The Dark Side Of The Startup World | John Roa | Modern Wisdom Podcast 242

John Roa 0:00 At some point, it's just insane what's going on. And what we don't talk about is the downside of all that, of how the entrepreneurs who are taking these bets and running these companies are struggling. And the, the s- statistics around this are haunting. The entrepreneurs of today in kind of this high growth world have 60% more mental health issues than the average public. This is, um, in America. Um, eight times the rate of bipolar, six times depression, four times suicide, four times substance abuse. We are melting down (laughs) as the kind of race horses behind these companies, yet we don't ever hear that story until, until it's a, a horrific headline, like the Aaron Swartzs of the world and, and other folks who have even taken their own lives when they can't handle the pressure.

Chris Williamson 0:42 For the people who are listening that don't know who you are, what's your background? How did you end up speaking to me here?

John Roa 0:50 Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a pretty lifer entrepreneur. Um, I've been in the tech world since I was technically 11 years old when I learned to program, you know, code, hack, game, build computers. And then s- my first company I started when I was 14, so I'm now 36, so you know, two thirds of my life almost I've been running tech companies. And it's just been, you know, uh, goes without saying, a passion of mine, um, forever. And you know, kind of before it was en vogue like it is today,

John Roa 1:20 um, I really just had a knack for computers, an interest in being a self-starter and being an entrepreneur, even though I really didn't know that's what I was for a lot of that time. And, um, you know, that journey led to a number of tough lessons, you know, a lot of early failures, all the stuff that you generally hear about when people go through a lifetime of entrepreneurship. And then when I was 26, so 10 years ago, I was in Chicago and, um, was kind of down on my (laughs) , on my luck. It was not a great time personally and professionally. Um, it was in the midst of the r- the recession, you know, globally, but obviously, you know, a lot of that was happening here in the US. Uh, I was out of work, my parents were out of work, um, the family wasn't doing great, and I was not really, uh, you know, present with a lot of options on what to do to kind of get my life back in order. And in the way I saw it, I could either continue to persist trying to make something work that I could self-generate or go get a job and probably work some crappy role for a number of years and try to, you know, get out of debt and those kind of things. So of course, I did the entrepreneurial thing and I created a company called Okta. And, um, you know, for those of, of listeners that might know a company called IDEO, that's the best way to describe Okta, is that we were an innovation and design consultancy. And, and companies like IDEO have been around for decades and they've been helping everybody in the world design and innovate on amazing stuff. And I kind of figured there's a room in the market for a pure play digital version of that. 'Cause the ideas of the world were all kind of old industrial designers and print designers who had kind of moved to digital somewhat begrudgingly, and I figured if we had a team of kind of thrifty digital only innovation folks that we could succeed in that market. And that's what we did. Um, created the company in 2010, uh, bootstrapped, no investors, no partners, no investor, no anything. I mean, no board, no mentors, (laughs) like truly a one man band. And just kind of right place, right time, lot of luck, perseverance, you know, good fortune, grinding,

John Roa 3:21 and two years later it was the single fastest growing, uh, innovation and UX agency in America, uh, one of the fastest growing companies of any kind in America. Um, two years after that, we had acquired companies, we were growing nationally and internationally, um, we were doing work for incredible companies, you know, our clients were BMW and United Airlines and others. Um, and ultimately, um, it was the epitome of that entrepreneurial success story, kind of that just like grind it out till it works kind of thing. And then, you know, we were making money, I'm, I'm, (laughs) I'm doing TED Talks and being photographed for magazine covers, it was kind of this very glamorous success story on one side. On the other side is, it's this, is what no one knew what was going on, which is also a classic story that I was really struggling personally, uh, I didn't know how to handle the risk and stress and pressure that I was enduring. I didn't have a lot of healthy, uh, mechanisms for any kind of support. And, um, and I started to struggle, I mean, at a, at a, at a worse and worse level throughout those, uh, those years, um, really deep kind of mental illness and mental, uh, episodes of depression, anxiety, those kind of things, as I was dealing with the, the company. Um, it then turned into a life of kind of excess and partying and substance abuse and all the things that kind of come along with trying to balance out this incredibly kind of ferocious lifestyle. And so in our fourth year, um, it

John Roa 4:51 all, (laughs) it all collided with itself and, and that took the form of a pretty severe mental breakdown. Um, I ended up in the hospital, suffered dissociative amnesia, didn't know who or, or who I was, where I was, um, had no recollection of any part of my life, couldn't even tell you my own name. And was in a hospital in that state for a number of days. Um, they weren't sure if I would come back, if, what state I'd be in, if my brain would ever fully recover. It was a very scary time in my life. And this is all still when the company is, you know, quote unquote crushing it in the public world.

Chris Williamson 5:21 (laughs)

John Roa 5:22 And, um-And, uh, no one knew except one person at the company. My parents didn't know, my, my siblings didn't know, no one knew. I hid it from everybody, got back to work whenever I was released from the hospital and, and it changed my perspective on what was important because I kind of realized that I was literally trading my life and safety and sanity for this business, which is a ridiculous thing to do. And so I said, "We, we have to end this before it ends me." And, um, I went and, and hired an investment bank, we ran a managed auction and

John Roa 5:52 very fortunately sold that business outright to Salesforce, um, it's the biggest company in San Francisco, abou- about a y- about a little under a year after that whole episode. And, um, obviously a very fortuitous exit. I- it was the best case, you know, best result I could've ever asked for given (laughs) how bad the journey had gone for me personally, but how good it had gone for the company. And it really just changed my perspective about everything. It changed how I think about success, what is success, it changes how I think about, um, what, you know, what risk is, is worth risking and, and what parts of our lives we should be betting on and trading for that chance at success. Um, it's changed my perception on what matters in life going forward. It was a pretty wild journey, um, that all happened five years ago. And so in the last five years, I, I've actually been on your side of the world, Chris, I lived in London for half the year each year and then in Greece the other half of the year. So, I was doing very little except enjoying life and just trying to reset after what I had endured and, and ultimately, you know, trying to ph- reframe what it all meant. And, um, the way I found to do that was to write a book about it. And so the book that you previously referenced, it's called A Practical Way to Get Rich and Die Trying, is my memoir. A- and it's everything I just shared in excruciating detail, (laughs) uh, may- maybe, maybe too much detail in some parts, um, but I wanted to get across the real story that we, we don't often talk about, people are s- are, are rightfully afraid to talk about, um, and I'm in a position now where I can do it and I can facilitate more of that. And so that was the point of the book and it came out a little over a month ago now, and it's been going great. So it's, it's exciting. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:31 What a journey, man. Congratulations-

John Roa 7:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:33 ... it really, it really-

John Roa 7:34 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 7:34 ... sounds like you're in a significantly better, more awakened, more aligned position than you were.

John Roa 7:42 To say the least. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:44 (laughs)

John Roa 7:44 Yes. It's, uh, you know, it's, um, it, it's difficult to describe how different, because, you know, I think that there's this, this, this ill-conceived notion that we change as people. I don't believe that's true at all and, and most, most people smarter than me don't believe it either, is that but we can ch- what I, what can change is our mindset, our priorities, those kind of things. I was always the same person, I just had totally lost the sense of what matters and what's worth it and what risk is and how to manage myself. And so I've done a excruciating amount of work in the last five years to recover from all of that, you know, mostly mentally, but also physically. Um, but yes, it, it is a very different place and mindset today, thankfully.

Chris Williamson 8:24 Yeah, very thankfully. I don't know how much longer you would have been able to keep going like that. Why do you think... so obviously you, you're talking about this incredible success that you had with your company, very, very fast growing in, you know, I mean 2010, the early 2010s, that period was, I would imagine, incredibly competitive for tech companies, um-

John Roa 8:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:45 ... perhaps even more so than now in that a lot of the low-hanging fruit and a lot of that first mover advantage has probably gone from back then. So why do you think-

John Roa 8:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:55 ... that you had any success in business? You mentioned about work rate and timing and stuff. Could you dig into that a little bit?

John Roa 9:03 Definitely. So the one thing that we did that was most intelligent that we did not realize we were doing, (laughs) um, was being a support structure to that tailwind that you're talking about. You know, the, this is the era when all of these now multi-billion dollar tech companies were coming out, the Ubers of the world and everybody else. Um, and we were designed to be an agency for those companies. So we were here to help them design beautiful products, to understand their customers better, to innovate, et cetera. And so our entire set of clients at the beginning of Okta were other startups. And so they were normally pretty well-funded, they normally needed a lot of help, they couldn't hire fast enough, they couldn't have the disciplines that we did. So we were a support structure to that movement. And so we supplemented it instead of getting caught in the competitive wave, which was fortuitous. Uh, I, I will not pretend to say that was some man- you know, some grand plan that we had concocted, (laughs) that's just the way it worked. And, but the second thing is, is that... I, I made... it's funny, I actually have the Apple presentation on in my other s- monitor here because they're, they're, they just, uh, debuted the 5G iPhone. Um, but Apple had done us a tremendous favor and that was releasing the iPhone and then the iPad right in that generation. And what Apple did... because the iPhone was in 2007, and so we had come off a couple years of being introduced to what great digital design is, because until the iPhone, we had our BlackBerrys and we had our PalmPilots and we had our Microsoft devices and they were perfectly usable. There was nothing wrong with any of the devices and they did functionally what we all need a device to do. At the time it could send a text message and an email, you could surf the web, you could listen to music. It, it did not... you know, the iPhone did not actually perform a single function that those phones did not perform. What Apple did and what they continued to do and what they're doing as we speak, and it's on their monitor, is to understand us, their customers, frankly better than we understand ourselves. And they have an incredible ability to kind of crystal ball into the future of market needs, but also into our psyches. And they understand our behaviors, our, our media consumption patterns way better than we do. And if you remember when the i- when the iPad was debuted in 2011, everyone made fun of it. They're like, "Why do we need this big fucking iPhone?" Right? Like, and there was, like, these memes, people holding the iPad to their head, like it was a joke.And, and now, it's, you know, it's (laughs) revolutionized the industry and changed everything. And so Apple, this is their ability, this is why they're a trillion doll- you know, now a multi-trillion dollar company, this is their, their magic. And companies, a lot of companies, started to realize that if they could do some of that, if they could lead with design and innovation and user experience and user needs and heuristics and all of those aspects, they could also create a competitive advantage like Apple. And so that's what we basically did. W- we would go to companies and we would say, "Hiring us or hiring Okta is kind of like if you could hire Apple to build your product for you," which, you know, you can't do, but if you could, that's kind of like hiring us. And so we had this tailwind in two capacities that was the huge kind of coming out of the recession, you know, tech up into the right, venture-backed tailwind, and also the design tailwind. And again, no grand plan, that was (laughs) that was a lot of luck and happenstance, um, but it, it worked for us perfectly and it positioned us to, to become what we were.

Chris Williamson 12:18 How about you? What made you the person that was able to spearhead anything and actually g- get ahead of competition?

John Roa 12:28 Desperation-

Chris Williamson 12:29 (laughs)

John Roa 12:29 ... is where it started. Um, (laughs) not even being facetious. I, I had so few options at that point, Chris. I was... It was pretty much like, you know, at best, get like, a minimum wage job in like, sales for a tech company. At worst, go, you know, potentially, you know, deliver food or make coffee or something, and that's where I was. A- and none of, not anything's wrong with that, but that was, that was my set of options. You know, I had, I had fumbled through both high school and college, I had no resume to show, I had spent more of my 20s backpacking around the world than I did getting, you know, lucrative internships. And so I didn't have a lot to stand on. And for me, if I didn't make it myself, I was gonna be slogging probably for the rest of my life to just make paychecks and pay rent and things, and I didn't want that life, and so I was desperate. I was very desperate to, to achieve success. And so that was the biggest thing, because I didn't have much else. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I wasn't the most educated guy in the room. I had only had failed startups. I'm not even a designer, and that's one of the craziest parts. Like, I, I created what would... became one of the most prestigious design agencies in America and I'm not a damned designer. And I think that that speaks to, first, the desperation, but also as an entrepreneur, we are really designed to be kind of a Swiss army knife. We can kind of do anything, you know, when, when tasked and, and when we're (laughs) desperate enough. And that's what it was. I mean, I tell people all the time, I would have created any company ever that you... that could make money. I didn't care what the company was, it did not matter. I am not passionate about (laughs) that company. I actually founded three companies in the same damn day. Um, Okta was one of three I founded on literally the same day and just, I'd go to events and depending on how the conversation went, I'd like, give a different business card to the person I was talking to. You know? And so it... I just wanted to succeed, and so that's why I was the right person, is that I would do anything to succeed at that point. Um, and then, you know, I'm also a natural born entrepreneur, meaning that I'm pretty persuasive and I can sell and I can motivate people in, in those aspects but that comes way after kind of just the mindset for success.

Chris Williamson 14:29 That must've been... I, I, I just, I, I think back to the, the period that you're talking about, that early 2010s and how much of a golden era it was for, as you called it, the up and to the right tailwind. Uh, and we've-

John Roa 14:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:41 ... pretty much had either linear or exponential growth, however you wanna say it, between now and back to then. It's been... 2020 has been the first year-

John Roa 14:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:51 ... that we've seen that blip start to fall, so yeah, I, I really imagine that that was a crazy, crazy rollercoaster. How would you define the culture in startups and in Silicon Valley?

John Roa 15:05 Well, it, it's changed quite a bit and, and I actually think that it's, it's a pretty... (sighs) I don't wanna use the wrong word here. It, it, it's becoming harder and harder to defend the culture. Um, in the late '90s, it was the gold rush, the literal gold rush. No one knew what the hell was going on. Everyone is just hoping for the best and throwing money at anything that breathes and just like, it was a, an absolute (laughs) insane asylum. But there was a few winners, a lot of losers, and then it all dissolved about 10 years later. (laughs) And so, you know, so, so that was the first kind of era and I'm not sure there was a culture. It was just... The culture was chaos. And then in, you know, off the back of the recession, in, in the era when we started Okta and when a lot of the greatest companies today were really, you know, becoming their own, um, from, you know... E- even though like, the, the, the Googles and such had been around for a while, they were just really, you know, kind of... And the Amazon's of the world were all really figuring out their business model then. You also had, um, you know, like the, the, um, the Ubers of the world and Grubhubs of the world, the whole gig economy. That was all that era. And so I would say the culture then was somewhat healthy. You, you had big bets being made on legitimate companies, but they demanded legitimate success. It wasn't that insane see what sticks period like it had been 10 years prior. Um, and people were a little bit more cautious with their capital given that the world had recently had a financial collapse, and so I think it was a s- a more responsible era. And then you started to see the success and everyone got greedy on both sides, the entrepreneurial side and the investor side, and I think that has led to the culture of today which is frankly... It, it's disheartening to me as an entrepreneur. Um, the, the amount of disaster stories that we're having, the Fyre Festivals and the Theranoses and the, the Nikolas and all (laughs) you know? It's like every-

Chris Williamson 17:00 WeWorks.

John Roa 17:00 ... week is a new company... The WeWorks. Every week is a new company that just build on false something. E- either at best, like, you know, false proclamations to, at worst, like, felonious fraud.And, and I think-

Chris Williamson 17:15 (laughs)

John Roa 17:15 ... that, that, that stems from a, a, a, a level of greed on both sides, right? It's, it's entrepreneurs who are trying to kind of get to that three-comma club and, and it's all about excess and, and it's never about anything that's healthy and about growth. And then investors who are facilitating that, the, the SoftBanks of the world who just throw billion-dollar checks around, you know, like they're, like they're crisps. And so it's like, at some point, it's just insane what's going on. And, and what we don't talk about is the downside of all that, of, of what... of how the entrepreneurs who are taking these bets and running these companies a- are struggling. And the, the sta- statistics around this are haunting. I mean, the entrepreneurs of today, in kind of this high-growth world, have 60% more mental health issues than the average public. This is, um, in America. Um, eight times rated bipolar, six times depression, four times suicide, four times substance abuse. We are melting down (laughs) as the kind of racehorses behind these companies, yet we don't ever hear that story until, until it's a, uh, a horrific headline, like the Aaron Swartzs of the world and, and other folks who've even taken their own lives when they can't handle the pressure. And so, you know, I, I think that it's, it's becoming, you know, somewhat toxic, especially when you look at the biggest companies and how there's just... they all have kind of black eyes now, the Facebooks and the WeWorks, and it's like, "Who can win this game clean anymore?" And I'm not sure that that's a good trend, nor do I know what's... where it's gonna go from here. A- and it worries me a little bit, you know, to be in this industry, quite frankly.

Chris Williamson 18:44 Do you think that's just a function of the returns becoming decoupled from the value that the companies add? I mean, you know, I, I, I learned with Reves Weideman, who wrote Billion-Dollar Loser about Adam Neumann and about the WeWork saga that's going on-

John Roa 19:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:03 ... I learned the other day the term decacorn, which is a unicorn with a private valuation of 10 billion or over. And briefly, WeWork was one of those.

John Roa 19:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:14 Airbnb is one of those. Uh, a- as you're ta- you're using terminology like the three-comma club and all this sort of stuff, like, in no normal... Like, my dad or, you know, s- your, your uncle, like, they don't think about monetary value in these sorts of terms the way that Silicon Valley does, the way that sort of startup angel investing world thinks about this stuff. It is so unhinged from the reality of-

John Roa 19:45 Yes.

Chris Williamson 19:45 ... pretty much everyone. And-

John Roa 19:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:48 ... the, the elephant in the room is that it, it seems to me that the only people keeping this game going are the ones who are there to benefit from it. And from the outside looking in, you can see a ton of businesses that could add more value, but because we have unlimited leverage, unlimited scalability with the internet, you can use the entire world as your potential market, the upside is limitless and the downsides are only negligible.

John Roa 20:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:15 You know, all of this sort of, like, Silicon Valley startup speak that lends... How would you say? It lends a level of consideration and thoroughness and thought-out-ness to an industry which, to me, seems to still be very fledgling. Do you think that's fair?

John Roa 20:36 (laughs) Yeah, I would say that, that's more than fair. And, and I think the problem is, is that you have both sides facilitating this. There should be a checks and balance kind of system somewhere, like one side should prevent this from happening. A- and if, if you were to ask me, it, it should be the fiduciary side. It should be (laughs) the investors, 'cause entrepreneurs are gonna be ambitious as you let us be, right? But if these investors are like, "Slow down."

Chris Williamson 21:01 (laughs)

John Roa 21:01 Like, "How about becoming profitable-

Chris Williamson 21:02 "Chill out, John."

John Roa 21:03 ... or whatever." But instead what they do is they, they value companies through the roof and, and they entice this behavior and then they reward it. You know, you... I, I forget how many billions Adam Neumann left with, but it was... he's a billionaire after tanking WeWork.

Chris Williamson 21:19 (laughs)

John Roa 21:20 That is not a good model (laughs) to speak about, you know, what you should and should not do. And then you have, like... I don't know if you follow Nikola, which is my new favorite company name, and I say that incredibly facetiously, but Nikola, uh, you know, they're, they're calling themselves Nikola because they want to be like Tesla, which is just a ridiculous thing.

Chris Williamson 21:41 Oh, didn't they claim... Didn't they claim-

John Roa 21:43 This is the truck company?

Chris Williamson 21:44 Yeah, the Iveco. Didn't they say they had a partnership with Iveco? Iveco.

John Roa 21:48 I'm not sure about your side. So over here, it's, it's a GM partnership. And, and so what they've done is they... they, they, they debuted a truck and it's a, it's a freight truck and, and it's very similar to Tesla's. And, and I forget the... there's a certain kind of battery, if it was... whatever it was. They have a certain kind of battery patented, invented, that can create the most, you know, effective and efficient EVs in the world, et cetera. They debut this truck and they shou- they have this beautifully produced video of this truck flying down the road and whatever. And then they received some billions in pre-orders off the video. And then they never released the truck and they, they say it's in development, development, development. And then a year later they debut a car very similar to the Tesla car. I think it... I, I hope it wasn't called this. It may have been called the Cougar. It's, it's just... it's some horrible name. And, but it's, it's... they, they've developed... they, they now have a, a sedan coming. And again, there's not a single product in the market. They, they now have, have announced a truck and they've announced a car and they've announced this patent that they hold about this battery technology, which people... (laughs) very smart people like an Elon Musk are like, "Yeah, that, that's not a thing. That doesn't exist." Anyway, so then they take the company public in the midst of this tailwind. And at one point, I think the company had a valuation of like $15 or $18 billion. And this is before they have shipped a single product or anybody's even seen a single product. And their CEO, I think his name is Trevor Milton, was out there doing the game and doing the talks and it was very, you know, whatever.And then a short selling firm, which is hilarious, uh, they put a report out, um, th- they, they're actually called Hindenburg Research, which I think is just brilliant.

Chris Williamson 23:32 Amazing.

John Roa 23:32 And they, they put a, a, they put a report out claiming that every claim Nikola has made is false and that the, even the video of the truck flying down the road was actually being rolled down a hill and they just turned the tilting of the camera to make it look like it was driving and the truck never even worked. Well, Nikola defends themselves by saying, "Well, we never said it worked. We just s- showed that we have an idea for a truck." And, and then within a week, there's, you know, fraud allegations and Trevor Milton resigns as CEO, he's kicked off the board, the whole dance. Fast-forward a month, their valuation or their market cap as we speak right now is 9.18 billion still. And this is where I'm just like, this is where I, uh, there's just a problem. (laughs) Like, this is a problem is like a company is now on the public stock market giving, you know, investor updates to, to the public-

Chris Williamson 24:26 Yeah.

John Roa 24:26 ... that is worth $10 billion after just getting caught in a massive active fraud that is now being federally investigated that led to the CEO resigning.

Chris Williamson 24:36 (laughs)

John Roa 24:36 And it's like, "Okay, there is a problem right now." And, and this, this stuff worries me, so, yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:44 I, I spoke to Reeves about this. Were you privy to the insane uplift that was seen when the electric scooter companies first came out?

John Roa 24:54 Of course.

Chris Williamson 24:57 I mean, at least they had products.

John Roa 24:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:59 But even that, even that, the market sentiment and the valuation... I remember 'cause I was in America at the time and they were doubling the, the valuation of Lime and Bird and the other ones-

John Roa 25:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:12 ... they were doubling every month.

John Roa 25:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:14 It was like 100 million, 200 million, 400 million, 800 million. And that was the, the period of time I was in America. Like, I, I, I ventured into America and they were worth like 100 million. I left America and they were worth 800 million. (laughs)

John Roa 25:28 Well, a- and this is the worrisome part is like, is you wonder how this is facilitated because if it was on the public market it could be market man- manipulation, whatever. But it's on the private market, someone is facilitating this a- and it's... And what's scary is that it appears to be these investors. Like, the, the SoftBank is a great one to do it. I mean, they looked at Adam Neumann and said, "How much money do, do you need?" He's like, "A billion dollars." They're like, "Right, here's 20."

Chris Williamson 25:48 (laughs)

John Roa 25:48 And it's like, "Wait, what?" Like, "No, I, I needed, I needed one." And, and then they, and then they're like-

Chris Williamson 25:53 "Take it." (laughs)

John Roa 25:53 ... "Well, now you have 20, so you better use this to, to, to, you know, to do completely unrealistic things and to, and to create an unrealistic sense of scale and growth." Um, and then they wonder why he creates an unsustainable model. Um, and, and, you know, and so it's no, it's no, um, mystery why this is happening, but it certainly is a mystery to me that it continues to happen. (laughs) And like, and this is still happening every single day right now. It, it is just blows my mind.

Chris Williamson 26:24 Is this House of Invisible Emperor c- Clothes cards gonna come crashing down at some point?

John Roa 26:31 Th- the thing is there's too much money behind like the SoftBanks of the world. The reason that they're cutting these checks, they, they don't know what else to do with it, you know? And this is all, you know, S- Saudi wealth fund or sovereign fund backed capital, right? So, there's hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that they're trying to deploy. And so while... And they're, and they're just one of them. And so while those, those kind of funds are out there of l- of literally limitless capital, they're gonna continue to make ridiculous bets and find a way out of them, which is the craziest part. Like, you know, the, when they, when they kicked out Adam, they brought in, you know, their own, I think he was a former GP of the fund to now be the CEO of WeWork. So, they just kind of like hyper scale, let it crash to the ground, put their own people in, probably take the majority of the equity and then build them up and they'll probably have a fortuitous exit, which is, which is obscene that they're gonna actually win on that deal probably at some point. Um, it's happening with Uber, it's happening with all these companies. And so, you know, until the entire paradigm changes and investors actually worry about making their money back with any kind of practicality, it's hard to say how this will change because who isn't gonna t- who, who's gonna turn down that money and that opportunity?

Chris Williamson 27:38 It's like an entire industry that is a golden goose. In fact, no, it's an entire paradigm, a whole structure where people are just able to print money. Uh, I had Jason Calacanis on here a little while ago and, um, I, I just, I tried to get him to explain to me about how angel investing works. But-

John Roa 27:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:57 ... I, I think fundamentally, because I'm a small-medium sized entrep- uh, enterprise entrepreneur, the fact that market sentiment and valuation is completely decoupled from what the s- the service that the business can actually produce-

John Roa 28:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:14 ... for me, it's a logical step that I am unable to take. It's like I haven't had that l- module loaded into my brain from the matrix and I just can't-

John Roa 28:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:23 ... get how it works. And then we've seen even with companies that are operating this year, let's look at Tesla, like what is it?

John Roa 28:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:30 5, 5X odds.

John Roa 28:32 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:33 5X its stock price, way, way, way above. Companies like Nissan and Ford and there were... I'm sure you saw these graphs about the volume of cars that Tesla produces versus the volume of cars that Ford produces is like the same differential as the pr- the stock valuation between the two of them-

John Roa 28:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:52 ... but in reverse. Like what the-

John Roa 28:53 In reverse, yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:54 ... fuck is going on? (laughs)

John Roa 28:55 It's, it, it's crazy. And, and, and this is where you have to wonder... A- and again, a, a lot of the, the massive tech bubble of 2020, uh, right at the back of the pandemic kicking in was SoftBank, right? It, it was revealed that SoftBank was actually buying all these equities to drive these prices through the roof. So, so it, it's kind of all part and parcel. It's all, it's all working together in the same systems, but it's a, it's a scary thing. And, you know, it... I mean, the, the fact that you can become a billionaire by tanking a company is, is scary. And I was speaking to David Rubenstein, who is the founder of the Carlyle Group. S- so one of the most successful businessmen in America, unequivocally. He creates one of the biggest private equity companies in the world. He is revered amongst that world. Um-... you know, he, he is in the same category as the Bill Gates and those kind of folks, and he lives in DC. He's highly politically connected. He's also the chairman of the Smithsonian, of Duke University. I mean, it's like, this guy is, is literally one of the biggest power brokers in the world and has earned it over the last 36 years of doing what he's done. He's worth 2.3 billion. And I... And I look at that, and I'm like... (laughs) So, so you're talking about the guy who tanked the company that everyone now hates and then lost investors billions of dollars, who's now living in the Hamptons in a compound alone, is worth... I think he's worth like $6 billion. And David Rubenstein, who has done everything right for 36 years and created true and, you know, and generational companies and, and development, is worth $2 billion. And that's when I'm just like, "There's something really, really wrong here."

Chris Williamson 30:32 Do you think that you were overpaid for your company when you exited?

John Roa 30:37 No. Um, uh, I, I think that unlike the businesses that we're talking about, we had, um, an incredible... Well, we, we carried an incredible amount of value in, in our discipline. And, and we... You know, we had incredibly high profit margins. We were bootstrapped through and through. I never took a dollar in capital ever.

Chris Williamson 30:56 Can you just-

John Roa 30:57 And so, we-

Chris Williamson 30:57 ... explain what boo- bootstrapped means, please?

John Roa 31:00 Yes. So, so absolutely no investors or outside capital. So I s- I started the company with about $800 net investment, um, that was on the back of a credit card, and I used the revenue and then profit from the first client to facilitate growth and did that from then on. So, you know, you cannot... All the examples we've been giving from the, you know, Teslas and the Nicolas and the Fruitworks, you can't do any of those relying on your own profit because they don't have any. So for us, I had to run an incredibly value-based business with high margins and high throughput and great cashflow management and stuff to do my business, or else it would have failed. And so, you know, we had an incredible amount of value, we did extraordinary work, and Salesforce, um, was incredibly intelligent on how they saw the value proposition of a business like mine fitting into, uh, to their consulting group, and it was, you know, fortuitous on, on both sides. The majority of my employees that they acquired are still at Salesforce, you know, five years later, w- you know, inside fantastic long-term careers. And, and, um, you know, and they're also one of the fastest-growing Silicon Valley stocks since then, so...

Chris Williamson 32:07 That's awesome, man. That's proper like leg- legacy shit.

John Roa 32:12 Yeah, I mean, listen, I... It was a small business by all intents. You know, we were, we were a small company when it com- when you compare it to Salesforce or even most of the businesses they acquire. They do a lot of, you know, multi-billion dollar acquisitions, et cetera, et cetera, um, that, you know, wasn't us. We were a small, kind of going on medium-sized company, but it obviously... you know, it was a lot more, um, I would say real than who we're talking about. It was a real business with real cashflow and real people in it. And, and that's what they wanted to acquire, and, and we're happy they did, and, uh, and I think everyone is very satisfied with how that all went down.

Chris Williamson 32:45 Awesome. Talk us through the craziest year that you had in business then, personally. What, what was going on? What was a typical day? What were some of the big incidents which occurred?

John Roa 32:57 Yeah. It, it was the year... It was the last year of the company that I alluded to earlier, and it kind of... You know, the reason it was so crazy is because, you know, I'm managing a company that, that had just experienced 1100% organic growth-

Chris Williamson 33:09 (laughs)

John Roa 33:09 ... in 12 months for an agency. This is an agency. Like, you know, it's one thing to scale a software company because you can hire a few more people but then grow 1000%, and it's... you know, it's just scaling software. When you scale an agency, you're, you're scaling human beings who are incredibly difficult to hire. They are very expensive. And so, um, we had exp-... That, that was the growth we were experiencing. We were, we were, I think, the 400th, give or take, fastest growing company in America of any kind, and I, I think the, the only... the only fast-growing agency in that caliber of our, of our type in our specific niche. And, um... So things are going well, a- and I am in a position where I am being recognized for that success. I am being asked to do interviews and TED Talks, and I'm on magazine covers, and this is a new world for me. I have never (laughs) experienced anything like that. And people care about who you are and what you're up to, and you... you're invited to all kinds of crazy stuff. You have a seat at the table with, you know, the, the, the governors, and it- it's, it's that world. And, and all of a sudden, you're then making money. I, I became a millionaire the day before I turned 30. And, you know, I, I had this stretch goal as a teenager of being a millionaire by 30, and I literally got there the day (laughs) before I turned 30. Um, and that's not even like a... That's not even facetious. Literally, my last day being 29, I became a millionaire. And so from all of that, things were going very well. And it was a bit surreal. It was going so well. But at the same time, this is when personally I was struggling more and more and more and more and more. And so you had these diametrically opposed kind of positions where as one side, the kind of public side if you will, is, is, uh, going about as well as it can and then seemingly just continuing to get better, everything that people can't see was just systematically getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. And p- you know, no one knew I was dealing with lawsuits from another... you know, from an old business partner. No one knew that, you know, I was battling every day to, you know, to, to win certain accounts that if we had not got or we had lost certain clients, we could have, you know, had a down year or whatever. Um, no one knew I was dealing with the mental health issues that I was. No one knew that I was, you know, escaping to, you know, Las Vegas or another degenerate playground, you know, three times a month and, and, and having very bad behavior, 'cause that's what... uh, that's what allowed me to stop thinking about all my issues for a day or two. And so it was... You know, and, and work was so busy, it was like... It was almost being managed to the minute. I remember I'd have a... you know, my assistant would be like, "You have a call. I'm gonna start it at 9:16, and at 9:22, I'm gonna grab you so you can go do this." It was like that was my day. And...... it, you know, it was just, it was truly crazy in so far as there were incredible parts, there were very dire parts. And it was such, it was where I always wanted to be. I was succeeding for the first time ever, but it didn't really feel like it because there was all this other stuff I was dealing with. And so, th- that was a truly, truly crazy year. I mean, we, I don't know how many people we hired that year. We were tr- we were op- opening up offices in London and then in the West Coast. And we, um, God, we, we opened up a massive gorgeous office in Chicago that we designed, like I designed every s- square inch of that place and it was just incredible. Uh, we had signed all of our major cl- accounts, like the BMWs of the world. We, you know, designed the interior of one of their cars, like crazy stuff. And so that was, that was the coolest period of my life ever, while also being the worst period ever.

Chris Williamson 36:35 (laughs) Man, y-

John Roa 36:37 Which I think is entrepreneurship in a nutshell.

Chris Williamson 36:39 Oh, absolutely. So, here's something that I learned, uh, from Ben Bergeron's Chasing Excellence, which is that when we look back on a lot of the experiences that we have in life, especially to do with sort of business and discomfort and stuff like that, we don't ever look back and find any glory or really any interest in the times when things were easy. What we find as the real exciting times is, "Oh, do you remember when we had to pull three all-nighters in a row to get the project finished?"

John Roa 37:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:06 "And we all did dominoes and you slept under the desk," and this, this and... Like, ev- you know, even the people listening who aren't an entrepreneur, you can remember, um, completing an assignment for school or college or something-

John Roa 37:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:16 ... and you, you had to pull, you had to get a case of Red Bull in and you and your friends didn't leave the library for three days. You know, that's where the glory is associated with it. But obviously-

John Roa 37:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:26 ... the, the goal of that or the, um, yeah, the proposed, the best outcome of that is to avoid going completely broke in one way or another. Broke physically, broke-

John Roa 37:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:39 ... spiritually, broke mentally, broke financially. You know, broke to jail (laughs) like, uh, judicially.

John Roa 37:44 Yeah. Y- it's, it's, yeah, and you're spot on with that and I, I resonate with that a lot because when I think back of my journey, I rarely think about the, quote unquote, "great times". Like what comes to my mind first is not the money, not like, the, the, the day I became a millionaire, I barely recall it. I, I saw my bank account, I was like, "Oh, a million dollars." And I called my mom to tell her and she's like, "Nice, John." Like, no one gave a shit, it was very uneventful. Even though that was a somewhat, I don't know, that was, that was a, that should've been, I think, a memorable day or maybe is for some people.

Chris Williamson 38:18 It's a m- it's a big milestone, right?

John Roa 38:20 Yeah, y- you'd think so, except it was highly forgetful-

Chris Williamson 38:24 (laughs)

John Roa 38:24 ... you know, forgettable for me compared to some of the tragic, fucked up times that we had. And, and there's this quote by my favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk, and, and he says, "It's so hard to forget pain but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scars to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace." And I think that that really speaks to entrepreneurship in a big way, is that we, we actually, i- in, in those times where things were just great and things were happy, you don't learn a lot, you're not really progressing. It really is those battles that you hopefully win when, when you really are in the best position you can be in.

Chris Williamson 39:01 What are some of the lowest points that you can remember from that year?

John Roa 39:08 Well, the mental breakdown was pretty low (laughs) . That, that was, that was not any fun.

Chris Williamson 39:11 Were you in the office? Was that a-

John Roa 39:13 That was the worst.

Chris Williamson 39:13 ... "You need to ring 911" job?

John Roa 39:14 No. I was, I was, I had just come back from, uh, a weekend in Las Vegas that was highly inappropriate, that is also detailed in the first chapter of the book.

Chris Williamson 39:23 It's the intro, it's the intro to the book, yeah, exactly.

John Roa 39:26 The intro to the book. So, I came back from a, from a bad behavior weekend and, you know, anybody who's had that kind of weekend knows that you're in a fragile state, to say the least. And I proceeded to attempt to continue the weekend. And so, you know, I come straight back from a weekend of partying to throw a party at my house, and I had this ridiculous penthouse high-rise in Chicago. And it, it was towards the end of that, most people had left and I was there with a woman, and we were, uh, you know, kind of getting ready to wind down. And the l- the best I can recall, and, and a little of this ha- this has been filled in by, by her actually later on, but from what I recalled, everything just kind of got kind of Matrixy. Like, I, I kind of lost my, a sense of reality and the world kind of started to, like it's kind of folding in on me, from like a little Inception kind of perspective. And, and, um, and the last thing I was able to do was open my phone and call Kevin, who was my COO at the company. And, and as I, as it was ringing, I blacked out. And, and according to her, I just felt like in the movies, just straight, faint forward, slammed my head on the ground, and she called 911. And, um, and I woke up in the hospital. My co- I consciously woke up in the hospital three days later. Now, I had been awake in the meantime, but I had no s- no memory of that. I, I was in a completely disassociative state, which is not a place you want to be (laughs) . Uh, and so, um, it was a, it was a horrific time and it was the first time I'd ever really confronted my own existence, my own humanity. Um, you know, there was a, there was a better than, you know, a, a nil, zero chance that I was never going to recover from that fully. And they didn't know at that minute, it, it could've been severe, um, brain damage, it could have been severe memory loss, some of which I do have. It could've been all, it could've been a stroke, they weren't sure at first. You know, it was, it was a horrific thing to consider, you know, that you almost died at age 30 after all this, quote unquote, "success". And it was awful. It was really awful.

Chris Williamson 41:33 What did they diagnose as the contribution to that? Obviously, a bunch of substances and a high heart rate and a lack of sleep is gonna contribute to that, but is it chronic longterm stress? Is it something else?

John Roa 41:46 Yeah, it's all, all of the above. And, and effectively, it's like a dam breaking in your brain. At, at some point, you've just, you've just put too much, you know, volatility, too much, um, you know, just, just pressure and you're... It, it's actually kind of fascinating, like, it, it wasn't at the time, (laughs) but, but in reflection, when it was explained to me, your brain, it's kind of a defense mechanism. So your brain is like, "You know what? This isn't going well." (laughs) And, and this... And we're kind of, you know, we're feeling the, the damage of all of this. And so we're gonna kind of just, like, s- hit the reset. And, and this is why it's called disassociated amnesia, 'cause when you disassociate, you're having a personality fugue state. And so your, your brain's kind of like, "This, this current state is damaging us, so we're just gonna kind of put that off to the side and almost start anew." And that's why, you know, in, in person in my state, I, I didn't, didn't know my own name, didn't know what city I was in. I knew what a name was, I knew what a city was. I could list 10 cities. I just didn't have a clue which one mine was, because I, I was literally a new identity for a few days. And that was the brain's way of forcing me to stop, which is somewhat incredible that your brain can do so.

Chris Williamson 42:57 (laughs) Dude, that is-

John Roa 42:57 Also horrific to experience. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:01 ... insane.

John Roa 43:01 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:01 That is so crazy.

John Roa 43:03 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you'll see it, you know, I, I've obviously done quite a bit of research. And so if you research, like, fugue states, if you research disassociated amnesia, you, you can read, you know, a- and it's all at the back of, of a mental break of some kind, you know. And for me, it was this psychotic break, meaning I was suffering psychosis, and so for the weeks leading up to it, uh, the one time I can remember clearly, which is always weird to talk about, is I was watching television in my living room for some period of time. I don't know if it was an hour or two hours, just kind of mindlessly doing what we do, watching television, and then I realized the TV was off and had been the entire time. And I kind of was like, "That is not good." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:38 (laughs)

John Roa 43:39 You know, like... A- and then you're like, "Did I turn it off?" And you realize it was never on. I, I, like, I, the... I was staring at a blank television thinking I was watching TV for hours. And it's, it... When those things had happened, and, and normally before a psychotic break, you have these moments of psychosis as you lead up to it, so there usually is some indicators. We generally don't notice them because it's just kind of like, it's so surreal, but once I reflected on it, I was like, "Yeah, there were a few warning signs, weren't there?" (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:05 (laughs)

John Roa 44:06 So... Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:08 So looking back, obviously, we can armchair philosophize about the, the beauty of the newly awakened 36 years old understanding aligned John Roebourne.

John Roa 44:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:22 But would he, would the person sat in that chair today have been able to do what was needed 10 years ago?

John Roa 44:35 Yes and no. Um, if somebody had given me a crystal ball and they had said, "As you start this company, here's what, where you'll be in five years. You'll be a rich man who almost died-"

Chris Williamson 44:49 (laughs)

John Roa 44:49 "... and you'll, you'll be pretty screwed up from the whole thing, but you will have technically succeeded." That would've obviously been shocking, but I don't think I would've had the wherewithal to not... to, to do anything different. I still don't know if I had just known the result, what I possibly would have done different. And the reason I say that, and this is kind of a weird thing that people don't always expect I would say, is because it worked. So had I changed anything, like, like for instance, I was dating this wonderful woman named Courtney when the, when the whole company started. I broke up with her in the second year 'cause I convinced myself that I could not be a good partner and, and give attention to somebody while being a great entrepreneur and CEO. I said, "There's not enough bandwidth to do both, so I'm gonna choose being an entrepreneur." And I now realize that's ridiculous. That's hogwash. Like you, you can... There's a lot of people who not only are great partners in the process, but they attribute their success to that partner. And so, but with that said, if I were to, to go back and let's say I could do it all again, but this time, instead of becoming a degenerate, I stayed with my lovely girlfriend and, and used that as an anchor, maybe I wouldn't have worked as hard. Maybe I would have been distracted. M- so it's... So I can't reasonably say that there are things that I would actually change, because I don't know what the result would have been. Um, looking forward, which is all we can really do, if I was to start a company right now, obviously I would do everything differently. The first would be not to bet my entire life and existence on a damn tech company, but secondly would just ways to, to be mentally, you know, a- acute, you know, ways to, um, stay attuned to your, you know, m- your mind and body throughout the entire journey to find methods of support, to have a good structure around you, to be honest what you're dealing with, to seek therapy. I would do all of those things now and that... But that's looking forward. It's very difficult to say wh- looking back, because at the end of the day, it worked. Wh- who am I to say that I should have done it differently if it worked? So it's a, it's a weird kind of place to, to reflect from.

Chris Williamson 46:49 I understand. You think the ends justified the means by that logic?

John Roa 46:55 Uh, a little bit. And, and again, this is where it's hard to admit that, because, you know, I, I had some pretty bad behavior and I'm not proud of a lot of what I did, and, and it was a pretty wild few years. I wasn't a very good son or brother or friend to people. And so, like, it's not that it justifies it, but at the same time, if you were gonna go redo it, wouldn't you want the same result? (laughs) And so it's kind of hard to say like, you know, I would've, I would have been a better friend, um, but I would happily have, you know, gone bankrupt. It's like-

Chris Williamson 47:24 Yeah. Yeah.

John Roa 47:24 ... yeah, probably not. (laughs) You know? Like-

Chris Williamson 47:26 Yeah.

John Roa 47:26 So it, it's, it's hard... It's very difficult to reflect on it from that way, and that's why for folks who, who have read the book or are going to read the book, I, I worked very hard while writing it to not judge. I, I didn't want to say like, "Oh, I wish I hadn't done this," or, "I so regret this," or, "Man, look how brilliant I was." It's all just what happened. It's just a story that we can now look back on for some high level indicators, but it's not a practical...

Chris Williamson 47:53 (laughs)

John Roa 47:53 No pun intended. It's not a practical guide for what to do or what not to do.

Chris Williamson 47:57 Yeah. I think that's a really, um, reassuringly unique-... viewpoint, a stance that you've taken that very often it would be easy for someone to polarize their opinion for it to be, "Yeah, it was absolutely worth it," or, "No, I, I, I definitely wouldn't have done it that way. I would have totally changed things around."

John Roa 48:17 Right.

Chris Williamson 48:18 Um, I think that it's w- very reassuring to know that there's someone who is prepared to sort of go to that uncomfortable place of truth. Uh, and, and, and also to deliver it with a little bit of subtlety and nuance. I think that is interesting. Just to bookend the girlfriend discussion, we've spoken about this on the show before.

John Roa 48:36 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 48:36 Do you think, on balance, that more entrepreneurs are successful with or without partners, if you take a normal distribution of entrepreneurs?

John Roa 48:45 More are successful with partners, for sure. Based on, based on stories that I've heard, conversations that I've had, people are more successful with partners.

Chris Williamson 48:53 Why do you think that is?

John Roa 48:53 Um, and, and I think I may... Well, I think it's, it's quite obvious. I think it creates... A- assuming the relationship is healthy, right? I think that, uh, you know, people can find themselves in somewhat toxic relationships in those journeys because it can feel comforting at first. It's kind of disguised comfort. But I think if you're in a secure, healthy relationship, you have an automatic support system, which is something we normally lack as entrepreneurs is any kind of support system, much less one who you're literally with every day. It forces you to not isolate, which is a very common, you know, characteristic of entrepreneurs. We lock ourselves in a room and hope for the best. Um, if you're with somebody, they're not gonna let you do that, likely, or at least not constantly. And so you're gonna be pulled out of your element and forced to talk and forced to, to realize there's more going on than your little tech company. Um, and I think that there's gonna be a sense of compassion that you forget people will have for you. One thing that I, I experienced in my journey, and I've h- heard a lot from entrepreneurs, is that we kind of find ourselves in, in this, like, um, like a shame spiral kind of environment, where we're, we're shameful for what we're doing and how we're spending our time and we don't want to admit the decisions that we've made. And so that's where a lot of that inner turmoil comes from, and I think if somebody's saying to you, you know, "Listen, I understand you have a lot of hard decisions to make and it's okay and I, you know, I would do the same thing," even, as silly as it sounds, just hearing that would have done a lot for me and I know for other people. So, um, so yeah, I, I, I think, you know, again, I can't call it a rule. I can't tell somebody who's like (laughs) ... If there's some single entrepreneur, I can't be like, "Go find a partner-"

Chris Williamson 50:19 (laughs) "Find yourself a relationship." Stat.

John Roa 50:22 "... and then (inaudible) and then find..." You know, that, that's ridiculous, but I can say off a lot of discussions with incredibly successful people, that is more often than not a key.

Chris Williamson 50:32 That's really interesting. I think, I think that you are correct with that as well. I, I know my experience as an entrepreneur for 14 years, that the rumination and the amount of time that you spend inside of your own head... I mean, what, uh, uh, think about what you were doing. You said it before, why were you going to Vegas? Why were you partying hard? It was in an effort to force yourself out of that head.

John Roa 50:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:52 And, you know, even stuff, even stupid things like owning a dog, you know? Like, if you own a dog-

John Roa 50:58 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:58 ... you have to project that... You, you, you dissolve your sense of s- self-important because there is something else and it's beholden to you. You need to look after it.

John Roa 51:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:09 Right? So I think-

John Roa 51:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:10 ... that is a... That's a really, really interesting insight. So, okay, we've had this, we've had this crazy career. We've, w- we've done also the learning and the reflection, hopefully sufficient time for you to be able to at, at least begin to normalize what it was that you went through. What are the high level lessons? What can we take away from it and try and implement into our own lives or avoid or... Strategies and everything.

John Roa 51:35 H- honestly, this is gonna sound... This is a horrible answer to your question, but I don't really have too many. A- and the reason is, is because, it, i- uh, going back to the earlier point that you made, kind of about nuance is, I made a lot of mistakes, and so for me to try to tell people what they should do or what the lessons are, I think is ridiculous. Like, uh, you know, a- and it's... I hate that successful people believe that they have more sense of what is good and bad, right and wrong, the right or wrong ways to do things, than other people do, because we generally have our, our timeline, right? And so I can speak to some personal things that I've experienced, but they don't translate into blanket advice or lessons or any of those things. Because if, if I, if, if I speak to an individual, and Chris and I... If we're having a, a pint in London and you, you're saying to me, "Hey, here's my situation, can you give me some advice based on yours?" I would happily do so. But if I'm speaking to a room of entrepreneurs and I say, "Here's three things you should do," maybe 5% of those it could be perfect for, 80% of it's irrelevant, and 15% I'm gonna damage by them following my advice.

Chris Williamson 52:34 (laughs)

John Roa 52:34 Because everyone is so different. And so, you know, I- my lessons are purely my experience. That's, that's why I wrote the book how I wrote it. It was very purposeful to not have takeaways, to not have lessons, to not have advice. It's just, "Here's what happened." And based on who you are, and who every reader is, they're gonna take away their own anecdotes from that.

Chris Williamson 52:54 I think, again, man, I'm, I'm really, really impressed with the anti-five steps to 10X your business.

John Roa 53:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:02 Like, the, you know-

John Roa 53:03 I hate it. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:03 Well-

John Roa 53:03 I hate it so much.

Chris Williamson 53:04 Well, um, everyone that's listening will know that I have very strong opinions about Gary V and about Grant Cardone-

John Roa 53:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:10 ... and about this, like, hustle porn, uh, kind of-

John Roa 53:13 Right.

Chris Williamson 53:13 ... success by any means mentality that we have going on at the moment. And again, like, we spoke at the beginning about the fact that the emperor kind of does have no clothes with regards to company valuations in Silicon Valley.

John Roa 53:28 Yep.

Chris Williamson 53:28 I think that there is an intellectual cerebral equivalent which is going on within motivation and success gurus at the moment as well.

John Roa 53:38 Uh, s- we could talk another hour about this topic. Um, it, it... I actually think that that movement is quite dangerous, um, a- and I think that it, it's probably not too dissimilar to the startups we talked about earlier. This quest for, you know, for financial success and whatever else is, is driving a paradigm that is literally toxic and dangerous to people who are listening and who are taking it quite seriously. Because again, you're speaking to a room of 2,000 people who are struggling to find their kind of, you know, avenue forward, there's no such thing as blanket advice. There's literally no such thing. And, and it, it's not just advice at that point, it's a, it's a sometimes cultish kind of level following, and, and I struggle with it a lot. And I, I...... talk out against it, and I actually did in the book. I think I was, um... I, I won't, I won't repeat the, the line, but I, I am quite forward about my thoughts on the topic. And so, yeah, a- and that's why I try to do the exact opposite. You know, I, I, I only know what I know. I, I've had one experience in my life, which is my life, I've had one timeline, done some things right, some things wrong. Um, I'll continue to make mistakes, I'll continue to do stupid things. But at the end of the day, you know, I, I would embrace all of that and it would be very foolish of me to try to cast any of that down as some, you know, unjust wisdom to somebody else.

Chris Williamson 54:54 You are aware that that's a much more subtle approach though, and that in a world where absolutes and polarization is what seduces a lot of people, that you are potentially sacrificing clout and status and, and notoriety for this particular message?

John Roa 55:13 Sure. Um, you know, eh, the nice part about being where I am, a- and I apologize because I have to jump for another podcast here in a second.

Chris Williamson 55:19 All good.

John Roa 55:19 But, uh, the, um... I'd love to continue as well at some point, if you want to do a second part of this, but, you know, one of the things that I, I'm very fortunate to, to have is, I don't have the need for clout and, and-

Chris Williamson 55:31 (laughs)

John Roa 55:31 ... and, you know, these kind of things. Like, you know, if, if I was worried about people loving me, I wouldn't have written the book I wrote, because no one looks worse in this book than me.

Chris Williamson 55:40 (laughs)

John Roa 55:40 And so, I'm not exactly on a quest for, you know... Because let, let's say this is not an ego play, to say the least. And so, I don't need to try to say the same things everyone else does to get more, you know, people requoting me or something stupid. I, I believe in what I believe in, people who care to hear that and have that nuance will hear it, you know, uh, from me, and those who need to be they can, you know, walk over coals and that's gonna make them good at business can go do that. So...

Chris Williamson 56:07 Dude, I love it. I really, really enjoy a much more subtle and nuanced approach to this. This sort of messaging hopefully is what we're going to see coming out of Silicon Valley more over the, over the next decade. So, A Practical Way to Get Rich and Die Trying: A Memoir About Risking It All will be linked in the show notes below. Anywhere else that people should go and check out, John?

John Roa 56:27 Yeah. Uh, my social is just Jon Roa, my name, on Instagram and Twitter. Don't use Facebook. Um, and, uh, the book is available at all booksellers I think across Europe as well as here in America. And then, um, I have a podcast. It's, it's currently called The Jon Roa Show but we're actually relaunching it with a really cool pivot in the next couple of weeks here, so you can currently follow The Jon Roa Show and then when it pivots, you'll then have that feed. Um, but yeah, and that's, that's it. So Chris, I appreciate your time.

Chris Williamson 56:52 Amazing. Thank you so much, man. (instrumental music)