host: beyond the current emphasis on ai, uh, what other emergency tech, emerging technology, technological trends do you believe will have a significant impact on the future development and utilization of both commercial and residential real estate in dc.
• 58:04
  John Coe - host: And how would young professionals prepare for these shifts?
• 58:08
  James Barley - guest: Data centers? I would say like the, I don't know if it's like the first or second or third order effective. But like, let's assume that we're moving toward, toward a world that most people think we're moving toward, where it's like, kinda like AI and tech.
• 58:24
  James Barley - guest: First we need a lot more energy and we need more data centers. Like those are two immediate ripple effects,
• 58:31
  John Coe - host: but personnel driving that
• 58:33
  James Barley - guest: mm-hmm.
• 58:34
  John Coe - host: Is more infrastructure than it is operations. Is that not right? Because I've toured data centers and the density of use of human beings is very light in those properties, right?
• 58:48
  John Coe - host: Yeah. So the planning for it, the construction of it, the infrastructure behind it is they're gonna require more people resources than the actual operations of the properties, correct? Mm-hmm. Right. So that's where I'm wondering, is that the driver of that industry, is the infrastructure behind it and the capitalizing it?
• 59:11
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. Well, I, so I also think that there's like, I mean
• 59:13
  John Coe - host: there's a
• 59:14
  James Barley - guest: company called Greathouse here that's solving for some of like that. Some of the like, ship problems or issues or opportunities and
• 59:22
  John Coe - host: there's land use issues, major land use issues.
• 59:26
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, I mean like I, I think we're moving towards, or we are, I don't think like we're moving towards a more software defined world.
• 59:31
  James Barley - guest: And so the, I mean even the creation of data centers and like all the inputs there I think are like software first. So like back to the question like energy data centers. I mean, I think like you think about the future, the sectors that we need to win in the future too. Like there's space, there's a space economy, there's robotics, there's autonomy, there's defense, and like defense systems, those will all have like immediate impacts to like commercial real estate and residential.
• 59:57
  James Barley - guest: So are you
• 59:57
  John Coe - host: seeing founder driven ideas in all those sectors? Absolutely. Okay.
• 1:00:04
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  John Coe - host: So there's your ecosystem is what you're talking about.
• 1:00:07
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, totally. Like highly regulated. Critical sectors to our
• 1:00:12
  John Coe - host: national
• 1:00:12
  James Barley - guest: interests.
• 1:00:13
  John Coe - host: So what are the common threads among all those founders and their needs?
• 1:00:22
  James Barley - guest: They're all crazy in a good way.
• 1:00:23
  John Coe - host: Okay. But how do you, how many dollars?
• 1:00:25
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. And how do you get them? Like they, they're, it depends. I mean it's again, like, it's not really one size fits all, but like some of the companies that they're building have at least, you know, and for the first handful of years of their business, like they're pretty capital inefficient or like capital intensive and needy.
• 1:00:49
  James Barley - guest: Yep. Right. So, you know, I mean it's, it is like dollars talent, the cus the customers are here and I think the talent is actually here and the dollars are here too. But it's, you know, dollars talent, capital
• 1:01:00
  John Coe - host: Knowledge. Could uc, station DC actually creating a fund itself dedicated to DC driven investments?
• 1:01:13
  John Coe - host: Or attracting investors that would focus only on this market. Uh, yeah. Our focus right now is on
• 1:01:18
  James Barley - guest: just supporting founders and helping make founders' lives easier and being the convener between, you know, future makers and policy makers. I don't wanna put, I don't want to, you know, say there's not a hundred percent or a 0% chance of anything.
• 1:01:37
  James Barley - guest: So I get it. There's a world where like, maybe that happens, but for the time being like, we're just kind of focused on solving, you know, our members' problems and our partner's problems.
• 1:01:46
  John Coe - host: Okay. So more information sharing and Yeah, making, facilitating high value connection,
• 1:01:52
  James Barley - guest: facilitating, I got it. I don't know.
• 1:01:54
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. We're a nonprofit at some point.
• 1:01:56
  John Coe - host: Yep. I understand. What are, what were some of the initial hurdles or misconceptions you faced when entering the venture capital industry? How did you navigate them? What advice would you give to young professionals aspiring to either enter, enter the VC space today, particularly those interested in regions outside traditional tech hubs?
• 1:02:21
  John Coe - host: Are you attracting VCs here? This
• 1:02:23
  James Barley - guest: Mike? Yeah, I hope so. Like venture. Venture is like you're professionally wrong, is actually, it's kind of like the job. So you have to have thick skin, you have to have like a tough stomach and you have to be able to think independently. And I think a lot of people say you have to be contrarian and maybe you have to be contrary, definitely have to be non-consensus in order to capture alpha.
• 1:02:48
  James Barley - guest: But like you have to be able like. You have to have the stomach to make bets on things that you believe are true, that very, very few people actually agree. It's Peter Thiel's philosophy in his book pretty much. Yeah. Zero
• 1:03:02
  John Coe - host: to one. Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  James Barley - guest: I mean, yeah, and he's probably like, look at his bank account. He's very, he's been very, very Right.
• 1:03:08
  James Barley - guest: Founder's fund's done quite well. I mean, yeah, like you're gonna have to, like, people are gonna laugh at, there are a handful of investments that I made that people basically have laughed at and like, those have turned out to be great investments. I was at a dinner the other day with like a bunch of like policy folks and I made a suggestion and I was the only non like policy, like non-economist or like, you know, policy consultant that was at the table.
• 1:03:36
  James Barley - guest: And I made a suggestion, the entire table broke out and left. And I'm like, well, I'm used to it because like my job was to basically be wrong for the past. 10 years or so. And then I think you just have to like be relentless and like have just this insatiable a appetite to understand why things are, how they are, how, you know, how things are, how things and people are, how they are like think, be kind of a systems thinker and like venture has been made, has been made out to be this like cool, like sexy, attractive industry.
• 1:04:08
  James Barley - guest: There's money to be made, but most people won't make money in it. And so you have to thank them like 10 to 15 year time horizons and just have like a ton of patience and conviction in your
• 1:04:19
  John Coe - host: strategy and your ability. So with that mindset you just mentioned looking at Washington, DC it should be a tremendous opportunity because of what's the, the, the disruption that's happening right now.
• 1:04:34
  John Coe - host: Right, right.
• 1:04:35
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 1:04:36
  John Coe - host: I mean
• 1:04:36
  James Barley - guest: it's, I mean people, so people, like, one of the reasons that I'm, so, that I'm so. One of the many reasons that I'm excited about and just bullish on, like DC in general, is like, we don't lack ambition here. People come here because they think that things can get better, or they think that they can influence things in getting better.
• 1:05:01
  James Barley - guest: Like they wanna shape the world, they wanna shape the future. They're coming here because they have the ambition to actually do that. And it's like, yeah, yes, you can do that. We, there are a lot of really smart, very, very talented people. I don't think we have as much technical talent as some other cities, which is totally fine.
• 1:05:19
  James Barley - guest: But we like, we have the ambition and I think if we can just like slightly start to like influence the mindset and the narrative and drive these individuals towards like action and just solving the problems themselves in like an institutionally fluent way. I think we have like, we have a lot of greatness here.
• 1:05:40
  James Barley - guest: It just needs to be unlocked.
• 1:05:41
  John Coe - host: Considering the resilient economy and booming startup ecosystem of dc what unique advantages does the region offer for young entrepreneurs compared to more established tech centers? How can they best advan leverage these advantages? We talked about a few of them, but Yeah, I mean, like you
• 1:05:57
  James Barley - guest: can go meet with like some, you can meet with someone on the hill, like at breakfast, meet with a staffer who's writing some specific type of policy, and then you can go to lunch and you can have lunch with a potential investor.
• 1:06:10
  James Barley - guest: And then you can get an afternoon coffee with someone that you're gonna hire away from, I don't know, Boeing, Lockheed Barton, Northrop Grumman, like a very talented engineer. And then, you know, you can go to dinner with some of your friends that are also starting companies like. Then you can go to afternoon drinks at, you know, Matt's park and like, go catch a ball game or, and then go to a show at the nine 30 Club.
• 1:06:36
  James Barley - guest: Like, kind of have everything here.
• 1:06:38
  John Coe - host: And in essence, that's what you want to Yeah. Create, yes. Like we want that environment is what you want to create.
• 1:06:43
  James Barley - guest: And I'm not necess, I don't necessarily Sure. I'm not sure that people think about the world like that, but we have that and like, oh, and by the way, we have like the highest concentration of Michelin star restaurants in DC So like, maybe when you're getting lunch, it could be at Michelin Star restaurant.
• 1:06:57
  John Coe - host: So, which wasn't the case until not
• 1:07:00
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. Recently, honestly. So like, you know, like exploit those advantages. Go meet with the staffers. Go meet, you know. Yep. Meet with the dollars, host some like really high quality talent, you know, go, you know, go sell to someone at a large Fortune 500, and then go hang out with some of your friends and do something cool that only DC has to offer.
• 1:07:20
  James Barley - guest: Go to freebie soon.
• 1:07:22
  John Coe - host: Clearly due to demographic trends, there is a strong demand for housing in suburban areas of DC and a potential resurgent in urban home demand due to evolving work policies. How do you see these real estate trends influencing the lifestyle and vocational choices of young professionals in the tech sector in the DC area?
• 1:07:42
  James Barley - guest: I don't know who tweeted it, but I saw a tweet recently that was like the number one influence of like your, your life is where you work physically and like your proximity to work. I mean, I think like there are two primary levers that we can really start to pull on. Two primary like economic development levers that we can actually start to pull on as a district and it's housing and, and education.
• 1:08:04
  James Barley - guest: And like housing is, you build more supply and education. I think the way, one of the ways, two of the ways you solve it is you pay teachers more than anywhere else in the world and you re-architecture. Curriculum so that students are prepared out of high school and there's like real genuine readiness to enter the like DC specific workforce outta high school.
• 1:08:22
  James Barley - guest: But back to the point about how around housing, like we now have all these federal buildings that are federal and like commercial buildings and I don't really know like what, how you like repurpose those. But that's hard. There's, there has to be some way where we can take all of that existing supply and turn it into housing.
• 1:08:40
  James Barley - guest: And there's also the height limit, which I pretty strongly believe needs to be removed so we can build more housing, more housing. And yes, like return to work policies are influencing where people are spending their time.
• 1:08:55
  John Coe - host: Okay. Reflecting on the changes you've observed in the DC tech scene in 2023.
• 1:09:01
  John Coe - host: Including the rise of Kavas, IPO and the continued focus on ai. What key lessons can young professionals take away about the importance of adaptability and identifying emergency emerging opportunities in the, in a dynamic market?
• 1:09:19
  James Barley - guest: Yeah, so I think a failure, one of the failures of the region is not every single person, if you were to go up to someone on the street and ask like, what's a, a great company that's based here?
• 1:09:30
  James Barley - guest: They need to say Kapa. Like, we really need to be embracing the, like, successes that we have here and like start to like have a consistent narrative and story that is told about DC And I would hope that the, like the way that I answer that question is like, greatness can be built here. And you know, Kyle, there's one example.
• 1:09:50
  James Barley - guest: There have been, I don't know what the exact number is, but I think since 2015 there's been 125 or something. Venture backed exits for more than a hundred million dollars. So there was greatness here. Like, and you need to start talking about that a lot more.
• 1:10:07
  John Coe - host: I mentioned Peter Thiel earlier. Sure. One of the companies he founded is called Palantir.
• 1:10:13
  John Coe - host: You may be familiar. Yeah. In Office of
• 1:10:14
  James Barley - guest: Georgetown.
• 1:10:15
  John Coe - host: Yes. A lot of their work is federal government related. Mm-hmm. Do you see people like him and other, you know, Elon Musks of the world, they, that type starting companies here that address some of the challenges you talked about? You know, in that, in that vein.
• 1:10:36
  John Coe - host: Palantir's been somewhat of a quiet company, even though, yeah, like they're, they're, I think they're a sleeper
• 1:10:40
  James Barley - guest: in the DC ecosystem. Yes. I'll answer it like this. And Oral, which is another Founder's Fund Facts company, they are creating, you know, basically like autonomous weapons systems and selling to the DOD and our allies, since they zero, they're, they're based in LA but since Day Zero, they have had an office and a founder of the company in Washington.
• 1:11:03
  James Barley - guest: DC they don't you, you don't hear about this that often, but, you know, no one really talks about that, but like. It was part of their strategy at Inception, which is we are going to build a, like a Washington office, like a, a center of gravity in Washington, DC
• 1:11:20
  John Coe - host: so we can get out ahead of all of these relationships.
• 1:11:22
  John Coe - host: So what about employment? How many people do they employ? And is that employment opportunity for people? I,
• 1:11:27
  James Barley - guest: I mean, yes. I, I don't know the numbers. Are I, I kind of know what the numbers are. I don't know if it's my place to like speak on those numbers, but like, they have a pretty big office
• 1:11:35
  John Coe - host: and are they hiring?
• 1:11:36
  James Barley - guest: And I, I think they're hiring. I mean, go and I check their website, but like, you know, they're their base here. And a lot of people think that like, it is, they're like go to market and their business development and sales and policy and yes, it is, but it's also engineers and it's technical talent. That's right.
• 1:11:52
  James Barley - guest: And I 360 is another company. They're based, I think they're based in Reston. You know, they create kind of like. Geo geo analytics, geospatial analytics. So again, to the DOD, they have a thousand people, I think or so that are based, like interested in building like physical things here. There's a company called Deterrence.
• 1:12:10
  James Barley - guest: They're manufacturing, they're automating the manufacturing of like energetics, which are components for munitions. They recently raised $15 million. Dva RA is a good friend of mine, or $12 million. Their base here, like the talent is here, shield ai and another company. They've had a very like large presence here in Arlington for several years.
• 1:12:33
  James Barley - guest: Herms, which is building Mach five aircraft, are also backed by, I think, fund. How are they finding employees? How are they going to
• 1:12:40
  John Coe - host: college campuses and, and recruiting or what? I, I,
• 1:12:43
  James Barley - guest: I don't, I mean, I think it's probably some combination of like recruiting outta school, but then also, you know,
• 1:12:49
  John Coe - host: employment drives real estate.
• 1:12:51
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. So this, this is what I'm trying to get to. To understand, you know? Okay. You get the people, they gotta live somewhere. They gotta work somewhere, right? They gotta, they gotta live somewhere. Mm-hmm. They gotta shop, do all those things, right? So the, that's the, you know, I mean, I don't know, like we're, we're planting the seeds here, that's why.
• 1:13:12
  John Coe - host: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:12
  James Barley - guest: I mean, like, you know, Lockheed, so for the defense or national security specific companies, there's Lockheed, there's Northrop, there's Boeing, there's Mitre, you know, there's real technical, well, they've been around a while. All of those firms. And then there's also like other big anchor corporations like Capital One, like, you know, CoStar like.
• 1:13:32
  James Barley - guest: Hilton, Marriott, Danaher, of course, Mars, like, oh yeah,
• 1:13:37
  John Coe - host: those are established firms. But I'm talking about growth, I'm talking about new firms. The spawning of new, new organizations. What, you know, you mentioned Hawkeye. I had not heard of that before. Yeah. You mentioned, you know, Palantir's the one I'd heard about because I'd read about it.
• 1:13:52
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. But you know, I mean, yes. Like
• 1:13:53
  James Barley - guest: those companies, they, they like develop, they develop talent, which then can move around.
• 1:13:59
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. And how are they finding their properties, their spaces? Are they working with a brokerage community? Are they, you know, are they, that's a really good
• 1:14:09
  James Barley - guest: question. I, I honestly have no idea.
• 1:14:11
  James Barley - guest: I would say probably some combination of just like, I don't know, brokers, just an idea from your standpoint
• 1:14:18
  John Coe - host: to expand your network is to start spawning that kind of thought process among the bro real estate community. Sure. Because before tech even came to Washington, per se, other than what the Defense department created with the internet and the whole thing Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  John Coe - host: Real estate was the main business in this city.
• 1:14:37
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 1:14:38
  John Coe - host: And it still is among the three or four biggest cities, other than basic retail needs of consumers. Mm-hmm. Real estate is huge here. Yeah. So I, I encourage that growth. That's why I'm here today talking to you about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I,
• 1:14:55
  James Barley - guest: my hope is that we can be a facilitator of all of these connections and through convening and through our physical space and our network and our programming, like we can, we can make intros that matter and hopefully make these connections so that there's more connectivity in the region, and then
• 1:15:10
  John Coe - host: more business and more growth.
• 1:15:12
  John Coe - host: And yeah. We talked about universities a little bit, but what role do you think they play? We, and we just talked about employment in the DC area. Played, fostering the next generation of tech talent and entrepreneurs. I mean, Virginia Tech just built a billion dollar campus right next to, yeah. National Landing.
• 1:15:29
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. Or I should, maybe it's part of National Landing. That's probably the biggest university investment in this region in I don't know how many years.
• 1:15:39
  James Barley - guest: Yeah.
• 1:15:39
  John Coe - host: And are they gonna be a major, you know, force in, in, in tech growth and employment opportunities Here? I have UVAI know is also investing here as well.
• 1:15:52
  John Coe - host: University
• 1:15:52
  James Barley - guest: of Southern California also. Yes. The campus. Northeastern has a campus. Yes, I know Northeastern's campus is, I think like cyber and national security. There you go. Pacific Go. Yep. So, I mean, university of Maryland,
• 1:16:02
  John Coe - host: of course. Yeah. There's
• 1:16:03
  James Barley - guest: like connectivity between. The like curriculum and what's actually being taught we have in like the local economy, so that again, there's like, there's readiness and there's like employability of these, of their graduates.
• 1:16:16
  John Coe - host: I mean, NSA is a big driver of employment. Yeah. Not just within the NSA, but you know all the peripheral companies that service them. Yeah. The CIA, the defense department, all these agencies rely on third parties. And in fact, you know what the employment situation is sometimes 75% of actual activities outside the federal government's actual, I mean, there's contracts mostly.
• 1:16:44
  John Coe - host: Yeah. So that's where the growth is in the private sector, in this region, at least in Northern Virginia has been historically.
• 1:16:50
  James Barley - guest: Yeah. I mean, I think schools should think about. Think about their curriculum is like, how can we best prepare the students enter the local economy?
• 1:17:01
  John Coe - host: And that's why, you know, they've left because they haven't thought that through.
• 1:17:05
  John Coe - host: Yeah. To me there's a,
• 1:17:06
  James Barley - guest: there's a, yeah, I mean, that's clear need. That's kind of like, I would imagine that to some degree that's taking like, you know, like a jackhammer to the curriculum and like totally shaking it up, which I don't know how many institutions or schools will actually do, but they should at least strongly consider that.
• 1:17:24
  John Coe - host: It's interesting when you look at it all the, in the, in the, in the, in the area here, the only the public universities.
• 1:17:32
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm.
• 1:17:33
  John Coe - host: Only the, there's only the University of Maryland with, its within the Metropolitan Sierra that they're public universities other than UDC per se. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That, you know, just isn't ranked economic, you know?
• 1:17:44
  John Coe - host: Yeah. So you look at in WA in Washington, you've got, Georgetown is a private university. George Washington's a private university. Howard is a private university. You know, so there's nothing saying that, you know, there's no government influencing. We gotta keep, you know, now University of Maryland, they want to keep people in Maryland.
• 1:18:04
  John Coe - host: Yeah. I mean, that's a part of their mission. So they, a lot of, they have a big good engineering school there. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people work in aerospace. So NASA is in, in, in Maryland. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And NA and NSA is in Maryland, so there's a driver and they have a cybersecurity influence there too.
• 1:18:24
  John Coe - host: Mm-hmm. What's interesting is that the private schools in the city don't have the, you know, I told go to Georgetown, they send people internationally. Yeah. And they have a big international program and then they're focused internationally, not as much in DC or the DC area. Yeah. Which is really interesting.
• 1:18:39
  John Coe - host: Yeah, it is. When you think about it, it is. Maybe
• 1:18:42
  James Barley - guest: there's incentive. I don't really know how it works. I just throw that out there. Incentives between the like local government and the universities themselves. I'm
• 1:18:49
  John Coe - host: asking this question not just for your benefit
• 1:18:52
  James Barley - guest: Yeah,
• 1:18:53
  John Coe - host: but for the, the list share. Yeah, totally.
• 1:18:55
  John Coe - host: People thinking about it with the increasing focus on re-imagining commercial real estate, what innovative business models or startups concepts do you believe are the well positioned to thrive by occupying and transforming these spaces in dc? Do you believe that data centers could be developed with either within existing buildings in the city IE vacated federal buildings or CBD office buildings or ground up?
• 1:19:24
  James Barley - guest: Yes. My answer is, I, I do believe I'm definitely not an expert. I understand. Um, I would hope that the framework, that whoever it is that is solving this problem on a day-to-day basis takes, is. How can we make this work? Or what would it take? Um mm-hmm. Because we have, you know, a lot of the natural resources here to I think support it.
• 1:19:49
  James Barley - guest: And then I think in terms of like innovative business models or like startups that are well positioned, I think it's the, you know, the startups and the sectors that we previously mentioned, which is mm-hmm. AI energy. Sure. Space. You really know the frontier tech, uh, frontier sectors. Yep.
• 1:20:05
  John Coe - host: In your opinion, what are the most critical skills and areas of knowledge that young professionals should cultivate now to succeed in the intersection of technology, business, and potentially real estate in the coming decade?
• 1:20:18
  James Barley - guest: Social, emotional, social and emotional intelligence. Being able to like read people and read the room. I think that is going to be amplified over the next, like, I think there's something called the paradox of skill, which I'm gonna do a bad job explaining, but basically means that, like if you think about things in the bell curve, like.
• 1:20:38
  James Barley - guest: The Dell actually, like the distribution increases and the like middle becomes messier and a little bit larger because the baseline of skill increases over time. Which basically the way that I look at that is like the top 1% is going to be even better than they are and even more obvious than they are earlier.
• 1:21:00
  James Barley - guest: And in this context, I think that individuals that have like social and emotional intelligence, there's just gonna be a premium on their ability to like be in the room with people. Because I also think it's important that folks start to cultivate their ability or like build their skill and like interacting with machines.
• 1:21:17
  James Barley - guest: 'cause that can certainly be used to their advantage. But I don't know. Social emotional intelligence, like problem solving, thinking, thinking critically, being able to use AI to like amplify their work. Yes. Themselves more efficient. I don't know. I think that's probably it.
• 1:21:32
  John Coe - host: Okay. Considering the diversity of sectors in the DC economy, including government, finance and life sciences, how, how can young tech professionals leverage these existing strengths to build innovative solutions and startups that cater to the unique needs of the region?
• 1:21:49
  John Coe - host: I mean,
• 1:21:50
  James Barley - guest: I think my advice here would be capitalize on the fact that they're here and like I shame, I reach out to, I probably send 15 like cold emails or messages a week still to this day. Like, reach out to people that work there and if you're actually interested, I think you need to do what you like and enjoy, but also what you're good at.
• 1:22:13
  James Barley - guest: And like if that's life sciences, you know, if that's finance, if that's government, like start to reach out to people and learn about how they spend their time and what issues they face and. You know, like what is keeping them up at night and what problems they run into. And then try to actually just genuinely like make their life easier.
• 1:22:31
  James Barley - guest: Mm-hmm. Uh, and learn about what it is that they're doing, and then hopefully you can kind of like just create some value instantly.
• 1:22:38
  John Coe - host: That's great. Based on your experience and insights into the trajectory of the DC tech and real estate markets, what is the single most important piece of advice you would offer young professionals to look to build successful careers and contribute to the growth of the region in years to come?
• 1:22:55
  James Barley - guest: I think just, just doing something like, just start doing things. Like don't sit around and think, there's not gonna be like perfection doesn't really exist. Like just start testing hypotheses that you have. Start having more conversations. Start thinking publicly a lot more, uh, and like start, uh, sorry, like publishing your opinions publicly a lot more.
• 1:23:20
  James Barley - guest: Just like start doing things, having conversations, meeting with people. Like you're not gonna solve anything by sitting around and thinking about what the perfect solution or approach is gonna be because there isn't going to be a perfect solution or approach. So, you know, take advantage of like the resources and networks that we have here and like orienting yourself towards action, not
• 1:23:39
  John Coe - host: in action.
• 1:23:40
  John Coe - host: That's great. So I have a final question and we're wrapping it up here, and I asked this to all my guests. If you were to place a billboard on the Capitol beltway for millions to see, what would it say? James,
• 1:23:55
  James Barley - guest: that's such a
• 1:23:55
  John Coe - host: good
• 1:23:55
  James Barley - guest: question. Ooh. I mean, it'd probably be something about like the seed of power
• 1:24:01
  John Coe - host: or, I mean, I want it to be some type of question.
• 1:24:04
  John Coe - host: How about a message to the next generation?
• 1:24:08
  James Barley - guest: Things don't always happen for the best, but you can always make the best out Things that happen, it's a little bit too long. Something about rational optimism. I'll go, I'll, I'll say with things that always happen for the best, but you can always make the best outta things that happen.
• 1:24:21
  John Coe - host: Okay. Keep with that. That sounds great. Yeah, that sounds great. Anything else you'd like to add to, to my audience at all before we I don't, I don't think
• 1:24:29
  James Barley - guest: so. I'm, I'm pretty much always, or I'm available, you know, to reach out to me and happy to chat about anything and everything and you've made it this long and listening to you ramble.
• 1:24:41
  James Barley - guest: I appreciate it.
• 1:24:43
  John Coe - host: Thank you, James. Thank you. Appreciate your input and it's been enlightening Lightning to learn your perspective. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks John. Take care.