00:47:13 · David Senra, Nikesh Arora
[00:47:13] S0: Yeah. So my point is like, you've got to be waking up every day hearing more crazy shit. It's only going to get crazy in the future. And you seem to not allow yourself to be stressed by it, which from the outside, it seems like this would be the most intense stressful part of your entire career. Why am I wrong about that? [00:47:29] S1: But I can't do anything about it. And we all have to go figure this out. You gotta fix it. But stressing is not gonna change the outcome. The outcome is gonna be changed by us getting on and getting something to do with it. We all discovered this morning, I found out about it yesterday in the morning. Our teams went in and looked at everything we have to make sure we don't have the vulnerability. We found it, we blocked it, we found the patches, we patched ourselves. It's how do we go protect our customers? Team worked overnight, built a patch. When it came out this morning, they announced their patch, we announced our patch. We put it out in the public domain, we're getting on the phone to any customer who has a problem. We solve it. [00:48:06] S0: So how do you describe this philosophy though? [00:48:10] S1: I'm just saying wake up every morning, do the best you can to the best of your ability, leave no stone unturned and then let fate do the rest. [00:48:17] S0: Is this real? Yeah. Okay. When are you the most stressed or anxious in your life?
00:48:24 · Nikesh Arora
[00:48:24] S1: I was the most anxious in my life and I had to give a speech at my daughter's wedding. Is this the daughter that just started the fund? Yeah. This is the daughter who got married in February in India. What's her name? Ayesha. Congratulations. She used to work in marketing in Brex and... Wait. She used to work in marketing for Brex? Yes. Kids don't take advice from parents for the most part. But I'm blessed that once in a while, she'd listen to something and she'd go process it differently. And I said to her, I said, you know what excites you? She said, dad, you know, it's exciting when marketing doesn't seem to be the most important function in the company. So I'm working in marketing, what should I be thinking about? Said, look, if you look around here in Silicon Valley, the most exciting job that people get to talk to founders, people get to understand what to do, get excited about business. If you're excited about business, you gotta think about venture capital. So she thought about it. She did her own research, figured out that she's gonna go work. And she worked with Bill Maher at section thirty two and then she's getting married this year. And she's like, I think I should start my own fund. I said, that sounds like a great idea. You should. So she's been through the motions. She's done a lot of research, figured it out. And she started going on thinking who would be people who'd invest in her. And she said, will you be my adviser? Now this is the best thing a father can get. And she calls me once or twice a day. We talk about companies, we talk about what she's thinking about. It's a blessing, it's great. That's beautiful, man.
00:49:41 · David Senra, Nikesh Arora
[00:49:41] S0: When you think about your own childhood, your... This innate drive that you had to achieve, largely internal, I would imagine, did you get a lot of pressure from your parents? [00:49:51] S1: No. My parents didn't tell me what to do. I used to come home from school doing my homework. My mom would be happy that I did it. She'd be chasing my sister around trying to get her to find out what homework she had. I got my shit done. My dad didn't know how I got into university. He didn't know how I got into business school in The US. I just went to him and said, I need $2,000. He's like, I don't have that. He said, can I give me 200? He's like, yeah. I'll take 200. I took 200 and showed up here. Then he sent me 2,000 afterwards to pay part of my tuition and that was it. [00:50:21] S0: You don't put any pressure on your kids? No. Like, how different are are you as a parent than your parents were to you?
00:50:21 · David Senra, Nikesh Arora
[00:50:21] S0: You don't put any pressure on your kids? No. Like, how different are are you as a parent than your parents were to you? [00:50:30] S1: That that was a different era. At that point in time, parenting was different, parenting is different now. Parenting in India is different, parenting in The US is different. So, you know, you obviously have all those differences that come into play. I have two younger kids who are 11 and 10. So more involved in their lives than I was with my 29 year old. Why? More time. I consciously try and take out time and I'm sure my kids will say it's never enough and my wife will say it's not enough, but I try and take out time as much as I can. So it's different. No, I don't believe in putting pressure on my kids. The kids have to be able to express themselves and do what they believe is best. Look, have seen some bizarre thing. I don't know how many people have been born since humanity started. Must be in the tens of billions, right? [00:51:10] S0: No, I think we read about this a long time ago, it like over 100,000,000,000.
00:51:10 · David Senra, Nikesh Arora
[00:51:10] S0: No, I think we read about this a long time ago, it like over 100,000,000,000. [00:51:14] S1: Okay, 100,000,000,000 people are It's a well known problem. Every kid has a parent by definition. And even now we struggle with parenting as a problem because there's probably so many variants of parenting that most people can get it wrong. So I just want my kids to be happy in their lives. If they're happy, my mission is accomplished because I've seen so many scenarios where kids are not happy and it's not clear where things go wrong. It's not clear from parenting perspective or it's in the DNA, it's in circumstances. So I just wanna make sure my kids are healthy, happy, and balanced. If I can achieve that, can do whatever they want. [00:51:48] S0: I love the framing you just put on there. It's like everybody's had a parent. Parenting is a known thing. It's been around and we still don't have it figured out. [00:51:55] S1: No. You show me where's the ultimate guide to parenting. [00:51:58] S0: I'm particularly interested in this because most of biographies I read, obviously the person usually starts out, there's some people that are born into wealthy families and they wind up achieving a lot. Obviously most of humanity is not wealthy, therefore, like most of the people you're going to read about weren't. And there is something that they almost universally struggle with, which is basically, I was the son of a poor man. Now my kids are the son of
00:52:17 · Nikesh Arora
[00:52:17] S1: a rich man. What do I do about this? Nothing. You created a distinction by yourself. When you were the son of a poor man, there was somebody way poorer than you. And from their vantage point, you were the son of a rich man. I think we all get born into a circumstance. I think it's very dangerous to take that circumstance and keep reminding your children, remember, I was poor, you should be grateful. That's what happens, right? Especially for people who are very poor, not very, who are poor relative to where they are today. They feel this notion where they have to keep reminding the kids, well, it wasn't like this when we were born. We used to do this and we used to do that. Dude, get over it. They're born in this. Figure out a way that they can enjoy this and make sure that they learn how to yearn for more, how to go have drive, how to go get achievement. Right? You gotta be careful. So I think you have to be blessed if you can find a way that your kids want to achieve. They wanna build. They wanna make things happen on their own, and they just don't take their circumstances for granted. That's the hardest part in parenting is to make sure that your kids have drive, your kids have ambition, your kids wanna achieve. My son is obsessed with basketball. Great. Go for it. Let him follow his passion. My daughter wants to be a gymnast. He's got tremendous work ethic. She's great. He's extremely friendly. He likes people. He likes to hang around people. He knows a lot about what he wants to know. That's great. If my kids can have passion, they can go chase their passion. They can show ambition and drive. I don't care if he becomes a basketball player, a basketball commentator, as long as he wakes up every morning and is happy and felt that he gave it his best.