Latest / Beyond the Summit with Amir Golshani / A Venture Capitalist’s Brutal Truth About Money, Power & Success - Seth Levine

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A Venture Capitalist’s Brutal Truth About Money, Power & Success - Seth Levine · Beyond the Summit with Amir Golshani

• Seth Levine: we had a real thesis that two real theses. One is that great companies can be built anywhere. And the second was that capital is mobile and it can also be anywhere. Amir Golshani: it is really interesting for me because it's a great example of how public ideas often start privately. Seth Levine: I think that there's, that's the misunderstanding of the venture industry is that somehow, you know, you, get a pile of money, you invest it, you kind of sit around and, and, you know, hang out and wait. And then, you know, five years later, you, you go collect a bunch of checks. and that's not at all. kind of how it works Amir Golshani: Welcome back. Today's guest sits at the intersection of money, meaning, and the future of how we build. Seth Levine is a venture capitalist, writer and co-founder of Foundery Group, one of the most respected early stage venture firms outside Silicon Valley. For nearly two decades, Seth has worked closely with founders during their most uncertain moments, before the headlines, before the exits, before anyone knows if the idea will work at all. But what makes this conversation timely isn't just his investing track record. It's the questions he's now asking publicly. Is the current version of capitalism actually serving people? Who gets access to opportunity and who doesn't? And what does a healthier form of wealth creation really look like? Set is the co-founder of Capital Evolution, a book that doesn't reject capitalism, but challenges us to evolve it. On this episode of Beyond the Summit podcast, we go far beyond markets and money. We talk about turning points, mistakes, power, responsibility, health, freedom, and what Set now believes really matters after years of sitting at the center of capital flow. This is a conversation for founders, investors, builders, and anyone asking a deeper question. What kind of system are we actually building and who is it for? Seth, I really appreciate you being here. I'd love to start before the title, before Foundry, before Capital, just with you. Seth Levine: Awesome. Amir, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here with you. Amir Golshani: Fantastic. When you look back at your childhood, at early environment, what were the first messages you absorbed about money, success and security? Seth Levine: Yeah, it's interesting. So when I was very little, and I have memories of this, my family was very much sort of working class, for lack of a better way of saying it, highly, highly educated. I have this sort of family trajectory on my dad's side. My grandfather didn't graduate from high school. He left to go work in the Great Depression and then eventually went into the Great War. But my dad's mom actually was not just a high school graduate, a college graduate back when not very many women were graduating from college. This is in the 30s. And my dad then, and this has just sort of shaped my view of the US, right? My dad has a PhD from Harvard. And so this in one generation went from his... his father who was the primary, just because of the way the family was structured, the primary wage earner. And eventually kind of, he had a bunch of sales jobs, sold cars, sold check writing machines. And also I was very, close with my grandfather. Just a really interesting guy. And he ultimately sort of created this middle-class life for his family that enabled my dad to go to Berkeley and to get a PhD from Harvard. Now that said, my, My mom was a ninth grade teacher when I was born and eventually also got not a PhD, but an EDD doctorate from also from Harvard. I did not go to grad school. So I'm like the black sheep of the family here. but, and my dad was a professor for a little while at, Harvard. did a postdoc here in Boulder, Colorado, which is where I live in Longmont, but this area. And then we moved back to the Boston area and he was a professor. it was super fun for me. He was a, physics, professor. And so I got to go play with a lot of really cool, like big tell the big telescope at Harvard university. And, I got to play on a lot of computers and, know, the spec when we had punch cards and things like that. but, but it didn't pay very well. And I remember things like, you know, dad counting bus fares and things like that. And eventually, I guess, as people do, he left academia and he went into computers. which was incredibly Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: lucky for me, both because he and my mom, ultimately she left teaching high school and got an EDD and then eventually ran an institute at Harvard and ultimately became a private high school principal. And so kind of moved their way up. but my dad got into computers that obviously provided maybe a little bit of a better sort of foundation for me just from an economics perspective, but he also did things like bring home computers for me to take apart. These were Vax mainframe computers, but he worked eventually for Digital Equipment Corporation. But I've been on computers since as long as I can remember. So all of these things are just sort of like swimming around in the primordial soup of my upbringing that sort of like helped, from a foundational perspective, make me who I am today. But I'm incredibly lucky to have parents who were very supportive of me, ultimately, you know, pretty like cush, ultimately upper middle class life, but with like a window on like a time when it wasn't quite like that, that I actually remember. And that sort of afforded me the, and then also exposure to compute way back before it was really a thing. And all of those things that kind of gave me this incredible opportunity to create this life for myself. Amir Golshani: Right, that early conditioning matters more than we realize. Thank you for sharing Seth Levine: absolutely. Amir Golshani: that. Seth Levine: And Amir, it's worth just saying also, I mean, I'm white male, born in the US, like, you know, in the 70s, like, I really kind of hit the lottery there from that perspective, Amir Golshani: Hehehe. Seth Levine: right? I'm Jewish. So maybe that, you know, that's like the one strike I had against me, if you will, just from sort of a kind of a typical, like, here's all the boxes you get to check. and I mean, from a societal perspective, obviously, I'm proud of being Jewish. But But like truly, I really, I had a lot of advantage in terms of kind of where I started my life, which I'm really appreciative for. Amir Golshani: curious, was there a moment growing up when you realized money wasn't just about comfort, but about access, power, or freedom? Seth Levine: I think I always grew up slightly worried about and caring about money. And I don't know why that is. I think it's probably because when my parents first got together, they really didn't have means. And I think that throughout my entire upbringing, they were very, very careful about money. And they instilled in me this idea that you can't take it for granted. Um, and I think it's only been for me in the last, I don't know, maybe 15 years or so that I finally have kind of shed some of that. mean, I obviously have created this very successful life for myself as part of that successful life. I don't define success by this, but because really when I, when I say I have a successful life, it's because I have a great family, a wife, you know, partner who I've been together with for 25 years. And, you know, like those are the things that, that ultimately matter, but also created this very successful financial life for myself. But yeah, it's only been in the last like 15 years that I finally started to shed some of the challenge that I had around money that was instilled in me by my parents. Again, not in a bad way. think that they, I think it was probably instilled in my father who's, his father had to quit high school and go work because his family needed him to help support them. And so, you know, I think it's sort of like, it all affects like everything from one generation down, you know, you're affected by multiple generations and it all kind of ends up here with me. We'll see what neuroses my kids have around money. Having had this weird now mix Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: of my parents who were always worried about money and then, you know, parents now in my wife and me who haven't had to worry about money quite as much, especially in the last, let's say 15 years or so. Amir Golshani: So talking about successful life, I really like to see how the picture has changed before venture capital entered the picture. What did you think a successful life would look like and how close was that picture to reality? Seth Levine: One of the things I learned early, Amir, was that it's sort of, I mean, it's so cliche, but it's like the journey, not the destination. And I think when I graduated from college, I ended up, my first job was as an investment banker, which was not at all the path I thought I was on. Actually, I mean, I didn't really even know there was, people were talking about iBanking for a little while my junior year, and I finally had to admit to someone, I don't even know what that means. And they explained it to me. then I had, I had planned on being a professor. was a psych and econ major. That was kind of what I wanted to do. And for a bunch of different reasons ended up deciding that that was not, not the right path for me. but in banking, there were, I was surrounded, first of all, I was surrounded by people who went to colleges that I couldn't get into. And that in and of itself was an interesting experience because I was very worried about holding my own. And very self-conscious of the way that it, least it worked at the time may still work this way was that each, there were a bunch of schools we recruited from each school had a designated number of slots in the analyst class. So Harvard had 10, Yale had whatever nine, whatever it was. and then there were eight leftover for people from every other school in the country, right? That we recruited from whatever 15 schools. And then there's eight leftover. and I was very, very conscious of these two things of really every one of my peers went to a college that I couldn't have gotten into, in a couple of cases at least, tried to get into and got rejected. And that I was taking in their minds a spot that would have otherwise gone to one of their classmates. But for whatever reason, there was this pool left over that they insisted on giving to every other college in the country. And that's how I entered my job at Morgan Stanley. But I very quickly realized, I'm just like they are. It was really an incredibly eye-opening experience to be like, I get it. And by the way, I'm willing to work really hard. In a world where people work incredibly hard in investment banking, I was willing to work really hard because I felt like this was such a huge opportunity for me. So I think that was important. there were a lot of people who I worked with who were very much like they had it all mapped out. Right. It was like, okay, I'm going to do this for two years. Then I'm going to go to Harvard Business School, then I'm going to, Stanford or whatever. And then I'm going to go back and I'm going to do that. And I'm going to make a million dollars before I'm 30 or whatever the gauge was. And even then I remember thinking like, I don't know that that's for me. And I almost got sidetracked to that. I signed up to be a two-year analyst, these programs are two years. And I got... I got lucky or I worked hard enough and I think there were maybe five of us in the analyst class of 120 that they invited to skip business school and just become associates. They called it accelerated career path. Basically people that they were like, you're good. You would do a third year as an analyst and then you'd be an associate. And that was a fast path to, I think banking pays better today at the low levels. I made $32,000 my first year in New York as a banker. I did better the second year because there's this like incredible acceleration. It was a real fast path to like being a senior banker basically and having that life. And I was really close to doing that. I mean, what happened was one of the other analysts, so this guy who was 22, let's say, who worked in the cubicle, we called them bullpens, the cubicle group that was next to mine had a heart attack, literally had a heart attack, ended up in a hospital. It was right when I was trying to decide, do I want to stay? They were going to move me to Hong Kong. was, it was, would have been an interesting experience or not. And he had this heart attack. And I remember going home one night just being like, what am I doing? Like, this is not the life that I want for myself. My dad grew up in Colorado. My grandparents were from both from Colorado, both born here in Colorado. I'd spent all my summers here. And I was like, I'm, I don't want to, I don't want to do this banking thing. I want to. I want to move to Colorado. wasn't, I want to get a job in Colorado, it was I want to move to Colorado. And you know, because we had had some clients in Colorado, I called one of the clients that we had and said, I want to move to Colorado, can I work for you? And he said, absolutely, someone's going to call you in five minutes. And I again, sort of lucked out into like, but the point of that story is like, my choice was I want to do something different in my life. And I want that to be about life, not about work. And the life that I chose was to move to Colorado. I wanted to go mountaineering and rock climbing, the things that I enjoy doing in my 20s 30s here. Amir Golshani: It is so fascinating, you know, because reality has a way of editing the plan. You have worked so hard to get to that point, but reality showed you, okay, this is not what you are supposed to do. What initially pulled you toward venture capital? Curiosity, leverage, influence, or something else entirely? Seth Levine: So fast forward a few years, I've worked for the original company that brought me out here, worked for another company. That company had gone public in the dot com bubble. I actually had a very senior role there. I led the IPO. was basically the corporate finance half of the CFO role. had a chief accounting officer in me. And ultimately ended up running a really big part of that business. Eventually, they wanted to focus on just one part of their business. And the rest of it, they put under me and had me sell it off basically, in a couple of different pieces. And, and so I'd had, you know, I'd had this really interesting experience and I was, you know, eventually I managed a $55 million P and L and I had a couple hundred people working on, in, you know, in my organizations. And, and that was interesting. And as I was, I mean, I had kind of line of sight, I was, I was selling these, these lines of business. and I had some bonuses tied to that. So I was like, I had to wait till they closed. And so I had the summer of 2001, really spring leading into summer of 2001, where I was like, I know this is happening, but I got to stay for a couple months. And I was like, what do I want to do? And I thought about, I had some offers to do corporate, corp dev stuff, cause I'd done a bunch of M and A and I had a couple offers to sort of like be like a GM of a division or something like that, at, you know, inside these larger companies. And I had some friends from Morgan Stanley who had gone into venture capital and now they had done well because they, you know, we, we, we, left Morgan Stanley in 96. If you got into VC, even as a junior person in 96, you had a good experience. Um, but I thought this is interesting. Like it, like the work intrigued me, right? And it was different than the, than the work that I had done. Um, and so I started networking into a bunch of different people. Um, and eventually got on Brad Feld's calendar. It took me three months, by the way. to get on Brad's calendar from a very, very, very warm, you know, invite. was his, it was a lawyer that he, that I had worked with. It was like his main lawyer and was, and who was like, Hey, you got to meet Seth. And fortunately for me, they were hiring for like an associate position. And it was kind of a step back. It was less money. It was sort of definitely less prestige, but I was like, I was single. I didn't have a lot of encumbrances. I was like, I want to give this a try. This seems like the right time. It was clear the party was over, right? mean, there was no, like, this is the middle of 2001. Like, the markets are crying. Like, it's not good. It eventually got worse because I started on September 7th, 2001. And obviously, you know, four days later, then the towers came down. We couldn't travel. We're this, like, outpost at SoftBank Venture Capital here in Colorado. But the main office was in Palo Alto. But it was really around Amir. It interests me. And I give this advice to people all the time, like, I feel like your 20s into your early 30s should be about collecting interesting experiences. And I had some advice from a, it was also a lawyer actually, different guy that introduced me to Brad, who said to me, hey, you need to go work for someone amazing. Like who Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: will really, really mentor you. Cause I'd had, I'd worked inside these two different organizations, well three if you include Morgan Stanley, but most recently where I was. I mean, I reported to the CEO, like I didn't have, and they were not mentoring me. Like they were busy running this, you know, you know, large company. And, and this, this friend of mine was like, look, that's, I think that's what you need. Like I'd really pay attention to who you work for. And I heard all these great things about Bradfeld. I didn't know him obviously. And, um, we had a crazy first meeting, cause you know, like, you know, like what do you wear to meet Bradfeld? Right? Like what, know, it's an interview. So I was like, I mean, I'm supposed to, you know, I was trained in like, you know, I mean, when I interviewed for investment making, I wore a suit, right? Like when I interviewed for this thing, was like, well, I know I'm not supposed to wear a suit. Like anyway, it was a funny kind of first meeting up at the, we had like a tech incubator thing up off of, kind of between Denver and Boulder. But anyway, that was what, that's what I did. And that's why I give that advice. Like I pursued it only because I thought it would be interesting, not because I thought, definitely not because I thought I'd make a career out of it. I was told I had two years there. in the associate program and they had been running an associate program. It wasn't like I was the first group and I was like, well, maybe they'll keep me on longer. Like they had a long list of associates who were there for two years and left. And so I just assumed that I was gonna be there for two years and I'd figure out what I was gonna do next. Amir Golshani: love it. Your story is so amazing. The more you talk, I get more interested to know more about it. Before starting Foundry Group, what felt broken or missing in the venture model as you experienced it firsthand? Seth Levine: You know, I think that there were a bunch of things that happened at SoftBank, which eventually changed its name to Mobius. And, you on the one hand, I had this incredible experience there, right? I worked for Brad. We sort of did things in a certain way here in Colorado and we were a little bit insulated. I mean, I was in California a lot, but we weren't sort of in that main office. But it was a very stovepipe firm, right? Meaning that it was, and it was very partner-centric and every partner sort of had their little fiefdom. And there was a lot of like horse trading and if you vote for my deal, I'll vote for you. In a way that I just thought was kind of bizarre. And actually the way that Foundry came about was that Mobius was going to raise another fund. And by then I'd been there for a few years. They'd extended me. They decided they would create this sort of like junior partner thing. I wasn't in the first wave of junior partners. There was another group that were these junior partners and I was in the next wave of junior partners. So I'm not even in the marketing materials for this new fund. And I'm gonna be, I mean, I'm as junior, junior partner. It was like partner and name only kind of thing, right? was like a VP equivalent, like a principal. And this is probably 2005, late 2005. And by then, my wife and I were together. We'd had our first kid and I went to Brad and I was like, I'm not gonna stay. It doesn't make sense for me to. to stay in this program, in this fund. I don't really believe in it and I'm not gonna have a chance to do anything really on my own. So I'm not quitting today, but I just want you to know this is not for me. And then Brad said something that changed my life, was actually, don't think, this is him speaking, I don't think we're gonna be able to raise this fund and I've been thinking I kinda wanna go off and do something on my own. I'd love it if you would join me to do it. And that's what started a conversation. He'd obviously already been thinking about it, but it started a conversation that eventually led to our partners, Jason and Ryan, who came out, who were in California working for Mobius. They moved out in the summer of 2006 and we went and raised our first Foundry Fund in 2007. And it was kind of a crazy time. for me, it was like an all-in moment, right? was more expensive back then to start a venture firm. because you had to write these big offering documents and things like Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: that. And we agreed we were going to be equal partners, so we were going to split that. And I didn't really, I had not made really any real money, right? I mean, I'd saved a little bit here and there, but my company went public in the bubble, but then the bubble burst before I could sell my stock. Who knows if I would have been smart enough to sell it or not, but before I even had the opportunity. And so it was like a full all-in moment. And, and I think this is important for people to understand about Foundry. So we start fundraising in January of 2007 by May, super clear, it's not going to come together. Right. People were not interested in this random group of guys, one of whom Brad has a really good track record. Another of whom Ryan has the starts of a track record. And then Jason and Seth, who like are pretending to have a track record, but you got to really squint on, on the deals that we're saying, you know, we're sort of like our quote unquote deals. And we're in the middle of the country and there was not this idea that great venture capitalists could be anywhere in the country. It was like, are you in one of the top five to maybe 10 venture firms as an investor? That's all that matters. And so it was super clear it was not gonna happen. And so much so actually when I remember coming home and telling my wife, like, hey, I don't think this is gonna work. I think I just kind of lost our life savings. Amir Golshani: Wow. Seth Levine: And I was like, and I don't know what I'm going to do. Like I don't, I, you know, I'd been in VC at that point for five and a half years. Like it, felt like, you know, getting, figuring out what, what job comes after that was going to be challenging. And she was, I mean, she's super upbeat. She was like, look, I, I, I, I, you got to give it a bit more time. You know, I think it's going to happen. I believe in you guys kind of thing. which was super, super awesome. I've heard it do that. Yeah. Amir Golshani: So I love that, you the discomfort that you mentioned, you know, clearly I see that, you know, it become kind of fuel for you. Foundary Group launched outside Silicon Valley. Why did Place matter to you so much? Seth Levine: Yeah, I think we had a real thesis that two real theses. One is that great companies can be built anywhere. And the second was that capital is mobile and it can also be anywhere. And the really the thing that we cared most about when we formed Foundry, which sort of a set of principles, including we would all be in the same place, right? Brad and I had had this experience of being in the satellite office and we felt like that didn't really work. And that we would run the firm in a way that was very sort of overlapping in terms of how the partners worked with each other, supportive and where we could call each other out. So supportive, but also where we can debate and sort of argue. And that we would do so for 20 years and then be done, right? That was the sort of original founding thesis for Foundry. And so we really, we believe that strongly. And we took that to market and, and, you know, as I mentioned, you know, by May, we had not convinced enough people that that was, that was a good idea to get it to work. But eventually, it was really Linda Lekman who is now our partner, but at the time was running the university of Texas alternatives, know, the emerging manager, portfolio. And he had a thesis around emerging managers. And I don't know what he saw in us, but he saw something in us and said, you know, I'm to take a, I'm going to take a bet on that. Right. And he, he ultimately backed. Union Square and True and Spark and a lot of the sort of early peer set that Foundry had. But at that point in 2007, there were no breakout companies that any of those firms had funded. So it was still a big risk. So we lucked out. You know how it is with funding, right? Once one person said yes, then a whole bunch of other people said yes. And all of a sudden, we thought we were going to raise $175 million and we raised $225 million. Amir Golshani: Wow. Seth Levine: Yeah. Amir Golshani: So I love it. It's getting to interesting parts. What early risk did you take starting Foundry that felt genuinely uncomfortable at the time? Seth Levine: Yeah, I mean, really, I I described it as an all in moment. It really was right. I mean, I think, I think, I don't know that I appreciated at the moment that I was like, yes, let's do this. How hard it was going to be. I feel like maybe that was also true when I decided to get into venture, right? I don't think I realized sort of exactly what I was getting into. Um, but that's the best, best part about life is that, you know, sometimes you just sort of jump over the wall and you see what's on the other side. Um, but that, but, but it became very clear by kind of springtime. that actually it had been a meaningful risk and that it was likely not to work out. And that felt deeply uncomfortable. And again, we've already gone through it, but my background of my parents instilling in me this caution about money and then thinking here in 2007, and now I've got two kids and my wife was working, but she's also helping take care of the kids and all that kind of stuff. derailed her career to go do that a bit. And I'm like, wow, what did I just do? I could have just gone and gotten another job and now I've risked our life savings on this. I think it's important to tell that story because I think a lot of people think about foundry as sort of always having existed or always having been successful and we just sort of started it and... One day we decided to do it and we raised our first fund essentially immediately. And that's not at all what it was like, right? mean, we, Ryan and Jason moved out in the summer of 2006. We spent seven months planning for what we were going to do and how we were, who we were going to go after. And then we spent, you know, essentially an entire year raising that first fund. The first half of which felt like we were just hitting our heads against the wall and it wasn't going to happen. Amir Golshani: Do you agree that the risk you took back then wasn't just financial, it was personal too? Seth Levine: 100%. Absolutely. I think, I mean, all great risks are, right? Like they really are. It's not just, you know, if you're just, if you're investing in something like, yeah, you're taking a financial risk, but if you're really investing sort of yourself in something, then you're taking a bigger risk, right? And I think those are the best risks. That's what I, that's how I think about, that's how I think about risk in my world, right? And investment risks, financial risks are, I mean, they can be They can pay off, they can be interesting, they can be fun. You can feel good about having supported someone, those sorts of things. But the real meaningful risks are where you put something of yourself into it. And obviously I put everything into it, right? I mean, was, you this was going to be my career. And so I, you know, I really feel like that was, you when I say all in, wasn't just all in financially, it was all in sort of with everything I had reputationally and, you know, and sort of all of myself. Amir Golshani: I believe many things, many definitions throughout your career, they have evolved. How did your definition of great founder change after your first few years investing? Seth Levine: Yeah, it is. think I had, the truth is I hadn't really no idea what a great founder was for years. And I think that, I think that I benefited from being able to trail Brad Feld around for five years and really learn the craft of venture capital. And after pitch meetings, get to ask him, Hey, what did you like about that? Why I heard this, or I think this is an issue. What do you think? And having that sort of training allowed me to hone in on, you know, what types of founders I'm most attracted to. And by the way, I don't think there's one archetype founder. think different, different VCs have different personalities and they're attracted to different, different types, types of, of startup founders. And actually I think that's a, that's a feature of the industry, right? Is that we have a chance to work with a bunch of different founders. Now it can also be a bug of the industry because people tend to want to work with people that maybe have similar attributes that they do. I think that's maybe in part as an industry why we've done such a poor job of investing in women, people of color, et cetera, because we tend to discount certain groups that maybe don't look exactly like us. And I think that's a learned trait, right? I think we've had to do a better job of really being deliberate around what do we really look for in founders. But I think over 25 years now in venture, I've kind of honed in on the things that I care about most. But not, mean, if you put all the founders that I work with in a room, you would not, there's probably, there's a through line there, through line of passion, through line of integrity and honesty, those and humility. Those things I think are universal to people that I work with, but there's lots of other things that you'll find differences right between them. Amir Golshani: Yeah, and I also believe perspective shifts when you see enough cycles. Looking Seth Levine: Yeah. Amir Golshani: back now, what does Foundry Group quietly reflect about your own values? Seth Levine: Yeah, I mean, think we've tried to be very deliberate around firm building. And I think one of the lessons you asked sort of what did we learn from the experience at SoftBank Mobius? And I think that one of the big lessons we learned was around firm building and around sort of the equity of the partnership. And I think that we tried to bring that into Foundry in a different way. And I think that we did it in a way that worked for us for a long time very, very well. because it was for a while, it was just the four founders, right? So was a lot easier. And we also, I mean, it's funny to say this, because of course I got my start in venture as a associate, but at Foundry, one of our values was we do our own work. And so we actually never hired associates and analysts. We had a little moment there on the fun side where we had hired some people we called investors, because there was a bit more work to do. But even that, we ultimately, it was pretty short-lived. We had a couple of people work for us for... year and a half or so, and ultimately we decided, no, that's taking us away from the work that we're really trying to do here. So, you know, there's a lot of different things that we try to experiment with. And as a firm, we tried to be open to new ideas, right? When Angel List came out with syndicates, we were like, what is this? Let's play with that. And so we formed a couple of syndicates. In 2016, we had been making some personal investments in other venture funds, support our friends to get some quarterly reports. and get some exposure to other businesses across the industry. And we thought, well, why is no GP an LP? Why is no partner at a venture firm running an asset managed firm, fund to funds as well? And that's when we decided to stand up our fund to funds in 2016 and brought Lindeland to help us do that because we realized it's interesting to have the perspective of a GP, but we also need the perspective of an LP. Let's put that together in a firm. And listen, that's why we Ultimately came back to one of our first principles, which is that we were going to run Foundry as long as we wanted to run it. And then when we decided it was done, it was going to be done. And in 2022, we raised a fund, our last fund. And then in 2023, we announced to the world, like, that will be our actual last fund. We're not going to raise another one after this. Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: Because we felt like, you know, that was another principle that we had that we strayed away from briefly. We toyed around with the idea of maybe trying to create a generational firm, but But ultimately came back to, this firm is tied to now the six of us who are partners, but especially the four of us that started it. And we want to go out on our own terms. Amir Golshani: What I see here is as capital grows, responsibility grows with it. Seth Levine: Mm. Amir Golshani: At what point did you realize that capital doesn't just fund companies, it shapes culture? Seth Levine: Well, I mean, think that my belief is that Silicon Valley has long done that. And I had the fortune of being in the venture industry for a long enough period of time to really kind of test that thesis. it's so clear to me. I mean, look at all the people we talk about. They're the sort of robber barons, if you will, of our age. And I don't mean that in the negative sense. I mean, sort of the kings and queens of industry are all people in tests. And I think there was a bit of that in the late 20th century, but it really accelerated, especially in the last 10 or 15 years. And there's this incredible mix now between government and companies where there's a huge amount of influence in both directions. And we see it basically daily in the Trump administration and the work that Elon Musk was trying to do with Doge, but even just the influence that you know, the tech has, there's a reason when the inauguration got shrunk down and was in, you know, a much smaller, smaller hall that the, was an entire row of, of the sort of CEOs of the Titans of tech, you know, they're at the inauguration and that was an acknowledgement of the power that the tech has. But, the fact that they were all there is an acknowledgement of the power of the government has. Right. And I don't, I think it's easy to maybe brush that off as a uniquely Trump thing. And I think there are certainly things that Trump is doing to try to curry favor with and, you know, or instill fear in, you know, sort of the tech titans. But I think that it goes both directions, right? I think it's an overly simplistic view to just say, well, you know, Trump demands loyalty and therefore, you know, Google's putting money into the ballroom. You know, that's an explanation for it, but I don't think it's the whole explanation. Amir Golshani: I love that. You've been in the center of capital flow for a long time. What responsibilities come with controlling capital that most people never see or talk about? Seth Levine: Yeah, think that, well, for starters, I think it's important to remind listeners that only about 1 % of companies take money from VC. And so, they're important companies, they grow big because there's a lot of capital. There's a huge amount of responsibility, which we'll get to in a sec, for being a capital allocator in this industry. But it's really important to note that the vast majority of businesses aren't venture backable. And it's a huge part of our economy, right? 40 % of... of GDP and 50 % of employment comes from businesses that the SBA qualifies as small businesses. And those are not venture funded businesses, right? So think it's important to recognize that venture has an outsized mind share, right? Or venture backed companies have an outsized mind share and they have an outsized economic share in our economy, but they're also still lots and lots and lots of other businesses and the vast majority of businesses that aren't venture funded. But without a doubt, think that there is, I mean, look, I believe that the markets ultimately are the determinants of good ideas and bad ideas, right? And that doesn't mean that some bad companies or companies that were never gonna work, you know, don't get funded. Lots of that happens actually. And then eventually become successful from an economic standpoint because they get bought by someone. So the investors make money. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they were successful businesses. But I think that this sort of idea of trend finding, trend setting is sort of like a two-way street when you think about sort of capital and entrepreneurship. On the one hand, capital is seeking the new ideas. On the other hand, put enough capital behind something and you can almost create those new ideas. And that's a little bit what we saw happen. with open AI, for example, right? And the founding Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: of open AI, which I think people forget included Elon Musk, right? As he's a true co-founder of open AI, right? They're suing each other now for some economic things, but he was actually there at the beginning. Hoffman as well was a co-founder effectively of open AI. And that's a good example of sort of capital and... and ideas coming together, right? And the fact that open AI was able to raise the amount of money that it raised effectively created not just that business, but it forced other people to be investing in those same areas. And I think it's too early to say who will be successful there. And it's definitely, it's definitely the case that we are overfunding as an industry, a bunch of companies around that. But I also feel like that's a feature and not above of Silicon Valley. I used to feel like Silicon Valley can sometimes be lemmings. Like we all like to go chase the next big thing. But now I recognize that actually like that's a little bit about how the innovation economy works in the world, right? And it's probably why it works so well in the U.S. is that there is this incredibly free flowing capital to new ideas. And we tend to overfund those ideas. And by overfunding it, I mean that certain companies or many companies will not be successful who get early funding. But ultimately, and look, we saw this in the internet, we saw it in the telecom world, we saw it in the automobile world, right? People think that like the big three were like the only car companies. There were like a hundred car companies out there. Many of them merged, a lot of them went out of business, right? I mean, just sometimes it takes a while to figure out who has the right idea, who has the right marketing plan, who has the right Moxie, all of that kind of stuff. And I feel like that's actually a feature of the American innovation economy that we sometimes don't appreciate because we are so quick to judge. too much money is flowing into XYZ sector. And you're like, who's to say it's too much? I mean, yeah, a bunch of people are gonna lose money, but if you index the sector, I think you're gonna do quite well. And I think that part of what needs to happen in these early markets is a lot of ideas need to get funded. And ultimately, the really interesting ones surface. Amir Golshani: I love that and I believe those responsibilities don't always come with clear rules. you said, have you ever backed something that succeeded financially but left you uneasy on a deeper level? Seth Levine: interesting question. I mean, there are plenty of things that we've funded that have been successful. They don't like add to the world. You know what I mean? Like we, you know, we were in a company that basically invented real-time bidding for ads, internet ads. and it was a really successful investment. was my, it was my first investment at Foundry. It was helpful for me personally. It was a really good outcome. and kind of put me on the map of ad tech and, and. But you know, like is the world a better place for that? No. there's nothing that we've invested where I'm like, Hey, I'm really unhappy with how this technology got applied. for example. so there's nothing that falls into that category, but there's plenty of things where I'm just like, yeah, you know, I mean, it's fun to point at Fitbit and be like, yeah, we help millions and tens of millions of people be fitter and, and live healthier lives. Certainly whoop right now, right there, you know, they're their idea to unlock human potential. Like that's easy to get behind. I'm like, I'm all in, that sounds great. But there's lots of stuff that we've done where you're like, does the world need, did the world need another marketing tool? Like, I mean, probably we'd be fine without it, but that doesn't mean that it didn't help some marketers lives, things like that. But there's nothing I can point to. There's certainly some people we've invested in where I'm like, yeah, we missed on that person. I'm sorry that we ended up backing them. And those were all universally unsuccessful. But there's nothing that we've invested in where I'm like, yeah, they took that in a direction I'm not happy or I don't like how that technology is enabling something that is bad in the Amir Golshani: Fair enough. So what's the biggest misunderstanding people have about venture capital from the outside? Seth Levine: I think that, I think people think it's easy, right? Like, I think it seems like it's really fun. Like, hey, here's a pile of money, go put it in companies and, and you hear about these successful companies every day. And the truth is when you're in venture, you're wrong almost all the time. and this is not a woe is me thing, right? I mean, I love my job. It is like, this is part of what you sign up for is at VC. But I think people from the outside sort of see it as sexier than it really is. and, and they certainly can be very lucrative, but it can also be incredibly frustrating. can take forever to actually, you know, like see the fruits of that, you know, labor economically. and, and I think that there's, that's the misunderstanding of the venture industry is that somehow, you know, you, get a pile of money, you invest it, you kind of sit around and, and, you know, hang out and wait. And then, you know, five years later, you, you go collect a bunch of checks. and that's not at all. kind of how it works and, and, and you spend a lot of time, not just trying to figure out what companies to invest in, but, triaging, you know, business ideas that you thought were going to be great, that ultimately did not end up being successful. and so there's no kind of easy path, in venture. Now, again, I want to be clear. I'm not, I love this job, so I'm not, I'm not like upset with how, how venture works. And I knew I, eyes wide open going in kind of what I was getting into. But I think from the outside, it's seen as like a sexier business than it really is. Amir Golshani: love that. Now let's talk about your latest book. What moment made you say it's time to write Capital Evolution? Seth Levine: Yeah, so this relates to my job as a VC. was at a board dinner in New York. For this company, I was the only non-local board member. So we're at a dinner. It gets to be pretty late at night. Everyone else has left. All the other board members have left. It's just me and the management team. And we're just hanging around, having a night cab, just talking. And it was shortly after the Dobbs decision came out. And one of our other CEOs had written something on LinkedIn about what they were doing in response to Dobbs. And a bunch of people commented on it. Some of whom were saying, you didn't go far enough. This wasn't, you you didn't take this seriously enough. And others who were saying, Hey, I think you went too far here. you know, and I, I work for you and I don't actually don't subscribe to these values. And this, this other CEO who's at dinner said, Hey, I saw this. What advice do you have? Would you accept a lower return on your investment for us living our values? And we ended up having this whole interesting conversation about it. I gave him very VC answer, which is like, don't think you need to make that choice. But we talked a bunch about it. It's a company that happens to work with a lot of Fortune 50 companies, very, very large corporations. And he was like, look, we make these decisions all the time. It was just Pride Month. We changed our logo to the gay pride colors like. I didn't think about that, but like we do have people hitting our website and maybe some of them, you know, don't subscribe to those same beliefs. So that was a really interesting conversation. I, so I thought about it a bunch and then I called my friend Elizabeth, right? We'd written a book together. We wrote, we published another book. This was, this was maybe three and a half years ago that we're talking. So we'd probably published a book a couple of years before that together. And I like to bring these sorts of questions to her because I was like, Hey, this is kind of interesting. And then what we tend to do is we call up some other, know, Elizabeth and I call up some other people and we conduct a few interviews. So we were like, well, let's call some people and get their perspectives on this. And we had a couple of phone calls and we realized there's a much larger question around what's the role of business sort of in society today and what's going on with capitalism right now. And, and that's when we realized that there was a, there was actually a really interesting book to write around this. So we did. couple years of research, right? And the book just came out as we're talking here like a week and a half after it came out. And we did, we took about two years to research and really dig into these ideas. We ended up talking to, we talked to all sorts of different people, right? We talked to some academics who love to talk about capitalism, these subjects. We talked to industry leaders, people like Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan and Dan Schulman, who's now the CEO of Verizon. He was the CEO of PayPal when we first talked to him. Lisa Greenhall, who basically invented Impact Investing. A bunch of people from B Corp, a bunch of people from Patagonia, a bunch of people from Hobby Lobby, and some other more conservative companies. And then people up and down the corporate hierarchy. We tried to get to people that were at different levels. And in the book, really tell the story. It's a couple of things. One is we defend capitalism. We didn't start writing it thinking that capitalism needed a defense, but even back when we were writing it, we knew that more young people thought capitalism doesn't work than does work, right? This has obviously come to a head in places like New York City where we just elected a socialist mayor. But there were democratic Amir Golshani: Hmm. Seth Levine: socialists, DSA members who had been elected in Seattle, in San Francisco, in Minneapolis. It's not like it hadn't happened before. all of a sudden it's in the financial capital of the world and people are paying, starting to pay more attention to it. So Amir Golshani: Absolutely. Seth Levine: it's imparted defense of capitalism, but it also is a bit of a critique of the current style of capitalism, at least the style that we've been operating under for the last 50 years. And we just, ask the questions around what are the boundaries, right? What should we care about as a society, as a government and really, you know, capitalism, is a social construct as much as it is an economic system. It's an agreement between and amongst peoples and the government about how we operate our economy. it's also, I mean, it's been static for you in my lifetimes. We've operated under this kind of one general view of capitalism. But it hasn't been static sort of over history. And I think that understanding that was really important and really interesting. And so we kind of. trace the history of capitalism a little bit and then we pose these interesting questions. We weave in a bunch of stories because we talk to so many interesting people. I mean, the feedback we've gotten is that it's very, very readable, right? People are like kind of tearing through it because they really enjoy it. We made the national bestseller list, which was kind of fun too. So a lot of people are like, it's important. Amir Golshani: So writing this book, know, yeah, it is really interesting for me because it's a great example of how public ideas often start privately. Then Seth Levine: Love that. Amir Golshani: people, yeah. Seth Levine: You know, I love that framing, Amir, that's exactly right. Public ideas often start privately. Amir Golshani: Yeah, exactly. After that dinner and the conversations, you know, and started there, you know, and became a public, know, great idea. Seth Levine: Yeah. Well, when we realized that there was an interesting story to be told here, one of the things that I think is true, I we're not the first people to say, hey, what should capitalism look like? And we've read most of those books. The thing that's been interesting is that many or most of those books fall into one of two categories. They're either sort of an academic, right, a researcher at an Ivy League typically writing very sort of ethereal books on, you know, what should capitalism look like? And they're not very practical because they're written by people that aren't really in the capitalist system, if you will. And then the other kind of book, and there plenty of these, are more like personal histories, right? Where a CEO is operated in a business we've heard of in a certain way, and then they write effectively a memoir about it. And in that memoir, they call for whatever, some version of capitalism that kind of fits into their thinking. And nothing wrong with either of those two books, but we really wanted to write a book from the perspective of like people that have been in this system, running businesses, investing in businesses, reporting on businesses for 30 years. And I think it gave the book a really different flavor. Amir Golshani: Wonderful. So when people hear capitalism needs to evolve, what did they misunderstand first? Seth Levine: Yeah, I don't, I mean, the first thing that, well, I don't like to frame it in terms of what they necessarily misunderstand, but I think the main thing that people misunderstand is that like capitalism isn't just this one thing, right? And I think it's absolutely fair, and not only fair, it's our duty to question what the social compact is, right? And I think that we've been going through a series of conversations in the United States, whether we realize it or not, that are trying to define what the edges of that compact look like. right, especially between government and people, but also, you know, who and what we support and how we support it. But there are there are four key pillars of what we call dynamic capitalism, right, which is this idea of the next phase of capitalism, where we've exited neoliberal capitalism, which was the style of capitalism that was kind of made more famous by Milton Friedman back in 1970 when he wrote an article based on a book that he'd written in the the 60s that talked about how The only responsibility of a company is to its shareholders. And that ended up over, especially through the 80s and 90s, becoming absolute dogma. was just, that was, everyone believed it. That was how it was. And it kind of got, it got a bit perverted and I think has led to the economic inequality that we have right now and some of the social unrest, the rise of populism, I think can be explained by this sort of really dogmatic adherence to neoliberalism. And we, again, we trace all of this in the book. if I'm peaking people's interest in this. But the truth is we kind of move beyond that, right? In 2019, the Business Roundtable, led by Jamie Dimon at the Times, we got to ask him about this and we talk about it in the book. They came out with a statement of the purpose of a corporation that expanded on what Friedman said. They said, no, no, There's a lot of other people we work with that actually matter, not just shareholders, right? And those include employees, suppliers, the environment community. And they're also important, not to the exclusion of shareholders, but in addition to shareholders. And a little bit of what they were saying is sort of this, that people should take a longer term view. And really, when we look at dynamic capitalism, which is what we've labeled the potential next version of capitalism in the United States to be, that actually is the first pillar, right? It's a long-term view, not a short-term view. I think Friedmanism, and actually even more than Friedmanism, Friedman's adherence, Right. think Friedman might have had a more nuanced view to this, but Friedman's adherents were really short term oriented. Right. Next quarter EPS earnings. And, you know, we just clearly that doesn't work. Right. By the way, you only need to look at the Fortune 500. The average half the half life of the Fortune 500 is 20 years. Right. So it's not even like those companies are doing a great job of perpetuating themselves. 250 of them won't be on the list in 20 years. So they weren't exactly being very effective taking this sort of quarter to quarter view. But that's the first pillar, we argue for that. The second pillar is a real role for government, but a limited role. I think there's a knee-jerk reaction on one side, like the neoliberals in particular, Greg and famously said, government is the problem. Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: That's too extreme. But I think there's also a knee-jerk reaction on the other side that government needs to step in and intervene in everything. And we take, there's an entire chapter that talks about this. This title, Government Is Not The Problem, but It's Not The Solution Either, where we suggest striking what I guess I'll call a balance, but it's a pretty limited balance in terms of the role of government in society. The third pillar is we want to create more capitalists, right? Like the part of, think, what we see going on, this appeal of socialism, is because a lot of people don't have a stake in the market economy, right? They're in debt from school. They never think they're going to be able to afford a house, right? The average age of a first time home buyer in the United States this year, 2025, was 41 years old. Like that's crazy. These are people that don't Amir Golshani: It is. Seth Levine: feel like they can get a foothold on the economic ladder. And we want to create more capitalists. And so we talk, there's a bunch of ideas in the book about that, ultimately around empowering an ownership economy and finding ways to create more capitalists, more owners. And so that's... That's really important. That's pillar number three. And then pillar number four, which we added kind of right at the end, it's kind of crazy to talk about. a little bit, sometimes I'm a little bit bashful about talking about it, but we have to these days. It was originally a three-legged stool, now it's four pillars. But it's the rule of law, right? And we actually need to talk about that these days because in order for a market economy to be successful, and for people to be able to participate in it fully, we need to have a set of rules. Those rules need to apply to everyone. And we need to call it out these days because we are in a period of time when it's not clear whether the rules apply to everyone. And in some cases, it's not entirely clear what the rules are. And that's actually to the detriment of the market economy that we're trying to build and that we're proponents of. Amir Golshani: Right. So that being said, what parts of capitalism still work and are worth protecting? Seth Levine: Well, I think this basic notion of a market economy is, and we argue very forcefully in the very, you know, not even the first chapter, the introduction to the book, we argue very forcefully for why capitalism has been a force for good in the world. Right. There's a billion fewer people in poverty today than 30 years ago. We attribute that to capitalism and the free flow of labor. you know, you we don't we didn't write the book to be a defense of capitalism. So we didn't really go through the like, here's all the. experiments in collectivism that have ever been tried, none of which have ever been successful. But if you look around the world at socialist and collectivist experiments, they have all failed and failed miserably, right? Everyone knows the story of the Soviet Union and communism. And I think people think that somehow that was this like edge case because it got so corrupt and they didn't have good data and people weren't reporting correctly what was actually being produced. And that's not what That is like the inevitable outcome. That was not some edge case of these types of systems. But Cuba, another example, Argentina, is maybe the best example, right? I the fifth biggest economy in 1900, they've completely, they're like 140th on the list today. mean, it is, it's interesting. was in Argentina, my wife and I were down there, I don't know, not even a year ago, and I had some extra Argentinian cash. as well as a couple of other currencies. And I needed to run to the bank for something. I went over to the bank and I was depositing whatever, some euros and some pounds. And I got to the Argentinian pesos and they're like, sorry, we can't take those. And the reason is because that economy is so unstable, they basically can't change them back into dollars. And so that's, again, a great example of an economy that has suffered under a hundred years of collectivism. And so I think it's important to to recognize that those things don't work and that the capitalism for all of its flaws, can, Winston Churchill once described democracy as the worst form of government except for all the others. Like maybe capitalism is the worst form of organizing an economy except for all the others. Like we can recognize it has some flaws, but it does a much better job of getting goods and services to people and allowing people sort of the free movement of labor and to use their own labor in the way that they see fit much better than any other form of organizing the economy. And a lot of what we talk about in the government chapter is actually enabling government to get out of the way so that people can actually apply their goods and services, their skills wherever they want. And I think that's something that we sometimes get away from in this country. We saw it under COVID, right? You can't cut hair in this county because you don't have a license. You can't be a therapist. I can't call up a therapist in California and do an online consultation because I'm in Colorado and they're not like, there's some things that just don't make any sense. Amir Golshani: Right. You talked about the main pillars of capitalism in your book. Now I want to connect this to the Quora Beyond the Summit podcast, which Seth Levine: Yeah. Amir Golshani: is health, wealth, and freedom. How do you define health today beyond physical metrics? Seth Levine: I mean, think that like freedom is health, right? Like I think to me, I'll be curious to get your view on this, but like, I think to me, those two things come together, right? And there's obvious to your point about like just physical health, but I think that a lot of health and being healthy is being free to make a lot of choices around how and where you want to spend your time, how and where you want to spend your money, how and where you want to spend your labor, right? Those are the things that I think about and and having the ability to and the freedom, right? To do those things in the way in which you want, right? Within parameters, right? We all have, we've got to work, we've got to pay mortgage, we've got the car payment, all the things. But I think that what we're aiming, what I think we should be aiming for as a society is allowing people to use their talents in the best way possible, right? And I think that we have this, sometimes have this misunderstanding about equality, for example, like we're not all equal, right? I'm a five, eight Jewish guy. Like I'm not a good basketball player, right? Like it's okay that I couldn't make the NBA even if I wanted to try really hard to make it. Like we have different skills and what I think we should all be looking for is the right overlap, the Venn diagram between the stuff that I am particularly good at and interested in and can make money doing. Right? Like I think that's what we're looking for. And I think sometimes where we go kind of a little bit of skew is where we feel like we are in just because we like this one thing, we should be able to make money doing it. And I just, fundamentally don't believe that that's true. So to me, bringing it back to what is health, like health is the ability to apply your, your trade in a way that gives you energy that you you apply your skill set, but that you can also make money doing, And recognizing that that doesn't mean that 100 % of the time we're doing the thing we absolutely love to do. Amir Golshani: that you've been involved in something, know, so as an investor, investment banker, as a venture capitalist, you know, whatever you've been doing dealing with money and financial systems, there is a lot of stress and no one can deny that, you know, has your relationship with stress changed as your influence grew? Seth Levine: I think that I spent a lot of time feeling like I needed to prove myself. And I don't know when the switch flipped for me, Amir, but I became a lot less stressed, and I learned this from Brad, but I became a lot less stressed when I decided to stop caring about what other people think and about proving myself. Now, I wanna be clear. I still care what other people think, right? I mean, it's a joke inside Foundry. have a folder. email folder, I call it strokes, when someone sends me something kind, I save it because sometimes I just want to hear something nice about myself. So I'm not saying I've completely abstract from that. I'm still quite human. But I feel like when I stopped sort of caring day to day about what that what everyone else thought of me, I was able to kind of let go of some of that stress. And I think that that's been really, really healthy, right? mean, the thing that everyone has their own thing. People like to meditate. People like to whatever, ride their bikes. I do that a lot too. But in particular, my wife and I like to walk a lot together. It's kind of our thing that we like to do. And I find that incredibly healthy for me and my kind of mental health and mental state. Some of that's because I get to talk to her and... and unload some ideas and get feedback. A lot of it is just moving your body physically is really good for you and being, by definition, you're somewhat in nature when you're walking, even if it's on a cement path somewhere. And so I really, I look for opportunities as much as possible to be able to get that walk in. That's kind of my daily practice, if you will. Amir Golshani: I love that. Is it fair to say stress reveals what we are attached to? Seth Levine: And I think it reveals us in general, I mean, you we sort of joke sometimes, like you really get to learn about a founder or CEO when you see them in a really challenging time, right? When the business is undergoing an existential threat. Because it is, it doesn't, and this is like the Michelle Obama line, doesn't change you, it reveals you. And I think that that's... I think about that a lot. Now, I also think people change over time, right? I mean, the person that I am today at 53 is very different than the kid that started adventure at 30. And so I do think that people can evolve and learn from those experiences. And I often do these, even if they're very informal, just inside my own head, post mortems on stuff that worked or didn't work, right? Or you occasionally... I'll have a board meeting and I'll be like, you know what, I didn't show up the way I wanted to in that board meeting. And I'll, you know, I try to think about like, why was that the case? Why was I not in the right mental state? Was I upset about something else and I let it bleed in? Was I hungry and I should just like eat in a bar before the hat or, you know, like what's going on? And I've a couple of times have called up CEOs and been like, hey, I'm sorry, I did not show up well. And I think Amir Golshani: that. Seth Levine: that that's important. Amir Golshani: So I cannot agree more. So reflection and human nature is to change. So what does. Seth Levine: Yeah, before we leave this, what do you think of his health when you define it? Amir Golshani: So it's the foundation for me. So health and wealth, I'd rather call it financial independence or foundation of freedom. And for me, all three of them, are integrated. I cannot separate them from each other. So at the same time, Seth Levine: Yeah. Amir Golshani: so there would be meaningful when we have all three of them together. So we cannot focus, we can, of course, but we have seen thousands of cases. If you focus. much in one aspect of life, you you're missing the other aspects and it's too late, you know, and you cannot wait for retirement or for that to come, you know, so enjoying at the moment and as you mentioned, you know, it sounds cliche but it's very true. Enjoy the journey. Seth Levine: Yeah, you know, it is, I have some friends, I have one friend I'm thinking about in particular is going through something really stressful with her family and I... And some of it relates to finances and it's, I'm so sort of acutely aware and feel very fortunate that I've managed to sort of construct this life that where the wealth part, like the wealth box got checked, right? Financial independence box got checked. and I recognize how much that enables this health box to also be checked, right? I am healthier because of that. And I, I've thought a lot about for this friend of mine, how she can Like she thinks she's struggling with the health box, but I think she's really mostly struggling with the financial independence box and like what can you do to organize your life differently to enable you to check that box, which doesn't necessarily mean make more money. It might mean make some choices around what you prioritize, but I think that these two things are so related and I think about it a lot. So thank you for sharing that. Amir Golshani: No, thank you. So what does wealth mean to you compared to earlier, actually time in your career right now? Seth Levine: Yeah. I mean, I think I remember when we first had our first kid thinking a certain weight of responsibility, right? Like I, I felt like I was And I'm sure my wife felt this too. not, I don't mean this in any sort of paternalistic sense, but I just mean like, wow. Like we now have this other person we're responsible for in between the two of us. We need to figure out how to like make it work now. Right? Like there's no, you know, jumping in the U-Haul and you know, finding a cheaper place to live and you know, whatever. Like now we have this other person that we're actually, you know, completely responsible for who's totally dependent on the two of us. and I think I felt a certain amount of pressure around that for a while. And what's interesting Amir is as I let that pressure sort of go away and also took greater and greater risks. And to me again, risk was not just wealth risk, but also kind of personal, like all in on things risk. The more successful ultimately I became. Now, obviously luck had something to do with that, right? I definitely got very lucky in life. But I think about it a lot and I still have moments of stress where I'm like, is our... Are we going to be able to do the things we want to do? How do I, you I've got, my kids are getting older now and like, you know, I worry about, are they going to be able to get jobs and, know, move out of the house and things like that. I've got two kids and, two kids in college right now. and one of almost in college. And, and so I do think a little bit about like, okay, what does that, what does that mean for, for them and their own ability to, you know, be financially independent? And, and, you know, so it's not like just, you know, being financially successful, like takes all that stuff away. Like, you know, we still have to think and talk about that. But I, you know, I mean, I'm very lucky that we got to a point in our lives where I don't have to think a lot about that day to day. Right. I mean, I think that I think that I you hit a point in life where you don't like when you go to the grocery store, I don't I don't obsess over like, you know, how much are we spending this week? And I still remember the days and that way back in the day when I was uh, living, you know, as in college and living on my own, where I had like 20, $25 budget. And when I got to the register and if it was 26, 95, I'd be like, I'm going to, let's actually take these two things back. And, know, now I don't have to do that anymore. And, and I haven't for a while and that feels good. Right. Like I, and I recognize that that's maybe not the state that everyone's in. I think one of the things that is challenging as you become successful is not losing your perspective on. You know, the things that matter to, to other folks. Amir Golshani: I love that. At what point does money stop buying freedom and start costing it? Seth Levine: such a great question. mean, I've been hearing people talk about this, right? And I think if you look at the statistics, I can't remember where the cutoff is, but there is a point where you've made enough, like the wealth curve is helping your health and longevity and all the things. And then there's a point where it actually starts to decline again, right? And I don't know why that is. And maybe some of it has to do with like, you get into these circles and you're constantly comparing yourselves to other people. I don't know, it's interesting. I would say I don't feel like I've gotten to that point yet. I think it's because I think I've managed to sort of... It's great to live in Boulder, know, or in Longmont, even better, right? Where it's a town outside of Boulder where my wife and I live. And she owns the bookstore in town. She's a real estate developer. Like, you know, we a lot of her sort of day to day is like working on Main Street. She owns a bunch of buildings down on Main Street, trying to help create a vibrant community and seeing all the various people that are in our community. Right. And, you know, that includes, you know, the homeless guy that likes to come into the bookstore and. you know, is a sweet guy and, you know, talks to her a lot. And, you know, I think just looking to be acknowledged in this world, right? You know, from that to the people that, you know, rent her other buildings that are just trying to make their small businesses work to, you know, and I think that that perspective has really helped me. And I could absolutely see if you get into an echo chamber where the only people you hang out with are people that are very similarly situated from a socio and economic perspective. that one, you're constantly trying to keep up with them, right, which I think could be bad. And two, that you are just, it could make you unhappy. And I can recognize that in some friends that, or acquaintances, probably better way saying it, that I have that are, that run in some of these circles where they only spend time with other people that are. also very financially successful and yet it's sort of never enough. And I think maybe that's the trap that you're talking about. Does that make sense? Amir Golshani: Yeah, 100%. I think that's a line or the point that you also mentioned. Many people don't notice until they cross it. And Seth Levine: Hmm. Amir Golshani: problem comes when we do not think about these things. If you reflect and think about them, probably we can figure them out. But we do not even think about it. That's, think, that's where the problem comes from. Seth Levine: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you sort of, it's like the boiled frog. Like you end up in these communities and everyone is just like, we're, oh, we just went, got back from Turks and Keiko or whatever, like whatever the example is. Amir Golshani: You Seth Levine: And you're like, Oh my God, we should take, we need, we need a really good, this is why social media kind of sucks sometimes. Right. Cause like, you know, I don't know. I follow like 400 accounts on Instagram. I'm actually, I'm not on Instagram a crazy amount, but, and I'm not on, on, on X very much at all, but like someone's always doing something awesome. Right? This is the problem with following the venture press too, right? Like, you know, every day I get the venture newsletters that tells me that, you know, such and such company just exited or such and such company, you know, just raised this crazy round and you can sort of be like, man, I haven't had one of those in a while. Like, you know, I'm just doing it wrong. Right. And I think you need to kind of step back and get yourself some perspective of like, actually, no, this is like, you know, there are whatever, 10,000 venture-backed companies at any given time. And on any given day, there's three pieces of really good news, right? Like it's not, you're not really missing out. And sort of everyone's in the same boat. I wrote a blog post once, it was called the 10-year entrepreneur. And I talked about how actually entrepreneurship is so hard and so few businesses were overnight successes, but yet you would think that they were based on... what you read in the tech press. And so many founders wrote me and were like, thank you. I thought I was the only one, right? Some posted publicly to it, but a lot of people just sent me private emails. And I think that's kind of what you're getting at here, which is like this recognition and self-awareness of where you are and where you kind of fit in the world. And I think that, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't spend time with other people that are entrepreneurs, let's say in that case, or other people that are not. you know, similarly situated or have kids the same age as you or whatever. But you someone's kids always getting into some school or doing some project or, whatever. you like, you could be happy for them and recognize that like, you even if your kids didn't have that this last week, that doesn't mean you're like a bad parent. Right. I'm trying to kind of bring this into terms that, that, that listeners will, I hope relate with in different parts of their lives. But, but I, you know, we, we try in our lives a lot to like avoid those sorts of comparisons, right. Because by any comparison. we've done really, really well. And yet it's still really easy to look around and be like, know, there's a podcast that has even more, you know, a higher profile guests than I do, or has more downloads or whatever it is. And you're like, hey, but I'm doing the thing that makes me happy. And I enjoy the conversations I'm having. like, I'm doing something, I'm putting things out in the world that I'm proud of, right? Like that's a good thing for the world. And I just, like, I think we got to hold onto that really, really tightly. Amir Golshani: I love that you mentioned a great point, you so when you mentioned that you stop kind of looking for external validation and stress went away. And also I can add to that, that if we stop trying to impress others, you know, that that's a big deal too. Seth Levine: Yeah. Yeah. think that that's external validation and impressing others are kind of like the same, you know, they're like, you know, cousins, right? and Amir Golshani: Right. Seth Levine: I think that that's, that's a really good point of me or like, like, and I think it's hard to do. And I think it's okay. I feel like this about meditation, right? I was, it's funny. I, I, I, I meditate from time to time. I think it's a healthy practice and I was so convinced I was doing it wrong because my mind is going in a million directions and I meditate and then like, 10 seconds later, my mind goes somewhere else. And then I'm trying to bring it back in. I finally had someone, I said this to someone and they were like, and I was like, and I'm doing it wrong. just like, I should just give it up. And they're like, what are you talking about? That, that is what meditation is. Like people don't just like get in this trance and not think of anything. Like the point of meditation is to like recognize when your brain goes somewhere and then bring it back to center when you can. And I was like, Amir Golshani: Talking about meditation, you know, I strongly recommend you to watch my last episode. Seth Levine: Mm. Amir Golshani: So you would love it. I guarantee that. Please do that. Yeah, that's... Seth Levine: Great. Just so everyone who's listening has it, just because the order may get mixed up, who is that guest? Amir Golshani: The guest is Forrest Knotson, Seth Levine: Okay. Amir Golshani: so known as that yogi guy who's Seth Levine: Yeah, that's right. Amir Golshani: got a book called Mastering Meditation. Super knowledgeable, fantastic, everything you need to know about meditation so it's there. Reliable, authentic information that people can apply immediately. Seth Levine: All right, I'm definitely gonna go listen to that right away. I mean, I'm using it as sort of an analogy to like, it's so easy to think you're doing these things wrong because it just, you know, like there is sort of no right way, right? mean, it's, whatever this relates to. And I try not to put too much pressure on myself around, you know, we didn't walk today or I didn't do this or, you know, like, you just gotta like balance real life with. You know, we all aspire to be better in certain ways and, you know, and, you know, I don't always eat right. I don't always sleep right. Sometimes I drink, even though I, you know, try to drink less, right? Like it's okay, uh, for all of these things to, to happen and, and then just recognize them and reset and you try to wake up the next day and you're like, okay, I'm going to do better. Amir Golshani: Said I'm really enjoying this conversation because the wisdom you're sharing, you know, is coming from years of experience. Thank you for that. If you could go Seth Levine: Yeah. Thanks for having Amir Golshani: back 10 years, what belief would you challenge first? Seth Levine: 10 years ago, it's been a journey to like care less. and I just, like when people say like, what's one word that you, you know, like, what's your advice? My advice is always like some version of either breathe or relax. Right. And I think that that's what I would say to myself from 10 years ago, from 20 years ago. I also would say, and maybe this was like a COVID lesson for me. I spent a lot of time. for decades in my career, running around doing things I thought other people wanted me to do. And COVID was this freeing experience for me to realize I don't have to necessarily do all that. And especially in the lead up to COVID, I just felt like every week I was jumping on a plane to some other place because I felt this obligation, like these people wanted me here or there. And I realized through COVID and I've organized my life now much more to be able to do the things I want to do versus the things I feel like I have to do. Now, that doesn't mean I don't get on a plane because I have to go to a board meeting and I feel like I should be there in person. Like that, of course, still happens, but I've been able to sort of push enough of that stuff out and I'm trying to be much more thoughtful about like, how do I want to spend my time? And I would... I didn't realize the agency that I had in that. And I would love to go back and tell my myself from 10 or 20 years ago, Hey, you, have a lot more discretion in this than you think you have, and you should use it. Now the really interesting question to me, and I've been asking, so I, you know, I, I'm 53. I, I've been asking some people who are, you know, 10 years older than me. What did you wish you knew 10 years ago? Like I've been asked and I've been trying to think for myself, like, what is my answer to that question in 10 years going to be? Right. And how can I implement that now? Because I'm acutely aware of having, I hope not a super limited window, but I, you know, I think a lot about my mom. My mom started sort of suffering from dementia when she was about 70, about 75. Right. So like, I mean, it's possible I've got 20 years, you know, before I maybe can't. fully function in the world? I hope not. But I have thought a little bit about like, that may be the window that I've got and how do I maximize the time that I'm spending doing things that I get joy out of and get energy from versus everything else that I have to do in life. And I don't know if you have any advice on that, but I... I think a lot about that and I ask other people a lot about, hey, exactly this question, what would you want to tell yourself 10 years ago? But I'm looking for people in their 60s to tell me, 50-year-old, you know, three-year-old self, hey, this is what I wish I knew when I was 53. Amir Golshani: So I love that. personally, I kind of reverse engineering that. So Seth Levine: Mm. Amir Golshani: when there is an opportunity or where there is a role model, where there is a position that I'm interested in to be there, I consider the best case scenario. I said, OK, that is the position, CEO of that company. What it takes to be there and researching that person. Do I really want to go through what he has gone through to be there in 20 years, in 30 years? Seth Levine: Yeah. Amir Golshani: And if the answer is yes, okay, so, okay, you can try it, but if the answer is no, no, I don't want to sacrifice that much. I don't want to spend that much time. I don't want to do what he has done or she has done to be there. And then I don't follow that. Seth Levine: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's easy. It's a little bit of what we were talking about, 10 year entrepreneur, like from the outside, it's like, it all looks great, but you don't necessarily, I've had some friends actually sort of say that to me about, about writing a book, right? They're sort of like, I can't remember how one of them in particular framed it, but she was like, yeah, I should have done that. And, you know, I don't know. It's the way that she sort of said it. And I was like, I didn't just like fall out of bed and the book was written, right? Like this was years of, of work. And I, you know, I had to decide to dedicate. Now I happen to like writing. works, you know, it calms my brain and it's, it's a enjoyable experience for me. Um, but it was, you know, hundreds and I mean, thousands of hours of interviews and sorting and collating and writing and everything else. And I, you know, that was time that I had to take away from work or family or recreation or whatever. And, uh, I just, know, like you should know that going into your kind of your example of like, okay, what did it actually take to obtain that? Uh, that status or that. that goal or whatever. you know, I mean, if you want to run a marathon for most people, right, like you're going to, that's hundreds of hours of training and, you know, like, like, if that's a goal, then like, be like, Hey, I'm going to dedicate the time to that because that's important to me. And I think we've in some respects, like we're a little bit of an age where like, we just sort of see things on social media and we think it's all easy. and we don't necessarily appreciate like all the work that goes into it. Amir Golshani: So I used to be a competitor swimmer, you so was sprinting when I was younger Seth Levine: Hmm. Amir Golshani: and just 30 seconds or less than a minute, you know, that was what people could see. But throughout the year we had to train hours and hours and hours exactly what you said. Yeah. Seth Levine: Yeah. I, by the way, I was also a sprint, a competitive swimmer and I was, kind of, it distances up to 200 for me. So mostly sprints and, um, and yeah, same thing, right? Like you, I mean, think about a hundred meter dash sprinter, right? It's 10, nine seconds of work is what you see. And, and, but you don't see the thousands of hours that they spend in the weight room and on the starting blocks to practice and all that. So it's, it's exactly right. And that, that particular story. particular story resonates with me because it was, I mean, yeah, thousands of meters, Amir Golshani: Because you've done that, you know what I mean exactly. Seth Levine: right, every day. I mean, it was a lot of time in the pool. Amir Golshani: Absolutely. So what mistake are you most grateful for? Seth Levine: Hmm. I, gosh, that's such an interesting question. I, it's a funny one. I, and then maybe this isn't what you mean, but I was, in 2000, my company was going public. I was in New York leading the charge on the writing the S1 document. I was. One of our investors was Texas Pacific Group. They were doing this big CEO conference and I was going to keynote it as a 20 whatever, eight year old or something like that, which was pretty cool. And there was a group of us in New York and I, so we had rented like a stretch limos before we had like SUVs or whatever, I don't know. And for whatever reason, we had the stretch limo thing. And, and so I've got to like, get to the airport from the printers. And so I, I run downstairs, the limos there, I hop in, I'm sitting sort of across the back, got my arms up. I'm dressed in a suit and feeling like very happy with myself, basically very full of myself. And, you know, I'm flying first class from New York to San Francisco. And I'm like, pretty cool. And, I get to Newark and I walk in. And I look up at the board and I want to see a flight to San Francisco. And I'm like, what the hell? This is before we had phones with apps and stuff like that. And it dawns on me that my flight's from JFK. And if you know anything about New York, this is, know, it's six o'clock at night or seven o'clock at night. That's a three or four hour drive to get from Newark to JFK. Like I'm stuck. And. I just like deflated, right? I, and there's, and maybe there's better motels or hotels now, but they were not nice back then around Newark airport. And so a half an hour later, I'm at some motel. That's crappy. I sit on my, edge of my bed. put my, my bag down. I'm going to, miss my flight. I'm going to, I've got a flight the next morning, but I'm going to miss my thing. There's someone else who's going to give the keynote and I'm going to get to do this like little thing at the end to participate, but like. you know, basically kind of lost this moment. I'm just sitting on the bed and I was like, wow, you, you let everything get to your head and like, this is a moment of humility and, it ended up being an incredibly important, obviously seared into my brain, right? I've, this story is an important story for me. and that mistake of like going to the wrong airport, like kind of changed my life. Not that I don't have ego. mean, obviously, you know, I'm still human. I have that. But it was a moment where I was like, hey, you need to take a step back here and assess your life a little bit and how you're showing up in it. And I think I needed that at that moment. I mean, I think things happen for a reason. And I think that was life telling me, you're getting a little too big in the britches here. Why don't you calm the F down? And it worked. I definitely, I was very humbled. Uh, little bit humiliated, uh, by the whole thing, right? I mean, I had to call him and be like, uh, miss my flight. Um, and I'm sure I didn't tell him that I went to the wrong airport, but, um, but anyway, that was, Amir Golshani: I loved that. Seth Levine: that's, that's the first thing came to my mind is like, that's a, that was a, that was a big mistake, but I'm really glad it happened. Amir Golshani: I'd love it. Thank you for sharing that. How should people think about money emotionally, not just logically? Seth Levine: Yeah. I feel like it's so hard for me to give money advice because I feel like it's not fair, right? Like I've, I've now gotten to this place in my life where like, you know, I have a lot of it. And, and so it's so easy for me to be like, yeah, don't stress about it. And it'll come and blah, blah. Cause I remember these moments in life. I still have some of the emails where like I sent my boss a note when it was like bonus season and it was like, Hey, like this bonus matters a lot to me because I'm feeling a lot of financial stress right now. and you know, I'm struggling to afford, you know, a new family and, and, you know, all the things. And so, you know, I feel like it's so important to. Remember for me at least to remember, and that wasn't that long ago, but, long enough ago now to remember, like it's not as easy as just sort of being like, look, I just need to match my goals with my, you know, my abilities. So I, you know, I do. Now that said, I do talk to a decent number of people about sort of like, what are their financial goals? Things like that. It's just like. I think the real goal should be to lead an interesting life that gives you flexibility to spend time with people that you love and to do the things that you're interested in. And I think that, I think I missed the mark a little bit on that in my career, right? And I think what I'm enjoying now about my life is that balance of being able to be around and do more things with the people that I care about. And again, this goes back to like, what would I tell my earlier self of like, Maybe take a bit more ownership for that and say no to some more things to be around a bit more. And I didn't realize how, I mean, I've got kids in college now, like how fast that goes. Right. And, and, we have a very close family, which is great. And we, we spent a lot of money on like experiences, like we'd like to go places as a family. and so I'm really glad that we did that. but, you know, but I think that it's easy to get sort of off balance on all those things. And, and I guess my advice ultimately is like money is a means to something else. It's not an end of itself, right? And measuring yourself and your self-worth, even though worth, I understand, is a charged word, which generally means you measure something in a bank account or some ledger. But I think we are too prone to measuring self-worth based on your bank account and your ledger, as opposed to the sort of fullness of your life. And I think that that's important. I think about that a lot. We, I do spend, I... We have a place on the East Coast near the beach and we spent some time there. And we've got a little bit of a joke like the value of your home is inversely related to the amount of time you spend there. Right. Because the people with the like crazy like from from where I live, I can with my binoculars, but I can see where a bunch of really, really wealthy people in particular live. And they're never there. Right. And I think a lot about like, I would rather not have the big house on the peninsula right on the water, but get to spend my whole summer here, you know, versus have the amazing house, but only get to spend two weeks there. Maybe that's a dumb analogy, but I think that that's important. Right. Like I think Amir Golshani: No. Seth Levine: we, should measure the quality of our life, you know, not by how much money we have in the bank, but the actual quality of our life. And I think really being taking stock and like, well, what's enough? And this is back to your question of like, at what point is it too much and does you get to actually diminishing return from more money? And I think that that's what it's ultimately about is like, you got to chase, you know, more and more money. Amir Golshani: So one of the best compliments that I have received in my life was that someone told me, thank you for being you. I want to give it to you. Thank you, Seth, for being you. Seth Levine: It's incredibly kind of you, Amir. Thank you. Amir Golshani: And finally, what does Beyond the Summit mean to you personally? Seth Levine: beyond the summit. Yeah, it's interesting. I've been to a lot of summits because I'm a mountain climber. I, so, and you know, one of the things that we always say in mountain climbing is that when you reach the summit, you're halfway. And I really do believe that, right? Like, achieving the summit. is not the achievement, it's getting back. And what we really mean by that is like getting back to your family and your life, right? And I think that this relates a lot to the things that we've been talking about, but like achieving a goal is only worthy if you are achieving in the context of your community and your life and the people you care about. And I think that that is something that's really, really important to think about, right? Which is like balancing out your ambitions with the rest of your life, your partner, your family, you whatever it might be. I think that's really important. So when you say beyond the summit, that's what I think about, right? Which is getting it like getting to the summit is halfway. How do you get, how do you get back home essentially? And how do you then share that achievement Amir Golshani: Thank you so much. Seth Levine: with others? Amir Golshani: No, I love that. Seth, thank you for your honesty, clarity, responsibility, and everything that you shared with us. This was a wonderful conversation. Thank you. Seth Levine: Thank you for the amazing questions, Amir, really thought provoking, probing, so interesting. I appreciate you very much. Amir Golshani: And to those who are watching or listening, take what resonated, question the rest, and keep designing your own version of freedom. Thank you.