didn't you get an offer to sell the

company for 400 million dollars yeah I

did what it made you super rich why

didn't you say yes

you're very good at this Sophia also

founder of Nasty Gal A best-selling

author and a Powerhouse in the

entrepreneurial world I was rebellious

from a very early age I was a stripper I

wasn't even 21 I used someone else's ID

to work there built an online business

the first thing I sold online was stolen

get a whole shopping cart of stuff put

them on Amazon for 10 cents less than

the other resellers and then gotten

arrested for shoplifting

I'm a little dark I realized I could

connect my creativity to something

legitimate started Nasty Gal selling

vintage namastico went from 150 000 a

year to doing 150 000 over lunch I

didn't realize the amount of

responsibility I had being the poster

child of Entrepreneurship then I was

this girl boss but my naivete and lack

of experience did send me to the grade

nasty y'all fell apart after 10 years my

husband of like a year left the

headlines weren't nice

what is it like from a mental health

perspective it's hard to pull yourself

out of a hole when you don't want to get

out of bed it's challenged my confidence

and I'm still like I don't belong here

but I don't belong here is also a really

great motivator I don't belong here

means I don't fit in but that's going to

be a superpower I can do things

differently

what was the plan in life at that point

gosh

before this episode starts I have a

small favor to ask from you two months

ago 74 of people that watch this channel

didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my

goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any

of the videos we've posted if you like

this channel can you do me a quick favor

and hit the Subscribe button it helps

this channel more than you know and the

bigger the channel gets as you've seen

the bigger the guests get thank you and

enjoy this episode

[Music]

take me back to those suburbs in San

Diego and give me your earliest context

wow I was born in San Diego Sharp

Memorial Hospital only child

eternally and only child

I think wound up having the personality

of a probably seven children and the

challenge of maybe seven children for my

parents

um

we moved a few times you know our house

was like it was it was happy-ish when I

was young I lived in San Diego till I

was seven and it's a beautiful place and

I so wish we would have stayed there but

we moved to beautiful

Sacramento California and that was

really the Suburban experience where you

know when you're a

kid a little kid you don't know what a

suburb is and chasing the ice cream man

is great but once you get older living

in the suburbs if you have any amount of

curiosity about the world the

homogeneous you know nature of living in

the suburbs is something that totally

crushed me I knew there was more out

there and I didn't know what it was but

I wanted I like wanted out from a very

early age

what what did you what did you want at a

very early age when you say you wanted

out oh yeah what did you want yeah I

wanted out of my family home it wasn't

happy my parents didn't get along I was

playing referee you know really yeah

what what age

starting at like 10 or something

I mean

yeah it was just it wasn't a super happy

place and they yeah they didn't get

along they didn't always agree on how to

raise me and I think when your parents

you know everybody's relationship has

issues and everybody's not everybody's

but most people's parents you know

sometimes don't get along when you have

a sibling I think you can go be like um

that's funny or they're whatever let's

just go play with Legos or something

like that or let's go ride bikes but I

think being isolated in a house that

wasn't super happy as an only child made

it worse and I just remember so many

drives silent car drives where I was in

the back seat alone

and I just remember like the silence and

the the light of the street lights

like washing over the car just in in

Silence with my parents in the two front

seat

um yeah they're really like only

affectionate

after like an argument and even then it

was like I don't know hand-holding or

something they were very strict as well

I had to beg to go to a boy's birthday

party in sixth grade

we weren't super religious but my mom

grew up in the 50s in a Greek Orthodox

household

um just

not puritanical because that sounds less

cultural than Greek Orthodoxy but uh

strict you know what about money

yeah arguments happened in my household

when I was younger because of money

yeah I mean my dad sold my dad did loans

and my mom sold houses but track homes

in the suburbs and they were both

working with Builders and Banks and

manufactured homes and so on the

weekends by the time I was I don't know

maybe 10 my mom was working in the model

homes

that are all kind of dressed up and you

can tour them and pick your manufactured

home and change a couple things and

there's like a fake keyboard in there

just all kinds of

funny things to play with and then so I

was with my dad on weekends and my and

they both worked entirely commission so

I've never seen either of my parents

work for a salary and my mom's dad

didn't work for salary and my dad's dad

owned a motel and they all grew up on a

motel so there's like generations of my

family who wouldn't necessarily call

themselves entrepreneurs but they're

people who ate what they killed and

that's what I witnessed

money was good I think when I was like

you know when we were in San Diego and I

think it got tougher over time I

remember very vividly

being in a credit counselor's office I

just can't believe they brought me but

there was no I don't know where they

would have put me watching them

cut up their credit cards like cut their

credit cards in half and put them in a

clear jar with like other people's cut

up credit cards and file for chapter 11.

bankruptcy yep did you know what was

going on no

I still don't know what happened I don't

know

are you able to look back on that

that first sort of chapter of your life

and figure out how it had a lasting

impact on various elements of who you

are today

I think it allowed me to even though it

was so challenging younger in life to

learn how to assimilate into different

environments

um to I guess entertain myself

independently to realize that Authority

was

like adults were not trained to be

parents and weren't any further along

with their maturity sometimes than I was

at my age you know I looked at teachers

and thought wow you know you have domain

expertise you know some stuff but I can

tell that like you're morally bankrupt

and I don't trust you and why have I

been put in your

you know in your hands

um

I think the thing that had the biggest

impact on me is how critical my dad was

so he's half Italian and half Portuguese

and his dad was a mean mean guy

and my dad's very charismatic and I love

him and he's super chill now but when I

was young he had a lot of pressure

on him and he didn't really have the

best model of what a great parent looked

like and I can't say he was a bad parent

you know he did his best I know that

both my parents did their best with the

materials that they had the ingredients

that they had to be parents

but it instilled in me this

unfortunate but also very fortunate

always peeling back another layer of the

onion examining myself but also real

internalized drive to do better in a

self-criticism that has worked very well

for me that's been challenging it's

challenged my confidence over time but

it also has been a superpower to in some

ways I don't know in some ways hold

myself accountable because I'm always I

almost want to say second guessing

myself

but also very

um

in a very I guess someone said Jesuit

way at one point but

a way where I can see both sides of

everything you know challenging my

doubts and my ego

but the problem with that is sometimes

it's hard to differentiate between the

two what is

you know fiction and what isn't and what

of my self-critiques are accurate

because I want to be and I think I am a

pretty self-aware person

and even with the things that I'm not

great at I'm like super proud of that

because I've got

a ton of advantages and things that I'm

really great at but I think it was the

criticism I experienced early on in life

for so long that instilled that in me

and I've learned how to turn it into

something that's more balanced than

what it was when I inherited it

when you inherited it

when it was handed to me the model I had

the level of critique that I had that

didn't have the Counterpoint that I'm

able to provide for myself you're

talking about your funnel there yeah he

would critique you yes

when you say critique do you mean

oh that's that's naughty don't do that

no

no like that's not how you do something

or why why'd you do it like that or can

you not or

you know I mean I love my dad and

and he's you know as both of my parents

have gotten older they split when I was

17 and I've just watched them

both become such better people

I remember congratulating them when they

finally split up and was so glad at 17

years old and I was also like I'm out of

here

see ya

you seem to become a bit of a rebel

you know from from when you moved out of

your parents house

for the next couple of years the

behavior looked really rebellious oh

yeah no I mean I was rebellious from a

very early age

I remember in middle school a teacher I

was eating an apple in class I was

eating an apple it was healthy I was

hungry I've got agency over my body I

didn't know what that word meant I'm

hungry I'm gonna eat food I'm human I'm

hungry I'm gonna eat food in the middle

of class

but like who how could you tell someone

not to eat when they're hungry it's like

a simple bodily function and it keeps me

healthy and it's gonna make me a better

student and it's

and I and the teacher told me to throw

the Apple away

and I just started the apple and of

course I had the attention of the entire

class

and I got up and I sauntered over to the

trash can super slowly and I just like

ate the apple all the way to the core

like super fast finished the apple and

was like dink in the trash can

um so I was like that if if someone said

not to do something I did the thing that

they didn't say I couldn't do that was

similar it was peripheral

and then by the time I got to high

school I was going to the anarchist book

fair in San Francisco I was sure

capitalism was you know the worst thing

ever

I was very angsty I thought that

adulthood it's funny there's a Netflix

series about my life and the first thing

that the character says is adulthood is

where dreams go to die and it's so weird

to reference your own Netflix series

like who does that but

that's how I that's how I felt I wasn't

trying to be a child but I also didn't

want to go work in an office I also

wasn't ambitious so somehow along the

way that lack of desire to live a

conventional life became something that

turned into ambition because I not even

ambition just curiosity something that I

was good at and you know eventually

built a business but um

I uh in high school in high school

I remember there being Bells like right

there's a bell that rings and you go

from from one room to another room all

day a bell rings you sit at a desk a

bell rings

and you stand up and you Shuffle over to

the other room

and then you sit down and you like

memorize some stuff

and then you like this is my youth I was

sure I was being trained for something

super mediocre not that I wanted

Excellence I just wanted out

why are you like that because you know

all the other kids will come out like

that I actually came out I came out like

that yeah it is not I mean her I'm I

might have some hereditary just kind of

like Italian I'm not sure what or

something it's not it wasn't a nurture

thing that was

a nature thing or I don't know I just

like

came out I actually hatched out of a

disco ball but that's the way that's how

I came out I had a gabo mate here who's

this like I think he's just interviewed

Prince Harry actually

um in uh in a little like pay-per-view

therapy session or whatever and Gabriel

Mata said something to me that I've been

pondering ever since he said that

as children we're like narcissists and

we are that way because it helped us to

survive so we think that everything is

about us when we're like babies and

young so the parents were arguing we

actually interpret that as there being

something that to do with us and that's

the way we view the world as a survival

mechanism and he says one of the things

that happens when we're in a where you

were a young child and we're in a house

where there's lots of arguing and lots

of drama and shouting is we learn to

avert our attention as a way to help us

deal with emotional distress and that

develops into something they call ADD

and ADHD so I took Adderall this morning

hmm

hahaha

well they will yeah just to prepare for

the podcast just kidding now I've major

add

but they diagnosed me as a kid and I was

like no this is mind control

forget it I'm not focused because I

thought it was situational I thought it

was my environment and it maybe was

partially because I wasn't interested in

what was happening

and distracted because I was curious

about other things

but also it's a real thing and it wasn't

until

a few years ago that I finally realized

it was a thing and sought treatment and

it's helped but it's helped like

marginally it's not

I had to realize it was a real thing a

couple of years ago

I've I've been I mean you know I go to a

psychiatrist and I talk about what's

going on with my brain and

um do what I can to help myself

um holistically but also I know I'm also

predisposed to depression not

predisposed I've suffered with

depression my whole life since when

my whole life I don't I can't remember

an age where I wasn't

depressed I just

I wasn't always miserable but I've I'm

kind of a dark I'm a little dark

um

and that's not something you know it's

hard to pull yourself out of a hole when

you don't want to get out of bed like

that's you know to have the willpower to

just get over depression and put on a

happy face and whatever people do get an

ice bath and jump in the sauna and

meditate and

you know I am still struggling to be the

well-rounded person but I'm functional I

think we're all struggling to be a

well-rounded person I don't know some

people seem to like have these parents

that teach them that and they come out

and they're like yeah you know and it's

not you know that's almost diminishing

to be like

but

but I'm yeah there's people who just

seem to you know and some people come

out of the womb like that I know parents

that are creative chaotic I know people

who are well-rounded whose parents were

addicted to drugs and somehow they just

wound up like that and how to attribute

that to your parents it's that's a hard

correlation to make did you ever you

said it curious phrase now which

made me um

Ponder you said I'm a little dark uh-huh

what do you mean by I'm a little dark

hmm

why are you giggling you're making me

think you are a little dog I am I'm not

evil God uh I'm not a witch

I

I guess I've

just

you know like I said I've struggled with

depression

I'm not a bubbly person I'm not someone

you know as a child my mom has said you

only laughed when something was really

funny you know I think kids run around

like laughing and smiling because

they're like children or something but I

had to have a reason

I'm not sure why and it's still kind of

like that and maybe it's I don't know as

an adult it's become something that

requires it's just being genuine and

maybe I'm not I think maybe I'm not

impressed maybe in general I'm just

skeptical you went to see a psychiatrist

when you were 16. oh I went to see a

psychiatrist when I was like 10. I mean

I was in therapy

when I was like 10 11. with what's

trying to be diagnosed like what's wrong

with her why can't she stay on task why

is she so weird why doesn't she get

along

why is she distracted so I have report

cards

that say

chooses to disturb others you know

doesn't stay on task it's stuff like

that it was like I was always like you

know not paying attention curious about

something else engaged with something

else it wasn't always to be rebellious

sometimes it was very good-natured and I

would get in trouble for things that I

didn't think were bad or intend to be

bad it was also just very a very willful

independent thinker who didn't fit into

a traditional educational environment

and

you know that's something

for whatever reason seemed to be needed

to

be diagnosed

but then I was like no no I'm not taking

Wellbutrin and I'm not going to take

it's like an antidepressant I didn't

take it I was like no I'm not taking any

of this when did they win right that was

by high school so you were 16-ish around

that time when they yeah 15 16 and I was

like this is

it's I don't feel like myself feel wired

and weird and

I got like I think I got Ritalin and

someone tried to buy it off me in like

high school and I was like what do you

what I don't even get it I was like I'm

just throwing this stuff in the trash I

didn't

and then so you so you get diagnosed and

prescribed antidepressant at 16ish your

parents break up at 17ish you leave them

I move out you move out I move out at

17. before I graduate high school I was

homeschooling so I got my diploma in the

mail I thought the like most

embarrassing thing would be would be to

wear the cap and gown I was like what is

that I don't understand what's the

tassel why do you have to wear a robe

what is this robe

I I wouldn't have been proud standing in

a group doing some group thing I'm not a

group person even though I've built a

lot of really powerful communities I'm

not I don't assimilate well into groups

and I think groups are responsible for

the most heinous things in like human

history so uh

[Laughter]

so I moved into a closet

you moved into a closing under the

stairs for sixty dollars a month

uh these guys that were like in bands

and artists who had met going to shows

because I was really into music and went

downtown in Sacramento and saw music and

what was the plan in life at that point

was there a plan you know you're like 17

years no you told me there was a plan I

wanted to go to

first wanted to go to Reed College but

that was expensive

but then I wanted to go to the Evergreen

College so by the time I was 18 I had

moved to Olympia Washington to get

residency to go to the state school

called the Ever Supreme State College

which is a super duper hippie state

school that's interdisciplinary and

there's no majors

to the point of it not really being

worth

going but if I was gonna go to college I

was going to go to a place like that but

even state tuition was expensive so I

lived in Washington state for a year to

get state to get residency

so I could go to that school and by the

time

I got residency I was like this school's

not gonna do anything for me you

described this chapter of your life as

being very lost

super lost super lost I was looking for

my I kind of hate this word

tribe

I was looking for people like me I

thought I would find people like me and

then all would be well like uh you know

some Disney character that you know ugly

duckling or someone who loses you know

they're lost from the wolf pack I don't

know what these movies are and then they

find their family and people understand

them and so from the time I was 17 I

moved from

Downtown Sacramento to Olympia

Washington lived in two places there

Seattle lived in two places there San

Francisco

lived in one or two places there

Oakland with my alcoholic fry cook

boyfriend I had met in Olympia we

couldn't get jobs and my parents were

like yeah we can't help you with college

stuff so then we moved to Portland

I was a stripper I was lost I was lost

that's an interesting time a ton of

events yeah that was an interesting turn

of events

and that chapter of your life in some

ways mirrors the transience of the start

of your life you said you moved to like

eight eight or ten different schools

when you were young

and then when you leave the nest you end

up bouncing around as in your own words

like looking for

your family I was yeah I was looking for

some place to belong and I never found

it and I kind of love that

because it's forced me to make my own

and force me to stay creative thinker

and also

I don't know I this isn't fair but the

people in some of those communities like

peaked and never left it's like you know

I listen to pop punk in high school can

you imagine I'm sorry if anybody

listening is like never graduated from

listening to pop punk but if you don't

graduate to metal or some other it's not

even more sophisticated but like less

juvenile varieties of rock it's the same

as finding you know some

comfortable Community when you're 20 and

then never leaving like that sounds that

sounds awful to me so I'm I'm glad I

didn't find a comfy place

and it's been uncomfortable since then

how long did you try this stripping

thing

I don't know I mean when you're in your

late teens early 20s

time just feels like it felt like a

decade that I was you know bouncing

around to these places probably three or

five months it was fun I loved it nobody

pulled anything I never got messed with

I drank my white Russians and ate the

Subway sandwich from next door and

played photo hunt and I wasn't even 21 I

used someone else's ID to work there

and I got to dance to music that I liked

I made money I didn't really have to

engage with anybody

and I got really comfortable with my

body in a way that I hadn't before and

that was cool

yeah they say

I've read a new book where you said that

you believe you hold the

world record for having the most shitty

jobs like back to back throughout that

period of your life they say you know

I've learned this from this podcast that

every job teaches you something and that

thing can be applied to business there's

always a sort of a transferable skill or

whatever learn what was the transferable

skill

but you learn from stripping that you

think has probably stayed with you

today

I think that even though I wasn't didn't

have the upper body strength to be the

traditional one upside down swinging

around

what I could do I mean it was like

Shuffle around and whatever was enough

and still charismatic enough and still

great enough to

entertain other people

and then being comfortable with my body

it's like exposure therapy you know I

was the girl at

18 it would like make out with someone

and then if I was like naked or

something I'd like

put on my clothes to go to the bathroom

or something I was like

not I didn't sleep with anybody until I

was 19. so I was just I was kind of late

by 20 I was

tripping in Portland

I'll tell you the crescendo of that

experience so dating with dating Wade

the

alcoholic fry cook who was 10 years

older than me

uh

I like I was on birth control I went off

birth control for like one day and there

was almost we were hardly even you know

engaging in the way that someone might

like get pregnant like so briefly like

that day

yeah I'm like I don't know

who's watching and uh and I wound up I

want it pregnant

so I'm like 20.

Maybe 19. and

I went to the sliding scale Women's

Clinic

and

but but it was the only day I could get

in but it also happened to be

the day of my court date because I had

gotten arrested for shoplifting

so I had to have the Women's Clinic

write an excuse to the court telling

them why this poor girl couldn't make it

to her court date and the whole thing

got they were just I kept following up

to be like when is it rescheduled and I

think they all just felt so bad for me

it kind of vanished but that was that

was like okay no more shortcuts it

wasn't like I'm gonna go be a CEO but it

also

just

taught me that

breaking some rules puts you in other

people's hands and I was you know being

arrested I'm not as autonomous as I

would have liked to have been and you

know even with stripping to a certain

extent it was a shortcut I was trying to

evade like working hard but it was also

a lot of fun but that was really that

was a low point it's had lots of low

points

um but at least it's like this right

it's been like this

you know doesn't

it doesn't ever go that low

there's clearly um a slight issue here

with authority and it feels to me like

the ultimate Authority which is the law

eventually was like he can't [ __ ] with

us we're not the teacher yeah it was

like okay like maybe just figure out how

to get along you know

it wasn't like wow I'm gonna go have a

career and do

everything I'm I'm gonna just do

everything differently but also

I just didn't want to cut Corners I

didn't want to

end up

not in control of my environment or

stuck in jail or something stupid

shoplifting

mm-hmm

why'd you make that sound I don't know

it was fun

what was your favorite thing to steal

I don't endorse shoplifting neither do I

my rationale for shoplifting was that

there was so much excess

in you know our culture that it would

never make a dent to steal organic

tampons from Fred Meyer which is like

Target

in Portland or whatever

so

I uh

when I did get caught and this was my

favorite thing was just walking out with

stuff

so I would get a whole shopping cart of

stuff I had a little teeny tiny little

razor thingy so I knew where the sensors

were and I would cut them off they were

there

and pile a shopping cart high and just

walk out with no bags or anything I did

it at grocery stores I I furnished

apartments I walked out of places with

like literal rugs this High just walked

out because nobody expects you to be

that like obvious about it they're

looking for somebody who's like putting

stuff in their pockets

and when I did get caught

I had like a George Foreman grill

I think a basketball

organic tampons some food really nice

shower curtain rings they were metal and

then they had like ceramic they were

heavy and they had like a ceramic thing

that said hot and then the other one

said cold and I was like yes this is

this is luxury

It's Worth jail time so that was yeah

and

you know I built an online business and

the first thing I sold online was stolen

so another thing and I learned this from

people who were professionally trying to

like avoid getting jobs and

participating in

capitalistic culture which is a

privilege it's lazy

it's it was it was yeah I was really

young and I just didn't want to work you

know it was some kind of quasi-political

lazy excuse for just not working hard

anyway I learned from some of the best

um I had a friend who had written a book

called evasion literally and

I would go into Barnes and Noble

and they had a no chase policy like I

knew what the policies were at these

places because if their employees Chase

someone shoplifting it's gonna cost them

way much more if they get like knifed or

something than it would for them to lose

a few books

and so I would go on Amazon

and I would look at the

best-selling books this is in 2002 2003

it's like and

even look at the ratio of most expensive

book to least pages so I could stack

them as many of them as high as possible

and I would just walk to the front like

the front of the store would have all

the best sellers and huge stacks and I

would just like

piled them hide I look like an employee

like who's carrying a huge stack of

books I was right in the front of the

store and I just like walked my car and

I'd put them on Amazon for 10 cents less

than all the other resellers I'd sell

them overnight I'd ship a Media Mail and

I'd pay my 350 a month rent

why weren't you scared

I think I was but it's when you get

scared that you get caught

and it's when you hesitate you fail it's

the same thing

if you're snowboarding and you're like

oh it's kind of icy let me look down

you're just like catch an edge you're

surfing and you look at the nose of the

board

right

so even that's what you're a life lesson

I guess I guess we'll say I'm not proud

of this

I was really young and I was finding my

way I never

stole from individuals that was like not

on thesis for me

no I couldn't justify it I would never

feel comfortable doing it

um but big box retailers I was like over

the last couple of how long maybe four

months I've been changing my diet shall

I say many of you have really been

paying attention to this podcast will

know why I've sat here with some

incredible Health experts and one of the

things that's really come through for me

which has caused a big change in my life

is the need for us to have these

superfoods these green Foods these

vegetables and then a company I love so

much and a company I'm an investor in

and then a company that sponsors this

podcast and I'm on the board of recently

announced a new product which absolutely

spoke to exactly where I was in my life

and that is huel and they announced

Daily Greens Daily Greens is a product

that contains 91 superfoods nutrients

and plant-based ingredients which helps

me meet that dietary requirement with

the convenience that hewell always

offers unfortunately it's only currently

available in the US but I hope

I pray that it'll be with you guys in

the UK too so if you're in the US check

it out it's an incredible product I've

been having it here in La for the last

couple of weeks and it's a game changer

ladies and gentlemen our newest brand

partnership will come it's no surprise

to regular listeners on this podcast the

first episode of 2023 I was joined by

the incredible Professor Tim Spector to

hear more about his work at a company

called Zoe using data to understand our

bodies better so that we can live more

fulfilled higher potential lives Zoe was

born from the truth that our overall

health is impacted by our gut health by

helping you to understand how your body

is working so it can help you to reduce

your risk of long-term disease and

increase your energy levels for me this

is the future and that is why I became

an investor in the company and that is

why they are now a sponsor of this

podcast you can read up about everything

they're doing and you can pre-order your

Zoe program at joinzoe.com and they've

been kind enough to offer an exclusive

10 off code CEO 10. so you can put that

code in at checkout CEO 10. thank you so

much let's get back to the episode so by

this time you're getting a little bit

acquainted with the internet and selling

things on the internet clearly because

you're selling stolen stuff yeah yeah

vintage mm-hmm

why why vintage why did you start to

sell vintage clothes

yeah so by 2000

six

I had gotten some real jobs now after

after I'd worked in shoe stores and

record stores and Photo Labs and

Subway again

I like dry cleaners

I

how did you get on with those jobs

it didn't last very long I like job-free

alphabetized things though so record

stores

Photo Labs bookstores like paper makes

me feel important for some reason

mailing things I don't know it worked

out with my eBay store

and the last job I had was in the lobby

of an art school in San Francisco at 79

new Montgomery Street called The Academy

of Art University it was a job I got

because I needed to get health insurance

and at the time you couldn't get health

insurance with a pre-existing condition

you is this your hernia yeah the Hearn

the Hearn yeah so a hernia if you don't

know what it is is a place it's a hole

in your muscle wall that your guts poke

out of and it makes a little bump and I

had one kind of in my groin area I

called an inguinal hernia

and it didn't hurt but they're kind of

dangerous because they can like if your

muscle tense is up or something they can

get strangulated and necrotic which is a

disgusting word

so I had to get it fixed but before I

got it fixed it was kind of fun I shaved

everything but the hernia

my poor boyfriend my poor boyfriend and

um yeah it was entertaining it was kind

of funny to have like a small lump in my

pants for

a few weeks or something

but at the time you could not get health

insurance with a pre-existing condition

even with depression if you had medical

records that said you had depression and

your insurance lapsed insurance

companies would decline you now that's

not the case you can have a pre-existing

condition apply for health insurance

you'll be given health insurance you

could only get health insurance with a

pre-existing condition like a hernia

with group health insurance with a job

so I had to go

find a job that had health insurance

and I got this job in the lobby of the

art school as a campus safety host which

was a different way of saying you're

cheaper than a unionized security guard

and I wore a starchy white shirt it was

like a men's clothing I had to wear this

awful uniform with like a magnetic thing

here that had my name and the school's

logo on it and check students in and say

hi you need to sign in can I see your ID

that was were you doing anything sort of

criminal at this point my job no so all

of your money came from that job and

yeah and so there was a three month

waiting period for health insurance

and while I was there I had time to

I had some down time in this Lobby and

there's a computer

and uh there's no Facebook or Instagram

at the time this is

2006.

and I was starting to get friend

requests from these eBay sellers on

MySpace

I wore only vintage I was like you know

root and toot and Scootin to like oldies

and rock and roll and dive bars and

subsisting on burritos I loved vintage I

wore vintage I wasn't necessarily into

fashion and I didn't want to be in

fashion but I loved style and I loved

vintage

and I loved thrifting

and I saw what they were doing

and their auction prices were crazy like

I thought hate Street was expensive

because I had shopped at thrift stores

and found great stuff

and saw what their auctions were going

for and these were actual prices that

the customer was determining

they would start the auction price at

9.99 and these things were going for

like 200 300 and they were just making

it look like something that Sienna

Miller some boho at the time it was like

boho Olsen twins Sienna Miller kind of

Vibes and they would do that put this

stuff online and the customer determined

the price and it was so much money and

so I thought okay so I waited my three

months for my health insurance because

there was a three-month waiting period

it got the Hearn fixed and I started an

eBay store and I wasn't trying to be an

entrepreneur I was trying to

legitimately not work for anybody and

that's when I realized that I could

connect my curiosity and Independence

and creativity and resourcefulness

to something

legitimate that made money that I

learned from every step I was taking and

started nastygal selling vintage out of

my boyfriend's apartment before that

point

would people have called you lazy

or unmotivated

I didn't know any people who would have

said something like that because my

friends were just like me so objectively

then objectively

I think just lost I think it would be a

judgment to say I was lazy

I can relate to so much of what you've

said especially all the stuff about

Authority like I just decided to stop

going to school and I was polite about

it but I I've always had a challenge

with authority every job I had

throughout through that period of my

life lasted for three months I was just

cool center hopping get to the bonus

threshold quit gives me two months where

I don't have to get a job call up

another course employed those people

yeah I'm one of them and it's funny

because I think people would have looked

at me in school and stuff and said

like written me off oh it's he's lazy

well like my thesis is that everyone

most people are lazy and you should be

lazy for things that you absolutely hate

doing

okay you should be so yeah I'm only

motivated by things I'm curious about if

someone assigns me something like I've

tried to write a second book and

published two books after girl boss

which was a thing

I can't I cannot be assigned something I

it either comes out or it's not there

that's the do you think that's the the

rebel in you

that is but it's why everything I do is

so inspired and honest and

I don't want to be like I'm unique but

because you never accepted or learned

compliance it's an actual representation

of who I am and what I think and how I

feel and my perspective instead of a

manufactured version because somebody

has given me an assignment like you

didn't even want the bell in school to

tell you what to do no

the gift in a curse though right

I mean it's pretty logical that you

would question

a bell ringing and someone moving from

one room the same room to the next room

every single day what do you think

anyone else no

no

but if you really think about it it's

pretty wild right

that that eBay store that you start with

in your free time when you're working

that job

you took to fix the Heron

um

it was successful

yeah and you know you kind of frame it

as you saw maybe a price Arbitrage or

whatever but but it's more than that

right it's more than that to be

successful at that time I'm not sure a

lot of people saw that price Arbitrage

and they didn't build a nasty girl so

when you reflect on why and how

you were particularly successful how did

you diagnose that

I reverse engineered everything everyone

else did and did a better job and did it

with my

signature on it do you think and I'm

thinking now about that Bell again in

school where you were like analyzing the

Bell where no one else was do you think

that kind of default to thinking in

terms of first principles like asking

the question why why the [ __ ] do we do

it that way has been part of the reason

why that eBay store was successful

I think so

I think

most people that started an eBay store

are copying what other people are doing

they might reverse engineer some things

and see what their competitors are doing

and I did that but I just did it 10

times better with a totally different

spirit with excellent copywriting with

great styling great models and

increasingly better photography and I

would I was extremely resourceful I

would buy stuff on eBay and sell it for

more than I paid for it I was searching

for Eve's son Laurent just misspelled

you know

the song

but even that's the first principle

thinking that's like

but you've got a convention on one end

which says just like do what's being

done and then you've got these like

first principle thinkers who kind of

think first about what they know to be

true and they're really good at

filtering out convention they can kind

of see throughout the truth whereas

convention like is safety it's Comfort

it's it guarantees you a pre-tried

blueprint so people follow that but then

these other little Rebels

they they have this almost inbuilt

ability to just like [ __ ] see through

to the that that truth that nobody can

see and in that case I mean that's a

great idea but even caring more about

the copy and you having your own belief

as to why the copy matted or the

photography like why photography really

really mattered on eBay yeah on eBay

which a lot of people would have had

like that's um and it was called Nasty

Gal the spirit of it was really

irreverent at the time the eBay sellers

were selling like you know is called

Mama Stone vintage was a really big one

and it was all very hippy dippy and

vintagey and mine was vintagey but it

was like very hard-hitting edgy

I named it after an album by a woman

named Betty Davis who had an album

called Nasty Gal she was

so stylish uh in the 70s put out some

incredible records was married to Miles

Davis for a short period

and was allegedly too wild for him

her lyrics are just so and I was

stripping her music when I was like 20

and then I was like cool nasty girl and

it cut through the noise and I think

when you start a business and you don't

need to survive you might have more time

to Naval gaze or you might do things

super conventionally

but when

you need to survive there are certain

things that other people have done right

that you can see you know accelerate

what it is that you may do on your own

but learn from them and then also take

and make your own way I think had I

tried to do things completely

differently than everybody else

I wouldn't I wouldn't have survived I

would have been dead in the water

speaking to something really interesting

there which is like this Balancing Act

between naivety which is great for

innovation and then convention which is

great for staying alive I'm talking

about like the the nasty girl needing a

CFO

yeah you see what I mean or like that's

what how I feel when being a young

founder 21 years old start this business

it grows incredibly quickly okay the

naivety made us interesting but our

naivety will also send us to the Grave

here if we're not yeah if we don't know

what we don't know I've been to Hell

I've been I died and now I'm in the

afterlife I it did send me to the Grave

my naivete and lack of experience did

send me to the Grave it happened so fast

that's a quote

um it was shocking how fast it all

happened nasty girl went from doing 150

000 a year to doing 150 000 a day and

then 150 000 over lunch

yeah 150 000 over lunch

it was either a day or over lunch that

we all worked out of this Warehouse it

was a bunch of kids in the East Bay

in Emeryville I had the 7 000 square

foot Warehouse which I thought was the

hugest thing and I was like when we hit

150 000 a day God was it a day it must

have been the holidays I was like I'm

gonna get a bounce house you know those

things that people jump on the

inflatable things the children that

children jump on it was an upside down

horse and its legs were in the air when

he jumped on it the legs like that's

what you wanted

and in between you know on our breaks we

got to jump in the bounce house I was

like

23 24 years old it did happen really

quickly to be fair now you say it when

we raised investment for the first time

the first thing I bought was a 13 000

pound slide

big blue slide which we had in our

office that was the first thing I bought

before we got desks so talking about

neither today I bought I paid off my

mom's mortgage oh did you okay I

couldn't do that with investor Capital

no it wasn't with investor Capital no it

was the first time I made money yeah my

slide was with investor one okay yeah no

no they actually those investors did

really well they got bought out within

six months so they got a big return but

good job yeah what do you attribute at

such a young age I'm just gonna

interview you for a second because you

couldn't have had a ton of experience

under leaders to give you a model of

what leadership looked like you were

naive

you know could you I couldn't empathize

with the people I was managing because I

had never experienced leadership and I

just showed up and I did what I I what

needed to happen and what I said I was

going to do I didn't understand that

people needed to be held accountable

because I held myself accountable

especially c-level Executives and

grown-ups whose careers were longer than

I had been alive like how did you do

that at such a young age well I think I

I think I messed up I think like for the

first two years I hired people that were

very very inexperienced I reflect and I

go I think I did that because I thought

they were easier to manage and I

couldn't fathom the concept that I could

hire someone who was two times my age

and three times my experience and Avid

want to come here and be with us with

that with our sliding dogs and tree and

basketball court and ball pool and they

would like take us seriously but also

like be like maybe there was an

insecurity about how I'd manage them and

so what ends up happening is you I hired

lots of like young people

you know a member of the BBC did an

article saying is this the youngest

company in Britain because I think we

were like somewhere but our average age

was maybe 20 or something and we had

like we had like 100 almost 100 people

you know and you feel the strain of that

you feel things breaking this is where

you go

convention is right about some things

processes HR Finance you feel things

breaking at the seams a little bit

because of the growth um and then at

some point an adult enters the room

and you go oh

I get this and so we hired some some

really really great people and the great

thing is great people hire great people

so we went from being this kind of very

lopsided inexperienced organization to

being a balanced one and I say balance

because it's my belief that to own the

future you have to understand the

present which is why you want to hire a

16 year old that gets Tick Tock or

whatever and you also need to hire

someone that's maybe

double their age experienced in client

services and understands the old rules

of the game if you understand both games

you can understand the game of the

future I think so

um made a lot of mistakes and when I

nearly went under several times and had

to call people and beg for money

um in the lead up to Payday but

somehow managed to survive but go back

to you now

um I feel that we missed a park because

you know you write the reception you

went from starting that store to

bouncing around on that bouncy castle

thing we call it bouncy castle okay

horse Castle between that between that

bouncing on that horse castle and the

starting the store

what happened

so

first year

just on eBay did 75 000 in Revenue I was

the only employee it was just you know

it was pure cash

all of the money just went back into the

business I didn't even know what

expensive things I would have wanted I

didn't I had never eaten an oyster you

know I was drinking like

Budweiser or you could still like

subsisting on Boston Market and like

Starbucks

so I didn't spend any of that money I

thought building a business and I think

for the most part it is

uh was

selling things for more than you bought

them for and not spending all the money

that's it

that's all and so I bought things I sold

them for more than I paid for them and

no one else would have given me money

parents weren't gonna give me money

I don't even think I had a credit card

at that age

I didn't understand what Venture Capital

was and I was living in the Bay Area

and had I not built the company to

eventually you know 28 million dollar

run rate super profitably I would never

have known

and so yeah year two left eBay about

halfway through and launched my own

website nastygalvintage.com

and did 250 000 in Revenue

the next year did 1.1 million the next

year did six and a half

the next year did 12 and I was coming

off a 12 million dollar a year uh

Revenue

owned 100 of the company

had a bunch of kids working for me

and that's when Venture capitalists came

in and at that point you know

we were selling non-vintage stuff what

really allowed the company to scale was

going to trade shows and showrooms and

curating from the market based on what I

had learned from my customer having sold

vintage to them so I knew them very very

well and that gave me the ability to

then go by greater breadth and depth in

things I knew they would love

and that's what 2011-12

Venture Capital comes in 2012 was when

index Ventures invested 60 million

dollars 60 million dollars on a 350

million dollar valuation on a business

with a 28 million run rate yeah you're

profitable at that time

significantly

pretty significantly I have a 10 or 20

nothing I don't know I don't know I

didn't even look at that I was I I never

had to learn to read a p l because my

company was profitable and I just

you know generally knew how much it cost

to run I didn't it and I and I didn't I

didn't buy expensive office chairs did

you did you know you like gross margins

on on your on the product yeah on the

operating margins no I don't I don't

think I didn't understand what operating

margin was

um pretty incredible that you can be

running a business that's generating has

a 28 million dollar a year run rate and

not know what operating margins you're

dealing with or what your net profit is

it's a luxury but it was also a

disadvantage once we plowed 60 million

dollars into the business and things got

a lot more complex and a lot less

profitable

you talk about the 60 million going into

nastygon in 2020 to 2012.

what did it break hmm

I mean we

no longer had to live within our means

that's what investor money does unless

you maintain profitability and keep that

money in the bank for you know another

time or pocket all of it as a founder

we you know I had hired a COO at that

time I had a top tier investor on my

board

and

very little like historicals data

financials

to base the future growth on but it had

been exploding just continue to be

exploding and with that Capital behind

us we could grow even faster

and the expectation was that the next

year we would grow from 28 million in

Revenue to 128 million dollars in

Revenue we just rounded up by 100

million and then we hired into that and

we bought into it

oh you believed it and everyone I had

grown-ups forecasting this stuff with me

I relied on them it's why I brought them

in you hired the right ones clearly I

didn't pick the right ones or I'm not

sure what happened but I remember

sitting in a room with them

and

us deciding I didn't push for it this

wasn't you know

we're gonna just grow by 100 million

dollars this year and

someone put a plan together and this is

we hired 100 people it was like the

Tower of Babel you know that story

you don't know it's like a biblical

story where

uh people are building this Tower or

something but they all speak different

languages and I I could be completely

wrong I don't think I am

but none of them get along or understand

one another and it was it was it's just

a mess trying to integrate 100 people

into a company in a year

especially a company with no processes

and no real intentional culture

that had been established

no real intentional anything other than

the brand

the spirit of the brand

what needed to be done it was it was

like a family business that just got

really big it was

I was a kid

how are you feeling in terms of at this

point in terms of what's going on around

you 60 million dollars has just come

into the bank account you're looking at

me thinking that's a big [ __ ] number

you're you know because you have a

valuation of 350

yeah I'm worth 280 million dollars on

paper at this point so that and wherever

you go they'll lead with that and remind

you of it and you'll be treated as such

even though it's paper and it's not

realism yeah it's in your bank account

how does that make you feel when you you

know then they put you in the front

cover of Forbes yeah how does that make

you feel

it was a blast

um I didn't do any of it to have Glory

or go on a Victory lap and I wound up

with it and I embraced it and I had a

lot of fun it distracted me

you know the book in 2014 turned into a

phenomenon

you know it was champagne clinks for

some Milestone with a company or new

hire

promotion any given time

I people would come up to me and say

congratulations and I had to ask which

thing they were congratulating me for

it was

it was just like oysters for everybody

finally you know I I got better taste in

wine I got better taste period thank God

but now I spend less money with a good

taste that I had to spend a lot of money

to acquire

a lot of my own

but did you feel

did you feel like it made sense

like the the image that's been that had

been built of you at the time that the

world is now like oh my god did it is

that what was going on inside I think it

made sense I think it was a freak Show I

was a Community College Dropout who

bootstrapped a business to 28 million

dollars in Revenue super profitably

you know investors came out of the

woodwork you know top tier ones anointed

me as

someone who could pull it off and I

didn't know what I was signing up for or

what I was supposed to pull off but

it it was considered a rags to riches

story and imposter syndrome

any of that for sure yeah I mean I still

walk in rooms and I'm here I was

talking to your team and I was like oh

my gosh you guys have really big people

I hope I can keep up I say like a lot

I'm intimidated I hope I can provide

some value what are the comments on

YouTube gonna say is this going to be a

valuable conversation I really hope

people like it

you know and she was like what you

wouldn't be here if that wasn't the case

what what are you talking about you're

great

but I get nervous right

um I get nervous on stages

and I'm still like you know I don't I

don't belong here but I don't belong

here is also a really great motivator

the I don't belong here is I snuck in

the back door

I don't belong here means

I can do things differently I don't

belong here means I don't fit in

but that's going to be a superpower and

I think it's okay to feel like an

outsider

or an imposter sometimes because you

find yourself in places where

you learn you have an outside

perspective and are able to learn things

unlike the people who are invited to the

table who all showed up there with the

same pedigree

and then you get to make

oblique connections

between who you are where you came from

and then the door the room that you just

snuck into as an imposter and that is

radical

would you remove that self-doubting

voice if I put a button in front of you

and said you press this you'll never

doubt yourself again no

that's so boring I had a coach recently

and he was lovely

waited five sessions it was like five

thousand dollars a month and I was like

taxes

I'll buy something else to save on taxes

and

he was like can you imagine he asked me

that word or he asked me that question

and I was like

but

what would I struggle with what who

would I be if I didn't have challenges

and I was happy all the time it's like

the scaffolding would fall apart or

something

that's a story I tell myself

but it's fun to have a

dark Counterpoint

to hold yourself accountable and be like

maybe it is that or not that

and I think that Counterpoint is an

opportunity to gain self-awareness

do you think it's additive to your

performance or reductive

I think it can slow me down and I can

make really

slow

decisions because I doubt myself

but

beyond that

I think I've found a way to harness it

that really works for me

have you developed like a decision

making framework to help you navigate

the two voices in your head it's funny

because when you're describing your

mother and your father it felt like

those were the two voices your mother

would seem to be very supportive your

dad somewhat critical at times or

pessimistic

um have you found a way of being able to

juggle those voices

um

so that you can make decisions

decisively and quickly

no no no

so I can I can have these conversations

and when I you know when I do make a

decision I've learned to be slower with

making decisions because I either make

them extremely quickly or

slowly on accident and so I want to be

very deliberate in the decisions that I

make now and think more critically

rather than you know Naval gaze or

be reactive to something I went to this

uh Retreat even though it's not really a

luxury experience with 30 other people

called the Hoffman process

and it's seven days with no phone no

Internet no books no music you're with

30 other people and you're going through

this process of mapping your patterns

from your childhood against your parents

and how how you inherited that and it's

all directly correlated and basically

graduating from your your

emotional child into an emotional adult

super embarrassing weird process like so

dorky and everybody came with something

different to work on or what emerged for

them you know I I feel unloved I feel

unlovable

I don't feel unlovable

my thing and it sounds really weak was

like I don't trust myself

I don't think I'm deceiving myself but I

think I can rationalize a lot of things

to the point where I'll tolerate them

too long

um and that's gone for relationships

that went from my most recent

relationship

um and so that's a strange thing I don't

trust myself because I do have these

voices it sounds I don't have voices in

my head

but I can see things from any

perspective and not be totally attached

to either one to the point of

being slow and asking for too much

advice

in that Retreat did you did you have to

sort of like go upstream and figure out

where that belief started is that the

point of that Retreat did you figure it

out did you go Upstream what a good

question

you're very good at this oh thank you

yeah I think it was that my parents

didn't agree

on how to raise me that I felt

misunderstood that my good intentions

were sometimes construed as

troublemaking that the fact that I

didn't fit into the environment I was

raised in

I was I was not accepted and I was some

kind of weird deviant when I was just

being myself and felt punished for being

myself and I think that

gave me like a lack of confidence or

something and I don't identify with

being an unconfident person but when it

comes to decision making when everyone

around you is telling you something a

different story about yourself than you

have

and doesn't understand why you operate

the way you do that is really with

integrity and in line with who I was and

what I needed to be successful as a

child if other people like live in a

different world and don't understand

that those are your needs you just feel

wildly alone and think wow I am a freak

and that

found its way into my career through the

public too which has been super fun

being told I'm something

that I'm

mostly not

what have you been told you are oh gosh

um

so nasty y'all fell apart after 10 years

it was it was a quick rise and it was it

was it was a it was a slow rise and it

was a relatively quick fall couple of

years in the making

and when it did fall the headlines were

crazy because I had all this press from

this book I published and being the

poster child of Entrepreneurship going

on the victory lab National Enquirer

said had you know picture of me and it

said Rags to Riches like straight up

tabloid American Dream stuff like a

caricature

and I didn't realize the amount of

responsibility I had to like other

people as an example like I kind of did

but as some symbol for entrepreneurship

for my generation you know generation of

the entrepreneurs coming up behind me or

at least

what the Press thought I was responsible

for

the you know there were headlines like

does the failure of nasty yell mean

Millennials aren't ready to lead

it's like wait how is one example

representative of a generation

and I've also read headlines like when

the Netflix series came out

the worst thing about Netflix's girl

boss is its source material

not even the show just me

but I'm not bad I don't believe I don't

believe it

how does that make you feel at the time

though

by the time that Netflix series came out

I had been this hero as an entrepreneur

then I was this girl boss because I

wrote a

book called girl boss and it was pink

and I was like this and I looked like I

knew it was up but it was like 27 and

then there was the me whose company fell

apart the CEO there was the girl boss

who had built a

toxic culture

or just no intentional culture at our

all that like warped into something that

wasn't perfect but wasn't I still don't

think it was the worst

and

now this person this conflation of all

of those things

with this girl on the scripted comedy

which came out four months after I left

Nasty Gal so the biggest kind of

personality or whatever identity crisis

was

you know I'm on the cover of Forbes in

June I think of 2016 July of 2016 my

husband of like a Year's like man I

changed my mind and I'm like oh my God

that wedding was so expensive it was

devastating but I'm just like God that

wedding was so expensive it was a great

party

so in that space of like 12 months

you're on Forbes husband leaves Netflix

comes out nasty girl goes under nasty

girl goes under then Netflix comes out

so the show had been shot when things

are all like up and to the right and you

know we were working through challenges

there had been some layoffs but the

company was still you know 100 million

dollars a year

you know not profitable anymore but a

great brand and something that was

valuable and

eventually

um yeah like fell apart and that the con

there was really a conflation of the the

hero the failure and now this girl four

months later

who's a a caricature of a person I was

when I was 22 in a scripted comedy

playing someone named Sophia starting an

eBay store called Nasty Gal

when for the first time

in 10 years in my adult life since I was

22 years old I am no longer associated

with the thing that I had built and now

there are 130 million homes in 195

countries watching a story of someone

that I

was no longer and no longer had trying

to move on and to move on when there's a

full PR campaign about who you used to

be

you're someone who's as you said you've

had a long history with mental health

challenges

what is it like in like in that 12-month

period what's going on from a mental

health perspective

I had fallen in love again

I think it was still like traveling I

started another company

I maintain my mental health partially

because I keep going

you know I don't stop and like lick my

wounds I think I was also I was also on

antidepressants I wasn't

jumping for joy but I also knew that

there was a huge community that still

supported me who had read my book 500

000 women who bought it

and I went on to start a company called

girl boss

right as the Netflix series was hitting

put on our first conference

and I had my podcast and I moved on

quickly and even though the headlines

weren't nice

the people who followed me my friends my

relationships everybody in my network

nobody bailed

like the girls who were inspired by girl

boss were refreshed that I had face

planted publicly because everyone else

is face planting in private

and in the same way that watching some

random Community College Dropout from

Sacramento start a business with an

internet connection

and a computer gave them license

to you know yes they were inspired but

also

Embrace their own failures because the

hero

face planted

publicly

and that can also inspire people

this is hopefully the most cliche

question I ask but

um I wanna I wanna know because you have

a from your from that experience you

have amazing feedback you have amazing

Insight invaluable Insight I would say

because when I think about the things

obviously they've taught me the most

it's not it's not when things go right

that's a validation of your hypothesis

it's when things go tragically wrong and

you go oh okay [ __ ] you have all of this

new information about which is corrected

your hypothesis so when you if we go

back and think about that fundraise for

example

um a lot of people will hear that you

raise the company raise investment at

350 million and think

amazing that's when people clap right

they get the champagne out oysters

for people listening that aren't in

business they might not understand how

that can also be a key reason why the

company ultimately went under

the 350 million why why did our big

valuation hurt yeah

yeah I think the 350 million dollar

evaluation is celebrated as it was and

how wealthy I was on paper

um was the was the nail in the coffin I

think it was it was then in 2012 where

we were overvalued and the expectations

that was was that the next round of

fundraising that we do is at a over a

billion dollar valuation and so the

company's doing

you know on an upswing 228 million

dollars in Revenue that's like over 10

times revenue and it's a fashion

business this isn't a technology

business this isn't Uber this isn't an

infinitely scalable Marketplace it's

e-commerce it was a different era of

e-commerce it was pretty early it was

the era of fab.com which like imploded

and won King's Lane in beechment in

ShoeDazzle there was no Playbook there

were no Ecom veterans or

you know Performance Marketing people

who had been in those jobs for even very

long I was hiring Executives who had

worked at like Macy's right

um nobody had like econ it wasn't called

direct to Consumer at the time it was

very very different there's no Shopify

and

we were overvalued and I didn't know

that I didn't even negotiate you know

hardly negotiate I didn't shop a term

sheet around and say I'm gonna pick the

highest price from different investors I

only had one term sheet and I was like

great I like you index finishes I was

like you're awesome you can I you get it

you know what Danny said when he

invested

uh was something none of the other

potential investors said and that was

you have a community and I was like yeah

we do have a community

but when you have that much money

you don't know there's been a nail in

the coffin or that there's a coffin and

that like you might be on your way into

it or maybe already laying in it but

just several years in the future

and

when things are up and to the right

you don't see what's lurking kind of

below the surface so when the tide

lowers

right you see the mud you see weird crab

shells sometimes hopefully not you see

trash

and it's only when things recede that

you see the mud that's underneath and

when you're on a Victory lap and you're

hitting milestones

everything's great and everybody loves

their jobs and you're a hero and as soon

as things

Go a different way as soon as there's

layoffs yeah there are things kind of

there are things there are things

lurking below the surface that were

dynamics that were already happening

that

because everything was going so well

you know we're harder to notice and

you know it's hard to be a CEO

it's hard to be a founder

I think something a lot of people don't

realize is that you only know 10 of

what's happening in your organization

right hundreds of employees and

ultimately everything was my

responsibility

but I am held accountable for 100 of

what's Happening

and when something goes wrong or