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Pejman Nozad

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26
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2017-02-20
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2017-02-20
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  1. “I think it's a person I mentioned, Jiffikat is the company that was founded by an amazing entrepreneur by the name of Richard Rabbath. He grew up in Lebanon. He was such a good student that could have gone to MIT, but he was in the middle of civil war. So there was no plane coming out of Lebanon. He gave his SAT scores to a boat and then the boat sank and he never got to MIT. A few years later, he managed to get PhD at MIT and he was a superstar at Google and Zynga and started a company that got to be the ultimate destination for short for videos. So this is the guy I spent like three hours over at dinner, got to know him and to me was just exactly like what happened to Josh, I think he belongs to a different category of the founders and we are just so honored and excited to be a partner with him in this journey.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, that's exactly the opposite. I mean, that was my only hesitation not take this because, you know, I'm a big man, you fan.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I read everything related that I need to know about tech every day. I'm a big fan of soccer, so you can imagine I browse through a lot of them. I just don't have any particular blog or newsletter other than normal things you read around every day.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yes, I think the biggest achievement is just having a beautiful, healthy, happy family. Our kids were born here. We built a great life together with my wife here. We started from scratch. I don't know any low point. Even living in that yogurt shop, it just made me who I am today. So I think that's part of a journey. I mean, it has been like challenges throughout the years. You don't have money. There are, you make money, and then you have to figure out things. But I never look at life that you have a very low point of that. I mean, everybody healthy, great friends. So I'm always grateful for what I have today.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “You know, I think in the tech business, Bobby, as Donnie has been an amazing friend and mentor to me, he took Saba from his garage public and then he was a sedi investor in Google, Dropbox, Uber, and many others. So I think, as I mentioned, I think he mentored me and I think, but he took really personal interest to me in making sure that I grow as a person. But I tell you, I mean, some people always ask who's the inspiration? To me, just normal people out there, you know, there's a coffee shop, I get my coffee sometimes when I don't have Persian tea. And the barista, it's a source of inspiration for me. The way he put so much love and effort to make the best coffee possible is just so inspiring to me. And I wish I could do in my work the way he makes coffee. Sometimes my kid's teacher, when I hear a story about them, is just so inspiring.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Power of now, I love that book because it always remind me to look into moments and it just really, really amazing book. You know, I read it by Eckhart Toldi, I forgot to mention the name. So it's just pretty amazing, spiritual enlightenment book that really encouraged you to look into moment and really realize what's going on at any given time. So it always has been my favorite book. I told you that I'm reading the book Leading by Sarah Alex Ferguson and Mike Mornitz. I think that's pretty phenomenal. And especially if you love football, soccer, and you're in tech, you really can, you can really relate to those elements.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And I syndicated. And today, if you want to syndicate any round, you want NGLIS, you created, people click and you're done. At that time, I had to go to people's home and get a check from this CEO or venture capitalist. And Marshall that company to a public company ran engineering, started another one. She's MIT, Lifetime Achievement Award. She was a perfect fit for me because for a few things, she started companies from scratch three times. She has a deep technical background. These are the things I haven't done before. And then we have the same principle in both work and life, just helping people and build something great.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Big hole is being created on the ground zero in the ecosystem, which means, and I was looking at the cap table of a million dollar first raise and I saw Angelin Besteras and I saw a few firms writing checks but nobody was helping entrepreneur the way venture capital should be traditional way that you really partner with founders. And I thought given my background, the network, the Dill flow, the know-how, the relationship I have is an opportunity to build an institution. But I needed having a partner who compliments me. So I reached out to Maur Hirschinson, who is the co-founder of PER today, and she is from Barcelona. She has a PhD from Stanford in Electronic Engineering. She was a consulting professor and started three companies from scratch. I got to know her through my investment in Dinger, Mars husband was the co-founder of Danger. And in 2003, I led her $2.5 million, kind of the Cerries A seed bound at that time.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “They just pair with investors that are not having only interest in the company and the product is in you as a human being also. And that's to me is just phenomenal and great quality of the founders. Obviously in investors, obviously investors have different background, different perspective, different specialties. So each one brings different value on the table. But I think this phenomenal that you build a relationship with your founding team to me is just a very, very rare characteristic of world-class investors. And then final long form question before we move into the quickfire. And it's that in 2013, you've mentioned Pair before in this episode, you decided to start investing your own money and move away from Ahmed's ad. So what was behind that decision and how's your investment thesis altered since you've broken out on your own? Yeah, so around 2011-12, which I was investing my own money, and I felt that there's a”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “You mentioned one way that your development happened in terms of you'd like to invest alongside other people as time went on, the likes of Yazdani, for example. And you said before that you can learn a lot about someone from their home. And I'm intrigued from kind of viewing so many incredible investors. What have you found to be the commonalities in how they invest and approach the entrepreneur investor relationship? You know, you're talking about other investors and what are the best practices? Other investors from you watching them witnessing your Mike Murits, your Mike Abbott, your Yazdani. Sure. So I think the best investors I had the privilege to work with, and you mentioned a few of the names, they take personal interest in founders. They make sure these founders grow as a human being, as a CEO, as a VPO of engineering, you name it. And that's to me is phenomenal. I always encourage the founders who are taking money from us or anybody else.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “List of PhD students in Stanford Computer Science Department and every other engineering school at Stanford and seeing any Persian name sending an email and said, this is who I am, why don't we have a Persian tea together? And it worked out so great that I'm still doing it. You won't believe how far it goes that when you meet people over Persian tea, especially if they're from your culture and you make a bon. And if you look at my portfolio company, some of the best company I ever invested founders are Iranian, you know, naming it Dropbox one of them Soundhound the other one and then current found has few amazing Iranian founders. So I just believe doing things manually, meeting people, it will go far. Absolutely. A very famous investor in the UK who told me his advice for me starting my career and venture was the most important thing you'll learn is that beer and breakfast are the two most important times of the day. That's so true. Absolutely.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And Paul Graham in particular and Jessica Livingston build an amazing practice to get really talented people. And that was pretty amazing. I had always been fan of meeting people face to face and get to know them. And that's the essence of fun today. If you look at what we do at PAIR, our venture capital firm today, we do a lot of social events. We do a lot of gathering with our founders. So I continue to believe that's where you can meet people. And, you know, sometimes the whole ecosystem forgets that all of us are human beings. We need to get to know each other. And that's really, really important. You know, I remember when I started, actually this is a good story to share. When I started to do angel investing, so I said we need to start to have deal flow. And one of the areas that I thought I'm really strong in being Iran and American, you know, I knew a lot of Iranians and I said maybe I should expand that network. So I was going through the”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Kept our ownership after the initial investment would have made a lot of money through a half a billion dollar acquisition of Dinder by Microsoft. But I think what these important today as I manage to funds it, my partner Mar Harshenson, you know, keeping this provada rights and making sure that we have the ability to maintain our ownership in the companies are growing is really, really important. And then when you were establishing yourself in the ecosystem, when you were investing the initial $2 million and in your kind of formative years investing, were there any other real shocks to the system that changed the way you view startups and then the way you invest personally? You know, I think the first thing, the arrival of blogs and getting more information was just really phenomenal for me as an engine investor. I think then, you know, why combinators start to do an amazing job to change ecosystem on the ground zero?”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Before that, you mentioned Andy Rubin with regards to this characteristic. And he was obviously the founder that you backed with danger and you invested $400K of dollars of Ahmed Zad money into danger. And eight years later, you received two extra turn despite the sale for five hundred million to Microsoft. Was that a big learning curve for you? And how did it alter your approach after this when you saw this happen? That's actually a really good question. I think Dinder was ahead of its time. I think it was the first smartphone came in, but the broadband was really not there. The penetration of mobile phone was not there. And as a hardware software company, they had to raise a huge amount of money. And that's where we got diluted. And this is the problem you have as an angel investor because you don't have infinite money to invest and keep your parada. So basically we got diluted after eight years. Had we participated in”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I mean, those people who have a vision know exactly where they're going, but the questions themselves and the team and the decisions every day. Getting to know the founders is just very important. I don't think in half an hour or an hour meeting with the tech or presentation, you can really, I mean, you get a lot from the founders. Don't get me wrong. I think most of the companies we pass, we get to know the founders how they think. Their relationship with each other in just interaction we have in a meeting. But I typically spend time outside office. The ones we are really excited. We just invested in one company that had like three hours dinner with the founder over Persian food. I got to know him. I got to know his child food. I got to know what he thinks about the world, how to”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “You know, there are a few things that's important for me and for us today as affirm. So we look at founders who have history together. So basically people who went to college together, who play basketball in high school together, the ruck climb, rock climb every weekend, things that they have in common, so really good relationship there. It's very important for us. We like the teams who are very close to the problem they're solving. You know, often people who are passionate about solving a problem and are really close to it, they have history with that problem, end up building product that people love. I think we are the teams that founding teams that they believe company is above them. So I think humbleness for us is really important. We love the team who can attract talent. We love founders who are captain of their ships. They leave the ship at last. I think we like founders who are paranoid in a healthy way.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Where Google PayPal started on adjacent street Yahoo started. If you walk three miles to Stanford is where Sun Microsystem, Cisco and most recently Instagram and Snapchat started. So I had two choices. Just witness what's going on around me and pass by and be a rug salesperson or really capture the opportunity I had and become one of the players just participate in this community, create a network, helping people be kind to other ones, work really hard, learn constantly. And I chose the second pack. I didn't think that not having a tech background should stop. And, you know, to me was just obvious I can be one of the people who can play a role and be part of this just amazing community.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “First of all, thanks, Mike Morris. I have so much respect. I've learned so much throughout the years interacting with him and reading his writings. And these days, reading the book he wrote with Sir Alex Ferguson, leading, which I think is just a phenomenal book, and I recommend everyone managing people to read it. You know, I think I developed a kind of a pattern recognition to spot entrepreneurs early on, and this is by just meeting a lot of people. I think many venture capitalists recognize that. I think I reach out to them at the right time with the right context. I'm just making sure to respect their time. And I think I'm showing that in action. But you have to realize one thing. University Avenue where the medallion rock gallery was, was and perhaps is the most important street in the tech hall. So just Medallion Regular is like 320 University Avenue, 165 University.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Capitalists got to notice I have a very strong deal flow. I started to help entrepreneurs. They notice I'm for real. I'm there to help them. And I match them with the right people and really helping, you know, sharing a lot of experiences. So fast forward, I was very lucky to me then, you know, Drew and Rash, I became one of the first investors in Dropbox and fast forward today, which I raised two funds with my partner that we can talk more about it.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Hina was few things, I think, was the way he was seeing the future, the way he was interacting with his team. I was at his office a few times, his confidence. He was basically captain of the ship, and the way he was just solving the problem, I think, was as never seen it before. And I still is. I think Andy Rubin sees future before most of us. And that's why he created Android and now he's the playground and the other things. So he was kind of the turning point for me, but very early on in my career, I started to build back really close relationship with venture capitalists. I remember at night sometimes I was inviting 100, 150 entrepreneurs to the Rug Gallery. I was wanting the entire, I was inviting the entire senior parties of Sequoia Capital. And this never happened at that time. It wasn't like today. Today, every night there is something happens around the world, especially in Bay Area and Silicon Valley. But at that time was really rare. So Silicon Valley and went...”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And I grew the business with the owner. We hired people and the operation went from four or five people to like 25 people. But, you know, when you sell car pets, especially high-end Persian carpets, you don't sell carpets at your store. You go to people's homes. So I started to go to big homes here in Silicon Valley and I built relationship with the people who are buying carpets, but I realized majority, almost all of them are either venture capitalist CEOs, founders, you know, lawyers. just figure out of this amazing melting pot called Silicon Valley and this is the community trying to change the world to be a better place”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yes. And then one of those days that I was a study is, I had this small TV, and every Sunday was this Persian program. And I saw this gallery down, carpet gallery, rug gallery down Tampa also, medallion rug gallery is just hiring salesperson. So being Iranian, every Iranian they know they know something about carpet, which they don't. And so I called and they interviewed media golden gentleman who actually government nationalized his asset, came to US and started from scratch and built very successful businesses, interview on the phone. And just he said, you're not qualified because you haven't sold anything furniture, cars and so on. And before he hung up, I said, how can you deny someone you haven't met? And it was a long pause and he said, come and see me next day. Palto. And after a few years, I managed to be a really good salesman.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “But I tell you, I was the best car washer the world has ever seen. I watched cars, but nobody else has ever done it. You know, then my English improve. I took English class at night. I worked in a yogurt shop and I managed to slip above the attic because I wanted to go marry the girl I loved and I didn't want to ask my father to pay for it. So I had to save every penny. And this yogurt shop had an attic, real attic. It was just the storage over Dale and the owner was a very, very nice Iranian man who left Iran a long time ago. And he said Pejman, you're crazy, but that's fine if you want to live there. You can live there. So I remember it was no air. A couple of times I went out and one-time police caught me because it was with my underwear at 3 a.m. in the morning and the guy thought I'm crazy. It happens.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “chance to come here to come to the United States didn't know what to do as you mentioned I didn't have money much and I didn't speak language and actually the $700 was just gone the first few weeks because I was in love with the girl in Iran and I thought I'm gonna lose her so I started to to call her every day from payphone and imagine in 90s early 90s there was no internet there was no Skype like Naomi and Yusuf it was like few dollars per minute so I lost all of my money in the first few weeks so imagine you come to America no money don't speak the language and so I had to find a job and I called the former Iranians national team coach who I knew live in San Jose and said yeah I have a job for you come and see me and I thought he knew I was a journalist Iran so before I came to US I was a very famous sports journalist and I posted Iran's most popular radio talk show and I showed up it was a car wash so my first job in the US was working in a car wash and”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “You know, maybe I should give a little bit background that I grew up on Iran and I was a big soccer fan and I played professional soccer in Iran. And my teenagers went through a really difficult time of revolution and war. So I think when I look back to those days, it just made me who I am today when you face so much challenges over there than when you immigrate to country like America, you really realized the opportunities you have. Fast forward, I went to Germany. My parents lived in Germany and continued my education and play professional soccer actually Waldof Mannheim, which was in Bundesliga at that time offered me to play. But my brother who left Iran before me and he had this American dream and was denied visa every month just pushed me to go to US embassy. I didn't speak the language, but somehow the counselor said that I exactly remember the woman said, I don't know why, but I want you to see my country. So I got a visa when I was 22 years old.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Harry, thank you so much for inviting me. I was just so excited to be in the show. And as you know, I'm such a big fan of Josh at Gusto. It's my biggest single biggest angel investment ever. And when I met Josh, it took me like 15 minutes to commit and I didn't see even one page of the product he's building. So I think, I believe some founders are from Mars and he's one of them.”

    2017-02-20 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Pejman Nozad: Tech's Most Unlikely VC: From Yoghurt Shop To Investing In Startups Now Worth $20Bn+ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source