Speaker 1: Be willing to constantly accept the new realities and figure
Speaker 1: out how to play and win.
Speaker 2: I think it's really important.
Speaker 3: Encore Jane grew up in an entrepreneurial family, so perhaps
Speaker 3: it's not surprising that at age thirty three, he has
Speaker 3: already founded three companies. His work focuses on solving real
Speaker 3: life problems, from student debt to affordable housing. His latest venture,
Speaker 3: Built Rewards. That's Bilt, a loyalty rewards program that lets
Speaker 3: renters earn points for their rent payments. Built is also
Speaker 3: helping renters build a path.
Speaker 4: To home ownership. Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 2: Encore the Best to get on and see you.
Speaker 4: It is so nice to have you here.
Speaker 3: I met Encore through a mutual friend, Sean Walsh, who
Speaker 3: at the time was working for the Daily Mail Believe
Speaker 3: and now somehow you lured him away from it. This
Speaker 3: is how entrepreneurial Encore is.
Speaker 2: I promised him a Kardashian, but you know.
Speaker 3: When he seems to be enjoying himself tremendously. Let's get
Speaker 3: back to Built, which launched only three years ago, and
Speaker 3: all of you listening, if you are paying rent, stay tuned.
Speaker 3: If you haven't figured out how to use Built. You
Speaker 3: should be really do that by the end of this podcast.
Speaker 1: The most exciting thing about this company is that for
Speaker 1: so many Americans, paying rent every month is your single
Speaker 1: biggest expense. Yes, and up until now you got nothing
Speaker 1: back for it.
Speaker 2: But think about it.
Speaker 1: You spent I can buy around in drinks and I
Speaker 1: get rewards, I get miles, I can build my credit.
Speaker 2: But you pay rent and you didn't get any of that.
Speaker 3: So when did this light bulb go off in your head?
Speaker 1: And so what's excite about Bilt is we give you
Speaker 1: rewards on your home. Every month you pay rent, you
Speaker 1: get points and miles, we build your credit, you get
Speaker 1: closer to home ownership. And then we also reward you
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. So when you go to your favorite restaurant's,
Speaker 1: your favorite grocery store, your favorite coffee shop, all of
Speaker 1: these merchants can now use Built to build loyalty with
Speaker 1: the local residents and you get rewarded when you shop local.
Speaker 1: Think about how much you spend on that compared to
Speaker 1: everything else. And if you think about it, that's a
Speaker 1: free trip around the world every single year. Yes, that
Speaker 1: you're just missing by not using Built, and so by
Speaker 1: creating that ecosystem. We were able to make that win
Speaker 1: win where the landlords win, the local merchants win, the
Speaker 1: card companies win, and most importantly, the renter wins.
Speaker 3: How many people now are getting points for their rent.
Speaker 1: It's pretty quol We have over four million apartments that
Speaker 1: are using Built exclusively now for how you pay your rent,
Speaker 1: get rewards, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So, Encore, I know you've recently had some big news
Speaker 3: at Built.
Speaker 4: Tell me about it.
Speaker 1: Well, so this is the exciting thing just announced. Built
Speaker 1: is now a three point one billion dollar company. We
Speaker 1: are so excited about this, not even because of the
Speaker 1: capital valuation, but because we've just brought on some of
Speaker 1: the best partners. So Ken Chenault, who was the CEO
Speaker 1: of American Express for twenty years and amazing guy, Ken
Speaker 1: is joining Built as our chairman to help us grow this.
Speaker 4: How great.
Speaker 1: Roger Goodell, who's the commissioner of the NFL, which by
Speaker 1: the way, is the biggest company in the world for
Speaker 1: hometown loyalty, is also joining Built. Oh great, and together
Speaker 1: we also brought in two hundred million dollars. There's a
Speaker 1: three point one billion dollar valuation on the business.
Speaker 2: But I think what's really exciting.
Speaker 1: Is it means like we have really established the core
Speaker 1: and we did over twenty billion dollars of spend for
Speaker 1: members in a year and a half. Just think about that,
Speaker 1: twenty billions, and that just shows you how that means.
Speaker 1: That means renters paying twenty billion dollars in rent and
Speaker 1: now getting.
Speaker 2: Points for getting points on that.
Speaker 3: What a fantastic Really, in a very short period of
Speaker 3: time you had built and your father must be so proud.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look I learned a lot from him. And
Speaker 1: my dad came here as an immage from India. My
Speaker 1: mom was an immigrant, grew up in Israel, and you
Speaker 1: know when they came here, like they didn't have anything
Speaker 1: right and there was this opportunity in this country, the
Speaker 1: American dream where I mean my dad grew up in
Speaker 1: a village outside of the city of India, studying with
Speaker 1: textbooks on a dirt floor.
Speaker 3: And he built a company that was at one point
Speaker 3: valued at forty billion dollars infospace excuse me, infospace, And
Speaker 3: now you were following in his footsteps building something that
Speaker 3: really does benefit a tremendous number of people.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta say you are such an adventurer. I
Speaker 1: love if you remember when we first met was with
Speaker 1: doctor Zahie.
Speaker 3: Actually, oh yes, And I was just talking about doctor
Speaker 3: Zockey because I was talking about your wedding in Egypt,
Speaker 3: and he's helped you arrange a phenomenal wedding near the
Speaker 3: Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, So what about him?
Speaker 1: While I was just saying with Doutch said, when you
Speaker 1: came by, I knew you were someone I was gonna
Speaker 1: because you brought a folder of all of your adventures
Speaker 1: and photos in Egypt. And I was like, I love Martha,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. I actually you know, between us, I try.
Speaker 1: I wanted to set you up with doctor Zahi I
Speaker 1: had Oh you did. Oh he was quite interested. I
Speaker 1: just don't think he got the love back.
Speaker 3: Well, I was only at a cocktail party. You had
Speaker 3: to tell me these things. Oh so if I come
Speaker 3: to your wedding, maybe maybe.
Speaker 1: He's initiating our wedding in front of the Sphinx. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll then officiate your guys.
Speaker 3: Wow, And you know what, I love Egypt such a
Speaker 3: special friend and I had the most what I was
Speaker 3: showing him at that time. And now Anchor and his beautiful,
Speaker 3: beautiful fiance are getting married in the desert, right in Cairo,
Speaker 3: in front of two of the most iconic pieces of antiquity.
Speaker 3: And I don't know how you wrangled that anchor, but
Speaker 3: you wrangled it.
Speaker 4: And doctors here.
Speaker 3: Isn't he the head of all antiquities in Egypt?
Speaker 1: Yes, well he's now retired from that role, but he's
Speaker 1: been the longtime minister. I always say he's the real
Speaker 1: life Indiana Jumps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he is the Minister of Antiquities, and he
Speaker 3: has arranged that this beautiful thing can happen.
Speaker 4: But I had the best trip to Egypt.
Speaker 3: And I took nine children to Egypt once, Wow, to
Speaker 3: visit to visit the Pyramids. We traveled with doctor Weeks
Speaker 3: from Yale. Yep, he was our tour guy.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So well now we digressed.
Speaker 3: So you brought it into to a three point one
Speaker 3: billion dollar valuation in just three years.
Speaker 1: Actually we only launched it publicly in April twenty twenty two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's been less than two years years of hard work.
Speaker 1: And this is you hear the Glamour story.
Speaker 4: You don't look so like Warren.
Speaker 2: I have gray hair.
Speaker 1: You saw the little gray hairy Erica calls out my
Speaker 1: gray hairs every night. She's like, hey, oldie, Oh no,
Speaker 1: but no it's look, you always hear the quick stories.
Speaker 2: It took years to make this thing possible.
Speaker 3: So you had to persuade all the building owners, the
Speaker 3: real real estate moguls to accept this unusual program.
Speaker 1: Need to get the real estate owners involved. We also
Speaker 1: had to get the government on I mean something so crazy.
Speaker 2: Think about this.
Speaker 1: You pay your rent every single month on time, and
Speaker 1: then you want to buy a home and they say, oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: you don't have enough credit history to get a mortgage.
Speaker 1: We don't know if you can pay it reliably. And
Speaker 1: you go, I have been paying for ten years monthly
Speaker 1: rent more than my mortgage would be right, Yeah, why can't.
Speaker 2: Can't I get home?
Speaker 1: And so we had to go and get the government regulators,
Speaker 1: the credit bureaus.
Speaker 4: Is this the fgi C or something.
Speaker 1: So the first we to get the credit bureaus on
Speaker 1: board to accept rental payments to build your credit history.
Speaker 1: And then we worked with Fanny Freddy, FHA, SO, FHFA
Speaker 1: and FHA to say, hey, guys, why is it that
Speaker 1: young people can't build a path to ownership by paying rent?
Speaker 1: By the way, why can't you use points and miles
Speaker 1: to pay your down payment?
Speaker 2: Right? And so we got that pass. It took us
Speaker 2: eighteen months. We to get the.
Speaker 1: Secretary of Housing on board, Secretary of Treasury on board.
Speaker 4: Do you know who they are now?
Speaker 1: Well, now it's all changed then, But you know this
Speaker 1: was a it was a it was a hell of battle.
Speaker 3: Well, getting renters back some of the value for their
Speaker 3: money sounds like a phenomenal idea.
Speaker 4: And but how did you know.
Speaker 3: That you had such a strong and sound business plan.
Speaker 1: Well, look like any business, if you solve a real
Speaker 1: problem for the customer, if you solve a problem that
Speaker 1: people are spending money on, right, and you make it
Speaker 1: better for them, you will figure out the business model.
Speaker 2: And for us it took a couple iterations.
Speaker 1: Right, But if you're spending three thousand dollars two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars fifteen hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 3: Rench in New York has skyrocketed since the pandemic, it's.
Speaker 1: Five thousand dollars a month for the average apartments here
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 3: Now, if I rent a piece of property that I own,
Speaker 3: how do I manage to let the rent renters get
Speaker 3: a built card?
Speaker 1: Well, so, first of all, anybody can sign up for
Speaker 1: built and pay rent at any apartment and you can
Speaker 1: use any doubt. So we've he's just started rolling out
Speaker 1: with condos, which is super exciting. And this year one
Speaker 1: of my goals is to open this up for mortgage
Speaker 1: owners too, so we can really reward people in their
Speaker 1: We already do co ops. Oh really, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: pay her common fees and HOA fees.
Speaker 3: I have a co op here in the city. So
Speaker 3: we have a mutual friend who is the founder of
Speaker 3: the He's the point sky, of course, and has he
Speaker 3: helped you in any way?
Speaker 2: Brian was my first partner. He was in this thing.
Speaker 1: I mean I called Brian and said, hey, I've got
Speaker 1: this crazy idea, what if we could earn points on rent?
Speaker 2: And he goes he starts laughing.
Speaker 1: I love your enthusiasm. I'm on board, but you know,
Speaker 1: let's see if this goes anywhere. Really, so he was
Speaker 1: a little little right, So listen, if I had known
Speaker 1: just how hard this was going to be when we
Speaker 1: started this in twenty eighteen, I'm not sure even I'm
Speaker 1: crazy enough to have wanted to go pursue it. But again,
Speaker 1: you take battle after battle and if you can get
Speaker 1: one step forward without losing sight of the core mission,
Speaker 1: which is to help create value for renters.
Speaker 3: So what was the gets challenged? Who did you have
Speaker 3: to persuade? It was the biggest naysayer.
Speaker 1: Honestly, change everybody resists change, right. That has just been
Speaker 1: the biggest barrier. I mean, we had to convince the
Speaker 1: banks and the payment networks to open up to a
Speaker 1: new category of spend and reward customers on that spend,
Speaker 1: whay they hadn't before. That was really hard getting the government.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a funny story, it'd be funny, crazy story.
Speaker 1: After eighteen months of working with the FHA to try
Speaker 1: to get this regulation approved to say you can use
Speaker 1: points for down payment. This should only be good for people, right,
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of distrust, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: resistance to change. And after eighteen months I got a
Speaker 1: letter back saying, dear mister Jane, thank you for your request.
Speaker 2: It is declined.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have been working on this for two
Speaker 1: years and it was declined. And I started calling everybody
Speaker 1: to get I mean, I said I need to get
Speaker 1: a meeting. There must be a misunderstanding and Finally I
Speaker 1: got a phone call and I went down to DC
Speaker 1: to meet with the team at HUT and I said, guys,
Speaker 1: just want to explain to you what we're trying to deal.
Speaker 1: Americans do not have a path to home ownership today.
Speaker 1: But young people are earning miles, there's using credit cards,
Speaker 1: using debit cards, they're getting points, and they're right now
Speaker 1: using it for trips all over the world. What if
Speaker 1: you empowered them to put that value towards the ownership right,
Speaker 1: the only asset that most Americans can ever get at
Speaker 1: that kind of leverage to build wealth over time. And
Speaker 1: one of the people in the room said, you know,
Speaker 1: her husband had just passed and was a huge points
Speaker 1: person said, if this program had existed, her son could
Speaker 1: have been a first generation homeowner. And that room came
Speaker 1: back to me a week later and approved.
Speaker 4: Oh application.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In an interview last fall, you said that you would
Speaker 3: learn to be careful about jumping into raising venture capital.
Speaker 4: And what's that about?
Speaker 1: And by way, that stands true even as we've brought
Speaker 1: in this new capital right, I think it's so important
Speaker 1: people get enamored in building companies with raising capital and
Speaker 1: doing rounds, and you have to remember when you do that,
Speaker 1: you're giving up ownership in your business. I think people
Speaker 1: sometimes just think of it as capital raised, as if
Speaker 1: it was revenue. It's not revenue, right, it's giving and
Speaker 1: selling ownership. And you're getting married to these people and
Speaker 1: so making sure you have aligned interests.
Speaker 2: Do you really trust these people? Are they the right partners?
Speaker 1: And so the best thing after my last two companies
Speaker 1: learning this susson the hard way is almost all the
Speaker 1: money we've raised to date has been from our biggest
Speaker 1: partners in the business, the commercial partners, so that we
Speaker 1: align interests.
Speaker 2: It's our real estate owners, it's people like.
Speaker 3: They can see the.
Speaker 1: Prospects and the success of our business is good for
Speaker 1: all of our business and the investment not just the capital.
Speaker 3: Well before Built, you created Cairos, Yes, an incubator Kairos
Speaker 3: so this is when he was in his twenties. He
Speaker 3: is creating a company focused on.
Speaker 2: What how do you build companies that solve big problems?
Speaker 1: I mean Built is like everything in life, when you
Speaker 1: look back, it all starts to make sense, but at
Speaker 1: the time it's all seems chaotic. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: when the financial crisis hit, we said, hey, people don't
Speaker 1: have jobs. I was at Penn at the time in
Speaker 1: undergrad school, and everyone was graduating without any banking jobs,
Speaker 1: without any consulting jobs. So we said, what if you
Speaker 1: could take the smartest young people and create companies that
Speaker 1: tackle these ten billion dollar problems and energy, housing, healthcare,
Speaker 1: financial services that lack of access to it.
Speaker 2: And we ended up spinning out.
Speaker 1: By the time we were twenty three, we'd spun out
Speaker 1: companies like Casper and Periscope and Freenome and Fiscal Note
Speaker 1: that was the exciting part is to this day, I'm
Speaker 1: now thirty three. I still work with all of the
Speaker 1: same guys. We're building company together, and you just have
Speaker 1: this trust. It's really hard to recreate.
Speaker 3: And you couldn't have done it twenty years ago without
Speaker 3: the ability of what computers can do for us. Right,
Speaker 3: what AI can do with it, that's for us. You
Speaker 3: couldn't have done this kind of rapid entrepreneurial initiatives that
Speaker 3: could you.
Speaker 2: No, it's only be faster. Have you played around with
Speaker 2: chat GPT recently?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, oh, and it's so much for My grandson
Speaker 3: who is eleven, taught me how to use it and
Speaker 3: it's fascinating it's amazing. Way is it so important for
Speaker 3: you to have a social mission to your work, because
Speaker 3: this really does does speak to a responsibility to our
Speaker 3: population personally.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I saw my parents come here with
Speaker 1: nothing and had this opportunity in this country to build
Speaker 1: a future for them, myself, my brother, my sister. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that that's that easy anymore.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I look at some of my friends who are even
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be born in America with great access,
Speaker 1: and it's still so hard to get ahead these days
Speaker 1: because cost of living has gone up, right, And if
Speaker 1: we don't fix that, you're going to see massive problems.
Speaker 1: And you either decide that you're going to wait and
Speaker 1: hope that government regulation fixes it, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is going to happen, or you go fix it yourself.
Speaker 1: And so I think that is a personal motivation to
Speaker 1: make these things work for our generation.
Speaker 2: And I think the.
Speaker 1: Big misunderstanding is people think that's at the expensive business, right,
Speaker 1: But I actually think the best businesses are when you
Speaker 1: solve the biggest problems, and you have entire generations coming
Speaker 1: up that can't afford rent, that can't afford healthcare, that
Speaker 1: can't access these financial services.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is a huge business opportunity, right.
Speaker 1: If you can fix it and make it work for
Speaker 1: the customer, that's the product you're going to pick.
Speaker 3: Well, your enthusiasm is so infectious and your explanations are
Speaker 3: so clear for a young person, your attention to all
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 4: Problems that face us as a as a nation.
Speaker 3: It's admirable that you that you are taking this into
Speaker 3: consideration in a business. Which other problems would you consider facing?
Speaker 1: So I used to run Tinder's product, which is a
Speaker 1: funny other side story we'll talk about, but hinder the
Speaker 1: dating app. I'll tell you this, but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: there's only so much fulfillment you get from optimizing swipe
Speaker 1: rights and swipe left right. And so when I came
Speaker 1: out and I was looking at what to do next,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget I sat in this meeting with a
Speaker 1: venture capitalist who was trying to recruit me to come
Speaker 1: run one of these new companies they were putting one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars into and he said, this is going
Speaker 1: to be the next big thing.
Speaker 2: I was so livid. They ended up pitching me this.
Speaker 2: Imagine if you had.
Speaker 1: Virtual product bags that existed in the cyber averse. I go,
Speaker 1: this is the world changing idea that you're gonna put
Speaker 1: one hundred million. And I walked outside the four Seasons
Speaker 1: on Market Street and it was like a Time magazine
Speaker 1: cover parody of Silicon Valley. Here's a VC pitching me
Speaker 1: on this virtual Prada bag. And in the middle of
Speaker 1: the street you had bird scooters that had just raised
Speaker 1: two hundred million dollars. Also crazy with a naked homeless
Speaker 1: person humping the scooter in the middle of the street.
Speaker 2: Stop and you sit to yourself.
Speaker 1: You have the worst housing crisis, some of the worst
Speaker 1: mental health crises, you have some of the biggest issues
Speaker 1: with access to financial literacy, and you're pitching me on
Speaker 1: virtual Prada bags.
Speaker 2: I mean, is this a joke?
Speaker 4: That kind of stuff does happen?
Speaker 3: But I think less now, less now than it did
Speaker 3: because money is scarcer and a good idea is hard
Speaker 3: to find, and yet there are some, you know, fantastically
Speaker 3: good ideas emerging and you're you have one of them.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if Brian Chesky had come to you
Speaker 3: with Airbnb, would you have pushed them away?
Speaker 2: It's hard to know the things.
Speaker 1: It's funny, right, because everything seems obvious in retrospect, and
Speaker 1: yet when it's new, everybody poopoos it.
Speaker 3: You know, he was on the he was on the podcast,
Speaker 3: and and it made such sense when he described why
Speaker 3: he wanted to do that, just as what you're doing
Speaker 3: makes such sense in retrospect and in the present.
Speaker 1: And it's funny, right because you hear the actual reasoning
Speaker 1: and story. And I've listened to Brian's stuff before too,
Speaker 1: and he's a brilliant entrepreneur. And what he talks about again,
Speaker 1: same issue is how do you afford things like rent?
Speaker 1: And if you can make some money on the side
Speaker 1: that helps create value for your fellow consumer and helps
Speaker 1: you pay rent, that's a big deal.
Speaker 3: Certainly is this Certainly is can private sectors companies really
Speaker 3: provide the best solutions for these issues?
Speaker 1: So I think, and this is something you have done
Speaker 1: so well, is to really make an impact, you have
Speaker 1: to think about how do you use private sector innovation,
Speaker 1: But you also have to work closely with government to
Speaker 1: shape regulation in a way that's helpful. And you need
Speaker 1: to understand pop culture because if you don't understand pop culture,
Speaker 1: you can't move the hearts and minds. If you don't
Speaker 1: understand the innovation, you're not going to solve the issue.
Speaker 1: And if you don't work with government, they're going to
Speaker 1: stop you, right, And I think that again something you've
Speaker 1: done extremely well. But bringing those three things together, I
Speaker 1: think is really important. Not just the private sector.
Speaker 3: Inc Magazine once called you the most influential twenty one
Speaker 3: year old in the world. What we're doing old now,
Speaker 3: but what was happening at twenty one.
Speaker 1: At twenty one, I was building Cairos And again, this
Speaker 1: was the time coming out of the two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight recession, when we said, wait, there is a better
Speaker 1: way to do this. You don't need to just go
Speaker 1: into banking and consulting and you know, get stuck on
Speaker 1: that rat race. And so at the time it was
Speaker 1: again the first iteration, if you will, of my built experience,
Speaker 1: which was find great talent, solve problems, get governments involved,
Speaker 1: get culture involved. And we were doing that. We were
Speaker 1: creating and incubating companies. You working with the US government,
Speaker 1: working with President Obama's Startup America at the time, working
Speaker 1: with the Chilean government, working with the Chinese government at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: There's a different China back then.
Speaker 4: Is there any points program in China.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there there are their own versions of rewards programs,
Speaker 1: but look, I'd love to get involved there right. One
Speaker 1: of our largest investors is a company called Naspars, which
Speaker 1: was the biggest owner of Tencent right in China. And
Speaker 1: so I think there's such an opportunity to find ways
Speaker 1: to bring value and by the way you create that share.
Speaker 2: We tried this with Tinder and we got Push.
Speaker 1: We had a copycat in China, and then Block, which
Speaker 1: is not the most fun, but you can create connections
Speaker 1: with people through a shared experience.
Speaker 2: It's pretty powerful.
Speaker 3: I know that you've you're interested as we As we
Speaker 3: mentioned in AI, how are you guys using AI at built?
Speaker 2: I love this?
Speaker 1: This is like so I am like the power CHATCHYBT user.
Speaker 1: I have not been this excited about a product in
Speaker 1: a while. First of all, I use it.
Speaker 4: Which AI? Do you like the best?
Speaker 2: Chat?
Speaker 1: I'm a chat cept guy. Okay, it's simple in our face,
Speaker 1: it works well. I still think Google has my work
Speaker 1: to do. It's yes, it's my soften than open AI.
Speaker 1: What I love about it is you take the chaotic
Speaker 1: thoughts that like you have or I have, and we
Speaker 1: just dump it. And the way it helps condense that
Speaker 1: into really simple frameworks. Is incredible and that's the way
Speaker 1: I use it the most. Look, every new technology has
Speaker 1: dangers to it and changes to it. Some jobs will
Speaker 1: go away. But I think AI will make us all
Speaker 1: so much more productive and better at what we do.
Speaker 4: And you're not afraid of it.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's the best. I think it's it is.
Speaker 4: So many people are so afraid of are afraid of change.
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing. People talk about AI, but
Speaker 1: they were afraid of every new technology that has come out.
Speaker 1: And I get it, Like the unknown is is scary.
Speaker 4: Would you call your company a very complicated company?
Speaker 1: It's an extraordinarily complex ecosystem and a very simple product.
Speaker 1: You earn points on rent, your importance in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it.
Speaker 4: But you get there.
Speaker 1: To make that happen has required multiple different payment networks,
Speaker 1: tens of banks that have to work with us, involved
Speaker 1: real estate owners.
Speaker 2: And the gray hairs.
Speaker 4: That's just genetics, you know that.
Speaker 2: I'm convinced.
Speaker 4: So this is how has gray hair?
Speaker 2: This is so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I am so determined to figure out how to solve
Speaker 1: some of these health issues that in my side time,
Speaker 1: and Erica hates this. I filled our fridge with new
Speaker 1: genetic editing kits that I'm trying to learn how to
Speaker 1: code in ATCGS.
Speaker 2: And it's uh, look the same way.
Speaker 1: When I was eleven years old, I was starting to
Speaker 1: learn how to code on computers, right, like, we are
Speaker 1: going to be able to code our bodies are in
Speaker 1: biology and that's pretty exciting.
Speaker 3: Well, I've been a proponent of that kind of stuff
Speaker 3: too for a long time, right, I mean that lab
Speaker 3: in Iceland.
Speaker 2: That the seed lab.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, oh boy, very interesting.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that trip by the way.
Speaker 3: Oh, that was a trip that we took to Iceland
Speaker 3: and Greenland, and Greenland is an interesting place. I mean
Speaker 3: I learned a lot on that trip, and I think
Speaker 3: everybody did.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: How did your father, a very successful entrepreneur and your
Speaker 3: mother too, How did he help you follow in his footsteps?
Speaker 3: How did he encourage you? Well?
Speaker 2: Oh did he partly? Partly necessity partly.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm really bad at following rules.
Speaker 2: I'm probably not a great employee.
Speaker 4: Were you a good student?
Speaker 1: I was a good grade student, maybe not the best student.
Speaker 1: I didn't really show up to a lot of classes,
Speaker 1: but I think what I what I realized growing up
Speaker 1: was for my dad from my mom. There wasn't this
Speaker 1: idea of work and then separation. It was all just
Speaker 1: a lifestyle and it's just everybody is in it together.
Speaker 1: I mean every day after school we would they my
Speaker 1: mom or dad would pick us up and they'd bring
Speaker 1: us straight back to the office because they were building
Speaker 1: the company together. And we would sit there and I'd
Speaker 1: have my homework, my video games, and I'd sometimes sit
Speaker 1: in on meetings. I remember, I think I was like
Speaker 1: seven years old when I first sat in next to
Speaker 1: my dad, watching them having to let people go, Like
Speaker 1: you learn a lot sitting in that. When I was
Speaker 1: eight years old, I remember I went on his IPO
Speaker 1: road show and I had no idea what a roadshow was.
Speaker 1: And I just remember sitting in this ballroom with a
Speaker 1: room full of suits and ties, wanting just my orange
Speaker 1: juice and chocolate milk. And my dad went up on
Speaker 1: stage and he goes, you know what, sometimes the best
Speaker 1: way to understand what a company does is have a
Speaker 1: child explain it to you. And he made me go
Speaker 1: on stage for that, and I was I had no idea.
Speaker 1: This is now looking back, this was all the bankers
Speaker 1: and JP and Goldman and all these investment funds, and
Speaker 1: I was so annoyed. I just wanted my chocolate milk.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to buy a rigit it. And I
Speaker 1: went up and I talked about the company. And now
Speaker 1: looking back, I mean, that experience was priceless, right, very much.
Speaker 1: And you just can't And I always say, like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you do if you can expose your
Speaker 1: kids to that type of experience early on, no matter
Speaker 1: what it is, whether it's working at a news stand
Speaker 1: like this or whether it's working at anyone's just that
Speaker 1: experience that you get.
Speaker 2: It's hard to price.
Speaker 3: Oh no, there's no nothing you can't pay for that.
Speaker 3: You have to be born into it.
Speaker 2: How many siblings I've had, a younger sister and younger brother.
Speaker 2: They are the smart ones in the family. What do
Speaker 2: you do?
Speaker 1: My little sister, who you will love, is like a
Speaker 1: true dynamo. She is running a company called Evy, and
Speaker 1: she is committed to tackling women's healthcare. It's a heavy
Speaker 1: bio is the first at home vaginal microbiome test so
Speaker 1: they can look at what's going on. It's causing recurring
Speaker 1: UTIs yeast infections and actually help you get real answers
Speaker 1: and solutions so that women aren't dealing with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know what's crazy.
Speaker 1: She told me that until nineteen ninety women weren't included
Speaker 1: in most clinical trials for drug development.
Speaker 2: Can you believe that? Yep? She is.
Speaker 1: I mean, she is a rock star. And my little brother,
Speaker 1: he's the youngest of the three. He's already the head
Speaker 1: of strategy at this company that's redefining mortgage servicing. It's
Speaker 1: actually really fun that we've ended up in kind of
Speaker 1: similar worlds, and so it's been fun to watch. He's
Speaker 1: just turned twenty seven and he's, you know, building an
Speaker 1: entire new insurance vertical now for the mortgage space.
Speaker 2: And I'm super proud of them.
Speaker 4: It's awesome that it's so great.
Speaker 1: I mean, we live four blocks each from each other
Speaker 1: in the West Village. It's both fun and annoying when
Speaker 1: sometimes they just walk over and show up, and that's
Speaker 1: the best and the most annoying thing.
Speaker 4: Right, So, now you've created three companies.
Speaker 3: When you think about the future, you're focusing on Built, right,
Speaker 3: and Built can really grow into something much much, much bigger.
Speaker 1: And now even just This is why what I'm so
Speaker 1: thankful when people come in. The only reason evaluation matters
Speaker 1: is because it's a signal to what people believe it
Speaker 1: can be down the road. Because they're investing in a
Speaker 1: three billion other evaluation that mean they're expecting to be
Speaker 1: at least a thirty right, right, and to get there
Speaker 1: it means you have an ecosystem that can scale, and
Speaker 1: that is really exciting.
Speaker 4: So at what at what valuation do you go public?
Speaker 1: I don't think you should go. Look, I watched this
Speaker 1: the hard way. I mean, you remember the dot com days.
Speaker 1: I watched that and I saw it again, right, and
Speaker 1: if you can the dream is like today builds a
Speaker 1: profitable company already we have been so disciplined and careful
Speaker 1: about how do we build this profitably? I mean you
Speaker 1: have to have the most I mean to move twenty
Speaker 1: billion dollars of capital flowing back and forth. You have
Speaker 1: to be every T cross, every I dotted on that
Speaker 1: type of thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: How many people work for the company now.
Speaker 2: Smaller one hundred and twenty five people, oh.
Speaker 4: And all that.
Speaker 3: So so you have really really good programmers, don't you.
Speaker 1: And that's just a part of the team, right, You
Speaker 1: have a loyalty team, you've got a marketing.
Speaker 2: Team, you got a whole banking team.
Speaker 1: And I just think it's about you get the best
Speaker 1: talent by saying, come in and own this part of
Speaker 1: our business. And by the way, you'll succeed massively through
Speaker 1: it if you take on that responsibility.
Speaker 4: Like I like where you're going. It sounds very exciting.
Speaker 3: What qualities do you think are most important as an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think there's two things. It's how comfortable are
Speaker 1: you in the unknown? Right? It is a constantly unknown
Speaker 1: situation of what's going to happen, what could happen, what
Speaker 1: risk And you've got to be so comfortable and being
Speaker 1: willing to figure it out on the fly, right. And
Speaker 1: it's this this is great quote strong convictions, weakly held right,
Speaker 1: And and I love that change is the norm, not
Speaker 1: the antithesis. And so if you're willing to say you
Speaker 1: have a north star, but how you get there will
Speaker 1: keep changing, right and being okay with that. That's the
Speaker 1: key to innovate because you never know. People don't know COVID.
Speaker 2: Is going to happen.
Speaker 1: People didn't know AI was going to come at this pace, right,
Speaker 1: And so being willing to constantly accept the new realities
Speaker 1: and figure out how to play and win.
Speaker 2: I think it's really important.
Speaker 3: It's so exciting too, it's so exciting beyond your family.
Speaker 3: Which business leaders or companies have inspired you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love the stuff you've been doing.
Speaker 1: I think the way you've brought into pop culture is
Speaker 1: so fun and it gets people excited.
Speaker 3: And it's great to build a brand because that's what
Speaker 3: people are looking totally.
Speaker 1: People want to fill their life with things that represent
Speaker 1: who they are and what they believe is why, for better,
Speaker 1: for worse. That's why politics is always taking over the news,
Speaker 1: because it gives you something to identify with. Right, great brands.
Speaker 1: The reason all these people are standing outside here waiting
Speaker 1: for you because you have a brand.
Speaker 4: How nice that a lady from Nova Scotia waited.
Speaker 3: She came back because she heard and in this weather,
Speaker 3: I'm just looking around you ten entrepreneurs who are of
Speaker 3: great interest to you.
Speaker 2: Current so Brian Chesky, I think is fascinating. Okay.
Speaker 1: I think Sam Altman right now has been fascinating and
Speaker 1: I and by the way, watching the team culture he
Speaker 1: built that even when there was an attempt to oust.
Speaker 3: That major did not would not leave him.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: That mean so much.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. Look, that's what you want.
Speaker 1: You want alignment of incentives with all the people that
Speaker 1: you can trust them right to the core. So I
Speaker 1: really I found that quite fascinating. Obviously, what Elon is
Speaker 1: doing is incredible. I don't know why people love to hate.
Speaker 2: I love him.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'll tell you what, like, before you hate,
Speaker 1: you go build a rocket and send it to the moon.
Speaker 1: You go build a rocket and send it to Mars.
Speaker 1: You create the largest electric vehicle company.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 4: How about all the satellites.
Speaker 1: And give the whole world access to cell phone connective
Speaker 1: and then you can come hate, right, So I think
Speaker 1: what he's done is unbelievable truly as an inspiration. And look,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you entrepreneuri isn't just CEOs and founders that
Speaker 1: I find interesting, right, I think.
Speaker 3: It's adventures, it's right, It's chemists, it's physicists.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, and probably it's geneticists, that's right.
Speaker 1: And that type of stuff actually is where my passionate
Speaker 1: heart lives. Some of these incredible breakthroughs and science. It
Speaker 1: is a fundamental change in what the world is, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I always ask ourselves. From my grandparents to them,
Speaker 1: there was an element of technology, and texting doesn't feel human.
Speaker 1: It's not the same. You're not together. And I agree
Speaker 1: with a lot of what they say, but it's natural
Speaker 1: to me. Texting is, and it's modern.
Speaker 2: It's modern.
Speaker 1: But what is it that my grandkids one day will
Speaker 1: do that will feel innately odd or unnatural?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And maybe it's something like, hey, you just pop a
Speaker 1: pill that changes your genet of your eye color and
Speaker 1: it changes the pigmentation it produces. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that's the most natural thing in the world. You're editing genetics.
Speaker 1: It's truly biology. But it will be scary to a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people, and it will be so sure if it
Speaker 3: takes such a short period of time instead of a
Speaker 3: couple of million years. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, the fact also that you get out of a
Speaker 1: surgery and you just sit in bed for six months,
Speaker 1: people are gonna look back and say, I don't get it.
Speaker 2: What do you mean you just sat in bed? Because
Speaker 2: they're going to be able to recover so quickly.
Speaker 3: Quickly, and any artificial joints or limbs will just be natural.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense, but metal in your body, regrow
Speaker 1: the limb, regrow the joint, probably make it better.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 3: What advice do you wish somebody would have given you
Speaker 3: ten years ago? I think when would you have listened?
Speaker 1: Look, I'll tell you it's it's that is a real
Speaker 1: it's a real problem. Sometimes you just don't have to
Speaker 1: fall and scrape your knees and bump your head a
Speaker 1: couple of times to figure it out, like like as
Speaker 1: a kid. Nobody actually tells you how much of being
Speaker 1: a leader is not about like the problem you're solving.
Speaker 1: It's about taking care of the people that work for you.
Speaker 1: I joke half my job as being their therapist and partner,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a really important skill set that
Speaker 1: isn't really taught in business.
Speaker 3: Here's another little fact about our guest today.
Speaker 4: He has a real pension and passion for history.
Speaker 3: Yes, so are you? Are you a real student of history.
Speaker 2: Especially ancient history? I mean I think it is first.
Speaker 4: So that's where the Egypt comes from dred percent Oh okay.
Speaker 1: I mean you think about how these civilizations were able
Speaker 1: to build and create and grow, and not just like
Speaker 1: the fact that how in the world. Do you build
Speaker 1: the pyramids and have it lasting five thousand years later,
Speaker 1: which I have to show you by the way.
Speaker 2: I went down a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: This is a few months ago now, and doctor Waziri,
Speaker 1: who's the new Minister of Antiquities, called me and he goes, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to come see this new tomb we
Speaker 1: just discovered in Sakara. I said yes, So we go
Speaker 1: there and I'm standing in this hole in the ground
Speaker 1: looking down. It's pitch black fifty meters deep. I get
Speaker 1: into a basket tied to a rope and six people
Speaker 1: start rotating this wooden log, lowering me with a flashlight.
Speaker 1: Not even mechognized no, no, no, these I was like,
Speaker 1: please don't break the rope, please till we get down.
Speaker 1: And at the bottom of this room pitch black was
Speaker 1: one of the largest discoveries of unopened sarcopha guy.
Speaker 2: And mummies just sitting there.
Speaker 1: I mean it was And you think to yourself, this society,
Speaker 1: it was so advanced.
Speaker 2: How do they do it right?
Speaker 3: How did they move those rocks and stones?
Speaker 1: You have the physical side and then the societal side
Speaker 1: of it too, like how do you manage and organize
Speaker 1: such a large empire.
Speaker 3: Size right with no communications, no communications none, I mean.
Speaker 1: Somebody you, you and I talk and it's like I'm
Speaker 1: going to just stand at this coordinate of the stars
Speaker 1: in the middle of the desert and assume it's around
Speaker 1: the time you told me to me to pick up
Speaker 1: the stone off the bar.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just is incredible.
Speaker 4: It is that is incredible. So do you read a lot?
Speaker 1: I used to read a lot more. I've been bad,
Speaker 1: you know what. Nowadays this is my guilty pleasure. I
Speaker 1: watched probably thirty minutes of TikTok at least today bed
Speaker 1: That is like my mind.
Speaker 2: I learned so much.
Speaker 4: Oh I do too.
Speaker 3: I learned. I learned more cooking techniques and more kind
Speaker 3: of interesting little factory totally that that I would never
Speaker 3: ever ever have expected by watching like in like a
Speaker 3: half an hour. I sometimes wake up and turn on
Speaker 3: Instagram justally to look gardening. Oh my gosh, I've learned
Speaker 3: so many gardening because I'm a huge garner and I
Speaker 3: have taught so many people out of garden. But I
Speaker 3: can still learn, And don't you like to continue your
Speaker 3: learn to hold?
Speaker 1: That is what's so much fun. After the journey of
Speaker 1: building a company. The coolest part about starting a company
Speaker 1: is not actually the company, it's the experiences that you
Speaker 1: get to have in building the company where you just
Speaker 1: learn learn.
Speaker 4: That is very nice.
Speaker 3: And you have some exciting things happening in your personal life.
Speaker 3: We've mentioned that you have a fiance, yes and uh,
Speaker 3: and that you are getting married, and what.
Speaker 2: If she sticks with me from now to a gal self.
Speaker 4: She's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: That girl is so beautiful and she really seems to
Speaker 3: care deeply for you and what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And she's the best, and she puts up with me
Speaker 1: and she supports and you know the best thing about
Speaker 1: it is all of my friends like her more than
Speaker 1: they like me. Well that's so even if I piss
Speaker 1: them off, they'll still hang out with me just to
Speaker 1: hang out with her.
Speaker 3: That's very nice to know. And you definitely want family. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: that's so nice.
Speaker 4: You're thirty three, you're getting old.
Speaker 2: Gosh, but I still I'm not ready for that just yet.
Speaker 2: I got to like.
Speaker 3: You that get that company really in perfect shave and
Speaker 3: start your next Yeah, that's right, Encore. I'm really happy
Speaker 3: to have spent this time with you.
Speaker 4: We're out of time. But this is what I like
Speaker 4: about entrepreneurs.
Speaker 3: You're so enthusiastic, and you are so energetic, and you
Speaker 3: are so interesting and I cannot wait to see the
Speaker 3: next steps in your fantastic I.
Speaker 2: Just want to have as much fun as you do
Speaker 2: at every step of my life.
Speaker 3: That is the way to live, you know, it's It
Speaker 3: is very exciting to be a productive entrepreneur and you
Speaker 3: are living the life.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being Thanks for having us