Eva Ho of Fika Ventures

Welcome to the Puck, Venture Capital and Beyond, a show that explores the evolving landscape of the venture capital world. We'll have candid conversations with today's VCs and entrepreneurs who are shaping those changes. I'm Jim Bier, managing partner of Bier and Troff and president of CMBG Advisors. This podcast brings change makers to the table to discover the inner workings behind decision making strategies and ultimately how they got got to where they are today. Like, five years ago, we had a thesis that LA was trending forward in diversification of sector, in having large companies.

But I think for all the reasons why you and I stay here, why you spent your life here, there's just a lot of pros of being here. And as the Bay Area, it becomes more complicated. There's just much more opportunity here. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Eva Ho, cofounder and managing partner of FECA Ventures. Eva shares her multifaceted approach to investing in the future with a steady eye on the greater good.

A quick note about this episode. There are a few points where we just couldn't escape the sound of construction from nearby offices. We hope you can tune out the white noise and stay with our conversation. This is a special one. When I read your background, I literally, if we were out for a cup of coffee, could sit here and ask you about all the interesting issues about, like, how you grew up, where you started, how you left, all the different things.

It's fascinating. I could spend an hour in each one of these things. And although it would be fun to do, you probably don't wanna spend your whole day doing this. So the question is, are there particular things you'd like to touch on more than others? I think the parts are probably a little bit different than other VCs is my engagement with the public sector, the California Community Foundation.

I sit on the board. Not to say that I'm on the board, but more that I have pretty interesting purview over the county and the city and our sort of needs for the greater population. I try to really get in there and look at where we want the city to be in the next five, ten, twenty years and how do we build the infrastructure to encourage founders to start companies in areas outside of Venice. We have a huge initiative right now working around Sila, Southeast LA, and tying together all those towns like Downey, Bell that have corrupt local governments to basically pull them together and say, hey. You guys could do a lot more if you had a unified voice.

So those are, like, to me, really interesting, meaty things, and I would love if one of the next 10 pole companies happen in Southeast LA, and I don't see why it couldn't. There's already examples locally like Next Trucking, the company that got funded by Sequoia, 25,000,000. A young woman founder from China. I actually missed out investment because I was like, there's this young lady, heavy heavy Asian accent right from China. Started a company in trucking and logistics.

So working to selling into truckers, people who drive trucks. And I just couldn't see the path, but she's doing incredibly and the company's based in Longwood. You probably never even heard of it. But it's very exciting for Longwood because the mayor there has adopted her as sort of a local icon, and she's now become an inspiration for the city to have her be the center of labor creation and all these wonderful things. So I like things like that.

I think the second big topic is more around diversity and funds. So I'm one of the founding members always, and that's been very interesting. Lots of activity, lots of different thoughts and contrary and thoughts. So anything around there you wanna chat about. I just been interviewing.

On my side, I've been interviewing a lot of long time GPs male and female. So speaking to the likes of Teresa Gao and Emily Melton who've been in this for twenty years. Back then, you could count women on one hand, not two hands and how they fell into their careers. And fast forward twenty years where we are today and thinking about how do we build pipeline for venture. Because if you look at even gender alone, the lens like the women are fairly homogeneous.

You know, most come from parents who are double college graduates from wealthy families. They tend to have networks that are more privileged and thus it enables them to become venture people. So really thinking about like how do we open up the aperture so that we could have more diverse people from not only from a gender, sexual orientation, all that stuff, people of color, but also socioeconomic background. So those are big pieces of research I'm working on now with Harvard Business School, with Kaufman, with Prequin, with Burgess. So it's been neat because I run the data side for Always, and it's given me at least sort of access to asking a lot of questions and trying to understand the whys and not being prescriptive about here are the solutions, but understand, like, why are there all male firms and talking to the male GPs and saying, hey, like, how are you thinking about this?

Why do you have 11 guys? And, again, not in a way that's judgmental or penalizing, but more trying to understand so that we can sort of move forward and have some sort of positive recommendations and insights on sort of the next group of folks. Totally makes sense. Moving into that, using you as an example as a woman, you obviously went to Harvard. You are in the VC world.

You're doing a lot of amazing things. How did you grow up and kind of from your background in terms of not coming from privilege, it would appear, but yet ending up in a place now where you're really trying to break down these barriers and so forth. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about kind of how you started and how you got to where you are today? Yeah. Absolutely.

And I'm really thrilled to be here, Jim. Thank you for having me on the show. Yeah. I've taken a very unconventional path. Being in venture couldn't be further from my radar.

I grew up in Africa and Mozambique and came over to US as a refugee and ended up using a lot of the public services like public housing. I was in the housing projects till I went to college. Public education, all my education was paid for. High school all the way through college including grad school. Even my MBA was paid for.

So I feel, very grateful for all of that. We were on food stamps when my family moved to Boston. And today, you know, my parents don't speak any English, have never turned on the Internet, have never sent an email, don't understand venture, have never even visited my office. They're just far removed from this world. So I think, you know, sort of my path here has been shaped a lot by that background and context and as well as some of the things I focus on today outside of venture.

I got lucky, you know, in terms of moving out to LA and lining on a great company with Gil who you recently interviewed, a close friend of mine. It wasn't premeditated. You know, I met him and he was working on a search engine, a tiny company. I think when I joined, it was like 10 people or something like that. So he and Adam, who are both Celtic grads, needed a business counter part.

And I honestly just gravitated more towards them versus the actual idea of a search engine. You know, fast forward three years, you know, we had this interesting ad tech solution. Luckily, Google is interested in it and purchased it. So that was sort of an inflection point. Didn't expect it, but it really helped put me on a path towards working with top notch folks, being exposed to tech at the highest level, and seeing a very meaningful company built.

So being part of Google pre IPO certainly opened my eyes to what's possible. And Google back then was just so flexible in what they allowed me to do. Allowed me to stretch and work on different products. There's very little structure of like, hey, Eva, you have to do this for two years, then you're gonna be, you know, seeing a program. Are you gonna have to there's no there was no career ladder.

It was kind of like if you wanna do it and you're capable, you just assume the position. So I was there for six years and and then got itchy, and wanted to start something new and go back to being a founder and worked on a couple other companies. So that was really, I think, for a lot of people, they could only dream of a situation where you somehow pick a young company that nobody's ever heard of and it ends up building something that's useful for the world. So I credit a lot. That sort of changed to apply to Mannix and yeah.

So let's fast forward in terms of you leave Google and how did you land and did you leave with a vision at the time you landed? Did you leave with a job? Kinda what was the next big step for you? Yeah. I think what's really neat is I think probably one thing, my entire career as I moved from and I've never had a day where I wasn't employed for better or worse.

And now there are times I wish I wasn't employed. I took a break. But I've always felt like if I felt like it was time to go, I should have left the year before. It's kind of like a relationship. You know, when you know it's going south, probably has been bad for a while.

With Google, it wasn't bad. It was more I just felt that it's gotten pretty large and, my brand was very much tied only to Google. So I would take the flight. I live down here up north. I had my little Timbuktu bag and I said Google and people are like, oh, you're the Google girl.

They recognize me as that, but I realized that there's more to do. And I could do it outside of Google and I wanted to sort of reinvent a bit of sort of the things I focused on. And health care is something I really loved, but it was serendipitous. So it was actually an executive in Merrill Lynch. We were having coffee.

I didn't even know him very well. He was very vulnerable and opened up that he had a 10 year old son. He was one of the five faces actually on on the Maryland site. This is 2000 and late two thousand seven, so when everything was starting to crash. But he wasn't talking about about the financial crash.

He was talking about his family and his son who had a brain tumor and how he felt paralyzed and powerless because he didn't know what to do. I think both USC and UCLA gave him very different options for surgery and all this, and that all had happened within ten days. He's like, somebody's gonna cut into my little boy's head, and I honestly didn't really know whether it's the best surgeon, the best care team, the best oncologist. And he's like, if you could just I'll give you $50, you know, if you could just help me build the database of oncologists and care team and especially in serving very rare cancers because his son had a very rare brain tumor. And I'm like, oh, I mean, very kinda naively, I said that should be super easy because I went and did some quick, you know, searching and it's like there's 25,000 in colleges.

I was like, we must know who's good at, like, some sort of rare sarcoma. But once I dug into it, I did take the money and I used it to build the initial prototype and, it was much harder than I expected. Physicians are very difficult to work with. They're not very open in sharing basic information, and that was the founding of a company called Navigating Cancer. I quickly learned that the lack of access to data was a huge hindrance for the start of Navigating Cancer.

I was very lucky that I had the backing, like, Tom Unterman, a lot of local folks that you know. But, you know, we were moving very slowly because we couldn't get we we spoke to ASCO, which is the National Association for Oncologists, and they were like, oh, I don't wanna give you how many cases I do have sarcoma. Even though it's just a fact, Meaning, I wasn't penalizing them if they weren't doing cases, but I wanted to say, hey. If you did 10 cases, you're more likely to know what to do. And it's not even tied directly to outcomes, but just the number of cases.

Even then, these doctors are like, no. You have no right to ask me that question. I went all over Beverly Hills knocking on all these oncologist stores, and they just didn't wanna provide it. So that was when I met up with Gil. I would share my frustration about it, and he goes, oh, you know, guess what?

I'm working on a big data platform to solve some of the things that you're talking about. Like, why don't you come join me? So I took the leap, and it's hard to say no to Gil. And, I ended up being a partner with him for many years, and that was a great ride at Factual. And then tell us what happened in terms of your next move after Factual.

And because at that point, you started, I think, moving into the venture world. Yeah. It's interesting because at factual, you know, I was effectively the COO second person, but I wasn't sure, honestly, to be very frank, whether I have the sort of, I don't know what you call it, the confidence to actually just be the front person. Right? Like, can I do this?

Can I actually lead it? And can I do something substantial? And I think moving into venture, gave me a chance to build something from scratch. And I think I got hooked up with a couple folks who we were doing a small angel investments. And by the way, angel investments for me were really difficult.

So I think while I did reasonably well from, you know, the acquisition and sort of my earlier jobs, it was hard to write a $50,000 check because my family like you know, I I think my family when we ran a small restaurant in Boston, I mean, our total take home for the family was, like, $1,015,000 dollars a year. So to think about, you know, just writing a 25 or $50,000 check based on a napkin idea was it took a lot. My friend had to be like, like, come on, Eva. You could do this. You could and that today, I work with women angel investors and getting through that hurdle if they can afford to, if it makes sense for them.

But it's very it's a very deep chasm. So it took me several years. But once I got over and be like, okay. I could do this. And ultimately, whether I I make money from it didn't matter so much because I was enjoying working with these folks and giving them a chance to to do what they wanna do.

Then I decided, like, let's do it in a more structured way. And first one was Sousa Ventures. It's 25,000,003 partners. I learned a lot from that. I was three years there.

Vintage twenty thirteen, probably gonna be the best one of the best performing funds of that vintage. And we went in as four people. Well, to be completely honest, one of them was Chad Byers who his father's Brooke Byers, a Kleiner. So we had some good mentorship. So we weren't certainly just kind of out there doing it.

That said, like, none of us had ever been a VC before and didn't really know how to run an institutional process of, like, diligence and how to run the back office of a fund. So it was interesting. So we, you know, did everything from start and learned so much from that and built a very, strong portfolio. So we have companies like Robinhood and Flexport, KTM. It's quite a lend up.

It's quite an incredible portfolio. And in 2005, I also didn't know that you would raise a second fund so quickly. Like, the boys were like, oh, Eva, it's time to go out for a fund too. And I'm like, oh, wow. That's super quick.

And it was at that point, I said, hey. Give me a couple of months. Like, I need to think about whether this is the partnership I wanted to move forward with for decades. It was also learning that when you sign LPA, you're bound by all these things for such a long time. You can't be an advisor.

You can't do this. You can't do that. And so I had to really think about, whether this was the right grouping to go forward with. And, unfortunately, the answer was no. I think mostly because I just had such a great privilege of working with Gil as one partner that was sort of my equal and my complete better half, and he pushed me all the time to think about things in such a different way because we would have massive discussions and heated arguments about stuff.

And I would come in and say, hey. I think it should be x. And he's like, well, why can't it be y? And even if it's not y, he would always force me to go further. And I felt with the partnership before, I wasn't able to really do that most effectively.

And, again, it was one of the time in my career. I was like, I could stay at SUSE and do SUSE too, and it it would have been really easy. And we had a lot of interest. There was a lot of money at stake. And I said, hey.

Like, I really gotta, like, look out ten years. And if I look back, like, is this where I felt I would learn the most and build the thing I wanted to build? And the answer was no, so I stepped off and, decided to do FICA with TX. So let's talk about FICA a little in terms of what are you doing different with FICA and how does it fit into kind of your dreams and also tie into some of the stuff you were doing with Gil? Is it satisfying that itch?

And how did you craft it so that it's different than what you were doing before? Yeah. I think there's a fundamental difference between four partners and one partner. Number one. I think TX and I, you know TX a bit.

We recognize that we just had such similar backgrounds that created the values that we hold very dear. And we both just saw the world in a similar way in terms of how we wanted to treat people, how we thought about risk, how we like to work with founders. It was a very natural fit like it was with Gil, you know, over fifteen years ago. It's hard to often codify why you wanna work with somebody, but the chemistry is really there with TX and I. And we had worked together for several years.

We did several deals together. So I felt like I'm gonna really, really enjoy working with this person, and I'm gonna enjoy speaking with him 40 times a day. You know, being in venture is very different. Right? Like, it's being a factual.

We had hundreds of people, and I'll be interacting with making lots of decisions every day. But in venture, you only make a handful of decisions. It's kinda like your law firm. Right? I mean, you really have to trust the judgment of your partners, and you really have to enjoy the type and style of work and communication.

And I think with TX and I, we just found that synergy, and we feel very proud that as a first time fund. And there were a lot of headwinds against us when we went out because it's kinda like, why did you leave SUSE? It was going so well. And it was difficult because I had no LPs. I mean, SUSE, my partners, you know, love them to pieces, came with a lot of LPs, you know, because they came from networks that were stronger, probably with wealthier individuals.

And I don't have any of those folks. So when I stepped off, you know, I had to sign away. You're like, you can't poach any of OLPs. You know, all that stuff. We're like, okay.

It's starting from blank. $0, like, where do we build a $40,000,000 fund? And same with TX. I mean, TX is young and he doesn't have that network either. So we feel very grateful that when we went out to say we can do an enterprise fund in Los Angeles, two new partners that haven't worked together before, two leaving their current funds, and a lot of questions around that.

But we're lucky that, you know, somehow the institutional investors believed in us, and that we were able to go out. So very, very lucky that, you know, our fund was led by Greenspring, really a top notch fund of funds. They rarely do first funds, and I think they really like the story. They believe that we were just very different type of manager, and we've had a great run with them and really excited to be working with them. But anyways, so now we're two years in and a long answer to your question, but I think we are getting to build a fund that's based on our principles really core to us.

Work ethic, truth and honesty, excellence at everything that we try to do, highly accessible, available twenty four seven, a deep operating background, and just really also taking very interesting points of view, not only in sectors and themes, but really on sort of the next generation of people that we believe should be founding companies and should be building venture firms and joining venture firms. So I feel like I'm getting to do everything I wanted to do. And I wake up every day thinking like, wow. I don't know how I got here, but feel so lucky, that I'm at the table and continue to learn every day. So a lot of deals historically get chased up north.

Yeah. And you were talking about LA and Southern California and the ecosystem down here. And there's Venice and there's Santa Monica, but there's also East. And in terms of your emphasis and looking for those gems, so to speak, the diamonds in the rough, where are you differentiating yourself and how are you finding those deals and sourcing those deals right now? It's a great question.

Just to give you a geographic split, so I think a lot of folks think we're an LA only fund. We do about 40% of our deals in LA. We've done 18 deals. We lead about half of them. When we lead, we take a board seat.

Our checks are closer to 1,000,000 as the initial check. 40% LA and 40% Bay and 20% rest of US, mostly New York, Boston. We did a first deal in Seattle, one in Austin. I think we're gonna stay focused on those markets. And as much as I would love to do in Memphis and Indianapolis and things like that, I think it's just too stretched for our small team of four.

How do we find deals that, you know, I think your question going back to your question, so much of it is through our tight network of other GPs. So most of our deals are syndicated with GPs up up north. I think the seed game, and I think a lot of your friends like Mark Mullen, others would agree is very, very localized. Like, we could still win deals here because we would hear about somebody who's leaving SNAP, get to befriend them, learn what they're doing, and then we can have a shot at putting some money in. But then when you get to series a, there's endless data around.

Most of those companies end up raising from elsewhere, mostly from the valley. So that's still sort of the dynamic today, and it's not to say the local funds upfront in Greycroft are not fantastic. I'm close friends with Dana and Mark and have massive respect for them. But there's just a lot of firms up north, and they're aggressive today. Right?

They're aggressive in harvesting LA. They've tasted success and they want more. So they're here every week. All the big firms are down here forming relationships, doing dinners as you have seen, and trying to take advantage because I think all the trends are pushing towards LA being really significant. And I think you've heard a lot of those reasons why.

But it's actually playing out. Like, I think five years ago, we had a thesis that LA was trending forward in diversification of sector, and having large companies. I wouldn't possibly have guessed that today we could support Kite Pharma in Santa Monica, you know, a 12,000,000,000 exit. We could support, so many enterprise companies like Procore, cybersecurity in Irvine, a $2,000,000,000 company's crowd strike. Like, I wouldn't have guessed it would have actually come so quickly, but I think just for all the reasons that why you and I stay here, why you spent your life here, there's just a lot of pros of being here.

And as the Bay Area becomes more complicated, there's just much more opportunity here. So outside of GPs, a lot of local founders, I think the advantage of me being here for twenty years and being known for enterprise and data and actually being a practitioner is very helpful. I think there are a lot of local funds that add the word AI and data to it, but they actually haven't built companies, operated companies. And I think they can get so far, but when it comes down to really thinking about go to market strategy for selling to Fortune 500, know, my team and I, we've done it for a little while. So I think we've been known now as that fund.

And I think when folks come down and they say, hey, Eva. Like, what's the best enterprise software companies down here? They know that we have pretty decent coverage. And that's how we've gotten our first 18 deals, and we're really proud of the first 18. I think more than half have had markups by a lot of the big firms.

A lot of work ahead of us, but our initial cohort, I feel, is just super strong. So hopefully, we can continue to log ahead. So we're living in interesting times. And our governor signed a very landmark bill that says that if you're a public company in California, you have to have a woman on your board of directors. And first state in 50 to pass a law like that.

So, we're seeing a lot of movement towards trying to bring very talented women into much higher roles, more high profile roles. Otherwise, when you're out promoting companies, looking for CEOs, funding these companies, and combined with, kind of, your charitable work, how are you seeing that flow? Are you seeing more women jumping in? So So I'm curious in terms of you being out there as a strong entrepreneurial, successful woman. How are you seeing the rise and the role of women in today's business?

I think a lot of folks knew there was a disparity in how women and other diverse groups are being represented. The difference today is we have all the numbers. I think all the research has come out from the inequality in pay and now in equity. I mean, that big research that came out from Carta where they looked at thousands of companies is startling. Right?

That there's such inequity at the founder level as well as in the executive team between women and men. And I think that's woken people. We can't avoid it anymore. And then the numbers in terms of percentage of women in VC, it's 9% partners in The US. 75% of firms in The US have zero women.

So these are really stark. And then the percentage of funding going to all female teams is 2% in The US. And then when you break that down further, just I think a really important thing as we think about gender and not thinking about sort of one size fits all solution. If you break that down to segments of people of color, it's I mean, we're talking about point o o o o 1%. And we can't turn away from thinking about why we've gotten here and how are some practical things we can do to move forward.

And I think for me, the combination of the way we built our firm as well as being involved in great things like All Raise has really helped accelerate the conversation. You know, I think there's the notion of recognizing the problem and then a lot of firms are like, yeah. It's a problem, but it'll go away in a couple of years. And I think organizations like always is making sure that conversation does not go away. And, you know, they're building the scaffolding to accelerate the change.

It's not okay that we're like, oh, you know, maybe next year we'll have 10% women. Well, that's not good enough. Like, it'll take us decades to get to a place where we feel is equitable, where we feel is fair. So I think the questions of why we've gotten here, it's classic that the underrepresented groups and minorities just don't have the same access to a lot of things that we need to succeed. Right?

Whether it's access to the right people, the right education, the right communities, the right inspiration, they just don't have it. And it starts very, very young because I've been involved in a another nonprofit called Iridescent Technovation where we look at underprivileged girls and STEM and really looking at, like, why in classrooms are there just a different behavior by young girls and boys? I mean, there's so much research that the young boys will naturally walk towards the computer, why the girls will not walk towards playing with dolls. So it starts really early in social development. So I think fundamentally, we need better tools at the starting right early at the preschool all the way to eighth grade where a lot of girls decide math is not their thing.

And that's where it by for like, literally that path for me hurts my heart because usually they might have a bad teacher, a boring teacher, and maybe the teacher's bias towards boys and girls and it's something like, oh, you're not that great in math. I'm not gonna put you in that accelerated track and forever for the rest of your life, they're off. And they've convinced themselves that they're not good. And we see that as a big break in eighth grade actually and trying to work at programs on how to make sure that women stay in and not get left behind starting around that time. So I think from working with academic institutions and other nonprofits that are driving changes in curriculum and working on access for kids and high school kids, I think that's gonna be super important.

Then later on, you fast forward to, well, what do we do once they're in college? And they might not have gone to the best schools. They might not have had, you know, dual parents that knew how to drive them towards the right career. And then suddenly, you have somebody who's 25 and is in a job that they're not happy, and they have no inspiration because they don't see any women who are in their companies that are in the executive ranks. You look at venture.

I mean, I don't think most people know what it is. And even if you're in tech, like, the iconic venture women, there's, like, three of them. Right? Like, on the Midas list, I think there's, like, Teresa Cow, Jen Fonsec, over the last two decades. Right?

So it's hard to say, like, I wanna be her if I just don't see these people up there. So I think today, the fact that a lot of those numbers are changing and that there's women in more powerful positions to influence is actually driving that conversation and forcing people to enact policies like the ones of putting women on boards. I don't think it's as simple as that. I mean, a lot of research actually shows that putting one woman on a board doesn't actually impact the rest of the company. It's really actually putting women in the executive team because they're the ones touching the product and the people and affecting culture.

Like, having a woman on board, she's pretty removed and it matters whether it's one out of six, one out of ten, one out out of 12, but it's a step forward. Right? It's a step forward and I think right now, a lot of the founders I mean, we did a wonderful initiative at All Raise called Founders for Change. We had over 800 founders. So from companies like Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Instagram saying it matters to us who's on the cap table.

But if we have the choice between two firms and one of them, whether it's private equity or venture, and one of them has diverse people and one of them doesn't, like, I'm gonna take it from the diverse team. And people are much more now asking to have women if you have a firm that has one word that they're asking, like, I want her to be on. And I think that type of very public voicing of what matters to them is now making a lot of the firms are all men crap. Like, it's really a matter of greed. This is not a matter of, you know, wanting to do good.

They're like, I'm gonna miss out on these deals because both male and female founders are saying we care and you should think about changing and here's why. And it's not about being fair but really saying it's better for business, it's better for returns, like all the data show having diverse team yields better returns. So I think we're seeing real momentum and I'm really, really optimistic. And I think this time, this movement here in terms of equality as well as the Me Too movement, it's really here to stay. It's not all perfect.

We have a lot of other sort of side effects that we are seeing that are, you know, not all positive. But in general, I think this conversation has opened up so many things. I think the effects are gonna be long lasting. So you're passionate about a lot of things and you're doing a lot of things. And clearly, as you were saying, diversity and promoting women, and those things are extremely important.

But you also, I know, have been working with the mayor and you're also talking about infrastructure and kinda where LA and Southern California are gonna be in the next five and ten years. Can Can you tell us a little bit about some of the challenges facing us, whether or not it's transportation, it's traffic, it's ecosystem. In terms of I don't know where you find the time for this, but you seem like you have the passion for it. How is that also part of what you're doing now? I love the city of LA.

It's enabled me for the last twenty years to have a wonderful career, have an amazing community, my family. They're all here now. Like you, I think the city is very dear to me. So I wanna protect it, and I wanna build it in a way or help build it in a way that I feel where I would like it to go. We are living in a sort of a golden time in LA.

Right? We have a decent administration. We have a great mayor. We've had some really great wins with the Olympics and getting LeBron James. I mean, those things matter, right, for the community.

The tech community is booming. The dollars are coming in. We're no longer sort of the ugly stepsister of the valley. We now have a very sort of clear identity. LP money is coming in.

So a lot of things are going well. But as we look at sort of what's happening in the Bay Area and a lot of their challenges, we're LA starting to face some of the same challenges, which is the biggest is basically inequality, in income, which from there causes all the other problems of homelessness and disenfranchising and a lot of the other crimes and other things that nonprofits of the California Community Foundation focus on. So if you take a step back, I think for our city to stay thriving both for founders as well as for everyone else. And that's the key part. Like, how is it good for everyone else?

It's good for the people who are doing well. I mean, it's always been good for lawyers. It's always been good for doctors. But now it's kinda like, well, let's look at all the underserved communities and how can we ensure that they have food and a roof on their heads and that they're not left behind in this era of automation and rapid growth and the skills that we need for these people to have jobs in the future. Right?

I think so those are some of the big things that we're looking at today, and we focus a lot also on just people of color and the stats around young men who don't graduate from high school, their chances of being incarcerated is extremely high. So really thinking more broadly beyond the privileged sort of tech community and saying, hey. We are privileged. You know, we've gotten very fortunate for a variety of reasons. Like, let's think about how our community, as well other communities.

I'm hoping we can galvanize people in the legal community, in the medical community, and and whatnot to say, like, let's look beyond sort of our ZIP codes and think about other things that we need to do to make sure the city is inclusive and that we'll all thrive together. I'm never proud when I hear my friends say, unless you make a million dollars, you can't live in New York well. I mean, that's a ludicrous statement, and it's happening in the Bay Area. Like, I want nurses and firemen and others to be able to live in Santa Monica. That's how the world should be.

So I'm pretty passionate about it, and there's so much to do. I'm just a tiny, tiny cog. But where I can in terms of being part of either nonprofits, providing grants to nonprofits, or supporting just local folks who wanna do good things in building those bridges, I will probably do for the next thirty years just because the city has been really good to me. Can you give us some examples of some of the exciting things in those areas to make it more hospitable? Or, again, you're talking about firemen living in Santa Monica or or nurses and so forth.

What concrete things are being done right now that give you hope and optimism in terms of changes in the in the ecosystem down here? Sure. I could talk about the homeless. I mean, I think that's most visceral to all of us because we see it and it affects us when we walk by. It's a crazy situation because I think I live in Westwood, and there are times I'm pretty desensitized to it.

And it makes me sad that I am because I'll drive by somebody with a sign right off of four or five of a young woman who says I'm pregnant and I need money. I was like, wow. We live in probably one of the richest ZIP codes in The US, and we have this stuff happening. And the numbers are increasing. I think there's 60,000 homeless people in the county of LA.

So it's a problem that touches everyone because they feel it. They see the encampments outside of their homes and stuff, and they're like, it's not getting better. Right? Like, it's like it feels like it's getting worse. I'm hopeful that the sort of the steps that we've taken through Bond Triple triple h and bond h where we put together billions of dollars to build affordable housing, it is a solution regarding housing.

That's the simple sort of, I guess, umbrella that we need more homes that people can afford. We need to keep people who are about to become homeless through subsidies so that they can stay if they miss, you know, one paycheck, should they be homeless. So it's keeping people in their homes as well as helping the folks who don't have homes. It seems easy, but it's really hard because we have zoning issues. We have nimbyism.

It's a fight. It's a fight at every jurisdiction of how many people wanna take how many affordable spots. But I feel like the city at least is galvanized around it and thinking towards in the right way that I'm hopeful in ten years, we're gonna make a big reduction or a big dent, in the number of homeless people in LA. It's never I don't fully feel it's ever gonna be fully solved because of the policies around mental health and others that I think are just bigger than we can actually sort of wrap our arms around. But if we could reduce it by 80%, I would love to see that happen.

And I think LA has taken some really big steps towards doing that. And CCF, the California Community Foundation, has been integral in convening all the other big foundations like the Weingartz and the Hiltons, the Annenbergs to say nobody can solve it by themselves. So we need to group together all the philanthropic efforts, all the foundations, the endowments, the city, the county, and the federal dollars, and pull it all together and say, like, how do we come together with a unified plan on solving this? And I think in the last three or four years, we've made a lot of progress and still a long ways to go. Homelessness and mental health has been an area of interest for me for a long time.

And you, with your background with factual and understanding numbers and so forth, probably can help dispel some of the misconceptions that people have and that I that I may even have, which is what percentage of the homelessness is suffering from the mental illness issue. Because when I've gone up to homeless people, for instance, in LA, which I try to do, and give them something they need, a lot of times they'll think it's poisoned. A lot of times they'll be very paranoid. And because we have civil liberties in this country, we don't lock people up because Reagan, years ago, changed all the health care, mental health thing. A lot of people were put out in the street.

And so, you clearly have people that are just absolutely unfortunate, that are living in their cars, that don't have money, that are absolutely fine mentally and otherwise. And if they were just given a leg up, they would love it. But then there's also a lot of people out there that are paranoid and they don't want the help, so to speak. They don't wanna go to a shelter that's not necessarily safe. And so in terms of tackling this problem, you said 80%.

If we could solve 80% and leave the 20%. It is challenging. And I'm curious in terms of the statistics and what you're seeing how that's playing out right now. We don't have perfect numbers on the percentage of people who are suffering from mental health or you probably wanna throw in even just drug related issues. I imagine it's gonna gotta be in the thirty percent plus of folks.

But there are a lot of folks who are working at restaurants and living in their cars. So that's what the bigger issue. A lot of young folks who might even have a college degree but can't afford to live on the West Side. A lot of single moms, a lot of abused women, a lot of LGBT kids who are disenfranchised from homes and need feel like they need to run off. Those are the ones that we're trying to help because they I mean, they everyone deserves to be helped, but those are kind of the folks I feel like with the right policies and the right services.

It's not gonna be easy. I think today I mean, wrapped around that is access to health care and education. And with the large number of undocumented in LA, I think it's we have, like, 1,000,000 undocumented people. Some of those are homeless and now more afraid than ever. Guess what?

To go to get medical services because they don't want their name in the system. So it's a convoluted multi tenant sort of problem, but I think we at least can say tactically, we're gonna build x number of units first. Let's start there. Like, let's get the money. Let's get the zoning.

Let's decide where to put them, and let's just get them out there and have all the wraparound services where possible. B, have data on the people. So right now, like, LAHSA, which is the big nonprofit in LA that governs the database. You know, when I started working with the mayor on it and digging in, like, asking these questions, like, you know, when you put a goal, like, end all chronic homelessness by, you know, I mean, I think he had, like, two years. I was like, can you break that down?

Like, what do you mean by that? And it was always very difficult because the database wasn't very clean and they had people in there. So if you became homeless tomorrow, they put your name in. You might enter one of the touch points, like, whether it's a clinic or a food shelter, they'll put your name in through some paper. Now there's some iPad.

But if you disappear, say, for a year, they don't know if you're still homeless. Right? Maybe you moved to Bakersfield. Maybe you passed away. Like, nobody knows.

So that data is not always very clean. So that's the second part is, like, how do we find creative ways? And I've spoken a lot with with the city on, like, how do we without breaking civil rights, how do we, like, monitor people better? Like, I'm a big believer in using the phone, giving them, like, I know this is very, like, out there and when I pitch them to, like, good idea. Difficult.

I was, like, give them phones in exchange for giving them free service. And a lot of them a lot of them actually have phones. But in access to having Wi Fi phones, you know, smartphones, we get to track you. Not on everything that you do, but just know where you are so that we can see where you're clustered and say, hey. We're gonna bring mobile showers to you.

Or, like, tonight, we're gonna have a special something, some service that you can and it's gonna be here because they're all clustering here. Because we don't have really good information on, like, why encampments move. Don't know. It is a really complex problem, and I wonder how we will ever solve this. So even moving along, I mean, as somebody who has lived over different places in the world and has seen some stable and not so stable countries, Avoiding politics for the second, but having seen the fact that, like, I've traveled a lot over the last ten years and I've seen how the middle class is shrinking and that kids today in college are living better than people did years ago.

I'm wondering, how do we bring more people into the system at a time when the country is getting more nationalistic as opposed to being more open as it was presumably when you came to the country. I mean, does any of that figure into your thinking in terms of how we deal with these challenges? I think from traveling. I recognize more why The US is headed down towards a less than optimal path. I'm a very proud American like you said.

I'm very grateful. My whole life is due to being here and America accepting me. So I wanna see this change. You know, I think what's interesting is when you go to China, people have a lot of perceptions about China. Right?

They're like, oh, they're this communist country where if they write the wrong blog, they get pulled to some field and get shot in the back. Like, I actually had some of those notions before I went back more deeply recently and spent time at the University of Beijing and spent time talking to students and spent time talking to tech folks and people in the more agrarian areas of China. The difference there is everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to have a better life because it was so bad before. And not to say they don't have a whole set of issues.

I mean, they have a bubbling middle class that's gonna get more unstable, more unhappy if the government doesn't keep evolving. Lots of issues. But the difference is everyone works. Everyone's contributing. Like, everyone on the streets is just fixing things, cleaning things, There's nobody sitting and smoking a cigarette, whether you're in a farm or you're in the city of Chengdu, which is eight times as big as LA.

Right? These cities that you've never heard of. Right? So I think in The US, if the privilege gets soft, if we think those problems are not ours, like those people, like, live in those towns that I don't visit, I don't drive through. That's not our issue.

There's a lot of things that we need to do, and I'm hoping that the one positive of having this administration of Trump is these problems are now, like, right in front of us. And each of us is survival responsibility to do something. It doesn't have to be, like, a huge thing, but definitely vote. And in your community, do the things that you can to affect this change. And it's right in our backyard.

Like, you don't have to. Unless you go to Memphis, you could just go to Downey and see why the percentage of diabetics, the the pollution along the 710 because of the trucks going from port. Like, all the numbers there, like, if you look at a a heat map of issues and disease and smog, it's all red, and it's right there. It doesn't take a lot to realize that there's so much to be done. And I'm really hopeful that this young generation and I'm trying so much to get my stepdaughters to, like, freaking get off of Snapchat and pick an issue that you care about.

Think about it. Have a point of view and decide what you wanna do about it. Right? It could be writing a letter to your senator. It could be do some do some whatever.

But care about something. And that's where I find is as a parent, the struggle. So I think it's up to us to make sure that we help the younger folks as well as the folks in our community that have been very successful. Like, a lot of them are not haven't fully awoken. Like, they're like, I wanna help homelessness because I hate that person inside of the corner of my street.

Okay. Great. Do it. But, like, let's stick bigger. Like, really, like, how much you have capacity.

You have time. Like, let's put it out there and let's do something that can scale. So let me ask you an interesting question. We have values in our country just like China has values in its country. And one of the values in a capitalistic society is making money and buying and advertising, promotes buying and so forth.

And we've always had separation of church and state, but we also had values. Right? And whether or not it was Benjamin Franklin and the character ethic, or the church telling you to pay it forward and do something and give something back. You obviously are someone that is entrepreneurial and building companies and very capitalistic and focused, But you're also spending a lot of your life trying to make the world a better place. Where did that come from?

And the reason I'm asking is because I'd like to bottle it and get more young people to try to find that balance in their lives. Because it's counterintuitive that the more you do for others, the better you feel about yourself. Was it something you got from your parents? I mean, what gave you the value so that you are living this balanced life? Thank you, first of all.

I mean, that's super kind, overly generous characterization. I think I always felt that I didn't deserve what I got till I was quite a bit older. Like, why me? Like, why did I get the apply semantics success? It could have been anybody.

I wasn't particularly, like, the best business person, the most savvy, the highest social EQ. I wasn't. I mean, I'll give it to you straight. You know, when I was at Harvard, I was super shy, never spoke up, wasn't really involved because I was working to pay for things and to help my parents. So as much as I had inspiration all around me, I never had the time.

And I was never brought up. My dad was never like, oh, go save the world. Go like do like Teach for America. Like, my dad was like, go make money so you don't end up like me type of thing. So I'm not gonna say it's my parents as much as they're an inspiration in every other way.

I really just felt like, why me? To this day, I feel like, why me? And even when I pitched to LPs, I think they think I'm so different because I was like, if you don't give me money, I get it. Because why would you give me $10,000,000 to manage? Like, why me?

I mean, there are so many bright young people out there, great backgrounds, you know, smart perspectives. So I just feel very lucky to be where I am. And if I don't take that gift and do something with it, like, I think it's a waste. I don't know where that came from because not all my siblings are the same. But, you know, my siblings are all, like, low to middle class.

Like, they worry about paying their bills, like, literally. Right? They're all in public schools. Right? Like, they couldn't even think about private school.

Right? They're worried about medical bills. And I get to sit in this place where I'm like, I could eat at any restaurant. I mean, even when I eat at restaurants today, like, my parents have never actually, like, went out and ate a restaurant on their own because we were so poor. But even I it's like the fact they can order anything from the menu is still a shock to me.

But so you have this sense of gratitude. But it's interesting because when I was in Africa, I saw happiness kicking a soccer ball and the simplicity of that. And so, a picture's worth a thousand words. Right? You came from other cultures.

You've seen how the rest of the world works. But how America gives people a a sense of gratitude and a sense of hope and a recognition of how lucky we are and that we are in this together. That's the kind of stuff I struggle with and seeing people like you who are out there talking about this, trying to make the world a better place is incredibly inspirational. And again, I would like to figure out a way to bottle it and get more people to understand that counter intuitively. It just makes you feel better when you're doing these things.

It's selfish from that perspective Right. Jimmy. I mean, I've been interviewed by a lot of folks and I think you have definitely a much greater depth than a lot of these issues and much higher level empathy than a lot of folks I've spoken to. So you get it. Right?

I mean, you're there with me. Yeah. I think it's really figuring out, like, how do we expose these kids to what the other side of the world looks like. And I think for us, and I don't know how you think about it, like, in the Chinese tradition, you try to sort of, like, help the people. It's a concentric circle model.

Like, you help the people closest to you, make sure that they do well and they do good, and then you could, like, go further out further as you have energy and time. And I really deeply believe that that you can't go fix other stuff if your own home life is a mess. So I kinda try to live by that. Say, hey, like, my family's imperfect. We have a lot of things we need to do and I kinda focus on that as a percentage time and then hopefully, when there's extra time to work on other things.

But Well, a couple of things. One, one of my heroes is Stephen Covey who wrote the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He was Mormon, sold his company for a couple $100,000,000 to Franklin Covey. But he talks about how no public victory makes up for a failed private victory, and he has a whole thing about concentric circles and so forth. And again, your sphere of influence from a time management and and focusing on kind of those things you do have an influence on and to first kind of seek to understand the other and so forth.

So, there are other things in our culture that have that have done that. I was thinking, well, we could do another podcast on how to be happy and interview people in terms of how did they become happy. And what I realized was I don't have to do a different podcast. When I have people on like you that are essentially making the world a better place, making money, and helping entrepreneurs, but also taking the time to think about what really makes you happy, people wanna make money in this country. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And they're gonna tune in to this podcast because they're gonna be interested. How did EVA become successful? How do I raise money from EVA? How do I get ahead? But a little bit of the fact that there is something else out there may rub off.

Maybe they'll just be a part of them with when they're scratching their heads and they're not quite as fulfilled, they'll realize, well, maybe I should go get on a board, and maybe I should go read about that nonprofit or go talk to that homeless person. I don't have all the answers, but when I get to meet people like you, I leave the conversation much more optimistic and hopeful. Thank you for doing what you're doing and making this world a better place. Oh, that's so kind of you, Jim. Likewise, I feel the same about you.

I mean, certainly, you've been very involved and have really informed about lots of the things that are affecting different parts of our society. So really appreciate having this much more in-depth and all encompassing conversation. I expected to come in and we would talk about, like, deals and stuff like that. But it's wonderful that you did the homework and that, you know, I think we're cut from the same cloth. So really appreciate it.

Very enjoyed. Well, and by by the way, I just wanna say this. I did some work, but I'm surrounded by very smart women who really do the work and make me look good. And they were very fascinated with your background. They did a lot of research.

We were all inspired to meet you and hear your story. So like you, when you said you feel lucky and why you, I walk into the office every day and I'm privileged to be around ridiculously bright, mostly women actually, for whatever reason, mostly women. And they they absolutely make me a better person because of it. I totally believe that. That's great.

Yeah. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Join us next time for an engaging conversation with David Waxman, managing partner of ten one ten ventures. Are you curious about machine learning and artificial intelligence?

David takes us through the many ways these technologies touch our lives and offers ideas of what's to come.