We have reprogrammed our lives to be

remote. And so, we are stuck in patterns

that are really difficult to get out of.

I actually feel I don't know if I'm

going to get cancelled for this, but I

think that um

Michael Horvath, the CEO and co-founder

of Strava

with over 76 million athletes. You track

your activities, turn those activities

into a post, that's when the Strava

magic happens. If you want to be as good

as you possibly can be, you have to

strive to be the best. But can you be

okay also with not actually achieving

the goal of being the top of everybody?

Win or lose, that's the feeling you're

looking for.

How are you doing in your personal life?

My wife was diagnosed with a terminal

illness in September of 2013. I think I

prepared a lot for how

to live my life caring for her. I wasn't

prepared for how to live my life when

she was gone.

I had to not rediscover who I am, I had

to define who I am. That doesn't happen

overnight.

If what you do every day is put a little

effort into being kind to the people who

are important to you in your life and

the complete strangers, then that's

where you're going to find the meaning.

So, without further ado, I'm Steven

Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO,

USA edition. I hope nobody's listening,

but if you are,

then please keep this to yourself.

Michael,

I tend to believe that people have I

know why I eventually developed it, but

I tend to believe that people have some

kind of hypothesis as to what factors or

experiences from their earliest years

shaped them most significantly

into the person they are today. Do you

have a hypothesis like that?

I think I have several, starting with

how my family

felt to me being the youngest of of the

five kids in my family felt like it was

pulled apart by

geography

uh between Sweden and the United States

at an early age. My sisters stayed

behind when my family moved back to the

States

when I was 5 years old.

And

I had this uh dream to reunite us in

some way. How could we How could we be

one family again? Um now that my sisters

were older, they were choosing to It was

the the normal maybe a few years early

what from what you'd say normally would

have happened anyway, them deciding to

where do they want to live, who are they

as people.

And but me, I was I was this 5-year-old

and I was uh I was sad to to lose my my

sisters. My uh I had my brother with me

and

um when you think about what are the

most important things in your life, it's

the relationships you have with people.

Um now, I'm not necessarily an outgoing

person myself, so it's I don't that's

not where this is this hypothesis has

led me, but it has led me to the idea of

connection, deep connection with people

you care about is super important for

how you live your life and the choices

you make and what you prioritize.

So, that was that's the one that's one

theory. And then there's one other one,

which is I think

growing up, going through high school,

coming to the United First of all,

coming to the United States and not

speaking English at the age of 5 and

learning it all, you know, from

television and getting thrust into

school and you have this

this feeling like you don't belong, you

don't fit in. Uh that just that kept,

you know, for many people I think it

keeps going and you don't have that

great sense of belonging until later,

maybe until your teenage years or later,

even in your 20s.

But throughout all that time of

searching and looking for something like

or what I kept believing is that there's

something inside me,

a potential that needs to get realized

and I don't just think that about me

now, I think that about every single

human being on this planet. And um

the

aspect of what it means to realize

someone's potential, your own potential

and then create the opportunity for the

people around you to realize their

potential, that drives me. That is

something that I've I feel like has been

a constant in everything I've done since

I've been about 25 years old. That

moment when you you're growing up and

you've you've

parted ways with your siblings seems to

be one of the first seeds that led to

the success of

your later businesses because it was I

mean

in hindsight, I guess we all do this,

but you I guess it highlighted the

importance of connection and community

as you said. When was the next seed

planted? Cuz I kind of think about that

with like great business ideas and I saw

that in your story that there's these

moments, these key moments which

introduce you to like the idea of

community and then to the idea of sport

and competition. When was the next

chronological seed?

Mhm.

Yeah, so coming out of that um

like high school, feeling like I know

I've I've got some

amount of intellect. I don't really

understand like what I'm going to use

it.

Um I don't feel like I was that, you

know, call it like high school wasn't

where I peaked. I don't think anyone

should peak, by the way, high school.

Like that's a lousy time to be at your

like the pinnacle of your life. You want

to peak later than that. So, getting

into Harvard, going to a good school,

that that seemed like that would be it,

but it wasn't that wasn't it for me. It

was actually walking into the boat

house,

never having rowed before and finding

this group of people who also were

trying to figure out where what's the

where is their place at this institution

that in some ways you're like, well, you

got into there, so aren't you kind of

done? I was like, actually no, now

you're

you're scared cuz you don't know if you

measure up, you don't under have any

understanding of where you stand, will

you make it there?

But finding that going into the boat

house, you're like, hard work and What

is this boat house? This is the boat

house at Harvard?

Yeah, yeah, the uh for the rowing team.

It wasn't that I went in there thinking

I'm going to I'm going to conquer this,

I'm going to be uh one of the best

rowers

that this school has seen

when I went in there, but within a few

weeks I was like, that was my goal. I

was going to be the best. Like that was

somehow it wasn't there wasn't anything

else except it just turned on inside me

and I was I was hooked by that that

experience

uh because I'd found my place. I think

that was the key is I'd found a group of

people,

I'd found this vibe, this energy. It was

the part of the day I looked forward to,

was the part I I felt so good about uh

the rest of my life because I was there

in that experience. Um

I was motivated by the desire to be as

good as I can possibly be at this thing.

And I don't think I'd experienced that

feeling before in my life.

I was really compelled by the use of the

word best. It made me start thinking

about the idea of competition and um I

think I sat here a couple of days ago

with Simon Sinek talking about this,

like the role that competition and

wanting to be number one plays. Is it

toxic? Is it uh a healthy motivator? Cuz

I'm filled with that. Anyone We went

bowling last night with the team.

I was very quiet until I knew that I was

going to win.

You know what I mean? I'm a deeply

competitive person. It motivates me, it

drives me and I've wondered if that's a

deficiency of my character or if it's a

healthy thing. What have you learned

about that?

Yeah, I I think it can lead to

challenges both at the personal level

and then uh in a in a group. What I

found at the in the crew team was that

we couldn't be the best team if each of

us individually wasn't trying to be the

best. Mhm. But we always knew that you

don't win a boat a boat race by

yourself, you win it with um seven other

rowers and a coxswain and you have to

think of it like a team, but you have to

think like like an individual who wants

to be the best that what you can be.

Another way to think about it is like,

if you want to be as good as you

possibly can be, you have to strive to

be the best. Um but can you be okay also

with not actually achieving the goal of

being

the top of everybody, but being as good

as you know you got reached that point

of you could not have given more. That's

where that's where I get the

satisfaction is I know at the end of

that race, you know, I'm thinking of the

race in my freshman year where we won

the championship and we came from, you

know, a boat length back, we had lost to

that team in a previous race.

And that feeling that went through uh my

body and I believe everyone's body in

that boat halfway through the race, we

said we're not giving up.

And uh we just rowed them down. And at

the end of that, it was wasn't like like

I'm the best, it was like we did

something that we didn't think was

possible. We created

a new capacity.

And so then all of a sudden, you know,

maybe some space has opened up with what

you thought you were capable of and what

you could be

and you you try it you go at back at it

again. You you train again for for

reaching that point where you said you

did everything you possibly could.

And win or lose, that's the feeling

you're looking for, I think, when you

when it's positive in your life. And

I've been in those places where it can

be really destructive, too. Um

it changes your relationships with other

people.

You start to actually hate the thing

you're doing uh because you're striving

for the wrong

you're striving for some outcome that

maybe is not the right outcome. Um What

experience are you talking about there?

Training for races where you're by the

time you're on the starting line, you

just don't even want to do it anymore.

That was often the feeling I had by the

time you know, a

a big race came around where I was just

like, I'm so done with this. I just want

to

just not not be

not be here right now. Um these things

should be additive to your life. It

should be something that you that makes

you

better in other ways besides just

stronger physically. Probably a sign

that you just you have lost

the reason why you're doing it, the the

why behind the work.

When I was reading about Strava's

work values,

I read about this ABCs

thing. And the B in that was about

balance, which is what you're talking

about there.

Is that in part why you put the B there

in terms of the the culture in the the

office and the

professional culture you're trying to

create with Strava? Is that why the B is

so important there, balance?

Balance is elusive. And the

counterpoint, we have another one of the

C's is commitment. So, I talk about that

a lot that um these things seem like

they're at odds with each other. If you

have balance, how can you also be 100%

committed to the goal of building the

best company we can build, doing the

most we can do for our athlete

community?

And I say, "Yes, that is the struggle in

life is to both have

balance and be committed to something.

It's incredibly challenging and

to hold both concepts in your in your

heart and in your head

and is is the work. That is actually why

they're there. They're there to remind

us. Um

if we only have one, balance, we won't

we won't do as much. We won't we won't

strive for as much as we can be. If we

only have commitment, we will burn out.

We will we will get to that place where

we don't love the work we do anymore and

we will we will question why we're here.

So, it's by putting them together that

that my co-founder and I felt we had the

best chance at achieving that long-term

commitment with balance. And it's a

struggle.

It is You're not There's no recipe here.

There's no no playbook that tells you

how to do it. Um and each person has

does have to work at it and on their

own. On their own. Is there that

responsibility to to to work work at it?

I I sometimes struggle with this as an

employer, which is what role do I play

in cuz I know the role I play in driving

commitment, right? It's very obvious.

You You set ambitious goals. You set

tight timelines. You create a good prize

and a worthwhile, you know, carrot at

the end of accomplishing the goal. That

drives commitment if you have the right

people and you have camaraderie and all

those things that you said. But then in

terms of telling people to

encouraging them to have balance in

their life,

what role can I play as an employer?

What role do you think you should play?

Hm.

If you hire people who respond really

well to those those motivators that that

lead to their commitment, um I think you

also have to look at it from how long do

you want them to be there, to do the

work, to be working at that level?

And I think you can structure teams in

different ways. You can You can roll

through

you know, people in the sense of that

they may only

contribute for a couple of years or a

year. And And that's that's if that's

the structure

and many companies in Silicon Valley

operate this way, which is 2 years at

the

on the team is is a pretty standard

length and then you move on uh

and you recommit somewhere else. Um

We are trying to build something

different at Strava. We are trying to

build the 100-year brand, uh the company

that will

last longer than I will be there. Um it

will still be here after many of the

people who have been investors in the

company have exited the company. It's

it is uh something that we hope will

withstand the test of time. And in that

setting,

I think it's much more important to

think about these You need some people

who are going to be there for much

longer than that one or two years.

That's where balance comes in. Yes, it's

easy to say

you don't want people to burn out, but

if it's only that you don't want them to

get that tired, that sick of their job

that they're quote unquote burned out,

you've probably lost some level of

productivity for quite a while before

that. So, we strive for a different kind

of relationship with our team. Uh it is

a challenge also as a leader to make

sure we're still performance-oriented.

We We still want that that sense that we

have we have to bring our A game. We

cannot be satisfied with past success or

be complacent. There's plenty of

competition out there. All sorts of new

uh new technologies that are coming

uh into the into the fore today, new

ways of building communities, new ways

of motivating people. We have to stay

competitive. And so, that is my job as a

leader. Uh I have a leadership team that

helps me with this. It's not just my

job, but it is it is ensuring that we

are taking care of our people, but also

expecting that they're going to climb

the mountain with us.

The way that you're building that

company and what you're aiming to to do

to create a

a long-term

long-standing business goes against the

narrative, especially in Silicon Valley,

where the objective is to like raise

money before you're profitable, sell the

thing, or go public and move on to the

next thing. Um

clearly there's experience behind your

desire to pursue a longer-term strategy

where you're not just, you know, s- uh

investing all your money in user growth,

getting a gazillion users, and then

exiting.

I expect it's because of your other

business, the the one that came before

Strava.

Am I right? And if so, why did that

teach you that this longer-term approach

to company building is a better path

forward for you as the founder and for

other things?

When we started Strava, we were looking

back at the previous company we had

started. And we started talking about um

creating what is now Strava back in

2006. Um we got together

uh starting on the phone weekly talking

about ideas that we if we're going to

start a company, what would it be.

Eventually, we got Mark and I, my

co-founder Mark Gainey, and I uh decided

we had to get together for a few days

the summer of 2006.

And we defined at its core that what we

had experienced in that other company,

Kana Software, back in in the late '90s,

it was the Silicon Valley Olympics.

That's the way I term that you you you

have an idea, you raise some capital,

you're at you're off to the races, and

either you have taken it public or sold

it in 4 years or it's, you know, and

that's the gold medal or

go home because it's that's it. Um we

didn't want to do that again and a few

reasons why. Um

it wasn't terribly satisfying at the end

of the day.

We uh

Kana was a wild ride during a wild time

in the first internet boom.

Um

a lot of people made a lot of money. A

lot of people lost a lot of money. Um

and so,

what in it would we look back on and

say, besides the experience itself and

what we learned,

what would it be that we would say to

our kids, our grandkids, like, "Here,

this is something we're really proud

that we created." We can't even lay

claim to having created if if we're only

there for 4 years and then other people

take it forward, is it really ours?

So, we were out on the doorstep, you

know,

literally almost 4 years to the day

after starting Kana. How How and why?

Well, personal choice in my case. I

wanted to go back to teaching. I was I

came from academia. I was a I was

teaching economics when we started Kana.

I wanted to go back to academia.

Mark,

the company got to a point where he

brought in another CEO to run it um and

he found that it wasn't his company

anymore. He didn't have the role that he

thought he would have on the other side

of that decision.

So, I don't want to speak for him, but

it was like this sense of like it was a

personal choice for both of us. But at

the same time,

we look back on and say, "Where it goes

next is not not part of us. We have to

forge a different path. There's got to

be an idea that's worth that much of our

investment."

And perhaps it's that sense of at that

point in our lives where we were then,

late '30s, early '40s, when we're

starting Strava,

we were thinking about this could be it.

This is It's not like we're we're going

to have that many good ideas in our

life. We're not we're not going to have

another opportunity and to to to build

this kind of a company, at least.

Um and so, let's make it worth it. You

know, let's let's find something that

we're extremely passionate about.

And we used to say things like it

doesn't have to be big. It has to be

great. It has to have meet give meaning

to the people who are our customers. And

we defined that as like we want to we

want to help people live a more more a

life of full of more full of meaning,

adventure, and fun. We didn't say

activity. We weren't yet sure what it

was going to do,

but it had to have some impact. It can't

just be transactional. It has to have an

effect on you

at the at the core level of what you

value,

what decisions you make on a daily

basis. And that's where I think we got

our we got to Strava and I'm love to

go to like this the idea behind Strava

was a 20th century idea. We had that

idea coming out of the boathouse when we

graduated from college. We had the idea

that what we what we experienced there

is something that

is applicable in so many places in our

lives. Being connected to other people

through sport

is what motivates you to lead a more

active life and makes you a better human

being. It helps you live a healthier

life and makes all the rest of your life

better. It did that for us when we were

in our '20s.

And that's the universal part that we

wanted to tap into when we were starting

to create what became Strava was that

it's the context of the people around

you that keeps you motivated. It's the

It's the way in which you're connected

through sport to other people that

unites you. Um and so, we started to

explore that space and

um when you explore and are willing to

talk to people about your ideas, they

respond. They tell you ideas that

they've had that sound pretty close to

what you're doing even if they're not

sure that it's really relevant. And so,

those conversations in the early days,

2008, led to us

actually putting

a team behind this to build a a

prototype and and that eventually became

the earliest version of Strava in 2009.

So, it was really just a set of

conversations that led to what we

actually decided on, but it came from

something we had experienced in

in um in college back in in the

in the late '80s and '90s, a 20th

century idea.

When I think about how you formulated

Strava and that early process, it's like

exactly what I'd tell an entrepreneur

not to do. In the in the respect of

um a A of the entrepreneurs you you you

see that they actually just want to be

an entrepreneur.

So, they think, "Hack it. Uh gosh, uh

what should I do?" Um and they look

around for a problem to solve, one that

isn't in line with any of their

intrinsic like passions and innate

motivations. So, the minute they

encounter some difficulty, the first

hurdle in business, which is inevitable,

they then fold and they give up because

why would you pursue current doing

something that you weren't genuinely um

in love with. And I guess, you know, I

guess the process is the thing that I

wouldn't I've never would advise someone

to kind of like

sit down with your mate and think of a

business, but I guess the process also

led you just closer towards what did

innately matter to you, which was

adventure, activity, community.

Even though you did it the other way

around. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Well, so uh

I guess I'm trying to tell this like how

we originally conceived of

what became what is now Strava was

in 1994 95

when I'm a professor at Stanford

teaching economics, Mark is working in

venture capital in Palo Alto

and there's this thing called the

internet

uh that has just become like a household

word. Uh before I got to Stanford

I think I had sent one email in my life.

I had never I didn't know what the

internet was. I I had no idea. When I

got to the Department of Economics, um

the the person who managed all the IT

equipment said, "I'm going to install a

browser on your computer." I had no idea

what he was talking about. What's a

browser?

So, had lived up to that point without

the internet and the internet is

introduced. Uh it's a different thing

than today with, you know, kids growing

up with all of this around them.

But, when it was introduced, what Mark

and I did was exactly that entrepreneur

that instinct is like

"What is this new thing going to do?

What problem can it solve? What's the

what's the you know and Mark wanted to

start a company. I was a professor. I

was going to be his sounding board. He

came to my office because I had an

internet connection and he didn't. You

know, so what we we cooked up was like,

"Well, what are the problems in our own

life that we would want to solve with

this new technology?" As a starting

point cuz we didn't know what else where

else to start, right? So, we we went

through a a bunch of, you know,

different ideas. And the thing that we

hung on to was like "We miss the crew

team. We miss that

the bunch of people who were, you know,

from all different walks of life and

they found their the same

thing that we were passionate about and

we spent a ton of time with them. We

were we were with them hours every day.

And we miss that feeling of being

connected to them. We miss the boat

house. We miss the feeling of

competition. Could we recreate that with

this new technology called the internet?

Could we create the virtual locker

room?"

And so, what we were describing to

ourselves was

what you see in Strava today is like a

place where you could see other people's

workouts.

You could see you could talk about you

track your performance over time, a

training log. All that was we sketched

that out. We wrote a business plan.

This is 1995, right? So,

we we're not anywhere close to the start

of the founding of Strava by

any means. We actually went out and

talked about this idea with

companies that were building websites.

And that's that was the earliest

internet companies were the ones that

were building websites that other

companies would then

use to become internet companies, right?

So,

um and they told us, "This is a lousy

idea. You know, like

come on, guys. Can't you do better than

this? This is never going to work.

People are not going to share personal

information about themselves with

strangers on the internet. That's never

going to happen.

Uh let's see, there's no technology

that's going to make it easy to get the

data in. Uh people are going to be

having to fill out forms and submit them

online. That's going to be really really

full of friction. You should You should

just put this away. Don't tell Don't

Don't tell anyone about this idea. It's

such a bad idea, right?" And they turned

us on to the idea that became Kana

Software, which was something so

mundane, boring.

Built a great company, but it was build

systems to help these internet companies

respond to consumer

inbound consumer email, customer support

email.

So, we did that. We got turned on to

that idea. Why did we pursue that? We

weren't passionate about it. We became

passionate about it, especially Mark.

You know, we just wanted to be

entrepreneurs. We wanted to to seize the

moment of this new technology, this new

world of the internet. We wanted to

create something. We were motivated by

the idea that anyone can do this. That's

the way it felt.

And we tabled the thing we were really

passionate about because some people

told us it was a bad idea. And I thank

them for it because it probably was a

bad idea at the time. It would have

failed, right? But, where we were in

2007 2008 that idea was still in our

back of our minds. That idea came to the

front. That's what we went and said,

"Now, what has changed?" Well, a lot has

changed, right? Right? So, you have

Facebook

showing us that people are actually

willing to share

with people that they trust on the

internet. You And before that that I'm

sure Facebook wasn't the first to prove

that out, but Facebook was the first to

prove out that you can build community

with the internet, at least in our

world.

Then you have GPS's in the thing that's

in our pocket all of a sudden. This

mobile phone has got a GPS chip in it

around two that around that time for a

minute.

Okay, it's not great.

And so, we're like, "All those reasons

why we shouldn't have started that

company

are now reasons why we should start that

company."

And it matches the things we had talked

about in that time in Vail.

Could we build something that people

would use every day? Would they tell

their friends about it? Would it help

them get out and live a more

life of more adventure? Would they Would

it be trusted? Would it be a trusted

brand?" And we're like, "Hey, wait a

minute.

The universe is putting this in right in

front of us. This is all coming

together.

And why not?

Why not this? And in some ways we denied

that it could be that easy that this

idea we had had

so many, you know, more than a decade

earlier

could be the thing that we're now going

to go and start a company. We had denied

that for a while and tried these other

things first. We explored other places

in the very

very much the way that you would say the

way entrepreneurs should do it.

And we said, "No, we got to do this.

This is the thing we And we And And then

it says, you know, you you meet some

people. You talk to about about your

idea with some people and you see

this has got some legs. This is other

people have had similar thoughts and you

can get them on board. Uh the person we

met, Dave Davis Kitchel

instrumental in how we got this company

started. Um he happened to be living in

the same small town I was living in.

And he was trying to work out technology

to use GPS to compare the time it took

him to climb on his bicycle up a road by

his house.

He was just exploring this cuz he was

curious.

And we thought, "Oh, that's interesting.

I wonder if

I wonder if that could be somehow the

basis of what you could do in this

virtual locker room that we were

building."

And that became Strava segments. That

was the earliest

first conversation about something that

became a fundamental part of what Strava

is today.

That would never have happened if we

hadn't just opened up and said, "We're

trying to build something that will help

people live a more active life."

And then Davey says, "Well, I'm working

on something that helps motivate that

might help motivate me to live be more

active. I wonder if it could be relevant

to you."

Um and he's still part of the team today

and Strava segments is

is a big part of

what people know about Strava.

What have you learned then from all

these people who are changing their

lives and exercising on Strava about

what motivates us to go from a place of

being sat on the say for as I was in

2020

in March as that first lockdown rolled

in

to

downloading Strava and then um going on

a fitness journey. There's something

weird that happened to me which I've

I've never really understood. If I look

at the person I was before that date, I

was a repeat failure at fitness. Like

every year, this is going to be the

year. Everyone knows the story like,

"No, this year's going to be the year."

Then crashed out. Then "No, this year's

going to be the year." And then

I think I know what's changed, but is

there data to prove

or to suggest what it is that makes

people finally get the bug?

The fitness health bug. Mhm.

Yeah,

great question. Um

what we see is the people who

you do have to catch on and find

something that keeps you in Strava, but

the thing that happens to you when you

use when you're when you're part of the

community, when you're

when you stay with it

is you become more regular. You become

become more It's more frequent that you

are active.

You may not get faster. You might, but

that's not actually what we see.

You're just more regularly active.

Consistent.

You're more consistent.

And so, what is

what is also true is that if you're more

connected to other people, and doesn't

have to be a lot of people. I think most

the majority of it is you have to be

connected to people you actually care

about on Strava

that motivate you to be at more more

consistent.

And so, we say people keep people

active. People motivate people to be

active.

And

you may not realize it, but your journey

motivated somebody else, too.

Your activities were the source of

motivation for someone else. And they

were more active and they added their

activities and that was the motivation

for someone else.

So, this has a way of exponentially

increasing people's motivation.

And I believe we can

change

over time, over the next many years we

can help people follow the same journey

you took

more and more regularly. So, we may have

started in a place which is a was

more about the performance

aspects of being active. How can you get

faster?

But, we quickly realized it's about it's

about consistency.

It's about the experience and that's I

think where we keep people. You may come

for the competition. You stay

you stay for the community.

You may come for wanting to track your

workout but you stay because of the

people you you meet and how they

motivate you and how it feels.

Am I missing anything then from my cuz

I'm cuz I'm just personally very

interested in this the competition, the

community, I guess striving towards a a

goal or a metric. Sometimes for people

it's improving my running time or

something.

Um

I guess there's a sense that might be

linked to the sense of like

accomplishment of winning a badge or a

reward or a little bing. You know when

I'm on my Peloton or when I'm on Strava

you get little something.

Is there anything else that you you've

seen as a significant motivator for

people to be engaged with their fitness

journey?

Well, it's got to make them feel better.

I mean yeah, I definitely think there's

and we don't I would say we don't

necessarily track that very well today.

How do you actually feel about yourself

now versus a month ago or two months

ago? We track a lot about your

physiological performance. We can show

you you're better.

Um lower heart rate, lower resting heart

rate, you you your your fitness score

has gone up. Um all sorts of ways in

which we can show progress

physiologically, but I'm more interested

in joy. I mean that's that's

we're we're not good yet at measuring

the meaning and joy we bring to people's

lives. We'll get there. And I think but

that's an very important part of the

equation is that you feel better and you

want to keep feeling that good.

So

if I also look back on where we thought

we were starting was we were building

something that had to be good enough for

the best athletes in the world to use

because we believed they could motivate

people who were not as

committed to a active life to come on

board.

I actually don't think that that's that

is motivating, but I think

the other stories are even more

motivating. Stories like yours like

you've dramatically changed how you live

your life.

You put activity at the center. And

that's incredibly motivating for people

that they can see that that's possible.

So I believe it's increased storytelling

is it really the key. Yeah, you're

right. I think that's that's a being you

know the idea of the gamification. Yeah,

we did that.

But where we're leaning more much more

heavily now is tell allowing

the people in our community

to tell their story

and not just of today I went out for

this run. Yeah, that's part of a story,

but what does this amount to over time?

How do I accomplish my goals? What are

the things I'm striving for? How do I

feel when I get there?

And maybe that's where we can start

measuring the joy of it a bit more

precisely.

Quick one. We bring in eight people a

month to watch these conversations live

here in the studio when we're here in

the UK and when we're in LA. If you want

to be one of those people, all you've

got to do is hit subscribe. I was

thinking you know one of my hypotheses

which I've shared many times, but I feel

compelled to ask you is that my goals

were bad. My goals were like they they

were goals and it's funny cuz it kind of

goes goes back to your first company.

They were goals that could be completed.

They were short-term goals. This is when

I crashed out and failed all the time.

They were like surface level,

superficial, get a six-pack for summer

goals. And it wasn't until I I mean

Simon Sinek sat sat where you are in a

couple of days ago and one of the things

he talks a lot about is infinite games,

right? Until I started setting goals

that were more infinite like you've done

with Strava in trying to create a

long-standing company. And those goals

ended up just being about consistency.

It was like go to the gym today.

Something I could never accomplish. That

was one of the turning points. The other

was the pandemic. Which is I think it

was which is A I mean I mean I know you

saw a boost in customer acquisition. I

mean that's when I joined, didn't I? I

know the numbers, but um it I think in

part it was realizing that our health

was fragile. Seeing that for the first

time in my young life that health was

the foundation of everything I was

doing.

I actually want to ask you a question

about the pandemic cuz you were talking

earlier on about how at the boathouse

you learned that community and

connection and these things are so

unbelievably important. One of the

things the pandemic has robbed us of is

community and connection. It's put us

behind screens. So I was compelled to

ask you like what Strava's take on this

remote working thing? Where at your core

you're about community and connection

and you know that more than anyone.

Yeah, it's been it's been hard for us to

find our way back to how it felt to work

together. We were camaraderie is one of

our other C's.

Um

commitment, craftsmanship, and

camaraderie. So camaraderie was

important and that and it showed up in a

lot of ways. We had um

a Wednesday workout lunchtime we'd go

out for runs or there was a group that

walked, there was a group that met for

um some mornings to go for a ride. So

the camaraderie in sport, yes. There was

camaraderie in we spent a lot of time

working together and building those

relationships. It It felt like a team

inside the company and that that was

really difficult to replicate um

virtually.

Um but something else

has happened uh as a result of pandemic

that I think is a real beautiful outcome

that will lead us back to camaraderie of

a very different kind.

We stopped putting location as a

requirement on any job openings. Uh so

we hired we've more than doubled the

team over the course of the last year

and a half

and have added people across the United

States in many different countries as

well because if you're if you have the

talent and we're looking for it we you

don't have to be in San Francisco or

Denver which were the two main offices

we had or Bristol, UK.

Uh we've now opened an office in Dublin.

So we will have physical locations, but

we have a a

over 150 people today who don't

have any one of our office locations as

their home city.

And the beautiful thing in that is

these people all have incredible talent.

Yes, they they were the best people that

we could have possibly attracted for the

position.

But they have such different lived

experiences.

They bring that to the work they do. So

we're learning a ton about what

camaraderie really where it really comes

from. You maybe the thing we were

creating was in the old uh in the

pre-pandemic times was a camaraderie

that was built around a a very very

limited set of rituals like going for

that Wednesday workout.

It turns out that a lot of people felt

excluded by that because they weren't

they didn't feel fast enough to go with

the crew that was going out for a run.

We have to find our ways to replicate or

create something that is is like that

today.

But what we have is a much broader set

of stories that people can bring and

tell about what they did before they

joined Strava, what they're experiencing

here.

They're coming from all sorts of

different locations. But so that's

that's an aspect of our what camaraderie

can We feel when we got together in San

Diego in person for a week at the

beginning of March

what came out was

how much we already appreciate each

other even if we've never been together.

We've never most of us had never met in

person. But we we already felt like we

knew each other and we didn't start with

the awkward hello, I'm so-and-so. It was

hugs right away. It was this sense of

this this is the team that now is in the

same place and I want to carry that

forward. I want I want that to be like

we put coins in the bank that'll get us

for the next 6 months or a year

till the next time we get together. But

we can we can create that sense of

camaraderie even if we're not sitting in

the same office building or the same

room.

Uh so that was a that was eye-opening

for me that that that was possible

because of pandemic that we could create

this very

distributed, interesting, diverse

workforce team

that felt everyone felt for the most

part felt a sense of belonging. What

role does that play though the in-person

stuff? Cuz I cuz we all here think it's

brilliant that we're all here together.

Yeah. Lot of my lot of my personal team

are here in this in this uh studio. What

role does that play though? And what

value does that add? Cuz I don't know. I

think I I think I have a real bias

towards being with people. And maybe

it's I don't know what it is. Maybe I

don't know.

I don't know what it is, but I like

being with people. I and I really

struggle on Zoom.

I don't feel like it's real.

Yeah, me too.

No, it's it's so I think what I what we

what is possible is

you can

be with people, but you don't have to be

with them all the time. That you can

find the the combination of

um my colleague Brian who's here with me

today. He lives in Dallas uh in the in

uh in the Dallas area.

And

we have

we we looked at the calendar. It turns

out we've actually gotten together in

person now I think you know four out of

the last five weeks because of

business need brought us together. Yet

we've also spent time working in a

virtual setting. So it's I call that

putting the coins in the bank. We have

enough opportunity to see each other in

person to get that feeling that we can

be more effective when we have to work

virtually together.

And I think we replicate that. That's

the model I think that we we can get to.

It If we only worked with people who are

geographically proximate, we're losing

that opportunity to work with people

with completely different set of

experiences that they can bring to what

we're trying to build.

We're trying to serve athletes

everywhere. There are

I think easily over a billion people who

wake up every day wanting to be active

and we want to meet them all.

They're in every part of the world. And

so that incredible diversity of the

customer that we want to serve

it just moves us that we had to build a

team that tries to match that diversity

in the people on the team.

And so if we're not there anywhere, you

know, we most of our team is still in

the US like as as in terms of the the

geographic bias we have today.

But I think that it it's not possible to

build that kind of a company, that kind

of a team if you're if you require

everyone to be in the same location all

the time. So we give some little on the

location and we get a lot back in terms

of what people can bring, the different

experiences they can bring to us. So I I

guess the conclusive question here is

like what role does the corporations

what do you feel you play in adding you

give community to your customers, but

what role do you feel you play in giving

that in- like that in-person community

outside of your home, out in the wild,

to your employees?

Yeah, we uh we we pay a lot of attention

to it. I think it's important for people

to do their best work that they feel a

sense of belonging. And I don't think

this is just at Strava, I think it's

true in a lot of places. And sometimes

that that is so much easier to do when

you're in person and you're providing

the breakfast and the the the the desk

and that's that that place that this is

a I can feel productive in this space.

And yes, the colleagues around me are

people with, you know, incredible

talents and I I'm energized by the by

the by the by the group, by the the

setting that I'm in. Um and I think for

many of our team, they really missed

that um

during the pandemic. They would love it

back to come back, but it's really

difficult to to bring it back

right now. It's it's going to take us

time to work our way back. Why?

There are two reasons I see and I

I've thought a lot about this in the

sense of just in the our Strava's

example. One is we have programmed our

lives to be remote.

Reprogrammed our lives to be remote. And

so we are stuck in patterns that are

really difficult to get out of. Just

like in the beginning of pandemic, it

was really difficult to get into that

pattern. We were forced to. We're not

forced to get out of it now. Strava's

not forcing people back into the office.

So,

it's difficult with everything from how

you organize your your day. Maybe you

have

children or other dependents at home you

have to take care of.

You have

pets, you have um

you have worked worked out a routine

that works really well for working from

home.

And so getting people back in the office

is a getting over those those hurdles

and frictions. And so what do we do? We

we make it more enticing.

Wednesdays we offer lunch. Um

we are trying to organize Wednesday as

the day if you're going to pick one day

a a week, maybe one day a month, make it

a Wednesday. Get people oh, this wasn't

so bad. I got over the friction that one

day, maybe I'll do it again. That's just

the that's like the mundane reason why

it's why it's hard. The second reason I

think is more fundamental is like it is

really difficult to be halfway, halfway

back to work.

Coordination

of either being all remote or all in the

office is a lot easier.

And we're not ready to go all in the

office. We'll lose people on our team we

don't want to lose. That's that's like a

maybe a

too much of a calculating

way to think about it. It's more like

that I don't think we'll get the best

work out of the people who we force to

come back in and they stay on the team.

Um and that just may that that is what

will take more time and a more of a

sense of

a sense of security

um that this is going to be a good

experience. I'm not going to number one,

just my my health is not going to

suffer, the health of the people I love

around me won't suffer.

So, we're not there yet maybe in terms

of a from a medical or scientific basis

yet.

But I think it's more important it

doesn't really matter what the science

says if if what you feel is I don't feel

secure and safe when I go to the office,

that's what I I think is going to be

much harder to overcome.

And that's the part where coordination

just makes it really difficult to

replicate if you don't have everyone

just say, "Yeah, I'm I work from the

office." Or during working from home,

you lose you lose all those things are

true. And we we lost we had that great

sense of disconnection.

Uh the days of endless video meetings

and

um

trying to do whatever you could to get

that sense of energy you get by being

around another human being.

Um

Uh it was a struggle.

Did you find in that in that period you

lost employees? So, from my perspective

with my company, we had about 700 people

around the world. One of our big USPs as

we thought was community. And that's

what we that's one of our the reasons

why you'd come and work at our company,

Social Chain, was community, the culture

in the office, and all of those things.

We offered flexibility, so people

generally decided what days they worked,

etc. But the minute the pandemic rolled

in and everyone had to stay at home in

their boxer shorts in their one-bed

studio apartment, it felt like people

then started to make the decision about

where they wanted to work based on well,

"If I'm going to be in my boxer shorts

looking at the screen anyway, I might as

well get paid more to do it." Mhm. And

we we saw a little it was the first time

in our history where we saw people just

leaving for and we asked them why they

were leaving and they go, "More money."

Mhm. Before then it didn't matter.

And I was wondering and this is part of

the reason why I think I have a real

bias towards the office, can kind of be

like open about what I do in my

companies is

at the moment when we we actually had a

group session the other day where people

said you we talked about the days, but

the moment there's two days a week where

we we we all want to come we come in,

right? And in between that, like

whatever. And if you can't make like the

the days, then

you cuz you've got something going on,

fine. But that's when we will try and

really be be the present cuz we want

that synchronous, collaborative, all

that wonderful stuff.

And taking a hard line on it, I'll be

honest, I think has

helped. I speak to so many founders and

companies who are trapped in this limbo

of can't force them back,

trying to incent trying to make the

office a nicer place, but people aren't

coming back. And I I actually this I

don't know if I'm going to get canceled

for this, but I think that um there's a

risk in not setting a hard line and

having clarity and saying, "Listen, if

you don't want to work here,

there's other places to work, but here's

how we do it."

And we're choosing to do it this not

this way, not because the CEO is an

egotist and wants to control people, but

but when we reverse

engineer our objective as a company back

from whatever it is, we believe

work

are now happy they did. Like we are.

We're happy we have this

much more, you know, geographically

distributed workforce that's bringing us

incredible talent with a lot of

different experience

um behind that.

And then on the other side, I'm

not sure, you know, where this is going

to go for some of the companies that are

in like right now we're saying

you all have to come back into the

office. They the just a loose number of

conversations I've had with

with other CEOs says you lose about 20%

of the people if you do that. And you're

not really sure which of the 20% cuz

it's really difficult to know until you

you

make people decide.

Um but they're going to be okay. I mean

that they're going to they'll find other

people who then say, "Yeah, I really

want to work at a place where everyone

comes to the office." And that's what I

want too.

Um and so that's the sorting that will

happen here in the next few years, but

you know, these things take time. That's

the thing and time,

you know, we don't have a lot of I mean,

I mean, we're trying to build up a

long-lasting company, but we want to

have

we don't want this to be the thing that

gets in the way of

us progressing as a company. So, we are

balancing that, too.

Is that not middle ground where you say

like these two days a week the team

comes to the the

Is that not middle ground? And you're

just very clear on that. Yeah, I think

that is a a really good next step uh if

we're not achieving that sense of

coordination with giving people the

choice, but encouraging them to say

with incentives like lunch or or events

or uh the presence of the senior

leadership will be there on these

certain days.

There needs to be a point, right?

There needs to be a point where you say,

"Okay, it's not working. We're going to

try try another way."

I have a few words to say about one of

my sponsors on this podcast. As the

seasons have begun to change, so has my

diet. And um

right now, I'm just going to be

completely honest with you, I'm starting

to think a lot about slimming down a

little bit because over the last couple

of probably the last four or five

months, my diet has been pretty bad. Um,

and it's started to show a little bit.

Really, over the last two months. I go

to the gym about 80% of the time. So, I

track it with 10 of my friends in a

WhatsApp group and this tracker online

that we all use together. And so, one of

the things I'm doing now to reduce my

calorie intake and trying to get back to

being nutritionally complete in all I

eat is I'm having the Huel protein

shake. Thank you, Huel, for making a

product that I actually like. The salted

caramel is my favorite. I've got the

banana one here, which is the one my

girlfriend likes, but for me, salted

caramel is

the one.

What was the hardest moment at the start

of the Strava growth

that you faced at the start in those

opening years? Yeah, we opened like we

created the

the company

got the founding team 2000 beginning of

2009.

We were only web-based.

So, you had to you couldn't track your

workout with your mobile phone on

Strava.

You used a

third-party GPS device. An example of

one was a Garmin

uh 305 cycle computer. It was largely

cycling only to start with.

You really we didn't encourage any other

any other sport type, but you you had to

have you had to pay for that piece of

equipment. You had to plug it into your

laptop or desktop computer

transfer the file and upload it to

Strava. Incredible friction, right? So,

we we did not grow fast at all in the

beginning. It was like so many you had

to really want to try to experience this

thing. You you were

and it's not because mobile wasn't a

thing you could do. We just didn't do

it.

There were companies that started

largely with they did maybe had a

website, but they they pretty quickly

built a mobile app.

Companies like RunKeeper.

They were one of the first 100 apps in

the App Store.

Imagine that. Now, there I don't know

millions of apps in the App Store, but

How are RunKeeper doing? Well, they got

bought. I mean, that's the a lot of

these companies that were we launched

into a pretty crowded space back in

2009. There were at least 10 maybe more

companies that were doing something you

call activity tracking with GPS.

Most of them had a mobile app, so we did

not.

RunKeeper was acquired

in

I want to say 2015 2014

by one of the big sports brands.

Um,

MapMyFitness

was acquired by Under Armour.

Runtastic was acquired by Adidas.

By the way, none of these acquirers ever

came to talk to Strava.

Can't tell you why. Would have to you'd

have to go

have to go talk to them. Maybe we were

perceived as we were too niche

because we were perceived as only

focusing on

more hardcore athletes and not the

masses.

Wasn't true, but

in any case, what what was true back in

2009 what we had we had built you know,

the wrong

the wrong experience for

what ultimately would drive community

growth, which is it needs to be on your

mobile phone.

It needs to be

you know, kind of all on your mobile

phone. You it the mobile phone is not

just the tracking device

that then you then go to the website to

look at have the experience. You need to

build the experience on mobile.

And we were really late to that. We were

so late.

Um, and so by 2012 we finally have a

mobile team that's building an

experience. So, three years after

founding, two and a half years after

founding the company

we are finally in the game, if you will.

How did you know you were wrong?

We were wrong in the sense that we

weren't seeing the community growth. We

were we were building an experience that

really people was people once they

got through all those frictions to get

started, they stuck around. They were

committed. They were

they were engaged. They converted to the

subscription, which is the core of our

business is you can use Strava for free

as long as you like, but the best that

we have to offer

um, kind of the if you're going to put

something you say you're you're going to

you're going to invest in yourself and

and try to

live a more active life, you the

subscription really helps you. It gives

you

more ways to stay motivated more fun,

more ways to discover what's great

around you. So, the subscription has all

these great things and it was there from

from the early days. We we didn't wait

to launch it. We launched it in the end

of 2009.

So, we had a lot of people

who were found we had who that we had a

high conversion rate. If you if you want

to we had a low community size, but a

high conversion rate. So, we knew we

were onto something

and so what taught us we were wrong was

we we actually said, okay, we better

build a a mobile app and

we built one that basically just tracked

your workout. You could you could record

a workout to get it into Strava.

We saw off-the-charts community growth

in the first week. Really? We were

adding prior to the mobile app, we were

adding maybe 100 new users 100 new

athletes a week.

We added

10,000 a day on the launch of the of our

mobile app. We got featured in the App

Store. That was 100,000 in a day.

Wow.

Why? Because it's such an easy

entry point. You don't have to pay for

anything. You already have the phone in

your pocket. You're just downloading

our our app from the App Store. The App

Store is pushing you us out to a

community we would never have had the

the money to meet from a marketing

perspective.

There was only one problem. We built the

wrong There again, we we learned we

built the wrong experience. We we

thought you track the workout on your

mobile phone and then you go to the

website to see your results and

that's not people like

people aren't going to do that. We we

so, we we had to rebuild that that app

and that rebuild the experience to be

all all completely on mobile. But, the

idea that what can unlock the community

growth is the form factor of reducing

the frictions, getting

meeting people where

giving them a a chance to to onboard

into something without having to go

through a lot of hoops, jump jump

through all the things. Basic stuff, but

those those were like the earliest

things that we that we did

did prove that we could build something

that was highly engaging. We just

couldn't get

people into the into the experience in

the early days until we built the mobile

apps.

As you're going through that iterative

experience to figure out how to scale

the business and where the product

market fit is

how are you doing in your personal life

at that stage on the B?

The balance.

Yeah, I mean, this is where going back

to when Mark and I were

thinking of starting another company

we were saying it's going to be

different this time, right? We're not

going to let it consume us. We're going

to find a way

to keep the B.

In my personal case, that did not last

more than the first year. I

uh we we thought we were going to build

a company. I was living in Hanover, New

Hampshire, which is this very small

community in um

about 2 hours north of Boston in in the

state of New Hampshire. It's in the

woods. Um, Dartmouth College is there.

And they had a they hired me to teach

entrepreneurship in 2000. And so, I

that's what brought us there, my family,

my wife and four kids.

So, we arrived and when my my youngest

daughter, she's now 20 turning 24 this

year, she was turning two that year. So,

you can like we had this very little you

know, we had four kids in in five years.

We had very young kids. We're going to

we're going to raise them in Hanover.

And I was like, we got to I got to live

in Hanover and Mark is in in the Bay

Area. He's living in California. Well,

he's got to live he's got to live in in

Portola Valley. And so, we're going to

build this company on on two coasts and

it was going to be you know, a team in

New Hampshire and a team in California.

And by 2010 it was like that's clearly

not going to be the case.

To hire the

the talent we need, it's probably going

to be the team in San Francisco that's

going to be

the headquarters. And so, I start flying

to San Francisco more and more regularly

all throughout 2010. Instead of going

like once every two months, I'm going

once a month staying for five days. Now,

it's

once every two weeks staying for five

days and then it's

that gets more and more frequent. So,

I'm definitely not on the on the B. The

balance is gone out the window.

And this was 2010 through the end almost

to the end of 2013

where I'm I'm CEO of the company. We're

growing we're growing this community is

now surpassing

a million

members in the community. And we get to

the point where I think we're just shy

of 10 million

by the time that I'm

stepping down. And you know what, uh

it's a very sad story, but my wife was

diagnosed with a terminal illness in

September of 2013.

She had had uh

been diagnosed she had had breast cancer

gone through treatment at

in 2004 long before we start started

Strava and it had had come back and it

was

uh it was

you know, those those first months we

weren't sure exactly how long she

she would have to live. The doctors were

we got to do a lot of tests and

um, I'm

I'm still living this dual life between

New Hampshire and

California cuz she she didn't move to

California with me. We didn't move the

family. That was a choice we made to to

remain in New Hampshire

um, as the home base for the family.

And so, what ends up happening at the

end of 2013 is um I step down from

running the company. Mark steps in as

the CEO.

I um

I'm in a supportive function, but I have

a lot of flexibility and I move back to

New Hampshire.

And um

for the next three and a half years

until Anna passed away, I

that was my my my priority became taking

care of my family, taking doing what I

could to

to take what time we had left to make it

as meaningful as possible and all sorts

of things we can talk about of

finding meaning to the

to the last day. There's there's a lot

of lessons learned there, but

what I was

that's not that's a different kind of

balance.

I want to be honest. It's like not

necessarily

what I what I expect you know, when we

say balance for as a as a value

it it feels like what we do is we pass

through that balance point over and over

again in our lives.

We never quite seize it and hold onto it

and feel like we live in it. But it's

something we experience, we go through

over and over again

and we try to return to it. And it's the

act of trying to return to it

that I hold out as like that's what I'm

motivated by. By putting balance into

the core values of Strava, by having it

be something I focus on in my life.

I want to return to it as often as I

can, even if I won't be able to stay in

it all the time.

So, leaving Strava, that was the That

was definitely not balance.

Moving into

caring for my family, there were periods

where it came in, definitely found a

a flow and a harmony and a a balance,

but then times were, you know, just it

completely is out the window and

everything is all hands-on deck on

what's the next treatment we're going to

try to find for for Anna. Where are we

going to In one case, we had to move.

And we chose to move back to move to San

Francisco so she could be in a clinical

trial

of a novel therapy that showed some

promise. And that these are the kinds of

examples where balance just didn't

wasn't there either. You

You You had to You had to work at it.

And then

in the balances where I think you find

the most meaningful moments.

You said about the passing of your wife,

Anna, in that period you were trying to

find meaning till the last day.

And you've learned a lot about what that

is. Mhm. What is that?

You have to

You have to think of it as not as the

goal is to get to something some state

of health or physical ability or mental

ability to do something like a dream or

a trip you want to take.

It's

It's the the day that is the day you're

you're living in. It's Take it as it

comes today. And

having having a living a life where

We're all terminal, by the way. Turns

out we're all on our way to some point

where we say we're on our last day.

But what you experience when you're

going through regular measurement of the

progress of a disease like that.

Uh because that's the way you're you're

the medical

treatment is We're monitoring the

disease to know

when to change therapy,

when to add other drugs that will help

handle the symp the side effects of all

the therapy,

when to say it's time to stop the

therapy.

The meaning can't be

extend my life.

At some point if that's your goal, you

will not find meaning in that goal. It

It will be out the window.

So, you instead you have to find meaning

in what can this day bring?

It starts by

How do I feel today?

Um

if you string together a bunch of days

where you feel

you've gotten something out of the day,

that's a meaningful life. And you can

find that till the very end. And

just I learned

so much from watching Anna progress

through that and uh give

give to people around her, but also give

to herself. She was an artist.

Um

worked in her studio to nearly the very

last day.

Was working on projects that she knew

she would never finish, but she was

motivated by what she could

experience of working on those pieces of

art. She did leave behind like if if

this were going to continue, here's what

I would do with it.

Um My youngest is an artist. I I know

what's motivating her is like she wants

to get to some of those

pieces and see if she can bring them to

some version of what her mom

had left behind. What What she had

indicated this could be something like

this.

I think Mira will bring it to something

else. She'll She'll add her own thing to

it, but

that that was what Anna

You know, I think she got there.

Struggling against the end is not the

way to find the meaning.

How has that shifted your cuz

experiences like that I imagine um

teach you other profound things about

the point of all of this. I know I spent

much of my early years thinking the

point of all of this was to buy a

Lamborghini.

Right? And then even the pandemic was

one of the catalysts that made me

realize there was

as I said earlier, this tectonic plate

that mattered a little bit more. And

then it was really interesting to watch

um

how I had a Rolex at the time. I don't

have one anymore. But my Rolex was

exchanged for my Apple Watch. And

there's something quite symbolic in

that. It went from being about signaling

status to others to

caring about my health.

And when I think about

the loss of someone um

especially someone young

someone close to you as well. What are

the What is the priority shift that

happens it you know, I'm presuming there

is one, but is there a priority shift

that happens, a different perspective on

what matters

that maybe an entrepreneur like me needs

to hear.

I don't I don't know that I knew this

when she was going through her life

those last few years were even the the

few years after she passed away. I don't

think I was

I was I think I prepared a lot for how

to live my life caring for her. I wasn't

prepared for how to live my life when

she was gone.

But what I've come to

I think is

it's it's This is again maybe

somewhat obvious

is that the relationship you can build

with some an individual, and in this

case my wife, the person I We met.

Where did we meet? In your

We met in my backyard.

When I

When I started grad school at

Northwestern University,

I rented this coach house, which is like

a a little carriage house behind a

bigger home, and I was walking to the

front of the house one morning

to get my mail,

and I'm walking through the backyard,

and there's this

young woman in her pajamas talking to my

landlord, and

this is Anna. She's She turns turns out

she's a friend of my landlord, had

babysit sat for her children when she

was going to

college at the same school I was getting

my PhD. This is Northwestern University

in Chicago in Evanston, Illinois.

So, I meet Anna in in my backyard, and

um she's not living in Evanston. She's

living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

But she she comes back to visit a few

months later,

and a few months after that we're

married.

And so

we start We're We're We're babies,

right? I'm I I got married the day after

I turned 25. I mean, we're She was 23.

We were not yet fully formed human

beings, right? We're but we're now

building a life together.

And