Latest / The Mentor Sessions / The Mentor Sessions | Inside the Fund Betting on African Media, Tech, and Storytelling

Transcript

The Mentor Sessions | Inside the Fund Betting on African Media, Tech, and Storytelling · The Mentor Sessions

• Alykhan Kaba: I I hold myself to a certain level of regimentedness, but I also think I have the self awareness to know what I can expect myself to do and what I can expect others to do. And that changes depending on who the other is. BigMike Coyle: None of us become who we're meant to be alone. Every story has people who helped write it. So let's talk about them. Welcome to the Mentor Sessions. BigMike: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the mentor sessions. I'm your host, Big Mike. Today I've got a really exciting guest. I've got Ali Khan Kaba, who is Canadian and he's got a great story that about him going to university and just the different paths that his career took that I think he wasn't expecting. Is that a good way to put it? Alykhan Kaba: I I think that's a totally fair way to put it. BigMike: So Ali Khan, gr glad you're with us and let's get going. Let's hear about your story. Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, no, thanks for having me. I mean, w where where do you want me to start? BigMike: as as they say in the sound of music, let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. Alykhan Kaba: Okay. Well, like you mentioned, Canadian. So I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. And my parents are originally from Tanzania, we're Indian heritage, so was sort of surrounded by a lot of different cultures growing up and was always very As a kid I just loved like entertainment. I loved T V shows and video games and movies and music and I thought every everybody likes these things. Who who doesn't? And when I was younger I I always I always had this this goal of I r I really strongly believe in the philosophy of if you really love your job, you'll never have to work a day in your life. And so I thought as a really young five, six, seven-year-old, like, I'm gonna be an artist, I'm gonna do something that helps me create the things that I love consuming so much. And I I felt a little bit conflicted because on one hand, it It's something that I love and enjoy, but on the other hand, it felt kind of superficial because I grew up in a family and in a community that really values service, community service. And when you think about it that way, entertainment feels or can feel a little bit superficial and frivolous. And I wasn't expecting to go in this direction, but it's relevant. When 9-11 happened, I started to have a lot of experiences that shaped how I interacted with the media. My family belongs to a progressive Muslim tradition. And so when 9-11 happened, the way that I I experienced it was not only, wow, this is all devastating and there's a lot of tragedy happening, but also w w how what does the news say about this and what does that mean for me and my identity? And when I started to reflect on that, I realized that Yes, media can be very entertaining and it can be very fun and it can be something that brings people together. It can also be tremendously impactful for better or for worse. It can change the way people think, what they believe, how they perceive the things around them. And so that moment, started to put me in this direction of thinking, okay, I'm going to work in media. I'm going to w I want to work in media for the greater good. And for most of my life I thought I would do that again, kind of going down the creative path. I thought I'd go to art school and become an artist. I had a a family friend eventually steer me on the path of studying business and I became a a management consultant and have kind of worked my way through the corporate ladder since then. So I started out my career as a consultant at McKinsey and then since then worked at Places like Live Nation, Activision Blizzard, Entertainment One, and then most recently was it was at NBC Universal, and I I now manage a venture capital fund called Aries Media Ventures, which invests in media startups in sub-Saharan Africa. So the goal for the VC fund is to start to find and back these founders who are building businesses in creative industries in parts of the world that are really difficult. And all of that's kind of come full circle now. BigMike: I'm just adjusting listening. I found the thing about doing sub Saharan Media, very interesting. especially as you're talking about your story and how nine eleven impacted the past you went on. And I can only pretend to imagine I know what that's like. because all of a sudden you probably felt all eyes are were on you and your community and your people. and you guys from what you said didn't share the same ideals or or ideology as as those those individuals did. and and you made a great point about how media can be a tool for good or for bad and we've seen that a lot. You know, we've seen how our a lot of opinions are shaped on the me by the media. and today our world is very divided in you we we when it goes to consuming media, we stay within our silos now. We don't try to get outside our silos and in hearing differing point of views. And that's one thing that I've learned and I've tried to be open minded to and hear other opinions. And you know, just because I accept someone else's opinion doesn't mean I I necessarily have to agree or disagree with it. But I have to be willing to hear it. I can I I can Alykhan Kaba: Totally. Yeah. It's it's BigMike: see the benefit of giving opening up media to sub Saharan Africa because and and maybe this is my own naivety and and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but if we can expose them to more ideas and for more growth, do you think that might help impact and change the tragic outcomes they've had so far, the the wars, the famines, and you know, I know we send a lot of humanitarian aid down there, and I feel like the warlords have hijacked those efforts to help the people, but if we gave them ideas that expose them to this doesn't have to be your reality. can you talk a little bit on that? Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it i think it actually goes both ways. I think there's part of it which is telling news stories or unlocking news stories within the continent, within the region, so that there are more competing voices that illustrate what the world can look like. I also think the inverse is also true. I also think that by almost treating African media like an export, treating African Technology as an export and exposing the rest of the world to what it's like to live in Nairobi or Lagos or one of these places, and it starts to shape the way all of us think about the the context in which we live. if you are traveling through through sub-Saharan Africa, there are parts of the region that are very cosmopolitan, very modern. You feel like you're in New York, right? There's all the top infrastructure that you would normally expect. and then you don't have to go too far to start to feel like, I, you know, I I I feel like I'm in what a the the stereotype of Africa is now. BigMike: Right, right. Alykhan Kaba: And and I I think both because both those things is are true, it's easy to feel like it's all one or the other when in reality those things coexist side by side and There's actually a really beautiful complexity that that creates because now you're thinking about well, what are the push and pull factors of migration? What are the the which organizations have power in what parts of the city? how do they interface with politics? How do they interface with international international organizations? And there's a lot to unpack there. So part of the part of Creating an environment where more stories can be told helps put people on it creates more empathy for what that that complexity can look like. I think a more direct example of what you're describing is actually I used to work at a I did a brief project at a company called Roshan Telecom, which is actually a telecom company based in Afghanistan. So I I in 2012, after I graduated from university and before I started my job as a consultant, I really wanted to test this hypothesis of can you use media as a vehicle for social and economic development? And I because I guess I'm a crazy person, I thought What better way to test this than to do it in the most extreme environment? So I found this telecom company in Afghanistan. They're based in Kabul. They had 2,000 employees, 20% of their work workforce were women. This was a very reputable organization and I thought, let me go see what they're doing. And they were hiring interns, so I threw my hat in the ring and ended up flying out to Kabul that summer and and doing a short-term project with them. And they had again thousands of employees, 20% of their workforce were women, which was a high considered high for for the region. they produced the Afghan edition of Sesame Street. They produced a TV show called Afghan Star, which was the first time a woman sang and danced on national television. It was like kind of like the Afghan version of American Idol. They sponsored the Afghan Premier League, which was a a soccer league in the in the country. At one point they were the country's single largest taxpayer. Yeah. And you put all of this together and you start to understand, like, this is a very real prototype for how media can be used for good in even the most challenging circumstances. And part of their mission was exactly what you're describing, right? Can we start to commission or support forms of media that tell a different story about what the what our home can look like? And of course, there are certain parameters within which you you can do. that in a way that's safe and responsible for the local context. But that doesn't mean that there's zero room to wiggle. That there you just have to do it in a way that's thoughtful. And of course because so much of the leadership were locals, they were able to do that very, very well. And that that really set the stage for how I think about media and how I think about my role in media from there. BigMike: Yeah, that sounds extremely fascinating. How is that project What's the status of that project now since the the Taliban is taken back over? Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, you mean the the telecom company? BigMike: Yeah. Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, they're they're they still exist. they're still operating. My understanding is they have gotten smaller, so they don't have as many employees as they used to. I don't know the latest on sort of the demographic or what products they're they're focusing on, but they are the last I checked, they are still operating. BigMike: That's that's interesting. Yeah. You were you're you were a brave man to go take on that mentor or internship program. As you were getting into this, you're trying to learn a whole new you're trying to combine your love of media plus your your bid business management acumen and also put mir interweaving that with community service. I I I remember you mentioned that. So as you were doing this, like who helped guide you along this path and who helped helped you form and solidify these ideas? Alykhan Kaba: Let's I mean there there's so many people who who played a role in shaping what this looks like. And part of the fun was that there were very few people who had done who had kind of gone down this path. And so what I found myself doing was I I very rarely found people who were like The head of international for a large media company, like it was it w I was I didn't really have access to that type of person for most of my career. But what I did have access to were people who were just good at thinking about careers and good at thinking about professional development and good at thinking about, okay, well, if you what is the problem you're trying to solve and how do you how do you actually solve it? And When I think about the people that had the greatest impact on me, they were really the people who demonstrated leadership from a service-oriented lens. I have had many bosses, especially early in my career, who demonstrated or exhibited values that I didn't always agree with. It was kind of like how do we generate business outcomes? Irrespective of how the work gets done. There was a what I would identify as a lack of empathy and almost a a formulaic idea of okay, we need to quote unquote add value. How do you add value? You increase revenue or you reduce costs. what are the levers to pull to to enable those things? And if I set a set if I set a list of instructions. My expectation is that everybody around me will execute those instructions. And if they don't execute those instructions, it's not because my expectations were unreasonable. It's not because my what I'm asking for is illogical for whatever reasons, it's because somebody didn't do what I told them to do and their job is to do what I told them to do. This is a very, very sort of broad pain painting a br a broad stroke for for for this type of persona, but it's the type of person who says, I'm gonna implement this reorganization, and we have a technology vendor who needs to implement a technology, and in order to do this across these 50 sites, they need to execute this four-page checklist. This is a real story. There was a this massive checklist, and every time this technology was deployed, our expectation, or my boss's expectation, was that the vendor would go through this very tedious checklist. and make sure everything was done. And the checklist didn't always capture things that were fundamentally important. It was like it was it was it was There was a lot of minutiae that like other people should have been doing, not necessarily the tech vendors. And I remember putting my hand up and saying, Hey boss, I I feel like we should be making the checklist a little bit more focused so that the tech vendor can focus on these things. And if we really care about these other things, we can ask someone else, some other team to do it. And my boss's response to me was literally, their job is to do what they tell what we tell them to do, they have to do it. And of course, we gave them the checklist. And they did not do all of it because it wasn't all important and it became a whole thing. And then I worked for other bosses who have common sense and can look at something very reasonably and just have perspective that really understands the place of business in the the broader landscape of of w how one lives their life. there was a difference between employees who think about their job as their entire lives and employees who are there to do a job and and just get the work done. Both of those things are both both of those profiles are important. And the right type of leader can distinguish between what's important and what's not and work with that entire sort of spectrum of of colleagues. And and then beyond that there's always the question of why are you doing what you're doing? Why why are you even what's the end game for The business that you're working within? Is it just to maximize shareholder value, which is what textbooks tell us to say? Or is there a broader mission? Is it to entertain people? Is it to d develop the environments that we're operating in? Is it is it to move people from point A to point B in in some type of physical or metaphorical way? And seeing those leaders who demonstrated that type of leadership, that sort of mission oriented leadership really informed how I think about the way I carry myself in in f from function to function and as I think how I think about using media in that sort of productive way. BigMike: Well, one of the things that's interesting if I don't know how much we've talked about my story, but I was in law enforcement for twenty one twenty-one years. so that is a very relationship based industry, right? You you succeed by maintaining healthy relationships, healthy boundaries and stuff like that, versus in corporate world. And when people say, well, our goal here is to add value, my mental confusion would be, okay, so our goal is to add value back to the community, back to the industry, back to the employees' people's lives, because that's how I looked at it. and then like you said, there are those managers where adding value, or those leaders or or whomever, when they hear adding value, it's strictly on the spreadsheet. It's the numbers and cents. And then you'd have the leaders who it was, okay, we're here to add value. Now what does that look like? Of course, we want to do it in a cost efficient way for the for the shareholders, for for the bottom line. However, how do we add value to the employee? How do we add it? You know, like you said, there's two employees. There's the one that the job is hit his or her life. And then you have the other one where they're there punching a clock so they can go home and take the gains from the job to spend it in their in their lives and on their family. What did you find? Like what'd you find in trying to balance all these things as you were growing into the the management role? Alykhan Kaba: It's There's actually a one of the things that I really struggled with when I was starting to go down this path in a more intentional way was in university there's this notion that constructive conflict is very helpful. If people disagree on things, that means that there's something suboptimal happening in the way that something is being approached. And so you talk it out, and because you have people with different perspectives sitting around the same table, you ultimately get to a better final answer. And what I found was earlier in my career, I had a really hard time distinguishing between diversity of strengths and diversity in values. And it wasn't until I had gotten to it was literally a a an MBA class. So this is now I I graduated from university in in 2012. I'm now in business school five, six years later, and it was in one of these classrooms where we were talking about leadership. And I put my hand up and said, I'm I I don't really know how to think about constructive conflict. This this principle had come up again, because I can think of many examples where I've worked in an environment where there was a lot of what I would call constructive conflict, but it was really challenging work environment and it was really hard to get anything done. And yet I can think of other examples where we got so much work done, but we didn't have a lot of conflict. And what the work quality was probably like it probably wasn't as good as it was in those more challenging environments, but we got the work done way better, way faster. And so because of that we were more productive. And it was that professor who pointed out that the experiences I had that there was a lot of constructive conflict, but it was hard for us to work together, it was confusing to me because there was diversity of strengths in those environments, but there was also diversity in val of values in those environments. So when I if I go back to the example of working with this tech vendor, my boss and I at the time did have different strengths. We he he was far more analytical, far more rigorous, far more detail-oriented, far more regimented. And I was more of a what is the conceptual problem? What is the abstract thing we're trying to create structure around? How do we influence people in a in a realistic way? And because of that, we were able to approach problems in a really, really superior way. However He and I also valued different things. And that's where it started to become really difficult for us to work together because I valued things like like empathy, like like like culture, like sustainability, and his predominant value was economic value. And so those things felt at odds. And the more I start to think about operating in media in an environment where you're actually trying to optimize for multiple things, it's become more and more important to me to think about what values do the people around me have? What values do my partners or the founders that I'm backing? Or what values do my investors have? What values do the investors I'm investing in businesses with have? Because if our values are different, everything falls apart. whenever I interview candidates for jobs that I'm hiring for, I'll do the usual technical interview questions, but I'm constantly thinking about I'm trying to suss out what values does that person have, and are those values consistent with mine? Do they value excellence and empathy? And do they value sustainability? Do they value things outside of just themselves? And I want to be be really careful when I talk about things like that because I think people can sometimes hear what I'm saying and say, this is you're basically accepting suboptimal returns in exchange for these other things. Sometimes people will ask me, is my VC fund an impact investing fund? But actually what I just believe in is sustainable finance and sustainable returns. I don't believe that min-maxing economic results in the short term. is actually sustainable in the long term. I'll use the food industry as an example because that feels like a really straightforward one to to illustrate this. As a food manufacturer, it can be really tempting to create really addictive foods. But what do you do if you're literally shortening the lifespan of your customer base? What are you to what end do you do that? And then you need the the pendulum starts to swing the other way and you say, this actually isn't maximizing profit anymore, how do we what do we do now? And and there's always this sort of back and forth. And so I think about this more as how do you start from the point of equilibrium and co-create value for all of the different dimensions involved. And I think values are really the thing that ground how you approach all of that. And so as I've grown from earlier in my career to sort of later on, I've discovered more and more how important that is and to to proactively sort of screen for that whenever I'm finding other people or partners to work with. BigMike: important. And I get the importance of the constructive dialogue, the feedback. But I think you make a valid point that where once you get in such a feedback loop where all you're doing is arguing back and forth and and however you want to word it, you're not being productive because no one's taking those steps. You're just trying to prove yourself right all the time. and then when you have a more open environment, you might be able to just let it happen naturally, let that flow, let that vibe happen. But like you said, you may not be getting the optimal results because it no one is willing to push back and give that criticism and say, Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is this the best outcome? hey, wait, is this the best outcome? You get pushback like, Why are you bullying me? Why do you think you have all the answers? When it's like, no, we just have to formulate a plan first. And I think there are some people where they spend so much time making a plan, they don't actually do it. In fact, when I worked for the sheriff's office, we were in debate with the county commissioners. And I I was not a decision maker by any means, but we were in debate with them regarding some budgeting issues and some budgeting concerns. And it was getting really active on social media. And I had posted a comment about like there's so much navel gazing going on. It needs to just happen. And my sheriff sent me a personal text. He goes, I have never heard that phrase in all my life. And to him, it was just the funniest thing in the world. And but That's how I felt was going on. Everybody just wanted to sit around and not the most professional way to describe it, but pin pick the lin out of their belly button instead of actually making a decision and moving forward. And I think you get kind of that diagnosis paralysis in in the business world. And I think that's I like how you you talked about our diversity in strengths helped us succeed. And that's very important is be able to strong, be strong in any communication. you know, I I'm the first one to admit I'm not the the the business man, but I'm very good with relationships. And I learned early on, and this is the the example that I like to use in my personal life. When I was a newlywed, when I was trying to find my footing for my wife and I and our our upcoming family, I I wanted to be a tradesman. My father-in-law was a tradesman. he was an electrician. I don't like electricity, so I'm like, I bet I could do plumbing. Well, after a lot of forcing myself into these what I really call uncomfortable situations, I had to accept I don't have the mind for that. I could develop it, but I don't have the time or the mind to develop to be able to Look at a blueprint, see the building, and make it all work. I knew essentially that you know, drains work from gravity and and it all runs downhill. and my father-in-law, he could do all of that. And I I was so envious of him. And my father-in-law, please don't take this in any harsh way. He he's a very good man, but he lacks interpersonal skills. whereas That's one of my strengths is sitting down talking to people from all walks of life. It's why I started this podcast so I can get to know people from all over. And I've had a a wonderful little experience doing that. And by doing that and learning my my strengths and and learning that that's my strength, that's what helps me in in life is being able to talk to people and share with people and and also get information from people. It's one of the things that I think made me very good at my law enforcement career. So it's those differences and and s strengths that does help. And I think even having differences and values, like you said, your boss he valued the bottom line of it where you bottom valued the outcome of it, right? Is that a good way to put it? Like Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, I think that's exact I think that's exactly the right way to put it. BigMike: Like you're both outcome oriented because he's the spreadsheet outcome, but you're the okay, what is our impact gonna be outcome? And it goes back to that question of how are we adding value? And so we have to look at what value we're looking at and finding that middle ground of okay, we are trying to add value in our customers' lives. And we are trying to add value in the community's life. so now that you you are more the decision maker in that, with your VC and you're looking for investors and stuff, how do you balance that yourself? Alykhan Kaba: Me, I I maybe ironically I have a pretty regimented criteria now of what are the things I'm looking for in a it it shows up in different ways in different different aspects of my life. So if I'm looking for an investor or a co-investor or a founder, I I sort of screen for it in different ways, but if I'm looking for founders to back, for example. There are economic things that I'm looking for, like is this solving a problem that I understand? Do they have a credible path for for growth? Do I believe that these founders can actually pull this off? Do I trust the founders? Do I have friends of friends who know them or do they belong to a a network of people that I trust? And then there is the ultimately the question of what impact will this have on the the community that they're operating in, whether that's creating more jobs or in enabling new types of content to be produced and shared, or becoming a convening area for a a group of people, or exposing different types of people to different types of things they haven't usually seen. that's part of sort of the the criteria I I think about. What there are certain areas that I get a get very apprehensive about because it's hard for me to reconcile the impact that they have with the impact I'm trying to solve for. An example that I'll use is gambling. So gambling games, gambling mobile apps are very prolific and make a lot of money. I don't think that I will ever invest in that just because I I'm aware of the potentially negative ramifications of that. So even though that's something that technically fits within the thesis of what I'm looking at. In fact, in in East Africa, there's a number of gambling apps that are very popular. I I don't think that's something that I would invest in. But there are other things like hospitality softwares or event booking platforms, ticketing platforms, more social gaming platforms or casual gaming platforms. Those are all things where you can start to see how that just opens up the aperture of what people are exposed to. and how people think about social and economic development. And I get more excited about investing in things like that. So it's something that it's it's almost like a not a not a not part of a checklist, but it's a a mandatory question I always ask myself when I'm interacting with a founder or or any potential partner is BigMike: So that's your four pa your your four page checklist you have them go through, right? Alykhan Kaba: Ex well the good news is that I'm the only person going through the checklist. So the checklist is just for me. but yeah, I've got I've got a checklist for myself. And maybe that's the the irony is I I I hold myself to a certain level of regimentedness, but I also think I have the self awareness to know what I can expect myself to do and what I can expect others to do. And that changes depending on who the other is. BigMike: No, I think that's very important is to get that because whatever it is you do, you wanna magnify your values. And you know, as as I started this podcast, I know what I wanted to talk about. And I know you and I when we were emailing back and forth, I I was very complimentary of all your accolades and the things you've accomplished and and I still am. I'm I'm amazed that you've accomplished what you can. But I I came at you not in a negative way. I came to you with like, okay, but I want to know your story, how you got here. What brought you here? And the things you told shared about like looking at your community after 9 11 and how you can make a positive impact on that. Or the the family friend that you know wanted you to kind of show you that you can incorporate your two loves your love of art, creating and stuff. and now and management and make it successful. And I think that's very important. So let me ask you, as you are now stepping into the role of of the the mentor and you're you're bringing on these probably interns, MBA students, what are you most excited to get to share with them? Alykhan Kaba: Ooh, that's a really good question. What am I most excited to be able to share with them? I I it actually depends on the structure of our relationship. And I'll I'll explain what that means. There are some people I mentor almost as a byproduct of working with them. So let's say if they're somebody that I manage or a junior person who works on a team on my team or a team that's very close to me, I will inevitably adopt a mentorship role. for me, what that means is demonstrating values that I think are are are helpful for people to to see. and it goes back to being able to balance your your your how you think about your work in a an economic sense, a personal sense, sort of mission driven sense, and approaching everything with that that healthy level of of perspective. I'm surprised by the number of leaders there are, certainly in the US, who are so almost blind to anything other than pure economics, that they lose a lot of the soft inputs that go into creating better financial outcomes. And I think being one of those persons, one of those people who can speak that language and who is aware of and cares about some of those soft inputs. goes a long way. So I get get excited about that and demonstrating that to the people who sort of work with me or around me. BigMike: when you say the soft inputs, you mean stuff like empathy, compassion, relationship driven, basically just Alykhan Kaba: Exactly. BigMike: here's what we got, boom, here's what we get out of it. Alykhan Kaba: That's exactly it, yeah. It's it's almost like how do you make people feel excited to do their best? BigMike: Right. Alykhan Kaba: as opposed to being the organization that does what they have to do because someone told them to do it, right? How how do you empower people to feel excited about being proactive and and seeing things from different perspectives and and approaching work with a sense of levity and fun so that when they're when they're when they're quote unquote adding value, they feel like they're winning. They don't feel like they're complying. And I get excited about that because I I've worked in compliance-driven organizations and they're not fun to work in. They're soul sucking and they're draining. And for some people it's it's good because the the money they're getting paid is still adding more value than w whatever it's taking out of them. But I I feel like if we really want to get ahead as a society, we should all be thinking about how do we how do we create a world where people want to do their best work, not just BigMike: Well, I I just wanna say I think it has to do with a lot with like people's personalities and and how they see things. You have people that they need that compliance driven structure to help them stay on track and help them, you know, I Alykhan Kaba: That's true. BigMike: I worked with a a lot of cops that they saw the world black and white. Whereas when I became a cop and and once I saw how how the world I my black and white shift went from very black and white to seeing that the the world is very gray in there. You know, I I would always say, the the line between black and white is very thin, but that's where life is lived. And you it it's not about breaking the law and and s crossing over that line, but it's about accepting people for their flaws. you know, I I've shared a story several times, I believe, where I had a a recurring drug addict who I'll make make no bones about it. He's a pain in my ass. every time he came in the facility, he was usually s smuggling something in. more on more than one occasion we had to revive him and this was pre Narcan. And one day I was interacting with him and he could tell I was very cold and distant from him 'cause I I I just I was done by this point. And he goes, He goes, you know, I'm not a bad person, dude. And I was like, Well, your actions are are leading me to believe that. And after a little more banter, he he opened up about his story. And and they came from a very religious home. He was on a very good track. And then he was in a horrible car accident. He he was actually hit, I believe, from a hit and drive car. So laying there, gets into surgery, all sorts of broken bones. Then they put him on oxycotton and he goes from being on oxycotton and then they just drop him cold turkey. And you're I don't know how thankfully I've never been to the point of pain where going cold turkey from a a pain medication like that, how it affects you physically and mentally. But what it did do is as I have had a lot of time to think about that story, it's it helped me see that. we're all we can all be a step away from making a horrible decision or letting someone's horrible decision impact us for life. and I think that's where some of the the cultural training that we get either either in our cultures and our communities, but also in in a work culture can be damaging because we don't get that aspect of One feeling valued and not so much feeling valued personally, but feeling that our values are valued. We hear and and I think you kind of made this point earlier. And I I I talked to someone the other day who who made this point. We hear so much about the the work life balance and you know the the company's culture and the company's values. And we want to be able to support those things and say, Yes, I agree with those things. But then what happens is we can see where the company itself or the community itself doesn't respect those values if it benefits them. You know, I I think I think that's one of the things a lot of us saw with the the financial collapses we've had of recent, you know, starting back to two thousand eight during COVID and and I don't want to get into the political side of it, but we saw how a lot of companies were taking huge amounts of money. And then while everybody's struggling, everybody's out of work, COVID is destroying us physically and mentally. You're seeing I'll I'll just say it and I will admit wholeheartedly, I am too ignorant on the issue to know every little minutiae the detail. But and anyone is welcome to come in here and straighten me out. However, when they're getting billions of dollars to bail out the airlines. And at the same time, the airline CEOs are receiving millions of dollars in bonuses for keeping it up for keeping it alive during COVID. It's hard to want to enjoy that airline because it's like, wait, we we as taxpayers, we as a society said yes, we need you to stick around and then you reward your CEO, you reward your COOs for taking our money. And and giving that money to them. And so that's what that's what that's the point I'm trying to get at. And maybe you can help me understand how it is that we can see companies' values like that, where they tell, you know, the passenger's number one, they value you. And then it's like, we just made 50 million dollars in a bonus, and you know, I'm I'm buying a house in Fiji or whatever. I don't I don't know. I don't know what they do with it. But it just I think that's why. A lot of people that aren't very political are starting to say, like, hey, this isn't right, this isn't working. You you're in private capital, venture capital. And I I know that Alykhan Kaba: Capital, yeah. BigMike: your industry is getting hit with a lot of that same sentiment. Where here you seem to have a very altruistic view, like, let's help bring people up and build people up. But as soon as people hear venture capital or private capital, They're ready to go to war with you and shut you down. How is it you deal with that? How is it you balance that? And how is it when you approach investors and stuff like that and show them and and tell them like this is what I'm looking for and this is why I'm doing it? Alykhan Kaba: It's it's such a it it's it's so subject to polarization that you you see this all the time. There are these two extremes of people in the private equity space or in the venture capital space or in the invest I'll I'll say broadly the investing space. There are people who are in the investment space Who literally only want to maximize their ROI. They are like, I want to invest in a startup. I need to invest in this startup that's going to 100x its value over the next 10 years, maybe less than that. In order to do that, I need to invest in this AI thing or this defense thing, or there are certain trends that get very hot every couple of years, and all of the VCs will all chase those things. And then there are impact investors. Impact investors are are organizations or people. Who invest in things for sustainable financial outcomes, but they're actually prioritizing what they call impact outcomes. That means that they're making investments where they are measuring things like literacy rates or number of jobs created or things like that. but they do that at the expense of financial returns. So they're sometimes getting suboptimal suboptimal returns or market level returns, which is kind of like the standard or the baseline, or if you didn't care about anything and just were coasting, this is the return you would get, they kind of try to like get aim for that, but also have these these impact things, impact outcomes attached as well. I don't actually like either of those things because the i on the the the side that maximizes ROI ignoring everything else, I that does It's very myopic and the side that invests in impact outcomes at the expense of financial return, you're almost I don't want to say they're operating like a nonprofit because it's it's not technically the same, but I just it's it's what does that mean for all the things in the middle? And so there's this massive gap of businesses that are just like BigMike: Well yeah, that's that's Alykhan Kaba: good businesses, right? BigMike: I like the way you put it, they're operating as nonprofits because that's literally what they're doing. you know, and I I don't want to guess where they're getting that money. And then you have the other ones where they're missing the opportunity to invest in good companies that their return is going to be a slower roll. You know, Alykhan Kaba: Exactly. BigMike: I I'm an American football guy, right? and I am any old fashioned slobber knocker, run it at the up the middle, run it on the ends. And and this was something that like my team and I kind of struggled with this year because I'm like, hey, we're gonna push these guys, we're gonna hit these guys, we're gonna run it. And and more of today's football is very Air raid, throw it out, lay it out. you have to have a happy medium in both. You have to be able to play both types of football. and and I'm not the greatest investor. I give people money and they tell me if I'm doing okay with it. But that's what you need is you need people to say, like, hey, This is going to be worth it. It's going to take time. I'll I'll give you my personal example from where I'm at sitting right now, right? I started this podcast three, four months ago. And right now, I see it as what it is. It's I'm trying to build this up. I'm trying to get the viewers. I'm trying to get the subscribers. And it's going to be a slow roll. I'm not going to wake up, boom, here's a check for a million dollars. as much as we all want that. That's part The the silly American dreams. We all want that. I know that I have to find people who, hey, guess what? Right now it's slow, but it's going to roll out. It's going to pick up because I'm very passionate about the message I'm sharing. I'm very passionate about the ideas that I'm sharing because the first thing I ask people is tell me about the people that helped you get to where you are. I know you're a successful person, but I want to know how you got there because those things that you you mentioned it too. Like now that you are take bringing in these MBAs and based on the relationship you build with them, you get excited about what you get to share with them and help add that tool to their tool tool belt in life. That's kind of like that's how that's how we describe it as cops is every time you went to an FTO, they're gonna give you a different tool to add to your tool belt. And you might have one FTO, a field training officer, some people call him PTOs now, that he's going to tell you to do everything completely opposite of what the last FTO told you to do. But you're going to find your style in between the two of those. You're going to find your style in between that. And that's what I get got excited about when I was working with younger officers. And that's what I got excited to. To show people and and help people with just in life is like, look, this is how I do it. Now, Ali Khan could do it a totally different way. You're gonna find what works for you, and it could be somewhere in the middle. And I can't be like, you have to do it my way. My way works for me. Your way works for you. And person C is gonna find the best way. So I'm sorry for interrupting, but I think that's very important to point out that. if we focus so much on one one bucket of MMs, maybe, we're missing the other MMs. And we can be mixing them together and finding a better a better combination there. Alykhan Kaba: I completely agree. Completely agree. And the the if you wanted to if you wanted to take a mathematical approach, the way I like to frame it is there are these investors who are investing in the really hot industries who are like, yeah, we're gonna a hundred X a thousand X this startup. They might invest in a hundred startups and one will pay for all of them. That's it. Just one. BigMike: Well, it goes back it goes back to what you value with gambling. You know, you don't want to invest in gambling gambling apps Alykhan Kaba: That's exactly. Yeah. BigMike: and and and software and stuff because you know the outcome. And I think that that's sometimes look I'm I have to use this disclaimer all the time. I am not in your space. I don't understand it completely. But I understand it enough that if you know Cyber Optic Toys is coming out With the new AI driven and it's got a startup next week. You're gonna have a bunch of people laying throwing money at it, and then in three weeks, Cyber Optic Robotics is coming out with the exact same thing, but it's a little better AI, and now you're seeing your investment crash, that investment going up. Well, why didn't I why didn't you help me get into cyber optics robotics? And it's like, buddy, I We looked at what was going on and we told you what we thought was would be best. Alykhan Kaba: Exactly. You're you're basically lighting money on fire. And that's why I love investing in media specifically, because the the startups that I invest in are in an industry that I understand. It's an industry that where I have deep relationships with some of the most reputable countries and companies in the world. And I can look at a business in another country and say, I see what problem you're solving. I can see how it's going to solve it. And also in six years, when you're big enough, I can introduce you to my friend at Disney, who might be interested in acquiring your business one day. I can actually control for, not control for, but influence the overall outcomes of the investments that I make because I'm so steeped in this sector. And so where one one VC is making a hundred bets and one of them is paying off, I can make a hundred bets and hopefully maybe maybe five of them will pay off. And not it's not just one, right? And so when you start to do the math, you can see how, Actually, taking a specialist approach and looking at an area that's a little bit quote unquote niche can actually have returns that are just as attractive as the VCs who are investing in these more popular or hot sectors. And and by the way, it will be impactful, it will create jobs, it will it will impact, it will generate positive impact outcomes. I'm not gonna measure them. I don't think I should have to. And that's why I'm distinctly not an impact investment fund. But the fact that all of those things can coexist, I think is really important. And whenever I I've been really fortunate that the investors that I have so far who are investing in my fund value those things as well. And again, it's a it goes back to values. I I've I'm I've kind of been able to assemble this group of people who all share similar values. And when I explain to them what I had just explained to you. The the investors who are receptive say, Yep, I get it, that makes sense. Let's let's go. And and that's been really important to me. BigMike: Okay, so we've gotten through the the brass tacks, the dirt, the information, what you do and what you're looking for in investors. And you got me fired up about stuff that it's hard to get me fired up about. How are you using this to impact your community where you came from? Alykhan Kaba: well, when you say what the the question impact your community where you came from, there's so many layers to that. Because on one hand, because my family my parents are from Tanzania and I I'm have some investments in East Africa specifically, I almost feel like that's an homage to that in a in a sort of really esoteric way. But there are other things that I I try to do infusing into the way that I run my business. So for example, I'm about to start hiring interns. I want to make sure that when I when I recruit interns, I'm going back to the schools that I the schools that I attended for a university and for my MBA. I want to make sure that there are people from the different sort of neighborhoods I grew up in who have access to some of the opportunities. That that I'm putting out there. And then there are other things that are more just like I think there's a sometimes I almost feel like I belong to this rest of world community. I don't know if you're familiar with this term, but there are some BigMike: No, I wanna hear about that. Tell me about that. Alykhan Kaba: so many corporations I've worked at, they don't have a really thoughtful international or emerging market strategy. So their line items will be. USA or North America, Western Europe, sometimes Latin America, maybe China will be its online item, and then rest of world. Literally every other country is just rest of world. And and when I meet people who are diaspora, whether they're South Asian, Central Asian, Eastern European, African, there are certain experiences That are universal across all of those things, whether it's just having the experience of a friend of a friend misunderstanding a cultural practice or misunderstanding the language or having a preconceived notion about where you're from versus this, that, or the other. And everything that I the the entire thesis of the fund. is in in service of that. It's to elevate the businesses and the founders who are coming from those communities and that are serving those communities. But in a I wanna something that I'm really th intentional about in doing that is I I want to make sure that it's being done in a way that is accessible and respectful and Thoughtful. I love to your the point you made earlier about all of us being in our own little echo chambers. I think it can be so tempting to say, I'm building in this community for this community, and this community will be the only community that experiences this. And I think it's so important for all of us to be having conversations with one another and for people to feel safe to have conversations and make a mistake in a conversation and not get canceled for it. Instead, you can just say like have make a gentle correction or or make a joke about it or explain why it's funny in one context and not funny in another context and then move on and continue to be friends. And BigMike: Well, and you know, that's something that's very, very important. Yeah, I I can go on to how important that is to me. But I mean, we we had this discussion before we came live, right? That when I saw your name, I was expecting some sort of accent. and not in a negative way. I was just it to me it's like when you when you go to grab a drink and you think you're dry drinking a coke and it's a beer or you know, it's water, and you're like, wait, that your mind is like Alykhan Kaba: Am I the Coke or the beer? Am I the Coke or the beer? BigMike: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, you're like, wait, that that didn't match up. What happened there? And and so when you we get online, hey, how's it going? I'm like, there is no accent. Like, okay, where are you from? And you went down your whole list of your genealogy and I said, so you're from Vancouver? Alykhan Kaba: Yeah. BigMike: and and I could see why you have that mental need to do that because People look at you and they think Vancouver, they're like, No, he does he's not wearing Birkenstocks, dreadlocks, and and you know, he's he's a very well put together dark skinned gentleman. He's not from Vancouver. and so I think that that's very enlightening and important, but I think it's also like you said, when when I say community, I didn't mean just your your Muslim community, your Indian community, but Like when you highlighted the communities you grew up in, when you highlighted the universities you went to, you understand in my perception the importance of like, okay, these are the people I'm excited to give back to. And especially the rest of the world. And when you started breaking it down, like, do you know what that means? And I like, No. And when you you got into it, like, yeah, you see it all the time. I mean I the first thing that popped in my head was, Myancestry.com DNA check, you know. I'm, you know, this might surprise you, Ali Khan, that I come from English, Anglo Saxon, little Nordic Viking people. Like that's mine. I know that's surprising when you look at me. Alykhan Kaba: Shocking. BigMike: but that that's mine, right? And then there is that little dot at the end that's like everywhere else, you know. you know I think I think sub Saharan Africa that just because that's where you know the the cells crawled out of the pool and and regenerated billions of years ago. But yeah, I it is important for us to highlight and you know right now we're in the the midst of the World Cup and I'm not much of a soccer football fan. But it's so neat to see all these countries come together in sports. I've always said that the two things people can come together, well, I might add it, but sports, music, and food. And if we were all able to just sit down and relax and enjoy those things together, all this death and destruction and nonsense would end because we realize at the end of the day. We're just people trying to get by and enjoy the simple things in life. And we get too we get too myopic about what our desires and wants are and not about the world. But to me, the great unifiers are always sports and music. I've never been to a football game, American football game, or a a rock concert. Where you're not having a good time. You know, everybody's there to celebrate and have a good time. I've gone to football games where I was the opponent. I was cheering for the opponents. And I still main time managed to have a good time with the opposing fans. I've had I've been to football games where opposing fans were sitting in our area, and I tried to make them feel welcome, like, hey. We're gonna give you a hard time, but we're going to have fun together. This is going to be fun for all of us together. And so when we look at the world and the rest of the world, I'm trying to tie this back in now. We think so much about like, well, that's them. And this goes back to what you were saying, right? That myopic you were saying, I said that myopic look, well, that's just them. That's over there. But at the end of the day, that's coming here. And because of the work you're doing. And the work a lot of very smart people are doing, geographically the world will s be the same size, but the human connection is just gonna keep getting smaller and smaller. Alykhan Kaba: Totally. It's it's and I I couldn't agree more. The music, sports, food, I I think you could even take that further and talk about like film, television, th all of these things. You you it's so fun to see people come together and just like Be there for the love of the game and to tease BigMike: Mm-hmm. Alykhan Kaba: each other and to have some common point of like, this is so fun for all of us to be together. And something I'm seeing a lot of on social media is the World Cup is like all of the cousins came over for a sleepover. BigMike: Yeah. Alykhan Kaba: and and it's just like, yeah, that's that's exactly what it is. And it the more there are things like that, touchstones like that in our lives, the the better it'll be. Be for for everyone to just like remind ourselves that we're all people and we're all here to to be together and we're not all that different. And I know that the news and the media and you know some of the the clickbaity entertainment highlights h headlines would would like you to believe that there are big oppositions at force here, but like that's just the parents. The cousins need the cousins can get along and I think we BigMike: That's just it's it's just the kids. You know, the kids can go out and play. You know, let's go play tag, let's go ride our bikes or whatever, but the we'll let Alykhan Kaba: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. BigMike: the parents sit and drink and and and get in their arguments while we're just having fun. And yeah. Yeah. Alykhan Kaba: That's exactly it. Exactly. BigMike: So what kind of projects do you have going on right now that you want to share? Alykhan Kaba: So let's see. I mean the biggest thing is again Arias Media Ventures. So I actually just launched the fund in Within the last couple of months. So I had my last day at NBC on May first. I took most of May off. And then I started working on this full time as of just a few weeks ago. I had been working on this actually for a number of years while I was at NBC with their permission. And then finally come May, I was like, you know what? This is far enough along now, and there's enough going on here that I really wanna double down on this and make this my full-time job. So parted ways In May, and have been focused on this since then, and yeah, that's really the the biggest thing. BigMike: That's awesome. How's it feel to be taking that leap? Alykhan Kaba: Awesome. It's great. BigMike: Yeah. Alykhan Kaba: It's it's it feels really, really exciting. It feels energizing. I love waking up and being able to only do things that I know are going to be ne needle moving. And to be able to do things in the way that I think that they should be done, not because of some agenda that the some random team is trying to to put forward. It's really it it there's a sense of focus and optimism that I haven't felt in a really long time. So BigMike: if I can just share the way I feel about that. When I was in my brief stint in corporate world working for the company I did, and they're a great company, they're great people. So don't get that wrong. They would always be surprised that I wasn't working on the weekends and on the nights. Like I and I I tell like, I did that for twenty one years. I gave up my life for, you know, because as I had to remind some of my aunts and uncles and and family members, they don't close law enforcement down on the holidays, so I won't be at the Christmas party. And it was a Thanksgiving party that was really funny because I got to stop in on my way to work and my wife's stepmother's mother, so step grandmother, if you will. Yeah. I know you you're building the family tree there. Yeah. Alykhan Kaba: I got it. I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. BigMike: I said, Well guys, thanks for dinner. I gotta go. And she's like, What, you have to go to work? I was like, Yeah, and she goes, You don't get the holiday off. I'm like, Yeah, they show close the jail on Thanksgiving. Isn't that weird? You know? Alykhan Kaba: Ha ha ha. BigMike: And and you know, it was in tug in cheek and it wasn't good fun, but It it was just I gave up that time and and part of why I retired from law enforcement was to get that time back. And then I went to the corporate world where like you were still kind of to do that, but now you're on salary, it's more voluntary. And now that I'm doing this, I'll be in here late on a Saturday night editing or writing or creating or you know, think brainstorming or thinking things through. I'll be doing it on a Sunday, you know, especially right now because there is no American football going on. So I'm not giving up that time. And because like you said, you're excited for it. You're excited to do that and and try this out and stuff. So yeah, I really I really enjoy it, have been enjoying it and and I know that there will be returns, but it it's not gonna be as quick as you know, it's not gonna be an Amazon delivery. Alykhan Kaba: No, I I think there's something to be said about when when there's something inside of you that's telling you like you have you you've been programmed to do a thing and you resist it. you can tell and you're like, you know, you daydream about it, you're thinking about it, you're you're you're writing about it, you're talking to people about it. You might just be thinking about it in your head and not even say it out loud. And then all of a sudden when you start to do it, you f everything feels right all of a sudden. And everything lines up and everything comes into place. And what that is is different for so many people. For some people it is doing the corporate thing. For some people it's starting a venture fund. For some people it's starting a podcast. It's making a TV show. It's acting it's starting a family. It could be all these Different kinds of things that are all equally valuable. And once you know what that is and you do it, you're like, you feel like you've come home. And it's it's to be able to create the circumstances within which you can actually pursue that thing that you feel programmed to do is such a privilege. And I I bet you and I have very similar feelings about how we're spending our our days right now. BigMike: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's nice to know that I'm investing in myself and and experiencing that joy and and stuff and getting to meet awesome people like yourself and listening to their stories. where can we find you, Alicon? Alykhan Kaba: Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at Ali Khan Kaba. I know it's hard to spell, but if you sound it out, it's probably right. It's A-L-Y-K-H-A-N-K-A-B-A. BigMike: Common spelling. Alykhan Kaba: And then on on the internet you can find me at Aries V dot V C. That's the website for Aries Media Adventures. Aries is spelled A-R-I-E-S. So just Aries V dot V C. BigMike: Ollie Con, it's been great getting to know you. And I hope we get to chat some more and get to know each other some more and and Alykhan Kaba: Me too. BigMike: share about this. I I can't wait to hear more about the the growth of of your your business and your company and what you're doing to take it forward. I really appreciate it. Everybody, thanks for tuning into the mentor sessions. just if I could ask, please remember to like, comment, subscribe, tell us what you think about the these ideas and these thoughts and And what you've heard today. It'll it'll help the channel out. It'll help Ali Khan get his message out as as well as get the message out about the importance of having solid mentors in your life. We appreciate you tuning in. we'll catch you next time on the mentor sessions.