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Laura Kornhauser – The gift of a family business, calculated risk-taking, and the importance of finding your people | Episode 24
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Welcome to episode nineteen of Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief! Joining me today is Laura Kornhauser, CEO of Stratyfy. On this show, I’m unpacking the stories, decisions, and influences that make people successful leaders.
Although it may have started by accident, Laura’s parents launched and ran their own company for years, eventually achieving a successful financial exit. That environment was a proving ground for many of the values Laura would take into her career her own startup.
My name is Nathan Baumeister; I am the Co-founder of ZSuite Tech and the host of this podcast.
While earning her undergraduate degree from Princeton, Laura wrote a senior thesis that correctly predicted the housing bubble and crash of 2007/2008. Rather than dwell on any missed opportunity Laura decided to dive headfirst into investment banking and spent more than a decade at JPMorgan in their derivatives division.
Faced with a challenge to her core value of caring for her co-workers as family, Laura quit JPMorgan, and decided to get her MBA. Eventually she would decide to found Stratyfy with a classmate and tackle the challenge of fundraising while pregnant.
As CEO of Stratyfy, Laura brings an immense depth of experience and competencies to her work, in addition to a deeply empathic approach to work and leadership. Stratyfy is a company where people can do meaningful work without sacrificing what’s most important.
What’s clear is that Laura’s success is not a function of her ability to mask and cater to other people’s expectations. It is a vibrant expression of her uniqueness and drive to capture the excitement and joy that life holds. This episode will give you a tiny glimpse into her world — but that glimpse feels like a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day.
Resources:
Laura’s book recommendation:
When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter
Connect:
Recommended
Transcript
The Executive Director's Existential Realization
00:00:00
Speaker
So I was ah an executive director kind of getting ready for that next level. And I remember thinking about how sad it was to the concept that I would have to be a different person at work than the person that I was. And then I started doing the math on the hours one spends at work, especially in the job that I was in. And it's a lot and it's more than the hours you spend awake, not at work.
00:00:25
Speaker
So I had a big existential, sorry, I don't know, discovery. It wasn't a crisis of like, do I want to spend all my work time being fundamentally kind of like a different person than I am?
00:00:40
Speaker
And I didn't want to do that. So I tried to figure out, okay, what the heck do I do now?
Introduction to Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief
00:00:53
Speaker
Hi, my name is Nathan Baumeister, and you're listening to Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief, a podcast where executives from the world of finance and technology share the story of how they got where they are and the decisions that made them who they are.
00:01:07
Speaker
I'm looking for hidden moments of truth and sacrifice, wisdom and folly, and what it's like to navigate the treacherous waters at the helm of a growing company. I want to do all that so that together we can learn from their journey and use that insight personally and professionally.
Laura Kornhauser's Background and Family Influence
00:01:24
Speaker
In episode 24, my guest is Laura Kornhauser, co-founder and CEO of Stratify, a fintech company that is increasing financial inclusion for consumers and mitigating risk for financial institutions through their AI-driven decisioning platform.
00:01:39
Speaker
As the daughter of a software engineer mother and an accidental academic father turned accidental entrepreneur, Laura grew up watching her parents build a company together.
00:01:50
Speaker
The business was woven into their home life with employees becoming members of an extended family. Not only did that business provide Laura with several of her first jobs, it also gave her a map for the type of company culture that she would create at Stratify.
Career Path and Academic Journey
00:02:06
Speaker
After getting her degree at Princeton, where her father also worked as a professor, Laura spent more than a decade at J.P. Morgan working in investment banking and derivatives. After a crisis of personal principle led her to resign, Laura went on to earn her MBA from Columbia.
00:02:23
Speaker
Between her upbringing, academics, and professional career, the idea that Laura would start her own company does not seem far-fetched.
Facing Doubts While Seeking VC Funding
00:02:31
Speaker
But when she hit the VC circuit looking to fund her new venture while also pregnant with her first child, the response left her questioning her own qualifications.
00:02:40
Speaker
Fortunately, Laura has never lacked determination or self-confidence, refusing to make her personality or opinions just to fit in or placate corporate biases. Today, she is leading a company that is taking that same principle into financial decision-making, eliminating bias and mitigating risk.
00:02:57
Speaker
But just as importantly, creating a company culture where people can feel safe and accepted for who they are without risking their careers.
Entrepreneurial Journey and Family Business Lessons
00:03:05
Speaker
I had so much fun with Laura and I can't wait for you to hear our conversation on episode 24 of Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief.
00:03:14
Speaker
This is a joyful romp through the ins and outs of family business, risk taking, and the courage to be yourself in the face of immense opposition. right. Well, Laura, thank you so much for joining us on Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief.
00:03:33
Speaker
So happy to be here, Nathan. Yeah, I've been a longtime fan. i have just absolutely loved getting to know you over the years as we're building our companies together. And I can't wait for our listeners to be able to learn from you and your story.
00:03:49
Speaker
Oh, that's very kind of you. The feeling is extraordinarily mutual, and I'm super happy to be here today. Awesome. So I always love to start from the beginning, Laura. Yeah, way back when. as we take it back, yeah, way back when, in the beginning...
00:04:06
Speaker
How is it that you growing up helped to shape you into the entrepreneur that you are? Because let's be honest, we're all a little crazy. little bit. Starting companies, running companies.
00:04:18
Speaker
Something happened in your youth that said, yeah, you know what? I could do this. What was that? That moment of craziness that sparked. ah for For me, it was it was a long moment. um My parents are entrepreneurs. So my parents started a company, ah not necessarily purposefully,
00:04:36
Speaker
Um, my dad was a professor and he, uh, was working really late one night and quite literally the phone rang in the department that he worked in and he picked up the phone and it was someone calling to try to get consultant help.
00:04:49
Speaker
Um, it was actually, he's a transportation guy. it was a railroad company. it was the early eighties. All the railroad companies were merging and they were trying to figure out what to do with their rail lines.
Challenges of Family and Business Professionalism
00:05:01
Speaker
And basically how to take the existing called hardware that they had and the routes that they had and make it into something um that kind of made sense in the new company.
00:05:11
Speaker
So he started taking that consulting work that then grew into a business. My mom then left her job at the time. She was an engineer as she loves to call it, a programmer, which is the, you know, what they called it back in the day. She was a programmer. yep um And she came over to work with him and my dad's very much the big ideas guy um and the vision guy and my mom's the actually get shit done.
00:05:37
Speaker
Pardon my French person. um yeah So they were a really great pair and I saw them, you know, work and build the company over the course of 30 years before they eventually sold it to a strategic. um And that, you know, they those were my first, second, third, fourth, fifth jobs growing up, starting from answering the phones when I was in high school.
00:05:58
Speaker
which I actually really loved. Great job answering phones. You get really great at talking to people on the phone.
Education and Multitasking Skills
00:06:04
Speaker
and Answering the phones when I was in high school up to when I was in college, you know, network editing um with my dad, typically like late nights at the office.
00:06:15
Speaker
um And I really loved what they built as far as a culture within their community, within their company. Most of the people worked there for a long time.
00:06:28
Speaker
Um, they were family members to me, you know, came over for, came over for dinners, came over for our Seder, like our Passover Seder was always like a smorgasbord of the people that didn't, you know, have things to do.
00:06:42
Speaker
um you know, stayed with us in between apartments, like all these kinds of things. So it was very much a a family. um and I always really admired that. And I think had like deep within myself, a desire to to go do what they had done and build something like what they had built from a cultural standpoint.
Senior Thesis and Lack of Confidence
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. What an awesome hands-on education that you were able to get from your parents. I do ask the follow-up questions because it's just like what all that you just shared, there's just like chock full of so many different lessons. The first one is that typically when someone chooses the route of academia. Yeah.
00:07:19
Speaker
They are very opposite of risk takers. Yeah. So I'm just, I'm just curious, like what was your dad just not like, like, was he not like the typical academia that he's like, oh man, yeah, let's jump in and do this. My dad is not typical. Any, I mean, for those that my dad's name Alan's for those that know Alan Kornhauser, he is not, he is a, they do not forget him. Um, he is,
00:07:46
Speaker
not typical in any way, shape or form. He's now been a professor, a for over 50 years. um he's still I still will have people, random people will come up to me at events or whatever wherever we are. And because obviously my last name is reasonably recognizable, I will get these, I can't tell you, like out of the blue, wait, do you know Alan?
00:08:09
Speaker
um And it's someone, yeah, someone that took his class, you know, 20 years ago or whatever and still remembers him.
Investment Banking Experience
00:08:16
Speaker
He's a um very energetic, vivacious guy who I would say was a like, unintended academic okay um, unintended academic, unintended academic. Uh, I, my mom actually had a lot to do with that. They met in college.
00:08:35
Speaker
I don't think at the time they met, he will admit that he was not studying super hard or well. My mom got him up to snuff, no surprise. um and She's the implementer. Yeah, she's the you know GSD person ah in i ah every way, shape, and form. um And so you know I think that that got him a little bit more into academics. And then he went for post-grad work. And you know he was really into aerospace because when they were you know back back at that time, it was really exciting, all the space stuff that was going on.
00:09:10
Speaker
Remember, I used to make fun of my parents back in the day when I was in high school. i'd be like, did you go to Woodstock? And they'd be like, no, we went to the space shuttle launch. I was like, you dorks. Now I'm like, I kind of get it.
00:09:22
Speaker
and Like, I kind of want to go to some space launches. Yeah, exactly. like Yeah. Wow. That is, that is awesome. The, the, the one thing that it sounds like a very strong common thread before, but between both of them is the level of curiosity. Oh yeah. Like always learning, like still in their eighties, like there's still more to learn. There's more to do. There's more to see, like, let's go, let's go. Curiosity and work ethic, like work ethic.
00:09:48
Speaker
Um, they both, you know, came from humble beginnings and, you know, um did everything that they yeah got every single dollar for themselves and um very much instilled a, I think a really good work ethic in me and my siblings because of that.
00:10:08
Speaker
Cause we saw it firsthand. I mean, that's what they always say about
Decision to Pursue an MBA
00:10:11
Speaker
parenting, right? Like you can tell your kids things all all the time. All you want is about what you show them. And they showed us that throughout our entire lives, um you know, throughout our entire lives.
00:10:22
Speaker
I almost wish that they sometimes worked a little less. Maybe just a little less. For them. For them. I mean, we didn't want, you know, we got to do all the fun stuff. But for them, I wish they, you know, took a few more vacations and worked a little less sometimes.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, something that's, you know, there's multiple ways to learn from someone what what to do and what do you would suggest maybe not to emulate. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, I i think that that's one thing that's that I am so grateful for. in general, just the age we live in and also COVID is that, uh, you know, my, my parents used to have to go physically back into the office at night when they needed to work at night.
00:11:01
Speaker
Now, if I have to get something done, you know, just go to my computer. Um, yeah and it, and it makes it so much easier a logistically and like B it's just easy. I have little kids.
00:11:14
Speaker
I feel like it's nice for them. Even if they're sleeping to know that, like, we're not running out of the house
Resignation and Career Alignment
00:11:19
Speaker
to go somewhere. Yeah. um So I feel so grateful for that. Yeah. all right. I'm going to throw a complex question at you. Ooh, I can't wait. But then it's going to be a little bit of choose your own adventure. Cause yeah, I just, I'd love to go in your own adventure.
00:11:34
Speaker
Wrapped in your story of growing up, and you said it was for a long time, like even through college, you were working there. ah You have this dynamic of a husband and wife working together in a business and not just a husband and wife, also the kids.
00:11:49
Speaker
So lots of times that doesn't work at all, but somehow it worked. um There's this idea of, you know, balance.
00:12:00
Speaker
right? Or integration. People call it like work-life balance or work-life integration, you know, however you want to you want to talk about it. But like, everyone's in the business, but you're also a family. How do you actually balance that?
00:12:13
Speaker
And then the third one, which is tied to it, is You learned that treating the team members at the company like family was super important.
00:12:24
Speaker
But you also, like when you're running a business, you also need to like be profitable and you need to, you have certain performance expectations of folks. So is it really a family? Because like you can't, you can't fire your uncle.
00:12:39
Speaker
but you can fire but you can fire an employee, right? And so we yeah it's all wrapped up into one in this question. The reason I wrapped it up into one is because it all has to do with this like family, business, personal, caring, like, yeah.
00:12:57
Speaker
Where are the borders? Where are the borders? Where are the cuts? I'd just love to hear wherever you want to go with this question. It's messy. So yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's messy. Okay. So I'll start with the kind of personal part of it and then I'll go to what I think about it in regards to stratify. So on the personal part, my parents are no longer married.
00:13:18
Speaker
My parents got divorced slowly, shortly after selling the company. Um, and
Introspection and Leadership
00:13:23
Speaker
is that the reason? No. Is it a contributing factor?
00:13:28
Speaker
Probably, you know, probably, um Working with anybody is really hard and they were effectively co-founders together. And, you know, for all the reasons that, you know, VCs have kind of sayings they say about we never invest in a married couple, you know, there are there are things that are harder about that.
00:13:49
Speaker
And while I feel really lucky and I feel that I benefited from the fact that they are very different individuals, you know, over the longterm, sometimes opposites don't always attract.
00:14:03
Speaker
Right. um So for me, I feel like I got the benefit of having two parents that yeah are both so fantastic, but are so different. um And, you know, that made the smorgasbord that is Laura. um But, you know, for them making, making a marriage work through, you know, the normal like ups and downs of life, it it got too hard. So I've,
00:14:26
Speaker
I think it's sad that that's the way it ended up for them. I wish that wasn't the way it ended up for them. um I wish there was a, kind of more happily ever after for them after they sold the business.
00:14:39
Speaker
Partnerships in business and love can be hard. Which isn't to say that you shouldn't mix them. Clearly, Laura's parents had a lot of beneficial synergy and reached a successful exit for their company.
00:14:49
Speaker
The work of building a company, raising a family, and cultivating a marriage are some of the hardest jobs anyone can undertake, even when skills, mission, and values align.
00:15:01
Speaker
Relationships aren't science.
Founding Stratify and Overcoming VC Rejection
00:15:02
Speaker
And despite our desire to reduce business to numbers, it's not that simple either. We are human beings tackling human problems. We can't control the outcome, only our effort.
00:15:13
Speaker
As far as the family, have two older sisters or older siblings, one sister, one brother. My sister was involved in the business a little bit, but my brother was most involved in the business. So my brother started working there a few hours.
00:15:24
Speaker
Years after he graduated college, he actually went over with another colleague to Europe to start their European business. So he had kind of his own thing, if you will, to run. And he absolutely crushed it. i mean, like absolutely dominated it.
00:15:40
Speaker
um And that I think was really important. I think if he had been not with his own, call it thing to own and run, the clash with parents, all that sense would have been probably really, really hard.
00:15:56
Speaker
Um, yeah but because he had this kind of segregated thing, um it worked. Okay. You know, there were still hard parts, um, and so you know, still, uh, challenging moments. Um,
00:16:09
Speaker
Because, you know, there is with any job, with any job, right, with any job, let alone with any job that involves family. Right. They're going to be challenging moments. um But it was able to work because, again, he had this kind of piece to own.
00:16:21
Speaker
For me, i was just like happy to be there. You know, so for me, it was never really challenging because it was never their business was never part of my, quote unquote, career. You know, if that makes sense.
00:16:34
Speaker
Um, yeah, it was just a way to learn. It was a way to learn stuff. It was cool. Like, you know, i was spending a lot of time there anyway, because my parents were there all the time and I was third kid, you know? So, um, it was a way for me to get involved. And I was always that kind of person, you know, the first way i gotten like, you know, I loved like going around the office to do things, right? Like we would have office barbecues at my house. And when I was like,
00:17:00
Speaker
four years old, my parents loved telling the story about how I was trying to organize everybody to do like ah a game and a competition and a, but you know, like, so I liked being involved in it. And so for me, it was all positive.
00:17:12
Speaker
um But it was because, again, I had like a good amount of separation from my my own career. For Stratify, it's hard. It's hard when you like really care about people um And you feel like you hire really wonderful people, which we have been really fortunate to be able
Managing Entrepreneurship Highs and Lows
00:17:31
Speaker
to do. like our team is our ah greatest strength, right? um Greatest asset.
00:17:37
Speaker
No question of that. um And so I care very deeply about everybody that works at the company today. And I care very deeply about everybody that worked at the company yesterday and doesn't work at the company today, whether they you know they left for whatever reason. and I always try to think about the classic, like bad egg can spoil the bunch and that, you know, if we have someone that needs to go, um they need to go because they could, they could, you know, they could tamper the rest of this great thing that we have going on. And it's not fair to everybody else to keep people that, you know, uh, cause I have,
00:18:16
Speaker
whatever, because I care about them because I don't want to let them go, whatever it may be. So I try to take that mentality, but it's really hard. Like, I would say it's one of the hardest things for me personally about the job um is that I always want to kind of like find the good, find the way that we could, you know, help make it work. I'm a make it work person. And sometimes yeah you have to not be a make it work person when you're running a business.
00:18:41
Speaker
Sometimes the way to make it work is to tell them you know ask them to leave. a Very good point. Like, is to look at the macro, make it work, not the micro, make it work, right?
00:18:52
Speaker
um But it's I struggle with it. It's hard. It's hard. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. i I totally agree with you. It is absolutely the worst part of running a company. It's the worst part.
00:19:04
Speaker
It's the worst part.
Importance of Community and Connections
00:19:07
Speaker
But a really important part. but a really important part too. um And, you know, I i think i'm I'm a very loyal person. Loyalty is very important to me. I feel very loyal towards the people that you know, have either worked at our company or helped our company and, and um that will never go away.
00:19:31
Speaker
but i I really feel oftentimes, especially if you have to let someone go like if you do it in the right way, it's ultimately better for that person too. yeah And I know that's a little like kumbaya-y, but I do actually believe it.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, one of the the the nice things with years of experience is you can actually look back so at you know specific people where that actually became true. 100%. Which is, which is really nice, right? it It gives some peace. I think when you're early on in your career yeah and you haven't had that lived experience of seeing that when you, when you let someone go, it actually, and most of the time ends up better for both parties. It's like, well, right now I'm not feeling that yeah right now. I'm just scared.
00:20:16
Speaker
And worried. Right. And, and especially now it's kind of a weird environment out there. And, um, you know, people it's, It's the toughest part of the job.
Education's Role in Career Preparation
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So you had this fabulous hands-on education, yeah watching your parents grow the successful company, and you decided still to go ahead and follow the traditional education path, right? yeah So you you went to college. Where did you go and what did you study?
00:20:45
Speaker
I went to Princeton a University, and I studied, longest major of all time, operations research and financial engineering. Nice. Say that five times fast. Called Orphe.
00:20:58
Speaker
Orphe. Orphe? What? Yeah, I know. its kind of like it's kind of like a weird space alien. Orphe. Yeah. ah the does Does Orphe eat cats like Alf? I hope not.
00:21:09
Speaker
I know. I think of Alf a lot. No, I mean, it was a great major because it was it was engineering, but very much tied into finance. So I minored in finance and engineering management systems.
00:21:23
Speaker
whatever that means. ah And it was a very, you know, it was a very practical engineering degree. um Yeah. You know, we did a lot of um modeling and simulations for, you know, stochastic processes and other unpredictable things. And like that ends up being, I think a very, ended up being very relevant to the work i ended up doing, even though i didn't necessarily know that that was going to happen.
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah.
Transition from Banking to Stratify
00:21:53
Speaker
So um ah as you were going through Princeton yeah and, ah you know, I don't know, studying Orphe, is that how you say is that how you say that? Studying Orphe? Sure.
00:22:05
Speaker
Being an Orpher-er. do you Do you have, like, what are now with the gift of hindsight, Yeah. Everything is so much clearer, Nathan. Yeah, exactly. Are there are there any stories or specific experiences you look back that you're like, oh man, that had that that actually had a big impact on helping me to become the leader that you are?
00:22:29
Speaker
ah Yeah, for sure. um I was an athlete. um I say was, so sad, but was an athlete. um So I played ice hockey in college and and I played it all growing up. I started playing when I was five.
00:22:45
Speaker
Um, and that is what the whole experience usually shaped the person that I am. Um, and then I think doing it in college shaped a lot of my, i would say multitasking skills.
00:23:01
Speaker
Um, so I was an engineer and especially like when you start off in engineering, that works a lot. It's a lot of classes and it's a lot of hours. Um, and then i played Aisaki and then I wanted to have a social life.
00:23:14
Speaker
because I cared about that a lot, a lot. um So I used to do things that were crazy, like create, you know, I had Friday 9 a.m. physics tests every week. They would like quiz on what you learned that week.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I used to make flashcards. And when I was going out to go out, I would review the flashcards on the walkout. And then after a couple of beverages, I'd review the flashcards on the walk home.
00:23:41
Speaker
And then go take my test at 9 a.m. Friday. So, you know, you do a lot of, you know, squeezing it in and fitting it in um ah wherever you can. And that ah that multitasking skill or management of multiple different priorities really, really helped me.
00:23:58
Speaker
um So that was huge. um And then i had a lot of really great opportunities while I was at Princeton to, um like, bring people together um usually for social reasons, but sometimes for other reasons as well. So I think I learned a lot about how do you, you know, motivate people and get people excited about things and get people to rally behind your crazy idea.
00:24:23
Speaker
You know, usually it was some event or some activity we were going to do, but um still I found that like, it's amazing how much leading with excitement um becomes infectious. So I got very good at kind of like amping up the jazz for things.
00:24:41
Speaker
um Yeah. And that I think has been like a really valuable skill to me for my career as well. And then I learned a bunch of stuff too, but you know, Yeah. Well, I think what's what ah what I love about the two things that you called out is, um you know,
Balancing Work and Personal Life
00:24:57
Speaker
there's a there's a big narrative now, and I think it's merited that, you know, the formal education system through college might not be for everybody. yeah And I totally think that makes sense.
00:25:07
Speaker
ah But I do think that a discussion I'm not hearing about as much is going to college isn't just about what you study. No.
00:25:18
Speaker
And in fact, there's a microcosm of various different experiences that you're not going to be able to have otherwise that can have a deep influence on your life, like playing hockey in college and like figuring out what type of social scene you're interested in how to motivate people and energize them. Right? Like, like it' it's a great exp it's a, it's, it's a great hotbed for experimentation and not just in an educational sense.
00:25:43
Speaker
Uh, couldn't agree with you more. And I would say Princeton does a nice job of this as well, because kids live on campus for four years. So it really, it creates, I think, more closeness amongst the undergraduate population, which I really benefited from as well.
00:26:00
Speaker
um But it also kind of keeps everybody a little in that bubble for longer. Yeah. Which, again, I think kind of incubates a lot of those learnings that you just talked about um that are very much outside the classroom, very much outside of the classroom.
00:26:17
Speaker
Living in close community can be really uncomfortable and downright weird, especially in college. But those experiences form how we see the world, create adult friendships, and enter the workforce.
00:26:31
Speaker
College isn't just about a degree. It's about discovering and shaping the person you want to become. In a moment, Laura's gonna talk about how her senior thesis was both a major accomplishment and a missed opportunity.
00:26:44
Speaker
You can see it as a failure or as a reminder that noticing trends and patterns that others don't isn't enough. You need a vision to execute as well.
00:26:56
Speaker
there's There's something very powerful about forced social interactions with people that you wouldn't otherwise normally choose to
Learning from Entrepreneurial Challenges
00:27:03
Speaker
spend time with um that really helps to grow your empathy, helps to grow your patience, helps to, I mean, just so many things. So ah yeah, I love that. i I loved that for you. You had that experience. And now i know anyone that went to Princeton has that experience, right? Yeah, exactly. like Very cool.
00:27:23
Speaker
Now I have to ask, was it at Princeton that the thesis story happened as well? Because you know, we got to talk about that. My big missed opportunity. Uh, yes, it was at Princeton. So, ah there you have to, everybody writes a thesis, um, which I also think is is interesting. Everybody writes a thesis.
00:27:45
Speaker
Uh, you, it is like this big thing your senior year, of course, writing your thesis. Um, And it's a massive journey that you undertake as an individual, um another big lesson journey. ah And then at the end, you know you turn it in And i was fortunate that mine ah did well.
00:28:07
Speaker
And then I probably should have run with it afterwards, but I didn't have the the conviction in myself to do so at the time, though I now regret it. um I shouldn't say I regret it. I don't regret it because I wouldn't be here today if I had done other things, but, um, it was something you learned from something I definitely learned from. Like it was a classic, you know, I had written this, you know, significant thing, if you will, um, that it was, it was focused on the, the inflating at the time was I graduated in 2003. So it was 2002, 2003, it was focused on the inflating housing bubble at the time.
00:28:45
Speaker
um And basically what it did was go through different metropolitan areas and kind of chart out what was happening compared to previous bubbles and patterns in previous bubbles.
00:28:57
Speaker
And then did a prediction of when the bubble would burst. um Because that's the thing about bubbles. Bubbles are actually fine to ride the wave of on. You just don't want to be riding that last minute wave of on. You want to be going up?
00:29:10
Speaker
yeah I have some family and friends that ah that rode the bubble all the way up and then was they took the slope all the way down. All the way down, which is the more the most common story, right? So um I was very fascinated by the concept of just bubbles in general.
00:29:30
Speaker
I mean, I still am. I think it's really interesting to think about how you can get a rational exuberance around a particular topic that leads to, you know,
00:29:41
Speaker
um, prices significantly, uh, diverging themselves from fundamentals. Um, and then it keeps going for like a long time. Yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
So I've always been very interested in them. I think since I first heard about the tulip craze, like way back when, I don't know, grade school. Um, so this was an opportunity for me to continue that in a much more meaningful way.
Persistence in VC Funding
00:30:05
Speaker
And, and yeah, I didn't, even though i got like ah you know I got a prize for it, I got all these accolades for it, um and I didn't have enough confidence in it to then go and try to do something more with it.
00:30:19
Speaker
I thought I completed this task, the task was write a thesis and get a good grade or do a good job. I completed the task, I did a really good job. Now let's go to the next thing. And I got the grade. And graduated. And I graduated.
00:30:33
Speaker
That was the prize. That was the thing. Right. um And I didn't, you know, I definitely kicked myself in later times because it turned out it was more right than wrong. And um but it's it's you know, it was a big it was a good lesson for me. I was not ready at that point graduating from I mean, when I was graduating from college, I didn't know what I wanted to be.
00:30:56
Speaker
I didn't know what I wanted to do. um I hadd had a real wide variety of experiences in my kind of summers in college and my work during college.
00:31:08
Speaker
Um, and I, I had no idea how to put that into a career or career path or anything. Um, and I definitely wasn't, I didn't come out of undergrad being like, I'm ready to start my own company either. Going back to the thesis thing. I didn't believe in myself enough then, um, yeah to do that. So or to build out like a whole investment theory. Yeah. And to think like, I have a view that's different and valuable than anybody else out there.
00:31:36
Speaker
Right. Um, which is part of the crazy view that you have to have to start a company. It's true. Which is part of why like we're all insane. Yes. it's Like, yes, of course I could do this. Well, what do you know about that? Nothing. Yeah, but I can do it. Well, why hasn't someone else done it? Well, because they're not X, Y, Z and I am X, Y, Z. Yeah. Yeah. Or other people have done it. I could just do it better. Exactly. I can learn from what they did wrong and do it better or faster whatever. So I definitely did not have that out of college. Um, so I went, I thought, okay, what is called quote unquote, the hardest job that I can apply for and the quote unquote best job I can apply for.
00:32:17
Speaker
and that I thought was going into investment banking. yeah Um, so I did that whole recruiting process and, and thankfully, you know, it worked out and I went and started an investment banking at JPMorgan and I had never, I hadn't done a summer internship. I was one of three people out of a training class of over a hundred.
00:32:36
Speaker
that hadn't like done a summer internship in investment banking. Oh, wow. So I walked yeah in, and everybody's all like turbo-y, really ready to be bankers. Investment bankers.
00:32:48
Speaker
I just kind of, I'm ready, I guess. Let's go. I like math. What are we doing here? um I find finance really interesting and fascinating. Yeah.
00:33:02
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, that was definitely not for me. Um, but I was really fortunate again that I like found an opportunity to go and and move within JP Morgan. Yeah. And that ended up being really good. Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah. It ended up being really good, but you said you also found out that it wasn't for you, but like, how long did you stay there? I only stayed there a year. I would have stayed there a lot longer. Um, this is another, like,
00:33:29
Speaker
ah straight up luck thing that was, I think, hugely impactful to my career path, which is a good friend of mine, um still to this day is one of my best friends, was working at JP Morgan on the trading floor.
Value of Community in Success
00:33:45
Speaker
And she knew how unhappy I was in banking. But I was going to like, I would have sweat that out for I don't even know how long. because that was, well, you know how to grind you learn how to hide grind. I know how to grind. i I like to excel at things. I like to be good at things.
00:34:02
Speaker
Um, and so I would have just done it. Um, and I, I mean, I did do it for a very short period of time. Um, and she like was all over me being like, this is not the right thing for you.
00:34:16
Speaker
You need to look for other jobs within the firm. And I thought, hey, it's too early. I'm too young. I got to prove myself first. I can't go popping around um without proving myself. And she actually ended up getting me an interview on the derivatives desk.
00:34:31
Speaker
Like she went over to them, talked to them about me, told me about me, said, you got to meet this girl. Like she hustled for me. Um, she now actually is a, you know, very successful talent. She does talent placement at the very higher levels. It's real skill she has, turns out. You're like, evidently, she very she crushes it and does very senior hires across BC and, and I'm a BC
Leadership Introspection
00:34:56
Speaker
PE right now. But, um, she, she really pushed me to do it.
00:35:01
Speaker
Um, and then I went in and within it's classic markets within 24 hours, I had a job from, uh, had a job offer from when I first went in. I like threw together a resume because I didn't have one. and um And then I had to figure out how to tell my current team that I was leaving, my current bosses that I was leaving. And I was leaving like early, like you don't leave after one year.
00:35:22
Speaker
Like you don't leave after one year. You leave after two years, maybe you really leave after three years. And that's kind of like the way it's supposed to be. So i was i was i was bucking the trend. um but Still with JP Morgan. just Still with JP. Just the investment banking side to the derivative side. Yeah. And um and they everybody was really wonderful and supportive. Honestly, they were really wonderful and supportive. had a call with These two unbelievable women who had recruited me, um Constance Coleman and Liz Myers. Liz is like the global head of everything over at JP Morgan now. She's unbelievable. Constance, unbelievable. These women are like unbelievable. I had a call with them about it. of And I remember them like really taking the time to think through this choice with me and not be like, we hired you into this job. You need to stay in this job.
00:36:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. um They thought through it. They thought, hey, derivatives is really related to everything you studied in school. And and risk is something you've always found really interesting. And, you know, yeah and it was a job where I would get sales, I would get trading, I would get product development, like I would get to do all these things that I wasn't getting to do in investment banking. And so they helped me make the decision to move over.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, what a what a like it's such a beautiful story of so many people in your life that supported you, right? like Oh my gosh. yeah You had the one friend that's like, I see you. Yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
And I also see you're not going to do anything about this. 100%. So I'm going to step in. I'm going to do something. Yeah. and And then, you know, getting worried that you're going to leave and they weren't like, oh, this is about us. No. They're like, no, I want this to be about you. Let's talk about you and what's best for you. i mean, what ah what what a wonderful example. there's a There's no doubt that I think a lot of people like there's there's this general idea of US exceptionalism, but there's also this idea of individual exceptionalism, right? like Like everything that you get is because you did it.
00:37:31
Speaker
And you worked so hard. And and you worked so hard. Harder and longer than everyone. Man, that's not it at all, is it? It it is totally a group effort. It's
Career Choices and Personal Growth
00:37:41
Speaker
totally a group effort. And it's totally a like, gosh, it sounds so cheesy what I'm about to say, it I'll say it.
00:37:47
Speaker
you you get the energy back that you put out into the world. Right? So um I said it before, like I genuinely care very deeply for the people in my life and they care very deeply for me.
00:38:01
Speaker
And that is, if if I have, you know, being all midlife crisis-y looking back at my life, um that's the like greatest thing about my life, like by far.
00:38:13
Speaker
It's the greatest thing about any fancy school that I went to, It's the greatest thing about any fancy job that I had. It's, you know, any accomplishment I've ever achieved. It's all, um you know, the people I met while doing it or the connections I formed while doing it. And that's like, I've been really fortunate in that.
00:38:34
Speaker
Here's where the myth of the successful entrepreneur can get out of control. We like to hear dramatic stories about individuals who bent reality to their vision and put a dent in the universe.
00:38:47
Speaker
But it's still just a heroic myth. The real story and the true accomplishment are about people, the relationships that were formed, and the lives that were touched.
00:38:59
Speaker
It's cliche but true that nobody ever reached their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office. The world needs a new story about entrepreneurship. One where we see the people, the work, and the cost as a messy, holistic picture and adventure that is still very much worthwhile.
00:39:20
Speaker
So you moved over to the derivatives. You got to use your ah Orphe powers. Ooh, look at you, Orphe. So what like kind of what what happened next and and how how how did your career path continue to ah help you to you know become someone who is willing to start a company, right? like I mean, anybody can be willing to start a company. Yeah.
00:39:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's a whole other thing. You know what's funny is, is like ah lots of times all you need is that willingness, right? It's going back to the craziness piece. i So I was in du derivatives at at J.P. Morgan
Aligning Career with Personal Values
00:39:59
Speaker
for 11 years.
00:40:00
Speaker
um So I spent a ah long time there. And um i had, i would say I had a really good experience there. In general, my experience at J.P. Morgan was a very good one. I met unbelievable people, found great.
00:40:14
Speaker
mentors, sponsors, all these kinds of good things. um I can't say enough good things about the people at that company. um But I got to the point where I felt like I, you know, I'd done selling, I'd done some trading, and I'd done some product development. In particular, i was responsible for um helping launch our quantitative investment solutions. So there were algorithmic trading strategies that were selling to corporates and and different kinds of asset managers to either add or reduce risk basically. um
00:40:48
Speaker
And we had, we had done all this work to build out this product suite, we generated all this excitement, we' we're about to launch it. And we found out at kind of the 11th hour that the we were launching it through swap vehicles. And because they were swaps, ah they were under Dodd-Frank.
00:41:06
Speaker
So it meant that we had to do a bunch of disclosures related to Dodd-Frank. And we didn't have what we needed to do the disclosures. um And so we were going to be in a situation where we've done all this work to build this product. And then we couldn't actually like trade it or make money on it.
00:41:21
Speaker
um Couldn't get our tech team to build it. I often joke that they said they could do it in Q5, which is actually exactly what they said. um And ah which is common FIs, like internal tech teams are often burdened down with existing stuff, not new stuff.
00:41:39
Speaker
So a friend of mine and I just scotch tape something together nights and weekends so that we would be able to still do the launch. It was not pretty, but it worked and it satisfied, satisfied the compliance requirements we needed to, to be able to go in and trade this product. yeah So for me, that was a big eye opener that, Hey, like,
00:42:00
Speaker
I knew the world was changing. things Well, it's like I knew the world was changing as far as what machine learning was starting to do in financial services. So this was this was like 2014, 15. OK, so like, yeah, it was starting to do some really cool stuff.
00:42:13
Speaker
Dodd-Frank was still working its way through the system. I mean, it's still working its way through the system. And um and I was like, wait, JP Morgan doesn't have all the stuff that they need for Dodd-Frank. Like, what the heck?
00:42:25
Speaker
If JP Morgan can't do it, who else can't do it? um And then I also like looked ahead in boss is boss and did I want their life and did I want their job? And the answer was no.
00:42:36
Speaker
And so being a, you know I would say, reasonably to extremely motivated person and ambitious person, I was like, well, if it's not here, where is it?
00:42:50
Speaker
Um, I also was at a point where I was coming up for MD and I was starting to have all of the kind of talks that you do around MD. And I had one talk in particular with, um, a really amazing senior woman who told me about how I would start to have to effectively, she called it putting on different faces, but how I would
Founding Stratify and Pursuing an MBA
00:43:13
Speaker
effectively need to start to be a little bit more hard nosed and, you know, whatever at work.
00:43:20
Speaker
than I had been um to get to this next rung of promotion. um and yeah And for our listeners, just can you just, what does MD stand for? ah Managing director. So the the classic steps within an investment bank of of titles is you start off as an analyst.
00:43:36
Speaker
It's very confusing because in many places, analyst means something totally different. But in the world of an investment bank, you start off in an analyst, then associate, then vice president, I remember when I came vice president and my boyfriend at the time's mom told everybody I was the vice president of JP Morgan.
00:43:53
Speaker
Like, that's right. The, I was like, I'm not the vice president, executive director, managing director, then managing director. So managing director is the equivalent and of call it partner at, you know, and other businesses. Right. um And so I was ah an executive director.
00:44:12
Speaker
kind of getting ready for that next level. And I remember thinking about how sad it was to the concept that I would have to be a different person at work than the person that I was.
00:44:25
Speaker
And then I started doing the math on the hours one spends at work, especially in the job that I was in. And it's a lot. And it's more than the hours you spend awake, not at work. So I had a big existential, sorry, I don't know, discovery. It wasn't a crisis of like,
00:44:42
Speaker
do I want to spend all my work time being fundamentally kind of like a different person than I am? yeah Um, and I didn't want to do that. So I tried to figure out, okay, what the heck do I do now?
00:44:56
Speaker
And I'd always thought about going to business school. I'd taken the GMAT like years before just to kind of have it, but I'd never actually gone the next step and applied. Um, and so I decided, okay, going to apply.
00:45:09
Speaker
my GMAT score was about to expire. Nothing like a deadline to motivate you. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not taking that thing again. So if I'm ever going to business school, I'm going now. So I applied. Um, and then I was, I was fortunate and I'd pick a pick of places and, um, and then I, I was getting ready to do it. And I found out that there was going to be layoffs, um, that we're going to kind of heavily impact my team.
00:45:37
Speaker
um, I tried to, I had got pulled into office saying that a couple of my teammates were going to get fired in a couple of days.
Learning Entrepreneurship Across Cultures
00:45:44
Speaker
And I was pulled into the office with the intent of ah listening in on them so that I could better take over their accounts afterwards, basically.
00:45:53
Speaker
So that's what I was being told to do. um These were people I was friends with. I just found out they were going to get fired. One of them had three kids. Obviously the first thing I did was told them my more loyalty to those people than I do to the organization at that time. Um, and also I was felt very offended by the concept that I would like spy on my friends and colleagues to get information before they got their, the acts like, no, thank you. Um, and, um, and I told them i I was like planning to go back to business school, said I could, you know, raise my hand and resign now and then maybe save one of the people that was going to get fired. And, yeah um, I was told by a person I won't say their name of that.
00:46:39
Speaker
It wasn't my decision who got fired and who didn't. And, you know, it was his decision. And it's a big ego thing about it. And, um, and then I said, okay, bye bye. I'm done.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah. And people thought it was insane. Cause I was like yeah mid thirties, leaving a really good job on a really good path to go back to business school full time. Like people thought I was looney tunes, but I mean, and maybe I am a little looney tunes. You have to be. The,
00:47:07
Speaker
the The power of introspection is such a huge skill in leadership because when you are a leader, though you always have mentors to reach out to and you have like team members to reach out to and stuff like that, it is a bit of a lonely path.
00:47:27
Speaker
And if you can't... get outside of yourself and look at a situation objectively and be like, I'm feeling this way yeah or I don't feel good about this. Why is that? And be able to have that conversation with yourself.
00:47:41
Speaker
um you'll list You'll miss out on a lot of learning. So I just love hearing that story that you are in that spot, you're in that area, and you are able to have that clarity of thought.
00:47:53
Speaker
And the ability to go through that introspection to make something that, you know, for a lot of other people sounds like they were like, uh, wrong decision. And you're like, wrong. Absolutely right decision. But thank you for your input.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and it was, it's, it's like anytime you're making a big decision, like most people thought it was nuts. And then the people that really cared about me thought it was a great idea.
00:48:17
Speaker
There you go. And you could like, I mean, it was so clear. It was so clear. um And then, you know, it, it was, it was scary, but wonderful.
Meeting Co-founder Dimitri
00:48:29
Speaker
Right. I got to, I got to take time I got to take like four months off because I wasn't planning to leave right away. But then this whole layoff thing came and I was like, okay, I guess I'm leaving now.
00:48:41
Speaker
And so I got to take like four months off. I got to travel, which is amazing. i like, I traveled a lot in that time. Um, and, and then I got to come into starting business school with like a very free mind and and a mind that was very focused on, you know, how do I figure out how to make this big transition from a large company into being, a either starting something or joining something early stage. I didn't know if I wanted to actually be a founder or just join something, uh, you know, that had recently started. I knew I wanted something more entrepreneurial, but.
00:49:19
Speaker
Um, and then it was hilarious at business school. You know, you get all of the like normal recruiting paths kind of coming out. Um, and the best thing I did the whole time was just stay so focused.
00:49:33
Speaker
You knew what you wanted. you knew what i wanted you You knew what you were going there for. I knew what I was going there for. And I think that that's why a lot of people don't get as much out of business school as they want to is because they go there. Maybe they go there for the social side. I was not going for the social side.
00:49:46
Speaker
um I was going, i I definitely like went on some awesome trips as everybody in business school seems to do, but, um, uh, they were like, I went on a trip to, trip to East Africa to learn about entrepreneurship in East Africa. I went on an entrepreneurship focused trip to Israel, like, and you met with businesses and you met with VCs in the region and you got to understand how these emerging economies were working and how important innovation was and how central innovation was into these, you know, emerging and, and, and reshaping economies. And that,
00:50:18
Speaker
I just freaking loved it. I loved it. I don't think I missed a single class. I went to every class. Nobody does that in business school. But I was like, I'm here. I'm spending my time. I'm learning. Yeah. yeah Well, you knew your why.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, I knew my why. I knew my why. Two whys. I knew my why. um So it was a really it was a
Challenges in Securing VC Funding
00:50:40
Speaker
really good experience for me. And then I was fortunate to meet my co-founder, Dimitri, through mutual friend. He wasn't at school. And He was trying to, he had built a really cool technology that, and he was working as a quant and finance and he wanted to talk to someone about other applications in finance that he was thinking about. And our friends, my friend linked us up and we started chatting and,
00:51:02
Speaker
you know Yeah. did you Did you realize at that point in time, as you were looking to found a company and partner with Dimitri, did you realize how well prepared you were for that? No. Of course not. I mean, no one's ever actually prepared to start a business, just to be clear.
00:51:20
Speaker
But you had this fabulous example of your parents. You'd been able to be in the trenches to work out. to to work out youve You did product development. You had to do sales. like You had to do operations all through J.P. Morgan. And and then you went to business school. It's like like, man, it almost seems like, yeah, of course this is what Laura's going to do. And now's the best time because she's so well prepared. But i'm i'm I'm guessing that's not where your head was at. no it wasn't at all. No, I was... um I wanted to do it and I had the, I'll call it courage, I guess, to do it. I wanted to do it.
00:51:53
Speaker
But then we got, we had we had a real tough time and in the VC circuit, like early on in the company.
Emotional Resilience in Leadership
00:52:01
Speaker
So anytime you think, you know, if your ego's feeling nice and good.
00:52:06
Speaker
Talk to a couple of VCs. Go try to raise some money for a early stage company that doesn't, you know, pre-customer, pre-revenue. So I would say at least in those VCs' minds, I did not have any of the right because I didn't go to and didn't go to Stanford. I hadn't worked at a fang company. i hadn't, ah you know, whatever. I wasn't a second time founder with a successful exit, you know.
00:52:31
Speaker
yeah So for me, the patterns made sense.
00:52:36
Speaker
In a moment, you're gonna hear Laura claim that she isn't a risk taker, she's a risk calculator. And while that may be true, there's no question that she has used those calculations to make decisions that few people are brave enough to make.
00:52:52
Speaker
It takes a lot of fortitude to face rejection from multiple investors and still forge ahead. But that's also why it's so important to find your people, the ones who believe in you and can provide the vital encouragement and feedback to keep going, to keep growing.
00:53:08
Speaker
As Laura said, the people who really care about you are the ones you should be listening to.
00:53:17
Speaker
Well, obviously, I'm a bit of a risk taker. I mean i would never consider myself like a risk taker. I am a risk calculator, and I take calculated risks. like And I don't consider myself, in general, a risk taker. So i you know if to to your point, I kind of like gathered up all the goodies I thought I needed or all the skills I thought I needed to be able to do it Um, and I really focused on that at business school, like taking the, the classes that would help round out my toolkit.
00:53:48
Speaker
Um, but then you go out and like, none of it works like you think it's going to work. Oh yeah. You know, and that's part of the fun of it though. Like that's part of the fun and the excitement. Yeah. How do you adapt? How do you adapt? right How do you adapt? And that was the hardest thing for me in early days. And I still struggle with it, but I think I found better coping mechanisms. was managing the roller coaster.
00:54:12
Speaker
That was the hardest thing for me. I got really excited at the ups and then at the downs, I would get really bummed. And so I had to really start to figure out how, um, to kind of like dampen that curve a bit because it was, it was, it was, yeah, it was taking too much of a toll on me early on.
00:54:35
Speaker
lot of whipsaw. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a person that likes to get excited. Yeah. but like I have a natural, call it bias towards excitement. and it's a hard and And it's hard to tell yourself, like no, you've got to like tone it down a little bit. Tone it down.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah. Or when you are not personally excited because so you just got punched in the face, ah how how can you still step up during that time to pull people with you? 100%. You've got to lick your wounds yourself, um especially in early days.
00:55:09
Speaker
Right. um That's why I i mean, hey, i I feel so grateful for my co-founder.
Balancing Professional and Personal Life
00:55:14
Speaker
i I have a ton of admiration for folks that are able to to be solar founders. um But, you know, for for me, he's been huge when I have those moments because he's the person I can go to and like not feel like I have to be on.
00:55:30
Speaker
Like when you're a founder, you feel like you have to be on a lot. All the time. You know? Well, i I think it's, i I honestly think it's not even just a feeling. ah You do have to. You're right. You do have to. Yeah, like, you are always being watched.
00:55:45
Speaker
So true. it It really doesn't matter where you are. You're always being watched. So true. And that is that is difficult, and it's very draining. Yeah. And how do you answer the question when something just went not the way you planned or, or not the way you wanted to, which happens, what are we going to do now?
00:56:01
Speaker
What are we going to do now? And how do you answer the question when you're not event that night? How's everything going? They don't want to hear the real answer to that question. They want to hear you. They want to hear a version of your sales pitch. And that's also part of, I mean, not to give an AFT t plug, but it's part of what I love so much about AFT. t Um,
00:56:22
Speaker
Like, I feel like I now have found the communities where I don't feel like I don't have that pressure to be on and I can have those more real conversations oftentimes with other founders, but it doesn't have to be other founders.
00:56:36
Speaker
And yeah i have developed some of my best friendships over like from the stratified time period when we're able to like get to that real talk soon.
00:56:48
Speaker
And where, you know, I can ask the question of how, like I have a number of founders where we do regular, either like bi-monthly or monthly, like just sessions where we get on the phone and we each get to just talk about all the stuff that is like worrying us or hurting us or or tough and help each other through it. Because oftentimes you don't have a lot of outlets for that. Yeah. And for those listening, if you're not familiar with AFT, it's the Association for Financial Technology, which is a Small group of executives who are building technology and other services for banks and credit. I think the the main point that you're talking about, which ah definitely speaks to my heart as well, is you got to find your communities. Yeah.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yeah. Find your communities and find find the people in there that in those communities that you don't have to be on for. And they actually want to know about that. they don't expect anything of you. They don't expect anything of you. They're not trying to evaluate you. They're not trying to evaluate you, right? They're just trying, you know, they they, you know, ideally care about you as a person, you care about them as a person, and then you want to help each other.
00:57:56
Speaker
So you can't help people if you don't know what's really going on, which has been the other, call it big learning of me, for me as an entrepreneur, for as much as you need to always be on and need to always be selling your business, you also have to figure out the people that you can tell the real shit to.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yep. Because otherwise you are alone. Yeah. Well, and honestly, you're a little bit of a ticking time bomb. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:22
Speaker
And the truth is the reason why going back to the VC side, like the reason why VC is invested in multiple time founders is because you learn a lot. You survived. You learned a lot. And oh, you wanted to do it again. It actually makes all the sense in the world, right? um So you know if you can if you can befriend those kinds of folks and then you know you help them out and they help you out and you ideally live the mantra that I try to leave in life, which is make no mistake twice, then there you go.
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's plenty of other mistakes to make. 100%. Go try something. Go investigate elsewhere. Don't repeat this name once. There's so much more room to cover.
Impact of Motherhood on Leadership
00:59:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:02
Speaker
yeah i I love that. And you know the the Stratify story and the success that you all have had has just been um awesome. I think one of the things, is as we were talking about the podcast that you had mentioned that I just want to touch on briefly before we wrap up, yeah is ah you mentioned early on you have young kids.
00:59:22
Speaker
And you told me that's been really impactful on how you now think about business. And i would i would love just to hear a little bit about that before we wrap up.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah. ah Thank you for asking. So I have two sons. Axel is four and almost a half and Aiden is two and a half. ah So both of them I had during Stratify. So as we often joke, Stratify is my first baby. And then I had two two more human babies.
00:59:53
Speaker
And ah and it it was really, particularly with Axel, my older one, it was really hard figuring out um both what to do through the pregnancy and what to do after.
01:00:08
Speaker
um So again, this was a place where COVID was kind of, I was lucky with COVID. We were fundraising when I was pregnant with Axel and it was during COVID. So thankfully I didn't have to meet anybody in person. So nobody that I was raising money from knew I was pregnant.
01:00:23
Speaker
Yeah. That's actually, ah we probably don't have time to dive into it now, but that. There's a lot there. um There's a lot there. and um And then I had this weird feeling at the end where i was like, when we were starting to kind of get term sheets and start to put the round together. And I was like, wait, I haven't told people really need to tell them, but how do I tell them? And are they gonna pull, you know, blah,
Maintaining Work-Life Balance
01:00:46
Speaker
blah. bla um And I'll say, thankfully the experience I had was, and maybe this is because we had already done the vetting right to get, call it the bad eggs out of the bunch.
01:00:56
Speaker
But I got no backlash when I told people that I was pregnant. Um, and that at that point I was like about to pop. Um, but I think it was a lot because we had kind of like weaned away the people that maybe would have cared through other parts of the, I would say process we developed on how to get investors that match with us.
01:01:16
Speaker
Um, cause I think we've been really lucky to find investors that really match well with us. Um, and then. you know, I didn't take any time off and all this kind of stuff, uh, after having the baby. And that was a mistake.
01:01:30
Speaker
Like it was a mistake. So the steak for me, it was a mistake for the baby. It was a mistake for the business. Um, given what was going on at the time, I didn't have the luxury to make a different choice. But then when I was having aid I, I did, I had him, he was his birthdays at the end of October, which is kind of nice timing, right. Kind of rolling into the holidays versus yep versus Axel's born in March, a little bit harder. um And I took time and my team supported me through that.
01:01:58
Speaker
And that was a big, I don't know, big lesson for me on like taking what you need and, you know, putting your, putting your oxygen mask on first and all this kind of stuff.
01:02:08
Speaker
And then for them now, I just have, I don't want to work all the time. I don't want to work all the time. And I don't think that that, I never have thought that the ideal should be that you work all the time.
01:02:21
Speaker
Um, I believe in output versus input, i.e. quantity of hours. And so i am i am more like I will block out my calendar to go do the, you know, when Aiden starts school and there's like two weeks where you spend like an hour in the classroom every day to like get them used to going to school. I will block out my calendar and make sure I'm there.
01:02:46
Speaker
I will not go, you know, I once went to a conference on Axel's birthday. It freaking gutted me. Like it gutted me. I will never do that again. You know? yeah um So I feel like I've like learned through having kids just how important it is to find that whatever you want to call it balance, strike that whatever equilibrium, whatever you want to call it between work and life.
01:03:09
Speaker
um And I think it's made it me better. Like, I think, I think I'm a better leader. Um, I think I'm, better at my, I think I'm better at it because of all, all of this, which is counterintuitive the way I used to think about like work, like you need to put in
Reflections and Continuous Learning
01:03:28
Speaker
more hours. You need to put in more hours. You need to put in more hours. Just keep grinding. Just keep grinding.
01:03:33
Speaker
Um, so it's, it's changed my outlook quite significantly. And I want that for the team too. Like there are some founders who want to have a culture of like, we work every night and weekend.
01:03:47
Speaker
And I don't want that for our company. Yeah. We work nights and weekends when we have to, and we don't, when we don't have to. Yeah.
01:03:58
Speaker
There are times and seasons where it's necessary. Yes. And you have to do it then. And you have recognize it as just a season. It's a time and season. It's not our culture. It's not the way we are going to win.
01:04:10
Speaker
Okay. Like we are going to win in other ways. Um, And again, we'll grind as much as we have. And we, you know, we always deliver on time and in full and all these things. But I think also we're able to do that because our people aren't burnt out all the time.
01:04:26
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. I think the other analogy that I hear a lot, you know, are we doing a sprint? Are we doing a marathon? Yeah. And, know, I don't think that analogy is, is, is perfect because in a marathon, you try and keep a consistent pace for all 26.2 miles. Yeah. Which is really what you're doing here, but I think, I think maybe an adventure race, right? Like let's go with adventure race. Like see what we find. Yeah. There's, we have a week to get from point A to point B. We can't just work the whole time. Right.
01:04:55
Speaker
Anyways, ah but thank you so much for sharing that and what what what wisdom you've been able to garner throughout your whole experience. And quite honestly, I wish we could just keep talking. But I do have to i do have to wrap it up, and ah but we do want to end with our our our two typical questions. So the first one is, do you have any non-business books that you'd recommend?
01:05:19
Speaker
Yeah. I would love to say I'm an avid reader. I'm not. I'm an avid listener, so I do all of mine on Audible. And unfortunately, most them— that counts. It counts. It counts. It's got to count. Come on.
01:05:32
Speaker
um Most of them are business books. But one that I've read recently that I think is really interesting, it's called When the Going Was Good. or sorry when the going was good um and it's by gradon Carter, who was a editor of Vanity Fair in the and um And it's about like the, call it heyday of print media. He was right after Tina Brown.
Nature of Leadership and Adaptation
01:05:55
Speaker
And like, so it's a very interesting look at a totally different industry um that i really like.
01:06:04
Speaker
I tend to be a nonfiction gal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks. I love that recommendation. And we'll make sure to put that in the show notes. All right. And the last one, is a leader born or is a leader made?
01:06:19
Speaker
ah This one is so, so tough. And I obviously want to answer somewhere in the middle, but I won't cop out and give that kind of answer. oh you're going to you're going to commit to one. i think well i mean because Well, you want to know my real thought, and then I can commit if I have to. my my real thought no no My real thought is it is, of course, a combination. I think you are born with natural leadership skills, but I think leadership is a skill that is is then honed over the experiences in your life and the examples in your life. If I had to pick, I would say made.
01:06:49
Speaker
Overborn. Like ah if I had to pick, I'd say made. Um, but I think it's a combination of both. Um, for me, it is not like, I had some intrinsic desire to bring people together towards a shared common goal yeah from when I was born. Like I had something like that in it. Yeah. But you said four years old, right? You were getting people. Oh yeah. Like literally to like, yeah. Like,
01:07:16
Speaker
right One of the best things I did was, at one of them I did was I asked three questions and it was like, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite animal? Like, what's your favorite number? And the answers were what I thought.
01:07:30
Speaker
So people had to like, they didn't know, they just had to enter But they like you won if you picked what I thought the best things were. It's a great game. i love that. I love it. It's a great game. But yeah, no, it's all about the the people that you get to know over the course of your life and the examples that they set for you.
01:07:47
Speaker
It's all about that. Well, what what a fabulous conversation. you know laura thank you so much for joining. I'm walking away just completely filled with ah amazing lessons and inspiration and, dare I say, some excitement that has just come up come off of you and entered into my life. So thank you so much. That is so very kind, Nathan. I really enjoyed this. and Thank you so much for having me on.
01:08:11
Speaker
Thank you.
01:08:14
Speaker
The 19th century philosopher, poet, and author Ralph Waldo Emerson once gave this advice. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Episode Conclusion: Emphasizing Authenticity and Growth
01:08:26
Speaker
Of course, you also have to develop the wisdom to tell the difference between intransigence and self-knowledge. As a leader, you won't be successful if you're swayed by opinions and peer pressure, but you also won't find many friends if you can't practice flexibility and openness to new ideas.
01:08:43
Speaker
That's why you need people who will love you when you're wrong and who deeply care about helping you become the best version of yourself. At Stratify, Laura Kornhauser is building a company where both of these dynamics exist, where it's safe to take calculated risks and still be wrong, where employees aren't reduced to points on an org chart, even if the right decision for everyone is to part ways.
01:09:07
Speaker
That might be the hardest thing for new leaders and their teams to accept. It is possible to love and care for each other and for some partnerships to end. You've heard me say this before, business is personal because businesses are made up of people.
01:09:21
Speaker
The real challenge is to hold your head high, trust in your community, and believe in yourself. Even when the world is trying to tell you something different. That's what authenticity is really about.
01:09:33
Speaker
The courage to be yourself and live out loud. Laura Kordhauser's story is a wonderful example of that principle put into practice. It is such a gift that we could share it with you.
01:09:44
Speaker
Thanks again for listening. You'll find the link to Laura's book recommendations in the show notes. You've been listening to Builder, Banker, Hacker, Chief, a podcast produced and distributed by ZSuite Technologies Incorporated, all rights reserved.
01:09:58
Speaker
I'm your host, Nathan Baumeister, co-founder of ZSuite Tech. This show is co-produced, written, and edited by Zach Garver. Sound engineering was done by Nathan Butler at Nimblewit Productions.
01:10:09
Speaker
If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to leave us a review or share the episode. This helps other people to find our show. You can also listen on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, and Spotify.