Aoifinn Devitt: This series was made possible by the kind support of Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest independent asset managers focused on delivering long-term investment excellence for clients and their beneficiaries, as well as Nile Capital Group, a sector-focused, operationally oriented private equity firm based in the Los Angeles area.
Austin Clements: I said I was going to graduate with either a role in venture capital or no job at all. I ended up graduating with no job at all, but eventually through found my way into the industry with a firm called 1010. So we want to get behind people, as we always phrase it, that are delusional with their vision but pragmatic with their execution.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, the podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people. And their stories. I’m joined today by Austin Clemens, who is a partner at Slauson Co., a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to a range of founders. He’s a Kauffman Fellow and has a strong interest in economic empowerment. He was previously chair of Pledge LA, an alliance between LA’s venture capital community, the Annenberg Foundation, and the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti. He also holds a number of board roles. Welcome, Austin. Thanks for joining me today.
Austin Clements: So excited to be here amongst all the great guests that you have. It’s an honor.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you so much. And well, let’s start by talking about your background and your entry into the tech world.
Austin Clements: Absolutely. It’s a very simple story, actually. Born and raised in LA, in South LA to be exact, primarily Black and brown neighborhood. Went to Morehouse College for undergrad and came back to LA, started working in finance. In wealth management. I did that for a couple years, enjoyed it, didn’t know anything about the venture capital industry. I was mostly focused on public equities and fixed income portfolios. So then I left that role to start a company. I was doing web and mobile development for a lot of small businesses, and it was there that I really fell in love with working with entrepreneurs. And, you know, they’re the most passionate people on the planet about their work. I enjoyed working with small businesses as well, and I enjoyed applying technology. To their businesses. So coupled that with learning about investing, and it just became extremely interesting to me that you could combine investing and working with entrepreneurs and technology all into one role. I started to learn about the venture capital industry and just became obsessed with it, uh, really wanted to find a way in. Everybody told me at the time— this is like 2009, 2010— everybody told me at the time, like, it’s nearly impossible to break in and find a role. But, you know, nearly impossible. I like those odds. I’ll go for it. And went back to business school. I went to NYU and got my MBA, but really the entire focus of going to business school was to try to find a role in venture. I said I was going to graduate with either a role in venture capital or no job at all. I ended up graduating with no job at all, but eventually found my way into the industry with a firm called 1010.
Aoifinn Devitt: Great. Well, I’d love to talk about maybe what training I suppose you had in the early days and how that kind of, you draw upon it as an early stage investor today. What do you think, I think, equipped you with the tools to be, uh, have the right skills as a venture capital investor?
Austin Clements: Sure, certainly my— I’m oriented as an investor first. I think that, you know, some people look at the industry and say like it’s, it, it certainly makes sense to start as an operator and then come into the industry with that experience, and, and you’ll be empathetic to founders and whatnot. And I’ve seen that firsthand. I think that that does provide a lot of insight if you come at it from the operating angle before going into venture. But you could also be empathetic without being an operator, and that was kind of my approach. And so my orientation to begin with was an investor, but then beyond that, I also did work with a lot of small businesses. These weren’t like venture-backed businesses, these are like local businesses, everything from interior design shops to law firms and things like that, and helping them build technology. So I became very familiar with emerging technology and all of the things that are associated with that, all the good and the bad and things to look out for. So I really started to learn about tech quite a bit in that role, even though it wasn’t necessarily venture-backed tech, it was other kinds of tech. And so I learned from there that I think that that sort of served as the basis for really understanding what’s out there and sort of how to, I guess, how to be a good investor in those particular categories. A lot of it has to do with the people part of the business and then understanding what the vision and the mission of the entrepreneur is. And that’s what I was always able to be excited by and really able to get behind too. That’s what made a huge difference. And that’s, you know, still the part of the business that I love the most now.
Aoifinn Devitt: And do you think business school and other kind of college programs can really prepare you for the skills you need in venture capital, or is it more academic?
Austin Clements: I think that they can prepare you with decent frameworks that serve as a beginning of thinking about how to do it. But, you know, there’s nothing like real-world experience. Business school, I wouldn’t say taught me to be a good investor. I would say it taught me to be a better investor. I wouldn’t say the business school taught me how to work with entrepreneurs. I think it helped refine some of the aspects that I had already in place, and ultimately it was useful. Probably one of the most useful things was for me for business school was to step out of the day-to-day and sort of create a plan for what I wanted to be in this industry and how I wanted to get into the industry. And I think more than anything else, building a good network and taking the time to have a better constructed plan helped me to think about things on a long term, with a long-term view, which in my opinion is probably the best way to have it, is to take a long view on most things that you do, and then you can figure out how to navigate it to achieve the desired outcome. So I wouldn’t necessarily say that there was anything tactical that made me feel like— in fact, there were probably a few things that I had to unlearn coming out of business school in terms of how to work with companies, because startups are fundamentally different. I think business schools have gotten a lot better about that over the years, though. It taught me a few things, but also had to rethink a few things as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: So just moving now to your work at Slauson Co. So what kind of incubation services do you provide beyond capital, and what kind of pipeline are you seeing at the moment at the pre-seed stage?
Austin Clements: Sure. So yeah, pre-seed and seed stage is where we’re primarily focused. So in most cases, we’re leading the deals that we do, and we’re the first institutional check into the company. And often we’re taking between 50% and 75% of the round and, you know, usually investing somewhere between $250,000 up to a couple of million as an initial check in. But we also recognize that the founders that we’re backing in most cases can benefit from more than just the capital in terms of our relationships and guidance and perspective and help and support. That’s just a huge element. Slauson and Company, we very intentionally named it and Company versus like ventures or capital or anything like that because really it’s about the company that we keep. That’s the biggest asset that we have. We’ve been very fortunate enough to have just an excellent list of advisors and corporations that have gotten behind what we’ve done, that are supporting what we do, and want to provide resources to the founders that we back. So when I think about what we do, we usually make an investment, and then in the early days, we’re talking to the founders on a pretty regular basis, understanding what they need. This isn’t a matter of them reporting in to us about like, hey, tell me what you did this past week or whatnot. That’s not really what it is at all. It’s more we want to say, hey, what do you need? What are you working on? What’s top of mind? Give people a chance to step out of their business for a little while and ask questions, big picture questions. And our job is to help advance their vision as much as we possibly can. And fortunately, we have a lot of resources and a pretty solid network that we’re really proud of that we can lend to that founder.
Aoifinn Devitt: You’re strongly motivated by the need for economic empowerment. How would you assess the current levels of access to capital for underrepresented founders?
Austin Clements: Abysmal, and it’s been that way. You know, one of the things that interested me most about coming into the industry with an investor orientation was the fact that I realized it was very, very obvious to me from, you know, a decade and some change ago that if I could act as a means to provide capital to the types of brilliant people that I grew up around, the people that came from communities like mine, where there’s just so much genius there and so much cultural relevance and so many things that are birthed out of neighborhoods like that, but just don’t have access to capital or resources or guidance from mentorship and things like that, where people that have achieved success. All of that stuff seemed like very, very far away when I was growing up. And so when I got into the industry, what I realized with my investor orientation is if I can make that connection, then I could create a firm that could do really well from a performance standpoint. When I think about where that was in 2009, going into business school and, and trying to break into the industry, I was certain that like everybody would wake up to this huge gap and this huge opportunity within the next year or two. I was just so confident that like my window was so small to break into the industry and sort of make some noise with that as an idea, as a novel concept. Fast forward, you know, nearly a decade, it’s still a novel concept to back diverse founders, and the industry just hasn’t woken up to it. I think that obviously the activity around last year and all the social justice conversations put a spotlight on it, which actually attracted a lot of capital to the category, which is a great thing in my opinion. But I still don’t know that most folks realize how massive of an opportunity there is to back diverse founders. And if you do it, and if you’re authentically connected to those communities and you’re authentically connected to the traditional venture community, then there’s a whole lot of success to be had.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it’d be great if you could paint a picture of that opportunity and maybe just compare it to maybe the typical venture capital opportunity, because I mean, the typical venture capital opportunity I think of, there is a fairly high failure rate sort of baked into that. But what is it about the diverse founder opportunity that you think is so compelling?
Austin Clements: Sure, I think that there’s still a failure rate that is going to be fairly high. I mean, like, I worked for— I worked with small businesses before, and the failure rate isn’t too much different than venture-backed companies. So when I think about failure rate, I think it’s still about getting behind opportunities that are swinging for the fences. I think that there are plenty of models and actually some opportunities out there for models that accommodate various types of businesses that aren’t trying to be, you know, massive scale or things like that. And down the line, I’d love if that’s something that like Slauson would explore. Right now, our focus is primarily on very, very large-scale opportunities. So we want to get behind people, as we always phrase it, that are delusional with their vision but pragmatic with their execution. We want people that have a vision that’s almost like unsettling about how, how big it is and what they want to grow their company to be. But then they’re very pragmatic in the sense of they know what the first few steps look like and they’re actively doing it and they’re focused on doing it. So that’s what we look for in founders, and we’ll continue to do that from Sloss Co.’s perspective.
Aoifinn Devitt: And do you think some of the barriers to capital raising are due to lack of diversity in the venture space? So the actual, the investors themselves are not diverse enough and therefore they’re not recognizing this opportunity.
Austin Clements: I mean, I think so. I think that that is a key component of it. I’m always really reluctant to paint venture as like a bunch of evil people that are, you know, very intentionally trying to leave people out. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case, or at least that hasn’t been my experience with most of the people that I’ve interacted with. With that being said, most of the people do come from a fairly homogenous group where in that they went to the same schools, they worked at the same companies, and now they’re backing each other and helping each other’s companies grow and scale. I think that what happens is when you take people that are VCs from diverse backgrounds, their life experience is different and their networks are different. And so they can take the knowledge of how venture works and apply that to different networks naturally. One thing I think about is, you know, I went to Morehouse for undergrad, right? If I meet a founder that went to Morehouse or went to Spelman or Howard or most HBCUs, like, I think of that in the same way that somebody who went to Stanford thinks about when they see somebody that went to Stanford. I think that this is a very high-achieving person with a very strong network. And a defined perspective and an opinion about something. Those are sort of the qualities that I get. If you didn’t go to Morehouse, if you didn’t go to Spelman or Howard, you probably would have no reason to believe that about these schools or these institutions. But because my life experience is fundamentally different than that, I can bring that perspective to the industry and help founders that come from that background to succeed.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. It’s sort of having the insider view. Being from Ireland myself, people would always send me the resumes of Irish people because I would know, oh, that university is good or a degree from that university actually is slightly different. It means something different. So I think that’s a very good point. You really do need to have the inside view to be able to, I suppose, interpret the credentials that have come from a similar background. What particular interventions have you seen? Maybe the word isn’t to be interventions, but I suppose methods or ways of— is it affinity groups? Is it better networking? Is it more outreach to founders? More of this kind of incubator work or more groups like you had at Pledge LA, the alliances? What have you seen to really help to get the funding into the hands of where it’s needed?
Austin Clements: So one thing we recognize and appreciate is that there’s a limited number of companies that Slauson can back from each fund. If we talk to 100 companies, we’re probably going to back one. That doesn’t mean that the other 99% of the companies that we talk to are not worth existing. It’s just a matter of fit and where we could help out most and all those other things. Usually those top 10% of companies that we talk to are actually quite phenomenal companies all in and of themselves, and we just, again, end up picking one. But we started to think about how do we advance the mission of economic inclusion by supporting more companies? And one of the ways that we wanted to do that was through a program that we created called Calling on Capital. It’s a program that we’re doing in conjunction with Grid110, which is an accelerator that’s based in LA, a nonprofit accelerator that takes no fee, no equity, but just helps out emerging businesses. Grid110 has a phenomenal track record of diversity in the sense of they have 70% of the founding teams have a woman, 70% of the founding teams have a person of color. The accelerator is just really, really strong. And so we partnered with Grid 110 to create Calling On Capital, which is a program that’s designed to help more companies be able to raise capital and get matched with the right investors. So even though we may not be the best fit, we want to be able to touch more companies and help them prepare to raise capital from other investors as well, even if it’s not us. So again, I talk a bit about my As a, as a Black man in America, I feel like I have a social obligation that I have to hold to advance society in the interest of inclusion. I think that this is one of those ways that it could manifest, where even though there may not be a direct benefit in terms of our portfolio, we certainly see a benefit in terms of the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish. I don’t think that there’s anything that you could do that will move the needle like getting people from these backgrounds. Into the conversations and everything else. I mean, that’s what I would do. I’ll give one example that maybe might hit home for a broader audience. When I was at the firm 10 One 10, I was very, very active in a lot of different diversity groups, very active with women entrepreneur organizations. I spoke on panels and everything like that and thought that I had a pretty decent in with women entrepreneurs. But as soon as there was a woman VC that was added to the firm that I was working with, the number of female founders that came through the door skyrocketed, right? And so it’s just something that I as a man cannot replicate, even, you know, with the very directed intention behind trying to get more women founders to be evaluated from our firm. Like, the point is, when you bring in a woman VC, it just changes the entire dynamic. And so, you know, we think about that as we’re growing our team as well, who the types of people that we want to bring to the table and the networks that they have. So it’s not just— this isn’t just a critique of white men in Silicon Valley. This is more of a reality of how all firms should be thought of. If you’re trying to attract more people from different networks and different demographics, you’ve got to hire people that come from those networks and those different demographics. It’s as simple as that.
Aoifinn Devitt: Of course. And then after the hiring, there has to be the inclusive environment so they, they thrive. And that’s my segue to an article you wrote recently called The Delusion Around Inclusion. Can you talk a little bit about the points you were making there and what that delusion is?
Austin Clements: That article came on the early side of our fundraise for Slauson Co. We were putting together, this is pre- George Floyd murder. This was pre-Black Lives Matter events, things like that. So we were fundraising during that environment. This article came after that, but we were fundraising during that environment and we kept hearing the same ideas that were felt so wrong or so incorrect about the assumptions of what we were doing around the different types of founders that we were targeting and who we were serving and how we were positioning ourselves. It seemed so wrong from that and so common. We had the same common mistakes that people were making about what we were doing that I was like, we should write an article about this rather than having the same conversation over and over. So there were a few things that popped up, like a couple that I’ll touch on. One was this idea that it was a niche audience that we were going after, that going after minority founders or underrepresented founders is a niche approach to the business of venture capital. And thus, as a result of that, we’re basically limiting our opportunity or our ability to find what would be the next breakout company. If you look at the changing demographics of the country, you’ll see very quickly that if we’re talking about women and minorities, we’re actually talking about the majority of the country, right? What’s niche is actually targeting a few schools in two or three cities in the country and assuming that all of the talent, all of the ambition, all of the great ideas of what could shape the future are located there. Like, I’d argue that that’s a fairly niche audience that they’re going after. Obviously it’s worked relatively successfully, but when it comes time to thinking about building a firm and differentiating, and you see literally 1,000 new firms popping up, that are all targeting this niche audience over there, to me, the major opportunity seems to be in the lake where we’re fishing, which is pretty much the rest of the country. With that said, I think that the other thing that people associate most closely when you’re talking about diverse fund managers is that it’s some sort of philanthropic or charity work. And implied in that is that there’ll be some concessionary returns like we’re doing it for the good of society rather than being able to produce above average returns. I actually don’t think that’s the case. I think that as a Black man in America, I do have a moral obligation to look at society and see where I could change and see where I could impact things in a positive way. But as far as this firm goes, I actually think that the approach that we’re taking leads to outperformance rather than underperformance. And that’s mainly because, again, we’re not targeting the niche community, and thus it’s not as competitive to find really, really good opportunities and really good founders. I actually believe that where they’re fishing is a lot more competitive, and they are actually just paying really high prices, often inflated prices, because so many people and so many firms are going after just those communities. Whereas with us, we can find more fair valuations and find companies that aren’t thriving on hype, but in fact are really building very solid businesses that are in a position to scale.
Aoifinn Devitt: That was exactly the nuance I was driving at when I asked about the difference perhaps in profile and returns and risk management, because this came up in my conversation with James Norman as well. We spoke about just the fundamentally different backdrop to some of these businesses. They perhaps have, first of all, that the founders themselves may be fairly resilient having got to that stage without perhaps the advantage of friends and family capital. And they may have already had to prove their concept because, as you said, they can’t thrive on hype because they’ve had to perhaps build a customer base and demonstrate it before they even get to the boardroom stage of presenting. So I think there is quite a different kind of backdrop and it’s really interesting to, to sort of parse that and see how, how makes the returns arguably, well, certainly divergent returns. They may be good diversifiers.
Austin Clements: You’re absolutely correct. I like the idea that we hear about from, particularly from a lot of diverse fund managers when you’re talking about diverse founders, the concept of distance traveled. Like basically how far did you have to get to, or what, what did you have to overcome to get here? And what we find is that people from the backgrounds that we typically back They travel pretty far in terms of like their personal lives and development and things that they overcame. And they didn’t have, in many cases, the friends and family round that would give, you know, the $100,000, $200,000 to start and work on a concept. That just doesn’t exist for the majority of the population in the communities that we’re serving. And so as a result of that, you know, even if you’re, if you’re a VC that’s trying to look at things objectively and just say like, I don’t care if you don’t have a high school degree or, or what race or gender or sexual orientation you are, but like, if you’re hitting these metrics, then I’ll back you. And as a result, there should be an even distribution of the founders that I should back. I, I think that when you look at those metrics, a lot of time you have to put those in the context of what resources did that person have. At the very earliest stage to get those metrics. And if you ignore that component of it, then you’re almost certainly overlooking a whole lot of talent that should they be given a small amount of capital, they could just do a whole lot with a little because that’s what they’ve been used to. So there’s just massive opportunity.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting what kind of creativity can be born out of constraints. So just now going— obviously you’re in the venture capital world. We talked before about the high failure rate that just permeates the entire venture capital arena, um, needing to have a stomach for that. What have you learned from some setbacks or challenges or even investment mistakes that you’ve experienced in your career?
Austin Clements: I’ll talk about mistakes that I made early in my career in venture. Early in my career, I think that I was a lot more ego-driven in the sense of when I’d hear a pitch I’d try to poke holes in the opportunity and find out, think about things maybe the founder hadn’t thought about, or challenge and find out ways of basically saying like, this is potentially how the company could fail because of this, that, and the other thing. And I think, you know, after you look at a thousand or a couple of thousand companies, you realize at the seed stage, that’s every company. Every company has holes, every company has gaps, every company has major things that could lead to a failure. And so the real courage, the real skill in this business comes with being sort of brave enough to get behind somebody when you are fully aware of the challenges that it’s facing and the gaps that it’s facing and still believe that there might be a chance that this founder can navigate those obstacles and figure out a way. And so I think that my view went from to being much more optimistic. I think generally I have always been an optimist, but in, but just in terms of my interactions with founders, I, I go into every meeting hoping that this is the meeting that will lead to the company that will make my career as an investor. You know, this is not— I don’t take it lightly at all. I try to take everything seriously and come in prepared and respectful of the founder because this might be the person that can make my career as a VC. So I want to come into meetings with that kind of intention versus the arms crossed, eyebrow raised skepticism of like, oh, well, have you thought about this? Of course they have. And of course they’re fully aware of it because they think about their business every day and every night. So I’d say that’s probably one thing, one challenge, or one way that I’ve evolved over the years.
Aoifinn Devitt: And one of the things you mentioned earlier is around networks perhaps and how you weren’t initially aware of the networks. Maybe you didn’t have mentors initially but gained them later. Were there any key people over the course of your career or life so far that have really had an influence and really some that you could mention?
Austin Clements: Sure, there are a few key people along the way that have just made a massive difference in the venture ecosystem. So let’s see, there’s Brad Feld, Mark Soester, Fred Wilson that were bloggers, and that was really how I started to understand the industry was through their blogs. That’s when I, you know, a lot of the advice that I was giving to some of the entrepreneurs that I was working with when I was just running a dev shop mirrored some of the things that they were saying on their blog. And I was like, these are guys that are at the top of their game and I’m learning a lot, but also I understand this because I’m kind of doing it but in a different way. So that’s what made me really interested and feel like venture could be the career for me. Then beyond that, David Waxman, who I did actually know in person because he gave me my first full-time gig in venture at 1010 Ventures. David is just a phenomenal human being who really, I learned so much from him. The two things that I’ll call out here, one is that what it’s like to watch someone who comes from an operator’s background work with founders. His experience across the three companies that he founded that all had varying outcomes was so useful when he’d sit across the table from a founder, and it was so impressive. And, you know, some of those conversations are things that I’ll never be able to say because I was never, you know, the founder of a venture-backed company. But it also did— it helped me understand where my strengths were as well and where my perspectives were— would add a lot of value. And so I was able to lean more into who I am and also appreciate the skills of people who I am not. Another person— I’ll give two more people really quickly— another person is Kareem Webb. Who is a founder of Fourth Movement. He was a serial entrepreneur that came from our neighborhood. And Kareem is really, really dedicated to creating opportunities, economic opportunities for people of color. And he taught me essentially that as we build the firm, it’s not about selling people in the firm, it’s about enrolling people in our vision. It’s not for everybody, but for the people who are on board, they really, really are on board. And I think it’s shaped a lot of how we built the firm. And then the last person I’ll say is Ron Conway, who, you know, even before all the social justice stuff of last summer, was very interested in working with fund managers of color to find all the opportunities into all these untapped founders. And Ron came across us, me and my partner AJ, and he sat down with us and kind of talked to us and heard about our vision and what we were doing. And and in many ways took us under his wing. And Ron at SV Angel has just been phenomenal with helping guide us and mentor us and support us and open his relationship network, which is second to none, and certainly accelerated a lot of what we were building. So those are the people that immediately come to mind as being transformative to what we were doing.
Aoifinn Devitt: A long, illustrious list there. Are there any rules that you live by, any creed or motto, maybe based on some advice you received or just something that you discovered for yourself?
Austin Clements: Sure. The one motto that I live by is actually from Kahlil Gibran. He said, “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” And I really liked that because I think that a lot of times when you think about progress or You know, people think about, all right, here are the things in front of me. How do I make this better? And I think the idea of advancing toward what will be takes a different approach where you’re like, well, what is the future state of all this? And how do I get there? And that’s just a different orientation that has informed so many aspects of my life from what career I decided to go to. Obviously, you could imagine how that fits very directly into venture capital. To marriage, to how I think about parenting my son, to friendships and everything like that. That motto is basically at this point ingrained into my DNA.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a very nice and optimistic way to bring our conversation to an end. But I do have one last question, which is around any advice you might have for your younger self. Is there anything you know now after a decade-some year in about career and venture that you would like to tell perhaps that young college student at Morehouse College?
Austin Clements: I would say it all comes in handy. What I mean by that is another thing we say at Slauson is your life experience is your competitive advantage. When I was in my 20s coming out of college, I couldn’t even tell you at this point how many jobs I had between college and me finding my way to the venture capital industry. And it was always like really trying to find my way and trying to decide what was for me, and should I be following my passion, or should I just try to get paid as much as humanly possible and then do my passion on the sides, or anything like that. So I ended up doing a bunch of different things and then learned from all of them. As I work now, all of the life experience comes in handy with, with building my firm, with dealing with people, with all things like that. So I don’t feel like there were too many missteps. I don’t really regret much at all because I look back and I just say to myself, it all came in handy.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s funny how stories converge from totally different backgrounds. I just published a podcast this week from a young Israeli woman, and she had a similar experience hustling through the grueling world of media. And her said was not a minute was wasted in terms of those kind of the slavish internships, et cetera. Everything, it comes home to roost in terms of having a use Well, thank you so much, Austen. It has really been a pleasure speaking with you and listening to your focus. Your relentless focus on economic empowerment is really quite inspiring. You’ve talked about vision a lot here, and obviously visions have to be bold, and you certainly have not only engendered— have you had your own vision, but also encouraged that of others. And I look forward to seeing where some of those visions land. So thank you very much for sharing your insights with us.
Austin Clements: Absolutely. This is great. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only. And should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This series was made possible by the kind support of Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest independent asset managers focused on delivering long-term investment excellence for clients and their beneficiaries, as well as Nile Capital Group, a sector-focused, operationally oriented private equity firm based in the Los Angeles area.
Austin Clements: I said I was going to graduate with either a role in venture capital or no job at all. I ended up graduating with no job at all, but eventually through found my way into the industry with a firm called 1010. So we want to get behind people, as we always phrase it, that are delusional with their vision but pragmatic with their execution.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, the podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people. And their stories. I’m joined today by Austin Clemens, who is a partner at Slauson Co., a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to a range of founders. He’s a Kauffman Fellow and has a strong interest in economic empowerment. He was previously chair of Pledge LA, an alliance between LA’s venture capital community, the Annenberg Foundation, and the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti. He also holds a number of board roles. Welcome, Austin. Thanks for joining me today.
Austin Clements: So excited to be here amongst all the great guests that you have. It’s an honor.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you so much. And well, let’s start by talking about your background and your entry into the tech world.
Austin Clements: Absolutely. It’s a very simple story, actually. Born and raised in LA, in South LA to be exact, primarily Black and brown neighborhood. Went to Morehouse College for undergrad and came back to LA, started working in finance. In wealth management. I did that for a couple years, enjoyed it, didn’t know anything about the venture capital industry. I was mostly focused on public equities and fixed income portfolios. So then I left that role to start a company. I was doing web and mobile development for a lot of small businesses, and it was there that I really fell in love with working with entrepreneurs. And, you know, they’re the most passionate people on the planet about their work. I enjoyed working with small businesses as well, and I enjoyed applying technology. To their businesses. So coupled that with learning about investing, and it just became extremely interesting to me that you could combine investing and working with entrepreneurs and technology all into one role. I started to learn about the venture capital industry and just became obsessed with it, uh, really wanted to find a way in. Everybody told me at the time— this is like 2009, 2010— everybody told me at the time, like, it’s nearly impossible to break in and find a role. But, you know, nearly impossible. I like those odds. I’ll go for it. And went back to business school. I went to NYU and got my MBA, but really the entire focus of going to business school was to try to find a role in venture. I said I was going to graduate with either a role in venture capital or no job at all. I ended up graduating with no job at all, but eventually found my way into the industry with a firm called 1010.
Aoifinn Devitt: Great. Well, I’d love to talk about maybe what training I suppose you had in the early days and how that kind of, you draw upon it as an early stage investor today. What do you think, I think, equipped you with the tools to be, uh, have the right skills as a venture capital investor?
Austin Clements: Sure, certainly my— I’m oriented as an investor first. I think that, you know, some people look at the industry and say like it’s, it, it certainly makes sense to start as an operator and then come into the industry with that experience, and, and you’ll be empathetic to founders and whatnot. And I’ve seen that firsthand. I think that that does provide a lot of insight if you come at it from the operating angle before going into venture. But you could also be empathetic without being an operator, and that was kind of my approach. And so my orientation to begin with was an investor, but then beyond that, I also did work with a lot of small businesses. These weren’t like venture-backed businesses, these are like local businesses, everything from interior design shops to law firms and things like that, and helping them build technology. So I became very familiar with emerging technology and all of the things that are associated with that, all the good and the bad and things to look out for. So I really started to learn about tech quite a bit in that role, even though it wasn’t necessarily venture-backed tech, it was other kinds of tech. And so I learned from there that I think that that sort of served as the basis for really understanding what’s out there and sort of how to, I guess, how to be a good investor in those particular categories. A lot of it has to do with the people part of the business and then understanding what the vision and the mission of the entrepreneur is. And that’s what I was always able to be excited by and really able to get behind too. That’s what made a huge difference. And that’s, you know, still the part of the business that I love the most now.
Aoifinn Devitt: And do you think business school and other kind of college programs can really prepare you for the skills you need in venture capital, or is it more academic?
Austin Clements: I think that they can prepare you with decent frameworks that serve as a beginning of thinking about how to do it. But, you know, there’s nothing like real-world experience. Business school, I wouldn’t say taught me to be a good investor. I would say it taught me to be a better investor. I wouldn’t say the business school taught me how to work with entrepreneurs. I think it helped refine some of the aspects that I had already in place, and ultimately it was useful. Probably one of the most useful things was for me for business school was to step out of the day-to-day and sort of create a plan for what I wanted to be in this industry and how I wanted to get into the industry. And I think more than anything else, building a good network and taking the time to have a better constructed plan helped me to think about things on a long term, with a long-term view, which in my opinion is probably the best way to have it, is to take a long view on most things that you do, and then you can figure out how to navigate it to achieve the desired outcome. So I wouldn’t necessarily say that there was anything tactical that made me feel like— in fact, there were probably a few things that I had to unlearn coming out of business school in terms of how to work with companies, because startups are fundamentally different. I think business schools have gotten a lot better about that over the years, though. It taught me a few things, but also had to rethink a few things as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: So just moving now to your work at Slauson Co. So what kind of incubation services do you provide beyond capital, and what kind of pipeline are you seeing at the moment at the pre-seed stage?
Austin Clements: Sure. So yeah, pre-seed and seed stage is where we’re primarily focused. So in most cases, we’re leading the deals that we do, and we’re the first institutional check into the company. And often we’re taking between 50% and 75% of the round and, you know, usually investing somewhere between $250,000 up to a couple of million as an initial check in. But we also recognize that the founders that we’re backing in most cases can benefit from more than just the capital in terms of our relationships and guidance and perspective and help and support. That’s just a huge element. Slauson and Company, we very intentionally named it and Company versus like ventures or capital or anything like that because really it’s about the company that we keep. That’s the biggest asset that we have. We’ve been very fortunate enough to have just an excellent list of advisors and corporations that have gotten behind what we’ve done, that are supporting what we do, and want to provide resources to the founders that we back. So when I think about what we do, we usually make an investment, and then in the early days, we’re talking to the founders on a pretty regular basis, understanding what they need. This isn’t a matter of them reporting in to us about like, hey, tell me what you did this past week or whatnot. That’s not really what it is at all. It’s more we want to say, hey, what do you need? What are you working on? What’s top of mind? Give people a chance to step out of their business for a little while and ask questions, big picture questions. And our job is to help advance their vision as much as we possibly can. And fortunately, we have a lot of resources and a pretty solid network that we’re really proud of that we can lend to that founder.
Aoifinn Devitt: You’re strongly motivated by the need for economic empowerment. How would you assess the current levels of access to capital for underrepresented founders?
Austin Clements: Abysmal, and it’s been that way. You know, one of the things that interested me most about coming into the industry with an investor orientation was the fact that I realized it was very, very obvious to me from, you know, a decade and some change ago that if I could act as a means to provide capital to the types of brilliant people that I grew up around, the people that came from communities like mine, where there’s just so much genius there and so much cultural relevance and so many things that are birthed out of neighborhoods like that, but just don’t have access to capital or resources or guidance from mentorship and things like that, where people that have achieved success. All of that stuff seemed like very, very far away when I was growing up. And so when I got into the industry, what I realized with my investor orientation is if I can make that connection, then I could create a firm that could do really well from a performance standpoint. When I think about where that was in 2009, going into business school and, and trying to break into the industry, I was certain that like everybody would wake up to this huge gap and this huge opportunity within the next year or two. I was just so confident that like my window was so small to break into the industry and sort of make some noise with that as an idea, as a novel concept. Fast forward, you know, nearly a decade, it’s still a novel concept to back diverse founders, and the industry just hasn’t woken up to it. I think that obviously the activity around last year and all the social justice conversations put a spotlight on it, which actually attracted a lot of capital to the category, which is a great thing in my opinion. But I still don’t know that most folks realize how massive of an opportunity there is to back diverse founders. And if you do it, and if you’re authentically connected to those communities and you’re authentically connected to the traditional venture community, then there’s a whole lot of success to be had.
Aoifinn Devitt: And it’d be great if you could paint a picture of that opportunity and maybe just compare it to maybe the typical venture capital opportunity, because I mean, the typical venture capital opportunity I think of, there is a fairly high failure rate sort of baked into that. But what is it about the diverse founder opportunity that you think is so compelling?
Austin Clements: Sure, I think that there’s still a failure rate that is going to be fairly high. I mean, like, I worked for— I worked with small businesses before, and the failure rate isn’t too much different than venture-backed companies. So when I think about failure rate, I think it’s still about getting behind opportunities that are swinging for the fences. I think that there are plenty of models and actually some opportunities out there for models that accommodate various types of businesses that aren’t trying to be, you know, massive scale or things like that. And down the line, I’d love if that’s something that like Slauson would explore. Right now, our focus is primarily on very, very large-scale opportunities. So we want to get behind people, as we always phrase it, that are delusional with their vision but pragmatic with their execution. We want people that have a vision that’s almost like unsettling about how, how big it is and what they want to grow their company to be. But then they’re very pragmatic in the sense of they know what the first few steps look like and they’re actively doing it and they’re focused on doing it. So that’s what we look for in founders, and we’ll continue to do that from Sloss Co.’s perspective.
Aoifinn Devitt: And do you think some of the barriers to capital raising are due to lack of diversity in the venture space? So the actual, the investors themselves are not diverse enough and therefore they’re not recognizing this opportunity.
Austin Clements: I mean, I think so. I think that that is a key component of it. I’m always really reluctant to paint venture as like a bunch of evil people that are, you know, very intentionally trying to leave people out. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case, or at least that hasn’t been my experience with most of the people that I’ve interacted with. With that being said, most of the people do come from a fairly homogenous group where in that they went to the same schools, they worked at the same companies, and now they’re backing each other and helping each other’s companies grow and scale. I think that what happens is when you take people that are VCs from diverse backgrounds, their life experience is different and their networks are different. And so they can take the knowledge of how venture works and apply that to different networks naturally. One thing I think about is, you know, I went to Morehouse for undergrad, right? If I meet a founder that went to Morehouse or went to Spelman or Howard or most HBCUs, like, I think of that in the same way that somebody who went to Stanford thinks about when they see somebody that went to Stanford. I think that this is a very high-achieving person with a very strong network. And a defined perspective and an opinion about something. Those are sort of the qualities that I get. If you didn’t go to Morehouse, if you didn’t go to Spelman or Howard, you probably would have no reason to believe that about these schools or these institutions. But because my life experience is fundamentally different than that, I can bring that perspective to the industry and help founders that come from that background to succeed.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. It’s sort of having the insider view. Being from Ireland myself, people would always send me the resumes of Irish people because I would know, oh, that university is good or a degree from that university actually is slightly different. It means something different. So I think that’s a very good point. You really do need to have the inside view to be able to, I suppose, interpret the credentials that have come from a similar background. What particular interventions have you seen? Maybe the word isn’t to be interventions, but I suppose methods or ways of— is it affinity groups? Is it better networking? Is it more outreach to founders? More of this kind of incubator work or more groups like you had at Pledge LA, the alliances? What have you seen to really help to get the funding into the hands of where it’s needed?
Austin Clements: So one thing we recognize and appreciate is that there’s a limited number of companies that Slauson can back from each fund. If we talk to 100 companies, we’re probably going to back one. That doesn’t mean that the other 99% of the companies that we talk to are not worth existing. It’s just a matter of fit and where we could help out most and all those other things. Usually those top 10% of companies that we talk to are actually quite phenomenal companies all in and of themselves, and we just, again, end up picking one. But we started to think about how do we advance the mission of economic inclusion by supporting more companies? And one of the ways that we wanted to do that was through a program that we created called Calling on Capital. It’s a program that we’re doing in conjunction with Grid110, which is an accelerator that’s based in LA, a nonprofit accelerator that takes no fee, no equity, but just helps out emerging businesses. Grid110 has a phenomenal track record of diversity in the sense of they have 70% of the founding teams have a woman, 70% of the founding teams have a person of color. The accelerator is just really, really strong. And so we partnered with Grid 110 to create Calling On Capital, which is a program that’s designed to help more companies be able to raise capital and get matched with the right investors. So even though we may not be the best fit, we want to be able to touch more companies and help them prepare to raise capital from other investors as well, even if it’s not us. So again, I talk a bit about my As a, as a Black man in America, I feel like I have a social obligation that I have to hold to advance society in the interest of inclusion. I think that this is one of those ways that it could manifest, where even though there may not be a direct benefit in terms of our portfolio, we certainly see a benefit in terms of the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish. I don’t think that there’s anything that you could do that will move the needle like getting people from these backgrounds. Into the conversations and everything else. I mean, that’s what I would do. I’ll give one example that maybe might hit home for a broader audience. When I was at the firm 10 One 10, I was very, very active in a lot of different diversity groups, very active with women entrepreneur organizations. I spoke on panels and everything like that and thought that I had a pretty decent in with women entrepreneurs. But as soon as there was a woman VC that was added to the firm that I was working with, the number of female founders that came through the door skyrocketed, right? And so it’s just something that I as a man cannot replicate, even, you know, with the very directed intention behind trying to get more women founders to be evaluated from our firm. Like, the point is, when you bring in a woman VC, it just changes the entire dynamic. And so, you know, we think about that as we’re growing our team as well, who the types of people that we want to bring to the table and the networks that they have. So it’s not just— this isn’t just a critique of white men in Silicon Valley. This is more of a reality of how all firms should be thought of. If you’re trying to attract more people from different networks and different demographics, you’ve got to hire people that come from those networks and those different demographics. It’s as simple as that.
Aoifinn Devitt: Of course. And then after the hiring, there has to be the inclusive environment so they, they thrive. And that’s my segue to an article you wrote recently called The Delusion Around Inclusion. Can you talk a little bit about the points you were making there and what that delusion is?
Austin Clements: That article came on the early side of our fundraise for Slauson Co. We were putting together, this is pre- George Floyd murder. This was pre-Black Lives Matter events, things like that. So we were fundraising during that environment. This article came after that, but we were fundraising during that environment and we kept hearing the same ideas that were felt so wrong or so incorrect about the assumptions of what we were doing around the different types of founders that we were targeting and who we were serving and how we were positioning ourselves. It seemed so wrong from that and so common. We had the same common mistakes that people were making about what we were doing that I was like, we should write an article about this rather than having the same conversation over and over. So there were a few things that popped up, like a couple that I’ll touch on. One was this idea that it was a niche audience that we were going after, that going after minority founders or underrepresented founders is a niche approach to the business of venture capital. And thus, as a result of that, we’re basically limiting our opportunity or our ability to find what would be the next breakout company. If you look at the changing demographics of the country, you’ll see very quickly that if we’re talking about women and minorities, we’re actually talking about the majority of the country, right? What’s niche is actually targeting a few schools in two or three cities in the country and assuming that all of the talent, all of the ambition, all of the great ideas of what could shape the future are located there. Like, I’d argue that that’s a fairly niche audience that they’re going after. Obviously it’s worked relatively successfully, but when it comes time to thinking about building a firm and differentiating, and you see literally 1,000 new firms popping up, that are all targeting this niche audience over there, to me, the major opportunity seems to be in the lake where we’re fishing, which is pretty much the rest of the country. With that said, I think that the other thing that people associate most closely when you’re talking about diverse fund managers is that it’s some sort of philanthropic or charity work. And implied in that is that there’ll be some concessionary returns like we’re doing it for the good of society rather than being able to produce above average returns. I actually don’t think that’s the case. I think that as a Black man in America, I do have a moral obligation to look at society and see where I could change and see where I could impact things in a positive way. But as far as this firm goes, I actually think that the approach that we’re taking leads to outperformance rather than underperformance. And that’s mainly because, again, we’re not targeting the niche community, and thus it’s not as competitive to find really, really good opportunities and really good founders. I actually believe that where they’re fishing is a lot more competitive, and they are actually just paying really high prices, often inflated prices, because so many people and so many firms are going after just those communities. Whereas with us, we can find more fair valuations and find companies that aren’t thriving on hype, but in fact are really building very solid businesses that are in a position to scale.
Aoifinn Devitt: That was exactly the nuance I was driving at when I asked about the difference perhaps in profile and returns and risk management, because this came up in my conversation with James Norman as well. We spoke about just the fundamentally different backdrop to some of these businesses. They perhaps have, first of all, that the founders themselves may be fairly resilient having got to that stage without perhaps the advantage of friends and family capital. And they may have already had to prove their concept because, as you said, they can’t thrive on hype because they’ve had to perhaps build a customer base and demonstrate it before they even get to the boardroom stage of presenting. So I think there is quite a different kind of backdrop and it’s really interesting to, to sort of parse that and see how, how makes the returns arguably, well, certainly divergent returns. They may be good diversifiers.
Austin Clements: You’re absolutely correct. I like the idea that we hear about from, particularly from a lot of diverse fund managers when you’re talking about diverse founders, the concept of distance traveled. Like basically how far did you have to get to, or what, what did you have to overcome to get here? And what we find is that people from the backgrounds that we typically back They travel pretty far in terms of like their personal lives and development and things that they overcame. And they didn’t have, in many cases, the friends and family round that would give, you know, the $100,000, $200,000 to start and work on a concept. That just doesn’t exist for the majority of the population in the communities that we’re serving. And so as a result of that, you know, even if you’re, if you’re a VC that’s trying to look at things objectively and just say like, I don’t care if you don’t have a high school degree or, or what race or gender or sexual orientation you are, but like, if you’re hitting these metrics, then I’ll back you. And as a result, there should be an even distribution of the founders that I should back. I, I think that when you look at those metrics, a lot of time you have to put those in the context of what resources did that person have. At the very earliest stage to get those metrics. And if you ignore that component of it, then you’re almost certainly overlooking a whole lot of talent that should they be given a small amount of capital, they could just do a whole lot with a little because that’s what they’ve been used to. So there’s just massive opportunity.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting what kind of creativity can be born out of constraints. So just now going— obviously you’re in the venture capital world. We talked before about the high failure rate that just permeates the entire venture capital arena, um, needing to have a stomach for that. What have you learned from some setbacks or challenges or even investment mistakes that you’ve experienced in your career?
Austin Clements: I’ll talk about mistakes that I made early in my career in venture. Early in my career, I think that I was a lot more ego-driven in the sense of when I’d hear a pitch I’d try to poke holes in the opportunity and find out, think about things maybe the founder hadn’t thought about, or challenge and find out ways of basically saying like, this is potentially how the company could fail because of this, that, and the other thing. And I think, you know, after you look at a thousand or a couple of thousand companies, you realize at the seed stage, that’s every company. Every company has holes, every company has gaps, every company has major things that could lead to a failure. And so the real courage, the real skill in this business comes with being sort of brave enough to get behind somebody when you are fully aware of the challenges that it’s facing and the gaps that it’s facing and still believe that there might be a chance that this founder can navigate those obstacles and figure out a way. And so I think that my view went from to being much more optimistic. I think generally I have always been an optimist, but in, but just in terms of my interactions with founders, I, I go into every meeting hoping that this is the meeting that will lead to the company that will make my career as an investor. You know, this is not— I don’t take it lightly at all. I try to take everything seriously and come in prepared and respectful of the founder because this might be the person that can make my career as a VC. So I want to come into meetings with that kind of intention versus the arms crossed, eyebrow raised skepticism of like, oh, well, have you thought about this? Of course they have. And of course they’re fully aware of it because they think about their business every day and every night. So I’d say that’s probably one thing, one challenge, or one way that I’ve evolved over the years.
Aoifinn Devitt: And one of the things you mentioned earlier is around networks perhaps and how you weren’t initially aware of the networks. Maybe you didn’t have mentors initially but gained them later. Were there any key people over the course of your career or life so far that have really had an influence and really some that you could mention?
Austin Clements: Sure, there are a few key people along the way that have just made a massive difference in the venture ecosystem. So let’s see, there’s Brad Feld, Mark Soester, Fred Wilson that were bloggers, and that was really how I started to understand the industry was through their blogs. That’s when I, you know, a lot of the advice that I was giving to some of the entrepreneurs that I was working with when I was just running a dev shop mirrored some of the things that they were saying on their blog. And I was like, these are guys that are at the top of their game and I’m learning a lot, but also I understand this because I’m kind of doing it but in a different way. So that’s what made me really interested and feel like venture could be the career for me. Then beyond that, David Waxman, who I did actually know in person because he gave me my first full-time gig in venture at 1010 Ventures. David is just a phenomenal human being who really, I learned so much from him. The two things that I’ll call out here, one is that what it’s like to watch someone who comes from an operator’s background work with founders. His experience across the three companies that he founded that all had varying outcomes was so useful when he’d sit across the table from a founder, and it was so impressive. And, you know, some of those conversations are things that I’ll never be able to say because I was never, you know, the founder of a venture-backed company. But it also did— it helped me understand where my strengths were as well and where my perspectives were— would add a lot of value. And so I was able to lean more into who I am and also appreciate the skills of people who I am not. Another person— I’ll give two more people really quickly— another person is Kareem Webb. Who is a founder of Fourth Movement. He was a serial entrepreneur that came from our neighborhood. And Kareem is really, really dedicated to creating opportunities, economic opportunities for people of color. And he taught me essentially that as we build the firm, it’s not about selling people in the firm, it’s about enrolling people in our vision. It’s not for everybody, but for the people who are on board, they really, really are on board. And I think it’s shaped a lot of how we built the firm. And then the last person I’ll say is Ron Conway, who, you know, even before all the social justice stuff of last summer, was very interested in working with fund managers of color to find all the opportunities into all these untapped founders. And Ron came across us, me and my partner AJ, and he sat down with us and kind of talked to us and heard about our vision and what we were doing. And and in many ways took us under his wing. And Ron at SV Angel has just been phenomenal with helping guide us and mentor us and support us and open his relationship network, which is second to none, and certainly accelerated a lot of what we were building. So those are the people that immediately come to mind as being transformative to what we were doing.
Aoifinn Devitt: A long, illustrious list there. Are there any rules that you live by, any creed or motto, maybe based on some advice you received or just something that you discovered for yourself?
Austin Clements: Sure. The one motto that I live by is actually from Kahlil Gibran. He said, “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” And I really liked that because I think that a lot of times when you think about progress or You know, people think about, all right, here are the things in front of me. How do I make this better? And I think the idea of advancing toward what will be takes a different approach where you’re like, well, what is the future state of all this? And how do I get there? And that’s just a different orientation that has informed so many aspects of my life from what career I decided to go to. Obviously, you could imagine how that fits very directly into venture capital. To marriage, to how I think about parenting my son, to friendships and everything like that. That motto is basically at this point ingrained into my DNA.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a very nice and optimistic way to bring our conversation to an end. But I do have one last question, which is around any advice you might have for your younger self. Is there anything you know now after a decade-some year in about career and venture that you would like to tell perhaps that young college student at Morehouse College?
Austin Clements: I would say it all comes in handy. What I mean by that is another thing we say at Slauson is your life experience is your competitive advantage. When I was in my 20s coming out of college, I couldn’t even tell you at this point how many jobs I had between college and me finding my way to the venture capital industry. And it was always like really trying to find my way and trying to decide what was for me, and should I be following my passion, or should I just try to get paid as much as humanly possible and then do my passion on the sides, or anything like that. So I ended up doing a bunch of different things and then learned from all of them. As I work now, all of the life experience comes in handy with, with building my firm, with dealing with people, with all things like that. So I don’t feel like there were too many missteps. I don’t really regret much at all because I look back and I just say to myself, it all came in handy.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s funny how stories converge from totally different backgrounds. I just published a podcast this week from a young Israeli woman, and she had a similar experience hustling through the grueling world of media. And her said was not a minute was wasted in terms of those kind of the slavish internships, et cetera. Everything, it comes home to roost in terms of having a use Well, thank you so much, Austen. It has really been a pleasure speaking with you and listening to your focus. Your relentless focus on economic empowerment is really quite inspiring. You’ve talked about vision a lot here, and obviously visions have to be bold, and you certainly have not only engendered— have you had your own vision, but also encouraged that of others. And I look forward to seeing where some of those visions land. So thank you very much for sharing your insights with us.
Austin Clements: Absolutely. This is great. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only. And should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
