Dyslexia Made Me a Better Investor | David Hornik

Natasha Nuytten: All right, everybody. Hello, and welcome to this episode of Human Side Up. I am your host, Natasha Newton, CEO of Clara. And I'm really, man, so excited to share today's conversation with you. My guest today is David Hornick, who is, if you come from a venture world or startup world, you're familiar. If you're a fan of Adam Grant's work, you've heard him talk about David. This guy is everywhere, but he's just a generous human being. And I'm really excited for you to get to know him. A little bit about him. David grew up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He was the son of a computer scientist and openly navigated dyslexia. He had a very supportive mom. You'll hear him talk a little bit about that, but talked about it later as he had found his way through it and to some success and realized that, man, I really have some stuff to share and other people can benefit from learning. He talked about his journey in a TED Talk. His formal education is, to me, just delightfully eclectic. He has a BA in computer music from Stanford. He has a master's in philosophy and criminology from Cambridge and a JD from Harvard Law. He's so well credentialed in academia. It's unbelievable. And he started his career as a public defender and tech-focused attorney. And he then pivoted into venture capital by joining August Capital in 2000, eventually becoming really a key force for them behind early bets on projects like Splunk and GitLab, Fastly, and many others. More recently, he has channeled his experience into founding Lobby Capital and maintaining a really deep focus on building communities through his blog and his podcast and his TED affiliation and lots of sustainable in-person connection through the Lobby Conferences, which you'll hear us talk a little bit about today. He is just a really thoughtful and intentional person, but also just full of joy and spirit. He sees venture as not like a flashy deal-making thing. It's not transactional. It's very much about support and relationships. And he has really crafted that. He's definitely known as a giver in the community, but he does that and it drives outcomes. I love that. He's really deeply committed to intellectual and cultural enrichment. You'll hear us talk a lot about education and art and the impact of that on transformative leadership and how people bring together teams and build new things. He has a really rich personal life, and I am so excited to share insights from David Hornick with you today. 

Natasha Nuytten: All right welcome to Human Side Up. I'm excited for this conversation, as I've always been. Thank you for making time. I'm excited to hear what you have to say in that very big brain of yours. 

David Hornik: I appreciate that. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. So first, we actually start our podcast with a question of everybody that kind of lays the groundwork for moving forward. And sometimes I had to be honest, the conversation never goes to any of the other questions that I have thought to ask because of how we start out. But it is that I really genuinely believe that we are much, much more than our resume or LinkedIn profile or whomever's profile says. And I am very curious if there are two or three words about yourself that would describe you and how you landed where you are that maybe we don't see on a resume or a CV about David Hornick. And when you begin to own them for yourself, it is true. 

David Hornik: I'll tell you the one thing that comes to mind is dyslexic, which is not on a resume, right? It's not that you don't go to LinkedIn and say, hey, dyslexic. You might end up sitting on the board of the American Dyslexia Society or whatever. But your follow up question leads me to it because you said, when did you embrace it? And I will say there is this curious thing. Maybe about dyslexic, certainly about me, certainly about my childhood. My childhood was a lot of me finding it hard to read, not impossible but just like very taxing in a way that is not what you typically think of if you're supposed to be a smart kid. You're supposed to be you're supposed to not only be good at reading, you're supposed to like reading. And I didn't like reading and I was not good at it. And I couldn't spell and I was slow. And my mother ultimately had to intervene a lot in ways that were pretty proactive and in surprising ways. And which turned out to be great. But it wasn't without its turmoil. And then I went off to college and I, I got into a good college and I did well in a good college and I got into a good law school and I did well in a good law school. And so then you spent a lot of time saying, like, how dyslexic are you really? Like you. I had this mythology, this sense of oh, at least historically in my head, I was this dyslexic kid and suddenly can you really know you're just making excuses, et cetera. But I was giving this interview many years ago for a set of executives at a bank. And I was asked the question, does it bother you in the venture business that you don't have that you have to make decisions without having all the information that's available to you? And I said I'm dyslexic. I don't have all the information in a sentence, so I really don't worry about that. And it was just an offhanded comment. And then we continued on the discussion about venture, et cetera. And after the talk, one of these execs who was in the room came up to me and said to me, David, my daughter is dyslexic and I'm looking forward to going home and telling her about this conversation, telling her about you and that you went to law school and that you managed to be a successful executive despite the fact that you had this challenge. And that, he was excited about that. And it struck me that I was doing a disservice, not talking about it, even though I was somewhat, I had imposter syndrome in a lot of ways, like how bad could it be? So I started talking about it and I got to know some of the folks who were involved in the dyslexia world. And I went to speak at this dyslexia conference and the speakers before me were academicians, et cetera, and they were describing the characteristics of dyslexia. And I got up on stage to give my talk and I said, this has been extraordinary. This conference has been really affirming because I think I might be dyslexic. And they were like why are you on stage at a dyslexia conference? But I genuinely was like, OK, maybe I'm not full of it. Maybe I actually because everything they describe I had every problem, every challenge, everything I had lived through. And then I said, OK, I really should talk about this. Yeah. So even though it's not a part of my resume, I do think it's very much a part of who I am. It's a part of how I've developed and managed my life. And I talk about it more now than I used to. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think that I worked with young people for the first 15 years of my career, and there is something very. Organic in your experience that I see with a lot of young people and adults who have struggled with some sort of learning disability, and I come I'm almost 50. And so when I was in school, like there was just a lot of stuff we weren't talking about. And because of that, what I saw in so many of my friends who had these challenges, they didn't want to go to the special reading room. They didn't want to go to the special after school program or whatever. They just knew that if I can mask, if I can figure out some coping mechanisms and like a way to get through this, maybe it's, using study groups or maybe I find a friend who's smarter, smarter than me, quote unquote, who can help me study or whatever. They just found these ways. And so what I found was that there's such resourcefulness in having to find your way through a thing without having a path laid out for you. And I think that's so underrated. Because that resourcefulness matters. 

David Hornik: Yeah. It's interesting you describe that and you describe the very generous version of these things. But when my oldest child was in elementary school, it was very clear that he was dyslexic to me and he was tested and they came back and said, yeah, pretty dyslexic and probably has ADHD and all, but we're not going to do anything about it because he's, he's doing well in class. And I said, that can't be the measure. And I discussed exactly what you said, except I said it in a somewhat less generous form. I said, my wife and I are both dyslexic. And I said, Right now, my son is doing fine, but I said, you know what smart dyslexics do ultimately when they can no longer perform by working hard or whatever. I said, they cheat because that's what you have left. And you describe as, oh, you get study pals and this and that or whatever, and you do all those things. But I picture myself in class sitting next to my friend Jason and saying I can never remember. I will never remember this piece of information, but he can. And I'm not proud of the fact that was how I got through some of my school, but I wanted this principal to understand that if you don't give resources to help kids come up with better coping mechanisms, then they will, they will make it hard. And so he ultimately relented and gave my son extra time. And then my son had to go, as you say, to the resource room, et cetera, which, for many kids, is daunting for him. He just didn't notice. It's yeah, whatever you got in there. And through elementary school, he went and then when he got to middle school, he declared himself fine and just moved on with his life. And he did. He was fine. He did well. I still don't quite understand what happened there. But I have forever and my daughter is clearly dyslexic and she and I talk about this a lot because she has this very smart fiance and they went to grad school together and he would work so hard reading everything and doing everything. And she and then they would get to class and they'd take the same class and then she would engage in the class and comment on things. And he'd say to her, I you didn't do the work like I know what I did and I know what you did and how are you doing this? And she said, because I have to. That's part of the thing. And she and I totally. We can relate to this. You find the things that allow you to do the right stuff, to be successful with the skills and resources you have. And what I often say of my current life, when I told my mother that I was going to be a venture capitalist, I had been an attorney, which she knew what an attorney was. And suddenly I told her I was going to be a venture capitalist, just like what's a venture capitalist? And I described for her the job of venture capital. And she said, so you have managed to talk your way into a job that only involves hockey. And I said, yes, she said, perfect, because she understood. Now, it turns out that's not entirely true. There are all sorts of things one does as a venture capitalist. But this job is such a great job for a dyslexic. It's so great because every day I get people to tell me what they know. Yeah, I get to consume it and I get to process it and use them as my adjunct readers, my adjunct brain. And I feel so grateful that I got landed in a job that is what I do every day. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. I love how you've described that, because it is a superpower to be able to like when you can read when you don't have dyslexia and you're told that's the way to learn a thing, then you push yourself to learn it that way. Yeah. Whereas maybe you're better at listening. Maybe you're better at drawing things out. Maybe you're better at doing the physical thing. And so I think that what I love about the brains of dyslexics is that because they're constantly looking for another way to do a thing, they're not thinking inside the box that the rest of us are operating in. And so it is a bit of a superpower, really, to be able to say, I can solve this differently, which I think, to your mom's point around learning from others verbally in the role that you have, you also get to, I would imagine, and you could correct me if I'm wrong here, think about problem solving and resources differently than other people in your space, because you have had to for a very long time, figure out another way to do a thing. And so like that creativity has to be incredibly valuable in the work that you're doing. 

David Hornik: I hope so. I hope so. Certainly, there's a great book called The Dyslexic Advantage, and it talks about this stuff. And, yeah, I do think that there are all sorts of things that are valuable about it. And I've given a number of talks about the things that entrepreneurs do. There are a disproportionate number of dyslexics in entrepreneurship. And of course, the tricky part is that there are successful entrepreneurs and there are unsuccessful entrepreneurs, or successful dyslexics and unsuccessful dyslexics. And unfortunately, there are wildly disproportionate numbers of dyslexics in prison as well. And I remember giving a talk in San Quentin about my life and my career. And I said to them, I just want you to know, like that many of you in this room share something important with me that you also are dyslexic and you also had real challenges in reading and that this world penalizes those of us who can't do that. And I had the good fortune of finding enough resources that I was able to thrive in that environment. And many of you were left without those resources and ended up where you are today. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. 

David Hornik: And it was a very interesting conversation that I had with those folks after the talk. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, I love that. So I serve on the board of a nonprofit organization here in Nebraska, where I live, that is called Rise. And they focus on reentry for people who have been justice impacted in their families. Yeah. And yeah, I feel very privileged. It's pretty great. And what's interesting to me is that there is a, to your point, there are a lot of folks who have this hustle, right? And they ended up where they ended up because they had fewer resources than maybe someone that had more privilege or more access to other things, but they got where they got because they were trying to figure out the thing and how to get through it. But what's interesting to me is that as part of this program, they teach entrepreneurial education. Like how do you channel that into a thing when creating something? And I have to tell you that I've now been a part of a number of these programs and graduation where you get feedback and whatnot. And I am always so impressed when I ask a question. Okay, this business plan doesn't totally make sense, but talk to me about what you're doing. And let me point out the problem. When I see those wheels start to think about how they can solve that, that they hadn't really thought about before, right? It wasn't ignorance. It was just like a lack of awareness. Man, it's magical. It's magical. So I absolutely love it. 

David Hornik: I used to work with this group called Defy that would go in and teach entrepreneurship in prison. And on my 50th birthday, I took 100 entrepreneurs and venture capitalists into a high security prison in California to teach entrepreneurship. 

Natasha Nuytten: I love that. 

David Hornik: And it was astonishing. And then at the end of the day was their graduation from the program. And we brought in a band and we had a birthday cake. And that's fantastic, it was amazing. But what, one of the things I talk about a lot is right to your point, everybody has a different perspective. And entrepreneurship is a little bit about seeing problems and then figuring out solutions. And so we would talk with these folks, the system involved folks about the ideas they had. And they had worked hard to learn how to pitch and they were not as polished as the folks who were coming out of Harvard business school or whatever. But what I will tell you is there was a class of businesses that I heard about in prison, that I heard about in prison before I heard about it from entrepreneurs coming out of Stanford business school. There were a bunch of inmates who were dealing with the fact that their parents were aging, that they didn't have resources to care for their parents. And they were trying to figure out how to bring to bear what resources they had to care for their aging parents, et cetera. And they were building these ideas for businesses that were a little bit like Uber for elder care, et cetera. Yeah. Before I was hearing about this from entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs were younger and they were not encountering this problem and they had the resources to hire help instead of figuring it out. And I look back on those conversations and they were all really smart ideas. And it was because these were very thoughtful people who were trying to come up with problem solving and they had a different perspective about a problem that was real and existed. So it was an eye-opening thing to say don't discount anyone, listen to what problem they're trying to solve, see if it's a real problem and then see if the solution is a smart answer to the problem. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Okay. So thinking about this, I would really love to, I know that education and the arts play a big role in your world and that you are very engaged in those things. And I shared with you as a kiddo, I found my voice through arts and education. I was really fortunate in that regard. And so those things matter to me. I would love to understand you are also, another thing we have in common is you're a zigger and a zagger. You've done a lot of different things. There was no straight path. I respect and appreciate that given my own experience. I would love to understand from you, given your position, having worked in law, having worked in technology, having worked in investment, in being a part of these organizations like GLAAD or the Smithsonian, and bringing those two things together, what in your experience is the impact of education and art in leadership and how people are starting to, how people lead teams and build organizations? 

David Hornik: Look, ultimately the thing that is compelling to me about the art world, whether it is the music world or the fine arts world or the theater world is the, I guess what I describe as the empathy it builds, right? I have an art collection. Those are terrible words. No one should speak. But anyway, I happen to have, I happen to have art from amazing artists, and it's all figurative art, not all, the vast majority of it is figurative art. And people often say, like, why are you collecting figurative art? And it's and it's because I love the empathy of the artist and the individual that they capture. I like this idea that I get a view into the world, either of the artist or of the person being depicted in this art. And so my art is extraordinarily diverse in the sense that it is painted by people of great different backgrounds, economic backgrounds, race and gender and all of these things. And then the people that then are depicted in the art are profoundly broad swaths of the world. And they're painted in a way that says, these people matter. You should want to experience their world. You should appreciate their world in ways that are so compelling, right? In one of our bedrooms is a painting by an artist named Rebecca Ness. Rebecca is one of my favorite paintings, she's a young painter out of Brooklyn. And the painting is called, I believe, The Booby Trap. And it turns out that The Booby Trap is a lesbian bar in Brooklyn. And this is just a scene in the bar of women hanging out, drinking and hanging out and being and convening and having a safe and loving space that's theirs. And it's painted. Rebecca is a lesbian who lives in Brooklyn and it's her community and she brings it. And you cannot look at that painting if you're a decent human and not think, God, that's so loving. And so and I'm so grateful that people have a space where they can be themselves and they can appreciate the world they live in, et cetera. And that's just one painting. And I see it all the time. And I'm constantly like looking at it and, and just so moved by what a great and important image it is. And I do the same thing with music. I think, I'm involved in musical theater and I want these things to exist because they represent a world that should exist, that has that cares about humans and in their, in their fullest of ways,

Natasha Nuytten: So how do we as leaders who are not so inclined to necessarily have a let's just say they're maybe not inclined, but that they maybe don't have an existing appreciation for that empathy that art can create. How does a leader start to cultivate that through art or through education in a way that is meaningful for the people that they touch every day, that they're responsible for every day? 

David Hornik: Yeah, I think that's a great conundrum, and I have two examples that I think that I have used. One is coming up. But the first one is. If anyone has never tried improv, they are really missing out. Improv is just the most fun, just this great, astonishing experience, because improv is about generosity. It is about it. People think it's about creativity and being funny and all that stuff. No. When I took improv in college, I took it with my two college roommates who are some of the funniest people in the world. They went on to be writers in Los Angeles, like profoundly great, funny people. And we got yelled at in class by the professor, who was like, please stop trying to be funny. You are killing us like you guys. All you're trying to do is make yourselves laugh and make each other laugh. And you're ruining everything because you're not listening to anyone, right? You're not like reacting to what they say. Let them be funny. Let them, and it was such a great lesson. And we toned it down and it got better. And it also got funnier, because then you're like, oh, OK, great. I'm going to give you space to be funny and to be engaging, whatever else. So I have brought improv to my executives. I run a conference, this really fun conference in Hawaii called The Lobby, and it brings together 250 tech execs who come together to talk about technology and talk about the future. But I also bring improv to them and people have done improv and people have had a jam session and people get to play music together. And you can't do either of those things without giving someone else space to shine, without leap, without listening, without appreciating what others bring to it. It's funny, we had this improv, sorry, jam session at my last conference. And two of the people at the conference were professional musicians. They were one of them who had played the main stage of Coachella. The other one had many gold albums like these. And they played in the jam session. And one of them just played rhythm guitar in the back. This guy was the best musician among us by orders of magnitude. And he just hung back and let us enjoy the fact that we were nerding out. That was an extraordinary gift for him to do that in the same way that being good at improv is what it takes to be good in a board meeting, is what it takes to be good at encouraging, your team to speak up and to and what they call yes. And to say yes, I agree with that. That's great. And what if we did this other thing? The other thing, in the like physical art space, and this is a much, much more, far afield. But my wife is a dog fanatic, loves dogs and is an art fanatic, loves art, is obsessive about both. And so she has a lot of dog art. And so we have an exhibition. We're just renting a space in San Francisco that's coming up starting the 29th of September for a couple of weeks. And we're going to and it's called Some More Dogs. And it's just a bunch of dog art. And it's by amazing artists. And by the way, it's the same diversity, right? Because it's not just dogs, it's people and dogs and whatever. So it's the same extraordinary group of artists who bring the same kind of empathy and diversity to the dogs they're portraying as the humans we have. And so we're hosting this exhibition and people we did one before that was called Some Dogs, which is why this one's called Some More Dogs. 

Natasha Nuytten: Love that. 

David Hornik: And people would come in there, what's the like? Are you selling this art? And we'd say no. And they're like what's the point? They're like, why are you doing this? And we'd say oh, did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy the dogs? Did you enjoy the dog art? And they say yeah, it was amazing. That's the point. That's it. So we have this exhibition coming up and I have this community of people from my conference that have come to the lobby. And so I decided I'm just going to host a reception for all these tech execs to come hang out in and among this dog art. 

Natasha Nuytten: I love this. 

David Hornik: So that they can experience why it is I am so obsessed with the idea of expression, et cetera. And I just don't think you can leave that experience. I don't think you can be in and among this joyful art and not think to yourself like, oh, that really expanded how I think about the world, about why people care about dogs and humanity and each other and all of those things. At least that's my hope. 

Natasha Nuytten: I love it. You're tapping into so many of the things that. That drive me personally like this empathy and this connection and community and being present in the moment to experience and or respond versus react, like those types of things, I think, I am in the tech world and I think it's so interesting because when you're trying to, A, start a business, change the way people think about something in the world that they think they know really well, when you're bringing other people along, I think there's something. Something critically important, like it's foundational to have a space where that connective tissue exists and that sort of fabric exists. And, given where we are, like in the stage of our company, so many people are like, why do you spend so much time with your team talking about these things or why do you have why have you done the work? You're so young. Why do you even have a vision, mission, values? Or we don't even have those. We have mindsets, values, ways of being a different thing. But like, why do you do that? Why are you spending X number of dollars twice a year to bring your team together? And I think that there's an experience of being in the same space and it's different from this, where there's something special about it. And so when I think about that and I think about the world that you inhabit professionally, that aligns to me and I could be totally wrong, but like it doesn't seem like they're separate worlds for you. It seems like it's one life. This all comes together, which I love. I'm curious, when you're talking with especially these sort of tech founders and or founders who are different than the average bear or haven't had an example in their life, this is their first time out of the gate or something, what is it that if there were like two or three things that are related to that, like humanity of starting a company or thinking about being a founder or CEO, what are two or three of those things that you would say, hey, you need to I would encourage you, you don't need to, but I would encourage you to think about or wrap your head around or try to embrace these things as you're building your new thing? 

David Hornik: Yeah, I'm thinking about this a lot at the moment because my partners and I have created an event called Lobby Elevate. So my conference is called The Lobby. And so we create a thing called Lobby Elevate for underrepresented founders, because we think that oftentimes. It is hard for underrepresented founders to raise capital because they don't have the full context it is easier just to your point, it's easier for a white man who is leaving Harvard Business School to wrap their head around what is this venture capitalist cross for me, thinking, caring about, et cetera. Yes. And someone who has come up through a very different system, through a different set of processes, through a different community, et cetera. And so we run these one day events. I have one coming up, Founders of Color Summit, and it's black and Latinx founders who are going to come together and we're going to talk about what are the things that you should think about when you're pitching your business that will help you to be more successful? I don't want you to change who you are. I'm not trying for you to be more like the people. I just want you to know what things are going to be valued. And for example. Big, think big, right there, we have a female founder summit and women often will diminish the scale of the thing they're pursuing, not because they think it can't be giant, but because they want to be realists and they want to be cautious. And you know what? Men don't care one iota about that. Men are like, this is a trillion dollar market and I'm going to own the world. I'm getting all of it. It's mine, all mine, and so we spend a bunch of time working with these amazing, female and non-binary entrepreneurs to say look at. You're doing something big, describe the biggest version, don't describe the smallest version, don't describe the safe version, describe the if you win, how big and exciting could this be? 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. 

David Hornik: And, white men do that automatically because they're always told that they always assume it. They assume like they start writing music and they think they're going to win a Grammy, they're just like, of course, I am, duh. And the other thing we talk a lot about is look at what you need if. The best businesses in the world are solving real problems, and one of the challenges that underrepresented founders have is that they're solving problems that maybe the person across from them doesn't have or know about. And so that's fine. Like they don't have to only fund the problems they have, right? But they can't fund it if they don't think it's a problem. And so you had better spend a bunch of time explaining why it is that there are elderly people in this world who will grow old in their homes and whose families don't have the resources to send them to a home or bring in care every day. Yeah. Once you describe that for them, once you say did you know that there is a population of 27 million people aging in place? I made that number up. Could well be much smaller, except I think big, like 40 million people are aging in place whose families don't have the resources, but they need a solution to save their families the indignity of being institutionalized and blah, blah, blah. Then you say, oh, I see the problem. I hear what you're saying. Now, is it a real problem? And is your solution a good solution or whatever else? But if you can't create that empathy, if you can't create that shared understanding, you will never get an investment. Yeah. So we worked a lot on it including I just had a session with an entrepreneur I love who I've worked with for a long time who is a doctor, was the chief innovation officer at a very big hospital. And I just spent exactly this time saying exactly the same thing: no, what is the precise problem you're solving? Yeah. Are you saving money? How are you saving money? So it's not that this is not a problem that is specific to a particular set of people, but it is more acute often if you haven't had the experience to know what it is that people are looking for. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thinking about that, who else? Obviously, you all are doing that with your organization. Who else in the VC space? We have a lot of founders from various backgrounds listening and learning how to lead here. Who else is doing like Kapoor Capital? I know they're really deeply invested in that. Who else is on your radar as far as these people, they get it, they know how to support. They're not just trying to take advantage of a movement, but they're like they know how to support a new startup.

David Hornik: I think it's an interesting question because there is this sense of OK, people are going to do these things. Like a charity, oh, I'm going to do the things what I appreciate about Mitch and Freda Kapoor is that they do it for financial gain. They say, rightfully these are amazing businesses. You all are a bunch of numbskulls not funding these spectacular humans. And yes, we are going to build a bunch of programs that will support this ecosystem of underrepresented founders. We're doing it for super, commercial reasons. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. 

David Hornik: And, and what's particularly valuable about that is that like the commercial reason isn't because they're desperate, they're desperate to make more money. It's because they're desperate for people to understand that it is in their interest to support the broadest swath of amazing humans. Yeah. And so there are lots of organizations and people. There's a friend of mine started a group called Black Women on Boards. That is just a great organization of extraordinary black women who they want to help get positions on public company boards, on private company boards. And they've done great work around that. There's a group called All Rays, R-A-Y-S-E. Is that right? Bad for a dyslexic. Yeah, you did very well. Thank you. We're just trying to help rise up the female tech community, etc. So I think there are lots of folks who are busy trying to be helpful. I think that what is important is for us to say, hey, listen, this is because, otherwise we're going to miss out on some of the great innovations of the world. We're going to miss out on some of the great wealth creation of the world. We're going to miss out on some of the greatest entrepreneurs to set foot on this planet. And so these things are profoundly selfish. 

Natasha Nuytten: It's just not a zero-sum game. I don't know why we decided or when we decided that it had to be, but it doesn't need to be. Yeah, I'm plus one, as they say on that. I'm curious. So I know we're getting close to needing to wrap. So I have two questions that I actually have a thousand, but I'm only going to ask two more. One is there anything that we should have talked about today that we didn't or something you want to leave us with in thinking about creating these diverse teams or investments or safe spaces? Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't? 

David Hornik: There's no, there's nothing you should have asked me. And yet there's like an infinite number of things we could talk about. I'll tell you what, my very simplistic philosophy that has been that I didn't know over the last 25 years that I you know, that it was the driver of my existence. But I have come to believe that this is a very simple dichotomy that exists. I believe that the universe divides humans into people who are transactional and people who are driven by building relationships. People want to create outcomes like we're going to engage in an exchange or people who want to build relationships with people because they care about that relationship. And it is a dichotomy because I think that there is a difference between those people, not because I think there is a dichotomy of outcomes that says oh, transactional people get transactions done and relationship people don't. It's like I actually think it's exactly the opposite. I think that in all instances, whether you are a painter, whether you're a composer, whether you're an academic or a founder, that those of us who understand that the universe is made up of human connection and that the value that we can create is to allow others to thrive through that human connection, that is the greatest possible way to create value for them, but also for yourself. And if you do it in a cynical way, then guess what? You're engaging in a transaction, right? I'm not going to say oh, I'm going to trade you out. Come on your podcast as long as you promise to promote this thing for me, right? Whereas, I'm super psyched to come on this podcast because we've gotten to discuss things that I don't usually get to discuss and I don't know that I knew that coming in.

David Hornik: to it. But I'm pretty psyched about that. And it's been a fantastic use of an hour. And it's amazing to me. I talk to young VCs, young attorneys, young whatever, who are trying to figure out how do you get that, David, it's great. I'd love to be helpful to people. But how do you fit it all in? And the answer is you just say yes. Because you don't know. You don't know what the deal is. And so you say yes to amazing people. You'll get it. And the ones you really love, spend more time with. And every so often you'll say yes to someone. It turns out they're a total user. They're completely transactional people. And they were like, great. Now do this thing for me. And those people, OK, I don't think we need to have a relationship. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. Like I don't regret being the better human here. But I'm done. 

David Hornik: Yeah. That was good. I'm glad we had that conversation. And it obviously didn't rub off on you. Yeah. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah. That's why I love it. I really love that. It's interesting. People reach out to me on LinkedIn and things like that often. And when they do, I don't always accept because sometimes I do expect that it's just a transactional sales sort of thing, which, hey, no shade. You got to do what you got to do to sell your business. I've done it, too. And when I respond to people, I will often say, if I can be helpful to you, please let me know. And I don't think people believe that. Yeah. But I but people have done that for me. I would be such an a-hole if I didn't do the same for other people. And yeah, I really appreciate that. And I think anybody who's listening to this podcast is probably laughing that I just said a-hole and not asshole. I know. But with that said, my last question for you is, how can in that same vein, how can we as listeners be helpful to you? What would float your boat? 

David Hornik: I'm so bad at this question. No, I have only once answered that question. I was giving a talk to this great set of young VCs, future VCs. And the person was leading the conversation like, David, you've always been so generous with your time and blah, blah, blah. Is there anything we can do? And I said at the time, my daughter's obsessed with One Direction. So if any of you happen to know One Direction,

Natasha Nuytten: I'll take an intro. 

David Hornik: She would love to meet them. And what was amazing is it came very close to happening because someone in the room was whatever. And then I felt so guilty. Oh, my God, that was so crass. Who cares? That's so lame. The only answer is I think people would be well-served to pay it forward. That's all you can do is, if there's an opportunity to be helpful to someone else, that's the thing you can do. Because if we're all doing that. You said it. It's not a zero sum game. If anyone thinks there's only a certain amount of wealth or there's only a certain amount of success or beauty or whatever. That's crazy. That's silly. There's an infinite amount of beauty. There's an infinite amount of success. And so great. Help other people be successful and don't begrudge them the success and think what about me? Say, oh, my God, that's amazing. I'm so happy for you. So you can do that,

Natasha Nuytten: I love it. I'm also going to add, though, that if you want to send us the details about the dog art show, we'll put that in there and people can go enjoy. Please come check out 

David Hornik: some more dogs. And by the way, if you happen to be in Alaska, we have a bunch of dog art that's in the Fairbanks Art Museum. And it's great. It's like super interesting, diverse dogs. So check that out, too. Like we have dog art everywhere. 

Natasha Nuytten: Everywhere. I love it. There you go. Now y'all know what you can do to be supportive. David, thank you. And I'm with you. The conversation was not what I expected, but it is so welcome and so refreshing. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for being generous. And yeah, we'll all send good dog juju your way as we go forward.

David Hornik: And one last note, which is, I apologize for my bright red nose. I have COVID and I look like such a clown today. But anyway, thank you for having me. Thank you for powering me through my COVID yet again.

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. Hopefully you feel better. It doesn't look like a clown nose over here, so we're doing okay. 

David Hornik: Thank you. 

Natasha Nuytten: All right. Thank you so much.