In Episode 4 of the Bring It Out podcast, Ben has a compelling conversation with Trae Stephens. Trae is a partner at Founders Fund and a co-founder of Anduril Industries. Trae talks about how to align your vocation with what gives you life, how to steward influence well, what kinds of ideas capture people's attention, and what it takes to carry heavier assignments in life.
In Episode 4 of the Bring It Out podcast, Ben has a compelling conversation with Trae Stephens. Trae is a partner at Founders Fund and a co-founder of Anduril Industries. Trae talks about how to align your vocation with what gives you life, how to steward influence well, what kinds of ideas capture people's attention, and what it takes to carry heavier assignments in life.
Hi everyone. I'm Ben Pilgreen, and this is the Bring It Out podcast. My desire is to help bring out all that has been placed within you. And I believe today's conversation will guide you in the process.
Ben Pilgreen:Well, hi everyone. It is Ben and I want to welcome you to the new year. It is 2022, which means this is our first episode of the new year. And I really think you're going to enjoy today's conversation, whether you are a new listener or you've been with us over the last few months. We know that you have gifts, you have dreams, you've been given passion and, and we believe that those things are in you for a reason and whatever is in you. We want to help bring those things out. Today's guest is Trey Stevens, and I think you're really going to love this conversation. Trey is a partner at founders fund, a venture capital firm that invests in science and technology company solving difficult problems. He also happens to be a co-founder of and industries where they're on a mission to solve critical challenges in national security. Trey has done plenty of other fascinating things. He is a bengals fan, and finally is having a decent year. We'll get into all of those other things, but for now, Trey, welcome to the podcast.
Trae Stephens:Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Ben Pilgreen:It is so fun to have you you on here. So Trey and I are friends. So you don't think I'm just going after this guy, personally, but Trey, you are fascinating to me. You are a partner at a venture firm. You also are a co-founder of a tech defense company. I'm sure this is exactly what you thought you would be doing when you were coming out of high school in Ohio.
Trae Stephens:To be honest, I didn't even know what venture capital was. My only exposure before even talking to the partnership here about taking a job was through wedding Crashers, the movie where they were lying to people and telling them they were venture capitalists from Connecticut. I was like, wow, I wonder what that even means. I don't know. But that was the only exposure I'd ever had. So no, this was not at all my plan.
Ben Pilgreen:And then what about the defense side of things? Like, how does that make sense?
Trae Stephens:I've always been interested in national security or really like foreign relations of all kinds. I did some volunteer mission trips with my family growing up. And so there was always kind of a premium for my family that was placed on having broader cultural experiences, which is something that, you know, I'm super appreciative that Epic does as well. And, I would encourage, any Epic listeners with families to take your kids. It makes a real difference in their lives. But I was also a senior in high school when 9/11 happened. So, you know, I had kind of had this idea that I wanted to work in journalism, and do like foreign correspondence for like a large media company or something. Then 9/11 happened and I remember leaving my class and going and sitting on the couch in my principal's office. He was saying like, nothing is the same. The world is forever changed. We just witnessed it today. What are you going to do about it? I had this kind of like moment where I'm like, man, maybe I should go to the air force academy and be a fire pilot fighter pilot or something. But then I realized that I could also end up piloting a cargo plane or, you know, doing something completely unrelated to aircraft. I ended up deciding to kind of go a different path into the intelligence community instead. That was kind of where this whole journey started.
Ben Pilgreen:I think it's really important. One of the things we talk about with Bring It Out principles and concepts is that we don't have to know exactly what we're going to do, but we can all sometimes 10 years, five years, 20 years down the road, look back and realize there was a seed planted. So I just think it's important. However old you are, as you're listening to today, however clear you are on what your thing is-- Trae didn't start by thinking he would do this with his life, but there was a spark there. There was something that interested you, that got you, into the things that you are doing right now. I think it's super important. We wanna pay attention to what are those passions? What are those things happening in the world? Whatever we're supposed to bring out, it has to make a difference in the world. And I know that's something Trey that you're passionate about. No matter what it is that you're doing, Trey is a husband to Michelle. He's got two sons. I know he cares deeply about making a difference, of course, in their lives. We're part of the same church community. I see that in play there. And then just a lot of the different things that you do. One of the things you do is you listen to lots of ideas from people who are trying to sell you on their companies. Yes, because they think you're awesome, but also because they would love for you and your firm to give money to entrepreneurial journeys that they are on. So how many, how many pitches would you say you hear either a year or that you've heard over the last several years?
Trae Stephens:Yeah, wow. A lot. You know, I think the first year I had a goal of seeing 500 companies. I did that in the first year. I don't do that many anymore. I think you kind of develop more intuition and discernment about what might be a good fit and what wouldn't be a good fit. I'm probably close to, I don't know, 250 a year or something like that now, which, you know, take away the weekends and holidays and things. It's, you know, a little more than one a day. There's obviously like on my side, a little bit of a tampering of that as well, because I'm also running a company but you know, I think it's probably on average for most VCs, they're seeing multiple pitches a day, two, three, maybe in some cases.
Ben Pilgreen:Now that you've heard thousands of these, what, like, what are you looking for? How, how does someone differentiate themself? What's the, the percentage of companies that your firm funds, based on the number of pitches that you guys hear?
Trae Stephens:It's less than 1% of all the pitches, for sure. And, you know, I think that there seems to be like a, somewhat of a debate around the importance of passion, especially in like the incoming generation, where, you know, people are scratching their heads, wondering why at 18 years old, they're kind of expected to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. And I get, and I can sympathize with it for sure. I don't think I obviously knew what I would be doing as a 38 year old when I was 18 either. But the thing that I did know is I knew what gave me energy and I knew what drained energy. I knew that when I was in history class, I was excited and engaged and interested. And I didn't mind writing papers. When I was in my English class, I was exhausted and bored and didn't enjoy writing about, you know, the Jesus complex and every story that we, that we read about that wasn't fun or interesting to me. The same thing could be said with my biology class. I wasn't super interested in that. It didn't give me any passion. And so for me, it was like, how do I align my vocation? How do I align the thing that I'm working on with things that I find to be interesting and exciting and energy giving and life giving. That's kind of been the, the guidepost through my career. And I think that's actually the guidepost for how the best founders start companies as well. You know, we always are looking for what we call an unfair advantage. Like, what is it that these founders have that uniquely positions them to build the company they're building, not a company, but the company that at their building. You see this kind of represented across the portfolio where people are uniquely suited for the things that they're doing, because they're the things that give them energy. They're the things that they wake up in the morning and they can't imagine going another day without working on solving a specific problem. The worst companies that we see tend to be what I would call whiteboard companies. Mm. And these are the ones where a group of people get together. And they're like, we are passionate about starting a business, and we're gonna stand at this whiteboard and write every idea we can on it until we find the one that's the least bad. And then we're gonna go do that. And if it doesn't work, we can always pick a different idea on the whiteboard and go after it. And we're gonna keep doing that until we find a business that has product market fit. Um, there's no alignment in that business. It's just a person and an idea, and they're coming together because they can't imagine doing anything other than what, starting starting a business. That's not, that's not a passion. That's just a thing.
Ben Pilgreen:<laugh> I love that. One of the things that it frees me, because oftentimes I'm constantly having people tell me what, what I slash we need to do, uh, as a church community. Uh, so you're really helping me. I'm gonna just, this is free therapy right now, you know, because we planted our, a church in San Francisco and as the church has grown, and you think about vision, I've thought about this myself. But a lot of people have said, Ben, why don't you guys multiply? Why don't, why don't you do a church in this part of the bay and that part of the bay. And I've really tried to hold that open before God and say like, I just don't see this as the vision, but people assume to your point like, oh, we should just go do this anywhere. But if I'm honest and no one needs to hate me wherever you live in the world, wherever you live in the us, wherever you live, uh, here in the bay area, I am passionate. And I think I'm gifted to lead a church in an urban setting. And I have nothing against the suburbs. I'm all for the outdoor mall. But like, I don't, I, to your point, I don't even, even in the same and you know, people can make it seem like, oh, you should, you should expand your influence in this particular way. But I just, I don't, I don't see that. So you're telling me it's okay for me to be passionate about leading an urban church without having to be passionate about expanding that church into suburbia
Trae Stephens:Total. I mean, the, the world only works because there are billions of people who all are excited about and passionate about different things. Um, and without any of those pieces, things wouldn't work. We need people who are really interested in hospitality. We need people who are really interested in fitness. We need people who really interested in biotechnology. We need people who are really interested in management of complex organizations. We need people who are really interested in space flight. We need people who are really interested in national security. Um, and so there's should never be any judgment. When you look out across all of the people in your network to say like, oh, they're doing something that's better or more interesting than anyone else, because they're not like we, we need all of these people in order for our society to work in the way that it does.
Ben Pilgreen:That's really good. What about the person out there? I've had some of these coaching conversations where, um, their passion doesn't pay the bills. Yeah. Like what do you, what do you do with, what do you do with that? Or, or, you know, a guy like yourself, if Iani, it seems like you have lot, lots of interests. How, how do you narrow those down when there are competing passions? So I don't know if either of those questions in terms of just helping people think through, Hey, I know, I know I love this, or I light up, or I experience fulfillment when I'm involved in this particular kind of activity. Um,
Trae Stephens:Yeah. Well, I, I think that it comes down to a matter of perspective. Like I think the Anne version of this works really well. It's like, I'm passionate about history and venture capital and national security and like focus, which is another topic that we can talk about and like optimizing use of time and stuff like that. These are things that I'm passionate about. Those ands are fine. I'm not getting paid by all of them. They're just S it's where the buts come in, that you start running into trouble. Um, I think when you say like, you know, I'm passionate about art, but my job is blah. And what you're really saying is my perspective on the thing that I'm doing is bad. That's good because there's a lot of different ways that you can enliven and inject energy into whatever it is that you do. Um, if you understand that that is a vocation, that's given to you by God. Um, and you know, this goes for, like, if somebody, I, I worked at hotels, um, for most of my, you know, from the time I was 16 until all, really all the way through college almost. Um, and I, I didn't feel particularly called to work in hotels, but I enjoyed the relationships. And I realized that there was part of me that was passionate about host brutality and about helping people feel cared for. And so don't care about hotels care a lot about those relationships. And as it turns out, I met my wife through a relationship I have with a guest at a hotel. And so the, these passions end up speaking and breathing into your life in ways you might not expect if you allow them to. But if you, you look at it as like a, I, I have to do this to pay the bills, then you're probably missing the point.
Ben Pilgreen:Oh, that's so good. I I'd love to talk about influence for a little bit. And, and one of the things that strikes me about you before I even get to that topic is I've told you this, like, just how down to earth you are. And sometimes I'm not even sure you realize the level of influence that you do have, but I know this about you, obviously you are, uh, you know, advising founders of major companies, uh, you, along with, uh, a group of co-founders have founded a company that early on was already over worth over a billion dollars. Uh, I know that you have influence when it comes advising government leaders. How do you think about the fact that you have that kind of influence? Does that hit you? Are you aware of that? Just generally. How do, how do you think about the influence that you possess right now?
Trae Stephens:Yeah, I, I don't have a great answer to this. I don't, I don't feel like I'm particularly well adjusted, um, in a way that would allow me to speak any sort of wisdom here. It's hard. I mean, I, I am aware of the fact that I carry influence and I, you have to be careful of how you use that. Um, because you know, with, you know, as Spiderman, uh, was reminded by his, his uncle, like with power comes great response. And I, I think I, I feel that very, like deeply within the way that I respond to founders, uh, when we're passing, which as I said is like 99% of the time. Like, how do I do that with grace? How do I do that responsibly? Um, how do I manage my calendar in ways where I recognize that I have to say no to a lot of things? And how do I do that in a way that doesn't leave a bad taste in people's mouth? Um, do I weld the influence that I carry in a way that disadvantages or hurts other people? Um, obviously that's, you know, something that I want to avoid. Um, but really one of the things that I see happening in really negative ways with the way that power and influence is handled is people that crave it and are chasing after it. Um, and I'm reminded of, you know, one of my favorite quote quotes from star wars, where Yoda is talking to, uh, Luke, and he says, adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves, not these things, you are reckless. And I think that this is like the, all the ways that this is played out poorly, that I've seen it is where people are like, man, I'm, I'm running towards this, I'm running towards the adventure, the excitement of power and influence, and it's just reckless and it, it just crashes their life. Um, and so I think we're called in to stepping into that thing that God has given us. Yeah. But doing it in a way that's respectful and calm and patient and thoughtful of the ramifications of how that plays out in someone's life. That's
Ben Pilgreen:Good and, and influence is something, every single one of us has and whatever influence you have, we've been called to steward. I mean, my guess is when you're at the hotel, uh, you know, the influence literally might have been treating guests and providing for whatever it was that they needed. I know that you did that. And my guess is there are patterns that started in your life and how you stewarded your influence, uh, the way you do it. Now, it probably started back then. Um, so I would just say for those of you listening, like we are not pining for position. We're not trying to just keep climbing ladders just to get to a certain place. We really want to, Hey, where are we? What have we been given today? Yes, let's grow that. Let's work towards more. Let's bring out more of what God has put in us, but you all have influence. And so the question might be, how am I stewarding the influence I have today that influence might be over your kids. It might be over a small team at work, could be over some small group that you lead even at your church, but you do, you do have influence, you know, Trey, one of the things that's happening in the world today, as much as anytime since I've been alive is like anxiety is, um, way off the charts. Uh, some have said that you can go back to the invention of the smartphone and see where it really, there was a kind of one to one correlation between that coming into play and the anxiety that we face today. I know that you are in a lot of high pressure environments, at least what most of us would say is high pressure. My assumption is you couldn't be in that sort of high pressure environment after environment, after environment, unless, unless it didn't bring an immense amount of pressure to you. So like how, how have you worked through that?
Trae Stephens:Yeah. I mean, man, this is, this feels like one of those things that I'm constantly battling with, um, you know, it's iterating and improving over time because there have been moments where I've felt just overwhelmed. Um, and I, I don't,<laugh>, I don't have any perfect strategies for dealing with that. Um, but I think getting into the, getting into the psychology of understanding that the world isn't ending and there will be opportunities to, uh, you know, try something again, or iterate on the design of something that you've built. Um, and most of the pressure that certainly that I encounter is pressure that I'm putting on myself for a level of perfection. That's not even attainable to begin with. Um, and so I hold myself to this really high standard. And then when I fall short of that standard, it creates horrible anxiety. But if I step back and I see the way other people are reacting to these exact same scenarios, no one holding me to that standard, like they're, they're holding me to a standard of excellence. Um, but they're not holding me to a standard of perfection. Um, and so I, I think communicating very clearly, like where you believe expectations, lie with your colleagues can free you up quite a bit from believing that everything is just cascading into failure and disappointment. Um, and I've always been surprised at how, if I go to even a founder of a company and they say like, yeah, I need, I need an answer like in the next 24 hours on whether or not you're in. And I just say, look, I'm not gonna have an answer for at least five to seven days. And if that means that we can't get in this round, okay, then it, it's not meant to be, um, oftentimes they'll back off and they'll be like, oh, actually five to seven days is fine.<laugh>. And so creating, you know, a clear expectation around, around, or a communication around that expectation, uh, can be super helpful. Um, but yeah, I don't know. It it's, it's
Ben Pilgreen:Tough. Maybe this question, like, can you think of something the first time that you did it? Cause I think there's a principle here and I'll, I'll try to parse this out a bit. The first time you did something, it was quite overwhelming. Um, but either because of the experience those early times, or you've just gotten to a place where those are more normalized in your life, the thing that used to overwhelm you, it no longer does. Is there a specific example when you think about, Hey, the first time I did fill in the blank? Wow. It was quite overwhelming. Um, but I kind of smile at that now because it's just become a, a normal part of my life. Yeah.
Trae Stephens:I'll give it two part answer to that. One of these parts might be slightly controversial. So I'll do that one second. We love controversial.
Ben Pilgreen:The,
Trae Stephens:The, the least controversial aspect of this is you are allowed to learn. Um, and as I go back and think through the, the things that I've had responsibility over, um, like it was pretty stressful to do like my first sales pitch when I worked at volunteer, like walking in and meeting with senior government officials and trying to convince them to buy software. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to give a demo. And, and it was probably pretty bad, but over, you know, 50, a hundred, 200 reps, it gets way easier. And you start learning like, these are the things that resonate. These are the things that don't resonate. This is where I'm like meandering through a demo path that doesn't work for the sales process and you tighten it up and you get more confident in your execution. And over time becomes almost like second nature. But the second part of this that is slightly more controversial is I, I think that our culture today has too much of this Jack of all trades master of nothing mentality, um, where people, they will want to see personal growth across all things. They're like, you know, I, I am a growth minded person, therefore I'm gonna like figure out how I can be a master mathematician and a master salesperson and a ma um, you know, a master at everything. And it turns out that like, you know, we aren't Superman. We're more like the Xmen, you know, like Wolverine has adamantium claws. He doesn't try to summon weather that's Storm's j ob. She does that. And Storm doesn't try to shoot laser beams out of her eyes. That's Cyclops job Cyclops gonna d o is gonna do that. And actually their ability to overcome challenges is related to how they interact with each other to bring their own powers, to bear, u m, to, to solve really hairy problems. And so I think the lesson that I take away from that is that sometimes when something's really hard, I should stop doing it because maybe I'm not good at that. And someone else is going to be way better at it than I am. So why should I waste my time a nd energy, trying to be better at something that quite frankly, I'm just not well suited to be better at,
Ben Pilgreen:And you don't need to get better at, I think that's one of the things it's like, obviously this is where the idea to the, to the Xmen part, like this is where team comes in. I mean, even for this podcast, I've said this publicly, but if Lindsey wasn't here, it wouldn't matter what kind of conversation we're having. No one would be listening to it right now because she is as the executive producer of the, bring it out podcast. I also think going back to the things that used to overwhelm us, my experience has been that if I will handle assignments with a sense of calm, I think I will be entrusted with heavier assignments. And the only way to take on heavier assignments is if the current assignments in your life right now, don't paralyze you or completely overwhelm you and shut you down. And I think that's, I think that's one of the things that I've seen, not only in my own life, but I've certainly, I think seen that in your life. I think God tends to give us, uh, larger assignments, not because we're awesome. And I don't mean larger in terms of, you know, publicly influencing thousands of people. I just mean we can carry things that are heavier and what's, what's odd to me is that I've, I see some people carry really, really heavy assignments as though they're light. And I see other people who, in my opinion, have these light assignments, but they are just weighing them down. And so one person carrying the heavier assignment could have a lot more peace and, and ease and calm in their lives than the person who's carrying. You know, the thing that actually isn't, isn't that heavy. Right. And
Trae Stephens:There's probably, as you said, there's probably a more real psychological correlation there than you might think that actually like the people who are carrying the most are, are only caring the most because they're doing it like that.
Ben Pilgreen:Yeah. Because it doesn't feel that heavy too. Then part of that for you and I is the common faith that we share in God, um, being a person of faith in the spaces that you inhabit at least outside of your Sunday mornings, uh, what has that been like? And, um, and may, maybe first, like, like how, how does your Christian faith shape, how you view, especially the kinds of things that you're working on, technology innovation, all the things. Yeah. Uh, and then what has it been like to exist publicly? I would say as a person of faith in, in some of these spaces. Yeah.
Trae Stephens:Um, I'll talk about this in part. So the, the part of this is like being a Christian in technology, generally speaking, um, there's, there's, it, it is not a false narrative. Like there are truly not very many Christians in technology.<laugh>, I'll, I'll just say that right front, uh, that is not a false narrative. Um, but the type of that kind of circulate in this network, um, are almost by definition, very curious people. And they're very interested in outliers because that's what entrepreneurship and innovation is, is the identification of outliers. Um, because those are the areas where disruption is possible. Um, and so I've found that Christianity is actually in some ways, just another interesting outlier for the way that most people think. Um, and so instead of being like, oh, Trey's a, a believer that means that something's wrong with him, or he's not smart enough to get it. Uh, it peaks their curiosity. They're like, we know that you're not dumb. So can you please explain to us how you've reached this conclusion that we think is illogical? Um, and it actually opens up an opportunity to, to share the gospel<laugh>, uh, because they just want to know how it, how it's even possible that you could be in this environment. Um, and I think that's something that a lot of my fellow Christians in the tech community are maybe figuring out, or some of them haven't quite yet figured out as they're like maybe too nervous to approach it, cuz they feel like they'll be rejected. And I can say with total honesty that I, I don't think I've ever been rejected. I think people are just curious. They just wanna learn. And so that's been an opportunity rather than a, an impediment for me in a lot of ways on the, like as a Christian in tech, how, how has that affected the way that I think about the world? You know, I think that it, it was always clear in scripture that death is the enemy. God didn't say that, you know, he was putting us on earth and he, he wanted us to die. It's like death is a condition of entropy and sin. And um, you know, this is why the, the ideal in God's mind was always to live an eternity with, with our, our, you know, the other souls in creation. Um, and oftentimes especially in like the media context, the future is presented as this very dark dystopian thing. You know, almost every movie that comes out of Hollywood about the future is like, oh, we're gonna like, you know, a great example of this is allium, um, where it's like, oh, we're gonna build a machine that cures all human disease. Isn't that terrible because it creates income disparity. And you know, there are people the haves and the have nots and it's like, okay, yes, we can talk about wealth inequality and whatever, but like wait time out, there's a machine that cures all human disease. Shouldn't we want a machine that cures all human disease. And so I think this is kind of a unique position in venture capital is like, yes, we need to think about the ethics. And this is something that actually, I think about a lot, particularly in the context of national security, but like we should be striving to build the world that God wants, which is a world in which all these bad things are less likely, less probable, um, less disastrous to the human condition. And then we have the ability to do that. I mean, the canonical example that's often brought up is like Gutenberg with the printing press, how many people saw and read the Bible before the printing press like basically none like low single digit percentages after Gutenberg, like the whole world had access to, to scripture that is objectively a good thing. And most technology has an objectively good use. Um, we just need to find the things that we can invest in that we can put our time and energy into that are going to improve the human condition and bring them closer to God's will and interest. And in the life of humanity,
Ben Pilgreen:What's exciting to you as you think about that, like this idea, even from, you know, this whole it out like, Hey, God puts us in certain places at certain times with certain ideas, innovations dreams, so that we can bring those out, like being alive right now, this generation, what is exciting to you about the possibilities?
Trae Stephens:Yeah. And, and we're kind of like right on the cusp of all of these really cool technology enhancements or advancements that are going to make a, a huge difference to our children's lives. Maybe not ours, but almost certainly our children. Um, you know, one of the, uh, uh, advanced nuclear technology called Heon, um, that actually my partner, Peter teal, uh, is an investor in, uh, they're building fusion in so most nuclear technology, as most listeners are probably familiar with this vision. And this is the idea that you're splitting apart. Adam's fusion is energy that's created in the opposite. Um, this has never really worked historically, or at least in the cases where it has worked. You had to put more energy into the system than you got out of it. Um, but the CEO Heon, I think just today or yesterday said that he thinks in the next 10 years, this will be feasible for commercial use. And if we had, you know, scalable fusion reactors, like the cost of energy would be like so low that you wouldn't even have to meter it. This was the whole goal of Eisenhower and his Adams for peace speech and movement that he made is like, we're getting to the point where like power could just like, not even be an issue anymore. And that's pretty exciting. And then you have all these kind of enhancements around artificial intelligence, computer vision, things like self-driving cars. Um, you know, we don't talk about this super free Atlanta society, but like traffic fatalities is a huge cause of death in, in, in America, but really around the world. Um, and self-driving cars done, right? Uh, sure. There are all sorts of ethical considerations you'd have to make where things go wrong, but done right, is going to massively reduce the amount of fatalities that we experience, um, which is, you know, it's a good, that is like objectively a good thing for humanity. Um, and then on biotech, there are all these really interesting things. I mean, most of us, maybe most of us, depending on who's listening have received an mRNA vaccine, uh, that was developed within months of a worldwide pandemic. Um, really, really cool things that can be done with mRNA. There's all sorts of new research that's being done into mental health around like, um, identifying the root causes of dementia Alzheimer's that could, that could just be fundamentally game changers if we figure out to build therapies to address some of these problems. So we're, we're in a really interesting place in history. Um, and we just have to, you know, embrace, uh, and move forward, keeping in mind that there are things that problems and issues that might need to be worked out, but there's a lot to be hopeful
Ben Pilgreen:About as well. Yeah. The future is not something that any of us need to be afraid of, not generally the future and specifically not our own future. So I, I I'm with you on that. How do you, um, because all of us, no matter how little or much influence we have, no matter what our calling is, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. How do you work through, what gets your time, your attention, your energy. I know this conversation as close friends, we have fairly often. Um, but how, how do you think through that? And, and especially as you think through people, whether they have the same kind of plate being full as yours or, or not, how, how should we think about what we give ourselves to?
Trae Stephens:Yeah, I I'm bad at this. I<laugh>, I have tried a lot of different strategies. Some of them working better than others. Um, yeah. I mean, there's, there's a part of this. That's like, how do I give myself in places where I can be most useful to people that haven't had the same opportunities? And, you know, we haven't gotten into this story, but like, I, I got rejected like basically everywhere. I applied to college and grew up in kind of a rural public school. And, um, really like only through people in positions of influence that took their time, uh, on me a, you know, a, nobody from the middle of Ohio, was I able to do any of the things that I'm now doing? And so part of me like real, I recognize that mm-hmm<affirmative> so I don't wanna just like shut myself off entirely because I want to care and love people, uh, who don't have those same opportunities, just like other people did for me. And, um, and that is something that kind of factors into my thinking and, you know, engaging in mentorship relationships and things like that. Um, at the same time, it's like, you know, if I said yes to every email that I got inbound, like th there's just no way, uh, that I could actually do that. So part of it is just discerning these, these strengths. Um, as we discussed earlier in the conversation where, you know, I know the thing, that areas where I'm going to have like particularly useful insights, and I know the I'm not. So one example of this is I frequently get inbound requests to like people that want to talk about breaking into the venture capital industry. It's like to be honest, I have no idea. I I've only ever worked at founders fund. And Peter asked me to come work at founders fund before I even knew that this was a thing that I, I could do as a next step in my career. So like I have no, I have no useful insights to provide to that conversation. And so there's like probably a more graceful way than just ignoring or sending a one word email back to the person. But like, I'm, I'm just not sure a 30 minute call is going to be super useful to me or them. Um, and so I have to like, you know, engage in that sort of calculus and I'm gonna get it wrong a lot, unfortunately. But, um, it is, it is going to be an ongoing tension. I would
Ben Pilgreen:Expect going back to those people who took a chance on you, you said you didn't get into any of the colleges that you applied to, but I know that you actually did go to college<laugh> and I would love because one of the things I'm always trying to help people figure out is listen. Um, there are parts we need other people to play. And I know you'll talk about that in just a moment. Um, as people of faith, we believe that there's a part that only God can play and, and certainly wanna encourage everyone listening, whatever your faith background is that that God is at work. We believe that sometimes we see it, oftentimes we don't see it, or we don't see it until much later, but there's also a part for us to play. Like we're not just passively waiting for God to drop the dream into our lap and to drop the money into our lap and to drop the, you know, in your case, the, the admissions acceptance letter into our lap. H how, how, how did that story go?
Trae Stephens:Yeah, I mean, I, I think, I think I expected at some level that, like, if I did the things that I was told that I needed to do that everything would be fine. It's like, if you get great grades, if you get good test scores, if you, you know, are engaged in extracurriculars and varsity athletics and whatever else is, if you just do those things, like everything's gonna be fine. Well, not really,<laugh>, everything is not going to be fine as it turns out, uh, the world is not fair and there's not really a good answer to how that gets addressed. For example, you know, Harvard has what, like three and a half, 5,000 people maybe in each graduating class, maybe less than that, I don't know. Um, does Harvard take, do they have the ability to take a hundred thousand kids a year? Um, I, I don't think so. Like, unless you go to like fully virtual line classes, but that probably like devalues the degree in some way. And so scarcity is actually kind of what drives the prominence of, uh, of like the quality of the piece of paper you get at the end of your four years. Um, and so there's like this tension between fairness and scarcity and, you know, all this stuff, and I'm just not, I'm not really sure how to resolve of that. So like, as a baseline, the world isn't fair. Some people are going to be left behind. We, we should do everything we can to like, help that not be the case to the whatever extent possible. Um, but I, I was there, I was kind of just like trapped in this like crack. Um, and, you know, I remember like laying on the couch crying, I got all my skinny envelopes in the mail and my mom just sat down next to me. And she was like, where do you wanna go to college? And I was like, it's a little late mom.<laugh> I think you kinda missed the boat here. Um, and she was like, you know, I, I said, I wanna go to Georgetown. She said, okay, well, you can go to Georgetown. Like, let's buy a plane ticket, fly to Georgetown and just convince them to let you in. And so that's what I did. And then I sat on the doorstep of the admissions office and eventually the admissions office decided that they would rather meet with me than leave me sitting on the doorstep for the rest of the day. Um, and I made my passion to appeal and, you know, by the grace of God, they thought my, uh, kind of unhinged version of college admissions, uh, was appealing. And so I got in, um, but I think that, like one kind of lesson that I learned from that experience is that, um, when you really want something and you're willing to go through the additional step to get it, people are pretty receptive. Like they're willing to hear you out. Um, as long as you're doing it in a way that's like, you know, respectable and, uh, and articulate why it is that you want something that you want.
Ben Pilgreen:It's so good. I, I think all of us have passions and dreams, or at least we have had dreams, but for, um, but you know, one of the disheartening things I think for so many of us is that we have learned to talk ourselves out of and let other people talk ourselves out of the dreams and passions that we have. And so any advice, and maybe we'll, um, in the conversation here, any advice for people that there's a dream present, even if it's kind of submerged and, you know, life experience and, and, you know, disappointment or even doubts, but any encouragement for you, like for the person who, Hey, you know, I would still love to fill in the blank. Um, but, but they've found all kinds of ways to talk themselves out of it. Any encouragement you would leave them with.
Trae Stephens:Yeah. Um, man, I, I, I think that the people talking themselves out of something is almost always related to other people telling them they can't. Um, there are probably cases where someone has used their own logic to determine that a thing that they wanna do is unrealistic. And maybe those are things you shouldn't do. I don't know. But if you find yourself in a situation where like other people have just told you that you can't, that's probably worth revisiting, um, because other people, aren't the ones that are doing the thing that you wanna do, you are. And so if you just listen to what everyone else tells you are your constraints, um, you're probably MIS they're out on an understanding of the passion and excitement and intensity that you're willing to bring to the table. Um, and this actually happens a lot with, with founders. Um, and, and that we see at founders fund, it's like, you know, they've been told they can't, uh, by a lot of people and eventually they just decide that, you know, they're gonna go for it. And the thing that makes the thing work is not what other people said were the problems. It was just how hard they were willing to work to make it happen. Um, and the best founders tend to be the ones that are willing to work the hardest to make the thing work, especially in competitive environments, when you're like head to head with another PE person doing the same thing, it's like your willingness to work is like 90% of whether or not that problem is gonna be solved by you. So, um, yeah, I think discounting what other people say, or at least finding people that you can surround yourself with that will give you a realistic portrayal of the positives and negatives and potential hangups and encourage you rather than discourage you.
Ben Pilgreen:That's so good. And you know, it's one of the things we talk about. We've gotta be careful when it comes to the voices that we listen to. Uh, you guys have heard us mention before this idea of building a wisdom table, get the right men and women around that wisdom table in your life and tell them what your dreams are, what your passions are. And again, we don't want people that are just, yes, people in our lives. We, we want to be told the truth. We want to be told the truth and love, but, uh, every single one of us needs cheerleaders in our lives who know us, who love us, who since the passion and dreams that we've been given and help us lean into those rather than away from those. So, Trey, I know you've got so much going on. Thanks for making us the part of the 1% that you accepted, as opposed to the 99% request that you did not accept.
Trae Stephens:I mean, this is my family. I'm, uh, so blessed to be part of the epic community and to have deep friendships with you, Ben, and, uh, so many other people at epic. And on that notice also probably worth noting that we're sitting here at founders fund doing this on Lindsay's birthday. Uh, so happy birthday to Lindsey.
Ben Pilgreen:Shout out to Lindsey Lee, January 5th is her birthday. So give her some retroactive birthday love. And yes, it's the first time we've taken the podcast on the road here at founders fund in the Presidio in San Francisco off 2022. Trey, thanks for joining us. If you wanna find out more about Trey, uh, make sure you spell his first name correctly. T R a E like Trey young, just like Trey young, except Trey Stevens has a little better jump shot on that note. Really appreciate you guys joining us for this episode of the, bring it out podcast. If you found this helpful, please rate it, share it, subscribe. Let us know, uh, what you're learning along this journey. And we look forward to bringing you more episodes, just like this one.
Outro:Thanks for joining me on this episode of the, bring it out podcast. If you wanna go deeper, I've created, Bring It Out course, and it's absolutely free. This 11 session course includes teaching for me as well as a PDF guide to help you process all you learn along the way you can download the course at www.benpilgreen. com/course. Thanks for listening today. May you bring out everything that's been put inside of you.