Genevieve LeMarchal: 00:05
It's Genevieve LeMarchal. I am so excited to have you guys here today to join me for this conversation with Tim Draper. The interesting thing about my conversation with Tim today is this actually a very personal conversation. We didn't talk that much about business. We didn't talk that much about bitcoin. We didn't talk that much about venture capital. Talked a little bit, but not a lot. We talked mostly about family, about growing up, about values and about legacy. I recently became a mother and was very excited to be able to share some of these stories and experiences and hear about Tim's growing up. So Tim has a lot of notoriety. I almost don't even need to introduce him. He is a very, very well known venture capitalist and a from a multigenerational family of VCs. He and I am excited to share our conversation with him today with you guys. So let's dive in. Let's talk about. So your upbringing. You know, I did a little bit of my homework. You pounded the pavement selling oysters and.
Tim Draper: 01:13 The troubling oyster show.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 01:15 I sold rubber bands as a child. So you know, a penny each or a bag for a dollar. So throwing yourself in. I think I also read some story about your mother dropping you off at the base of Mount Shasta or something along those lines.
Tim Draper: 01:29 She dropped your way home at the base of Mount Rainier.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 01:33 Mount Rainier.
Tim Draper: 01:33 And you had to find at 14 with another friend. And we had 60 pound backpacks with just sleeping bags and freeze dried food for a week. And we had to, we had to find our way to this location. We had to hike 66 miles around to this other location. And my friend and I, we were just, I, we were so lucky we made it. But I've never been in better shape. I remember going and playing football after that and I couldn't believe how strong I was or how weak everybody else was because I had done that. So I highly recommend strapping 60 pounds to your back and, and your kids.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 02:29 Backs and jumping them off on the mountain. Yeah, well, so I mean we have. Tim Draper: 02:34 Survival training at Draper University, the school I created for entrepreneurs. And, and we take them up to wherever and do do crazy things with Navy Seals and special forces and Army Rangers and Marines and whoever. And, and I, three of my kids, I said hey, you gotta join Draper University. You gotta go, go through it. One of them did. Our, our youngest did. But the other three said, dad, I've been through survival training. I'm your kid.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 03:13 That's funny. I can kind of empathize my family. My grandfather was in the military also, and so I was raised by a Navy fighter pilot. And, you know, he didn't go easy on us. And, you know, he was the type of guy who would pitch a tent in the rain and we were going to sleep in it and we were going to have a nice time. Oh, yeah, it was always fun. Yeah.
Tim Draper: 03:33 Well, we, we do sort of have, I mean, some strange things that we did, I did with the kids. We had something called death ball. We had a swimming pool and a basketball hoop, and there were no rules. The goal was just to get the ball into the hoop and. And it's amazing how inventive everybody gets when you don't have a lot of rules. When you don't set up any rules. Yeah, you had to wear goggles so nobody got poked in the eye. But it was. We eventually loved it so much we created death ball tournaments. We had, you know, my daughter brought all these kids from ucla water polo team, and death ball became this huge thing. But it was a thing for me. I was just thinking, you, you know, I want my kids to survive. I want them to be able to live through whatever it is. And a little bit of toughness is not a bad thing. I, you know, I know everybody's walks on eggshells now and the woke culture and all that stuff seems to make sense to some people, not to me.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 04:57 I have a question for you then about that. So I was speaking with an athlete. Tim Draper: 05:01 I think people need a tough skin to survive.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 05:04 I would agree.
Tim Draper: 05:05 They gotta understand what's out there and they gotta feel it. They can't be. It can't be hidden from them and that. And I think it's important to be, to, you know, raise your children to realize it's not all going to be easy. Yeah, you're going to go through all sorts of fits and start. Look at what you're going through. Having a baby, trying to raise a fund, doing one. Yes, whatever. That can't be easy.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 05:38 No.
Tim Draper: 05:39 But clearly you're driven to do it and clearly you're tough enough to keep it going. If, if you want to raise a kid to get along and go along, fine. But we're trying to raise kids who, who become heroes, who become extraordinary, who, who drive new avenues, who, you know, pioneer a world that's better than the one we've got. And I think to do that, they've gotta. They've got to know that things can get tough. And when they get tough, it's not that bad. In fact, as my father used to say, well, it's going to make a great story. You know, when we were, didn't have any hotel reservation and in Mexico, he took us all to Rosarito beach and just said, you're gonna sleep on the beach? And then Eddie said, but it's gonna make a great story.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 06:44 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 06:44 And so I think that that attitude, like, go out, live your life, enjoy the freedom that you have in this country, enjoy the, the world that you have, take it all in and then see what you can do to improve it. I think those things are, are what can really help drive a family and also drive a community and a state and a country.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 07:14 I like that value of contribution. That's very important to me, and that was something that was instilled in me growing up. But so one question I have for you is on this topic, a lot of people who I've met have come from upbringings that were difficult. I've spoken with several people who have become athletes or CEOs or business people, and they grew up in, you know, not great conditions and they overcame this adversity. So you're talking about things aren't always easy and children need to learn that. And, you know, some of the detriments of this woke culture we're living in today, which I, I have to agree with you on much of that, but, you know, I'm just gonna say it straight. You didn't have for yourself or your children some of the difficulties that some of these, you know, other people may have had growing up. So how, how would you, if someone brought that up to you and said you grew up in privilege, your family never actually had the, the risk of failure, true failure, you know, being on the street or whatever that might be, yet, you know, you still were able to create these values in your children and these values created in you from your parents, even though you didn't actually have that imminent risk of like, you know, ultimate failure hanging over you?
Tim Draper: 08:35 Well, I don't know. Money comes and goes.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 08:39 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 08:40 When my dad ran for Congress, things weren't going very well. It wasn't always, you know, cherry blossoms.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 08:49 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 08:49 I think you, you underestimate the challenges that people have, no matter where they come from. And by, by thinking, oh, you know, they're, you know, oh, they're eating caviar and living the dream. It's. I, I think you, you know, I, I remember I, they called me flood pants or something because I, I wore the same pair of white jeans for three years. I, I, you know, that sort of thing. That's, that's what kids are supposed to sort of tease you so that you get that teasing so that you kind of take it in and you go, ah, this is important. This is not important. There are, you know, there are always going to be challenges. There are always going to be times when you are, you know, and when you, I mean, gosh, I, I've got a ton of money now. It creates all sorts of opportunities and problems because of all the people I'm involved with and all the battles and the excitement and the danger and the fun that I, I get to encounter. And I feel like it's really, you know, when you have a lot of money, then you have more responsibility. It's like Spider Man. With great power comes great responsibility. And then when it's gone, you have, you have survival instincts and you have to kind of get back down to it. It isn't a one state to another state thing. That isn't the way it works. There are days where you are impoverished and there are days when you're rich and then there are days when you are taking on the world and doing something very unpopular. And then there are days when all of a sudden you're swimming with a current and you're wondering what, what's going to go wrong.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 10:59 Yeah, I felt that. So about resilience then. So this industry, venture capital, a lot of people don't know this about venture capital, but it's, it's extremely difficult. It is one of the hardest businesses I've ever been in. And I've been in some.
Tim Draper: 11:14 You don't know if my dad said that he joined venture capital because he thought it would be easy.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 11:19 Yeah, I think a lot of people, I used to think it was too. I'm like, oh, VCs, they just like have a checkbook in their purse and they skip around and write checks to cool ideas, you know? No, no. And you know, I don't. I always say the hardest thing you can do is be an entrepreneur and start something completely from scratch. And innovative technology, it's. On the scale of hard things, that's a 10. But being a VC, especially starting a VC firm, that's probably like a 7 or an 8 in terms of hard things to do. But you don't know. You don't get any feedback on whether or not you're good at your job.
Tim Draper: 11:51 The great thing about venture capital is people are selling to you all day long, then you have to go do it yourself. Yeah, you have to go raise a fund. You have to do that. You have to see what that's like. So you're not just buying, you're also selling. And I think that's one of the things that, that a lot of people don't. It doesn't. It's not obvious to anyone because a venture capitalist wants to keep saying, hey, yeah, I'm in the business. Even if they're raising money, they don't have any to put to work. They still want to stay in the game.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 12:31 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 12:31 So. Because if you drop out of the game, you, you lose the, all of the education you would have had during that period. And, and there'll be a hole in your knowledge, and so you really want to always be out.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 12:47 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 12:48 And that means that while you're raising money, you've also got to be putting money out. And that's a challenge.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 12:57 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 12:57 And I've. I've gotten to be both. You know, I've gotten to be an entrepreneur and I've gotten to be a venture capitalist. I've tried many different things, but the ones that worked were Draper University and Meet the Drapers. And Draper University has taken many years before it became the big success that it is. It used to be like we, we couldn't, you know, we were begging to get students in, and now we're harder to get into than Stanford or Harvard. And we also say, well, we've had 4,000 students, they've started about a thousand companies, and, and the students have come from 102 different countries. But our, our pitch is that Harvard and Stanford keep you for four years and say 85% of you will get jobs when you get out. And we say we keep you for five weeks and our average student creates seven jobs. It's a whole different way of looking at the world. And we toughen people up, and that's really what we do. We toughen people up and we build their confidence. It's kind of interesting, you know, you have to toughen them and you have to build their confidence. They're. And you put those two things together and great things will happen with people. Anyway, that started out as like, couldn't get anybody to go. And now we, we have to be. Beat people away. And now it's 1 in 21 in 30 that get in. Meet the Drapers was a show that I had started, and I thought, well, this would be fun. You know, bring the family together, allow the viewer to invest in the companies through crowdfunding. And I got the thing going, you know, and I couldn't get my mother to watch. And now we've got 70 million viewers. Now, as an entrepreneur, you've got to just sort of have, have your, have an understanding that you want that this is the right thing to do because there are going to be many times when there are going to be people that think you're crazy. What are you doing? How are you think? Why are you doing that thing? It's wasting everybody's time. How could that possibly be good for your venture, business, whatever. So as an entrepreneur, I and others have to go through that. That is a difficult thing to go through. You have to be willing to take heat from your family and your friends. You have to, yes, be willing to hold up and stay the course. Now, I was kind of lucky. My dad made a bet with me not to drink or smoke or take drugs until I was 21. And so, and part of that was, sure, better health, whatever keeps my mind sharp. But the other part of it was I, I could take a lot of peer pressure. I could do things that other people were not willing to do that I thought were was right.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 16:21 What was the bet?
Tim Draper: 16:23 Oh, the bet was I got $500 for a trip to Europe for not drinking, smoking or taking drugs till I was 21. So, okay, I made it and had a great trip to Europe and learned all sorts of things there, which was, you know, I guess part of the whole program. Yeah, and, but the, the peer pressure I got when I was 11 or 12 was extraordinary. High school peer pressure was nothing compared to junior high and college peer pressure was nothing, zero. I mean, I set the ground rules early in college, but it was, it was enough for me to realize how powerful peer pressure can be. And you know, if everybody says you have to take the vaccine, you, you know, there's that peer pressure to take the vaccine, even if maybe it's going to give a bunch of people shingles and cancer and whatever else. If, and I don't know, you know, maybe it was the right thing to do, maybe it wasn't, but there was serious peer pressure there. And, and there was, and there's. There was serious peer pressure around the, the woke community for a long time too. And at some point you have to think for yourself. At some point you have to. So I've taken on some very unpopular points of view. I created a school voucher campaign trying to take on the teachers union because the schools have no natural predator there. There's no market system there. There's nothing. And it's all controlled by those union bosses. And it's not working in California. It's just not working. And so I was trying to break that. I tried to break California into six and into three. Those were not popular things. And then it turns out when I was breaking it into three, the polling started at 8% in favor. 8%.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 18:44 That's pretty high. No, that's actually pretty high, isn't it? Yeah, like, and then, I mean, that's kind of like an extreme idea.
Tim Draper: 18:51 12% and then 17% and then 27% with 35% undecided. So we were going to win. And then the. The California Supreme Court, which is all union control, pulled it off the ballot before it could be before the day before they were printed. So they played dirty tricks, whatever. Those were unpopular things that became popular. And then I was outmaneuvered politically. I. I supported Elizabeth Holmes as a entrepreneur. The peer pressure against me was extraordinary. I bought a bunch of bitcoin. Peer pressure against. That was extraordinary. That's not money. How could you do that? What are you thinking? All of a sudden, people are kind of going, wait, what was that bitcoin thing you told me to buy?
Genevieve LeMarchal: 19:48 Right.
Tim Draper: 19:50 So when I have a strong gut feeling about something and. And I feel that it's the right approach long term. Now, there are people who have shorter time horizons, who make decisions for shorter time horizons, and they are right for that time period. But. But I'm looking out. I mean, big part of my job is to look five to 15 years out.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 20:17 We don't have. There's no such thing as a short time horizon for a venture capitalist.
Tim Draper: 20:21 No. And so I have to be looking five to 15 years out. So the expedient thing to do is not the right thing to do for me.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 20:30 Right.
Tim Draper: 20:31 And so I tend to support those entrepreneurs who also have that willingness to challenge the status quo to try new things. We're always looking for people who are trying things where, you know, maybe 8 out of 10 people would not think it was a good idea because it doesn't look normal to them. And so I'm very happy to take on these challenges and be the one to take some. Take a few arrows. You know, just.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 21:11 Do you think that that was talking to you? You think you observe that in your father? Or do you think you learn that from your own experiences throughout your career in your life, being willing to take arrows, not run from arrows?
Tim Draper: 21:24 You know, I think it might have been a combination of my father and my mother. My mother was. Really. Had a mind of her own. She. She always thought exactly for herself. Dad. Dad was, you know, has super high intelligence and. And a very good processor. And really good judgment. But I think mom might have had more, more of a creative spark and, and the independent thought. I think that just must run through our family. I mean, you. When you meet any of my kids, they are all themselves. They're all completely independent thinkers. They are willing to be a little goofy. They are willing to stand out for something that they feel is right. They are willing to create, you know, because it. You have to be very confident to create.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 22:41 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 22:41 I mean, even to enter an art show or to sing in front of an audience, when you don't have much of a voice or do a. Or even fund a company, you take a chance and you're kind of going, ooh, you know, this is.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 22:58 Yeah, I've told a lot of people that. I think business is the ultimate act of creation because we put a little bit of ourselves into anything we create, whether it's something we write or something, some art or whatever. But we put a lot of ourselves into our business. And you know, it may not be this, you know, beautiful thing that can hang on the wall, but when it's, when it fails or when we are rejected, a piece of you is therefore being rejected. And a lot of people just run from that rejection. And so, you know, we want our children to be happy, we want them to be independent. We want them to, you know, live their own lives. But that oftentimes goes against this antithesis. As humans, we just have where we're like, I want to protect you from something that could harm you. You know, parents, that's their parents fear. I want to protect you. I want to give you every opportunity to be successful, but I also want to protect you. And that can sometimes have the opposite effect with children. I'm sure, you know, people who, their children were not set up to succeed despite being given opportunities for whatever reason, and maybe it was protection or whatever. What would you say to somebody who, you know, is trying to reconcile that for themselves as a parent in terms.
Tim Draper: 24:10 Of saying, I know what it's like to be a new parent and you want to protect that child from everything and anything. At some point we were fortunate we had four children. So we could look at that and say, okay, you know, we can, we can try things, we can experiment.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 24:31 If we screw up one, we've got three more, it's okay, we got a backup. But what's the portfolio model?
Tim Draper: 24:40 Actually, it's the power did was it did put a little bit of a. More of a risk taking gene into my kids. I think they all have that willingness to take Risk. And that's. I don't think anyone. Well, first, I don't think anyone but optimists succeed, and I don't think anyone succeeds who doesn't take risk. And, and so I think you need, you need that in your life now. I'm talking about big success there. People will, you know, have careers, have play. If they're always playing it safe. They, you know, they might. It's a little bit soul crunching, but. But they will. You know, I mean, I just talked to somebody in government, and I was thinking, this guy has no joy in his life, and he's never taken a risk, and he's just doing the job and watching the clock. And I, you know, I was almost in tears for the guy because I thought that was so awful. Such a waste of a life.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 26:02 Yeah. So you and that.
Tim Draper: 26:05 So. So if you play, you go through your life playing it to. To safe, and if you try to encourage everybody else to be safe, that's what, you know, that's why we have so much government in our face. It's like there's so many people trying to say, oh, you know, government should do this, or we should have a right to this or something to this. I think you should. I mean, we really should bite our tongues when we start thinking that way, because it's, It's a. The freedom that we have here is what makes this the wealthiest, you know, large country in the world. It's what makes this a wonderful place for all of the entrepreneurs of the world to come. It's. It's all of those things. And when they start, when entrepreneurs. It's really interesting. We have these immigrant entrepreneurs are saying, finally, I'm free.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 27:06 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 27:06 And then they see what our SEC or our FDA is doing, and they go, wait a second. I. I'm not. I'm not as free as I thought I was.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 27:18 I think it's something like, what's it, 30%?
Tim Draper: 27:21 What's that?
Genevieve LeMarchal: 27:22 It's like 30% of unicorn. You know, unicorn CEOs are immigrants.
Tim Draper: 27:29 Oh, it's like, yeah, I don't know, 70% of my portfolio.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 27:33 Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really interesting. First generation. Well, so there's another thing kind of about adversity. So you're talking about, you know, that's.
Tim Draper: 27:41 Where I go back to the education thing. If we're not educating our students, we're. We're killing the, you know, that we got Rod in the system. And. And so there's got to be some sort of a market force to challenge the status Quo. When an education system or any system is not working.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 28:01 Yeah, I would agree with. When you're talking about fostering a culture of failure, you know, in many ways, you know, you've hinted at it with not just, you know, your kids and, you know, like, dog eat dog, get in the pool. There's no rules, you know, fostering a culture.
Tim Draper: 28:17 No.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 28:18 A great success.
Tim Draper: 28:20 Because they're willing to fail.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 28:22 To fail. Yeah. Because there is no success without failure.
Tim Draper: 28:24 In. In Draper University, one of our pled lines, we say, I will fail at all cost.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 28:31 Isn't it all like, I'm going to.
Tim Draper: 28:32 Fail and fail and fail and fail again until I succeed? And. And so I do think that our education system has failed us. And the way they've done it is all very safe. So if you get an A, that means you didn't make any mistakes. Right. And if you try something unusual and it succeeds, sure, you get an A. If it fails, you get an F. That's a risk. That's not a very good risk for a student that, you know, you're getting an F just because you tried something extraordinary. Yeah, I found that in school. I was a. I. I had very high. High A's and low.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 29:21 Low F's.
Tim Draper: 29:22 Yeah, not too much.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 29:23 Higher highs and lower lows.
Tim Draper: 29:26 Because I would try things.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 29:28 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 29:28 I would do things and. And, you know, write my final in the form of a poem, you know, or do the, you know, and the. And some teachers appreciate it and some didn't. And.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 29:41 Well, and students are average.
Tim Draper: 29:43 Education system doesn't really want the outlier. Yeah, they want everybody to memorize it and learn it the way they did, and they teach it that way. And so at Draper University, we teach. You get. You know, if somebody does a really good job on something, we just sort of say, good job. But if they. But their team gets points if they've tried something really extraordinary, whether they failed or succeeded.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 30:14 Interesting. And what do points mean?
Tim Draper: 30:17 Well, you add up all the points at the end and. And the team with the most points is the big winner. And we take them out to dinner and, you know, it's a. It's a big honor. They get their name on the plaque.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 30:33 So, like when your kids were little.
Tim Draper: 30:36 I mean, many of the Draper University entrepreneurs have gotten funding and they've got. They've gone well beyond that.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 30:42 Funding from you or funding from.
Tim Draper: 30:45 We have a fund dedicated to university alums, and it's small, but gives them that little first. First plug or some of. And then. And then some have become unicorns. Some that I put some money into and some that I haven't. So we have about five unicorns. We're only 13 years old. It's pretty good.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 31:16 I read something, actually. I wanted to talk a little bit about investing just for one second, but not about investing. I read something about how you made your first investments and you borrowed that money. Yeah, so I borrowed. That goes against what a lot of people may believe about you guys. So tell a little bit that might. That goes against what a lot of people might believe about the Drapers, you know, that you. You know, you. You just have this money as a family dynasty that has made all of these successful investments in companies like Hotmail and whatever. But your first batch of companies, you borrowed that money.
Tim Draper: 31:49 Yeah, yeah, I borrowed a little bit about that. Sba.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 31:53 And you borrow.
Tim Draper: 31:56 Was great. The SBIC program back then was. Was quite extraordinary. And they only had four people, and they had about 500 SBICs. And I had one of them. And the way I got it, I went through with a. You know, the guy and. And he goes. He goes, you must have 10 more than 10 years experience investing. And I said, well, I've been investing since I was 10 years old. And he just goes, jack, you didn't even know.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 32:33 You're like, I seeded my oyster company. I mean, that counts, right?
Tim Draper: 32:40 But anyway, we. Yeah. And after about three years, you know, when I was going through the J Curve, they were about to call the loan, and I had to fly back to Washington, convince them not to call alone, and they hung in there with me. And then about six. Three more years went by, and I had. I had five IPOs. And IPOs were a little easier to come by then back then.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 33:10 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 33:12 And one was Parametric Technology, one of the biggest software companies in New England to this day. Ptc. And, yeah, I. He was a Russian immigrant, another great immigrant. And that was. That was a really good way to get going back then. Now. Now they're about the same number of SBIcs, but instead of four people, there are 800 people, and they're all running around doing whatever, but it's not as effective a program that it used to be.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 33:56 So why didn't you raise it like a venture fund and go get investors?
Tim Draper: 33:59 And I didn't really have much of a record.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 34:02 Yeah. So that's interesting. So one of the things that a lot of people will say, you know, is I can't do this because I don't have that. I can't do this because I don't have that. And I hear this all the time. All the time. All the time. A friend of mine sent me a video this morning, and she says, does a crackhead wake up in the morning and say, I can't do crack today because I don't have money? She's like, no crackhead gets out there. They make it happen. Don't let a crackhead outperform you today.
Tim Draper: 34:34 Oh, my God.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 34:36 That kind of reminds me about that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think when I talk to entrepreneurs and. Or just people in general, I always want to know, why are you doing this? Because this is one of the hardest.
Tim Draper: 34:49 That's the best question to ask, because you'll see either if it comes from their head, you don't fund them. If it comes from their heart.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 34:57 Yeah, fund them well. And I think the reasons, too, is it's harder than ever today to get to Series A. Not even to get to IPO or any liquidity, just Series A, it's so hard.
Tim Draper: 35:09 And the difference between having a concept and having a business, and there are more hurdles. Series A, that means you figured out you've got a real model.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 35:21 You figured out a lot of things. And it's.
Tim Draper: 35:24 If you've got. If you've gotten your seed money, it means you know how to sell.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 35:28 Yeah, exactly. But there's multiple rounds of seed there. I mean, it's, It's. It's different than it used to be. And I'll. And I'll tell people the amount of resilience needed to get to Series A if. If you have a great reason. And it. The reason can't be. I met some guys, they had a cool idea. I seemed like it would make some money, and I decided to do it. It has to be something super personal because that's what's going to get you out of bed every day when it's hard.
Tim Draper: 35:54 Because as I said earlier, the money comes and goes.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 35:57 Yeah, You.
Tim Draper: 35:59 You've gotta. You gotta be doing it for all the right reasons. And if anybody says, you know, I say, why are you doing this? And they say, for the money. That's not enough. Because that comes and goes.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 36:12 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 36:13 And. And when things are down, they're the first ones to leave the ship.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 36:16 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 36:17 We want somebody who's gonna go down with a ship, back up with a ship, down with a ship, back up with a ship. And the great entrepreneurs, you know, you think, oh, that Zuckerberg, no problem. Or, you know, coinbase came from nowhere. No. So easy. Whatever. It's just the opposite. Those people have been through unbelievable challenges.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 36:40 Yeah. They don't share that stuff with Fast Company. It's like, what's the real story behind. That's why I started this podcast, because I had. I was really struggling. I was. As an entrepreneur, I was. I had a tough, tough road, and a lot of people did, but I wasn't. It didn't help me to hear about how people were successful. I need. Because I was like, I need to just not fail right now. And I'm, like, on the edge. This is. And I needed my son.
Tim Draper: 37:07 My son is brilliant that way. My son Adam, he says, be the cockroach, never die.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 37:14 Yeah. Just don't die, no matter how many times people step on you.
Tim Draper: 37:18 Right. Because there are so many of these companies that didn't make it that. That were six months away, three months away from that big customer. They were on to something. They weren't sure. They doubted themselves, and then they ran out of money. So if you can just stay in that game.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 37:39 Yeah. I. I'll tell entrepreneurs a lot. I don't actually know how to make you successful. In fact, I don't think there is any way to make you successful. I think you just get lucky. And the way to get lucky is don't fail long enough. Learn some stuff on the way, and then you're going to get lucky eventually. So I can't tell you how to be successful. Like, we're going to grow, we're going to try to do all the right things, but that doesn't mean that this is going to make it. But I can help you not fail because there's a pretty prescriptive way to fail. There's not a real prescriptive way to succeed, except for being a cockroach, I think.
Tim Draper: 38:16 Keep your team lean until you have a perfect product market fit.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 38:21 Yeah. Yep.
Tim Draper: 38:22 Just keep it lean.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 38:24 Don't fail.
Tim Draper: 38:25 Have. Have a few people who are completely dedicated to the cause. You know, maniacally dedicated. A cult. Three people in a cult. And keep them. Keep the thing alive as long as you possibly can until the customers start coming.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 38:42 Yeah. And that's hard.
Tim Draper: 38:43 And then get venture money and pour it on.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 38:45 Well, so, like, I mean, you're doing crypto and things where, like, a lot of times the customers don't come. You know, these things don't really take off for me. I'm doing health, so it can take a long time.
Tim Draper: 38:57 There are a hundred million crypto customers. No, there might be 500 million now. There are a lot of crypto customers.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 39:05 Right. But they're blocking to, like, certain things. Right. So if Someone. Yeah, if it's new. I mean, I don't want to get into crypto. It's actually not my thing. I don't really know much about it, but, you know, I think better buy some.
Tim Draper: 39:20 You're going to learn a whole lot about it when there's a run on the dollar.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 39:24 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 39:24 I mean, if you. If you lived in Argentina, you'd know crypto up, backwards, sideways. If you're in Nigeria, you'd say, oh, my God, I have to have crypto.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 39:34 Actually, you know, that happened to one of my companies last year, the Nigerian.
Tim Draper: 39:38 Deep, deep devaluation.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 39:41 And they. 30% drop. And it was really.
Tim Draper: 39:44 They all know exactly how bitcoin works. They have some. They. Yeah. When? Every time.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 39:51 Maybe I'll come to Draper University.
Tim Draper: 39:52 Every time you hear. Every time you hear the government, oh, they're kicking it down the can. Kicking the can down the road, or, you know, oh, they've. They've come to the conclusion, so that they're not shutting the government down and all that stuff. That means they're spending more and more and more money that they don't have. It will inflate, and it'll be worth less to you. So the dollar you had in 2019 is. And you still have is now worth 75 cents. Because our government just spends. And then they wonder why there's inflation, and then they mask the inflation by running through our oil reserves. I mean, this is. It's pretty simple stuff. So the reason you buy bitcoin is that it is. It is outside of government.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 40:47 Okay.
Tim Draper: 40:48 It isn't tied to the Nigerian naira.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 40:52 I have some. I just don't really know why I have it. I've just bought some because I'm like, well, you're supposed to have this to have a diversified portfolio.
Tim Draper: 41:00 You have it because you want to be able to stay alive when the Armageddon comes.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 41:06 Okay, I like that.
Tim Draper: 41:10 So, I mean, there was a run on the. On the Confederate dollar. There was a run on the Greek drachma. There was a run on. Whenever a currency loses its. People lose interest in it. They run on it, and they don't want to use it anymore. So there will be a moment where people say, hey, I can buy my food, clothing, shelter, all in bitcoin. Why do I need these dollars? They're political. They lose money over time. They lose value over time.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 41:43 When do you think that will be? Do you think that will be in our lifetime?
Tim Draper: 41:48 Well, yeah. And. And I. My lifetime's a lot shorter than your lifetime.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 41:55 Okay. All right. You guys heard it here first on Adventurous Podcast. Pick up some bitcoin. All right, well, Tim, do you have any, you know, final words of wisdom or anything like that you'd like to share with the audience here? My audience is primarily entrepreneurs. It's investors, angels, LPs, and just people who are out there building and creating and not afraid to fail. So what would you have? What wisdom would you like to share with them?
Tim Draper: 42:30 If you. If you love what you're doing, keep doing what you're doing. And if you don't, really rethink your life, you know, some. There's some things you have to do for a period of time, just. But figure out how to get out of situations where you. You feel like this isn't working for you now, if the business isn't working, but you're pretty confident that eventually the world will come around, stick with it. The other thing is our biggest companies in the world that were all these ones that are now household names, they were all pivots. So when you pound, keep going, go, go, go. Listen to your customer. Listen to your customer, and then you're gonna see some other opportunity that's. That is somewhat related, but not quite the same as what you're doing. And make sure you're open to that. They were all pivot. It was real. It's really amazing. You go through every one of them pivoted their business in one way or another.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 43:42 Yeah. I mean, we've all.
Tim Draper: 43:45 Skype was shared. WI Fi, Hotmail was not even email. It was. They were going to do websites for people. The. All the search engines in the world were worthless until Goto came up with a shared search or the paid search thing. Facebook was hot. Or not. You know, it's.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 44:19 Yeah.
Tim Draper: 44:20 These things just beware.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 44:22 What are they called it. They called it Face Smash or something like that. Face Mash.
Tim Draper: 44:28 No, I don't remember.
Genevieve LeMarchal: 44:29 I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. All right, great.
Tim Draper: 44:34 Well, thanks for having me on your show, Genevieve.
