Artificially Intelligent with Sam Maule and Maia Bittner
When it comes to fintech, Sam Maule. and Maia Bittner have definitely honed a few talents over the years. They've got over a decade each in banking and payments industry, so they've earned their stripes. Now, some in the industry like to dub them fintech thought leaders- but they prefer to see themselves as perpetual fintech interns. And that's precisely why they decided to launch the Artificially Intelligent podcast - to create a platform where they can learn and look about edge cases in fintech, those hidden corners that have been ignored far too often.
So hey! Come and join us on the quest to get a little bit more Artificially Intelligent.
Brought to you by Money20/20
Artificially Intelligent with Sam Maule and Maia Bittner
Venturing into Fintech: Sheel Mohnot on Navigating Early-Stage Investments and the Future of Wearable Tech
Ever wondered what it's like to receive an unexpected haul of shoes just by tweeting about sore feet? Tune in as we learn about the unexpected windfalls for a finfluencer. With us is Sheel Mohnot, co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, who takes us through his thrilling journey in the fintech landscape. Get an insider's look at how he teamed up with Jake Gibson of NerdWallet fame to create a venture capital firm aimed at fostering early-stage fintech innovations.
Sheel dives into the gritty details of early-stage investing and fundraising, offering a candid look at the fine line between "fake it till you make it" and fraud, highlighted by the FTX and SBF saga. We discuss the obstacles Sheel faced while raising their initial funds and how the COVID-19 pandemic played a pivotal role in their journey. The episode is a masterclass in strategic decision-making, including why Better Tomorrow Ventures chose to limit their fund size to stay sharp and effective, and the tough but necessary act of turning down investors.
In the latter part of our chat, we explore the fascinating world of neobanks, SaaS, and consumer fintech, uncovering both the opportunities and challenges in these sectors. We touch on the immense potential within niche markets and the crowded space of consumer fintech, stressing the importance of targeting underserved communities. The episode wraps up with a futuristic glimpse into wearable tech, where Shiel shares his thoughts on smart glasses' practicality and privacy issues. It's an episode packed with insights, humor, and forward-thinking perspectives that you won't want to miss.
Hosts: Sam Maule & Maia Bittner
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Artificially Intelligent. I'm your perpetual intern, Sam Mau le, one of your co-hosts.
Maia Bittner:And I'm Maia Bittner, your other co-host. You know, S sam, I just opened my front door and checked my packages and I got to tell you I feel like I've finally made it. I got a free sparkling water sample today.
Sheel Mohnot:Ooh, uh-huh.
Sam Maule:What list did you get on?
Maia Bittner:I know it was like totally unprompted, no memo free. Six-pack variety pack of sparkling water that's.
Sam Maule:That's how you know you're living large and becoming a celebrity in this space, which it's just the worst way ever. Yeah, this is my worst segue ever to get our guest on because we're talking about. I love doing this mic, so it makes me laugh.
Sheel Mohnot:I'm talking about one of the og we're talking about a man who cannot keep his shirt on on Twitter.
Sam Maule:It's embarrassing A man who loves tacos as much as I do.
Sheel Mohnot:I'm great. I'm just thinking about things that I've gotten for free in the mail. And it's like it's, it's not not that much stuff, although once I tweeted that my feet hurt and I got four different pairs of shoes in the mail wow, which was pretty awesome it's a lot of shoes.
Sheel Mohnot:I wore those for a long time, um, but what else I? I uh tweeted about robin hood. A lot of people think that I get paid for these things. Like I don't get paid for anything. I tweeted that I am excited about Robinhood's new 3% cashback card and some other stuff about Robinhood. So the CEO reached out to me and was like, hey, we'd like to send you something. And I was like, oh, I'm going to get something awesome.
Sheel Mohnot:And then I got it was stickers and a hat that says market cap and a key chain stickers. Man, right and you're like.
Maia Bittner:By the way, I'm Sheel M Shilmanot. I have like 100,000 followers on Twitter. I am the guy in fintech. I literally just raved about your newly launched consumer card and drove like tons of high quality traffic. Thank you for the key chain.
Sheel Mohnot:Literally a key chain.
Maia Bittner:Like I know, fintech customer acquisition costs. Like that's a valuable tweet. Yeah Well for those that don't know we're talking about S shield.
Sam Maule:Um, he's one of the gps at better tomorrow ventures. Um. Did it with his co-founder, jake gibson and I love jake too. Founder of nerd wallet. God, who doesn't love nerd wallet? I love nerd wallet. Maia, you love nerd wallet love nerd wallet -should love J jake, but you and I do, and that's what matters.
Sheel Mohnot:You know I love I learned so much from there.
Sam Maule:Yeah, he's great when did you first meet jake? I don't even know that yeah, yeah.
Sheel Mohnot:So I met jake in 2016. I was running a different fund 500 fintech with an accelerator and um was a big fan of nerd wallet, like you two and um they actually they had an office in the same building as our office, so it just like was top of mind all the time because I could see them in the elevator. And then a friend of a friend or a friend was like, hey, I know Jake, one of the co-founders, and I said, oh, put me in touch. And then he got in touch, or we got in touch. He came in to mentor Accelerator, ended up investing in a bunch of companies in Accelerator, and then later on we had an event it was called Pre-Money this big conference for venture capitalists and Jake sent me a note saying, hey, any way I can get a free ticket. And I was like, hmm, I know a way you can get a free ticket.
Maia Bittner:And I was like Hmm, I, I know a way you can get a free ticket.
Sheel Mohnot:You can become an EIR with me and you'll get a free ticket. See, everyone's just looking for free shit, just looking for free shit, like all of us.
Maia Bittner:Like all of us, a lot of stickers, a lot of stickers, a lot of free stuff, sparkling water sparkling water.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, here we are, years later. You know that free ticket led to us working together and then deepening our relationship, sort of end of 2019, when we started btv, that's fantastic.
Maia Bittner:I think of you as having just started better tomorrow, but I think I know the pandemic time warp. It was actually totally five, four or five years ago.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, four and a half years ago. Yeah, and I totally agree it feels brand new. But we're actually, you know, we're on fun two. We'll probably have fun three later this year, so it still feels new, but I guess it's sort of old. And now Sam's calling me an OG, which means that I'm old. You got gray on the beard.
Sam Maule:You're like me. I got a lot of gray.
Maia Bittner:We got a lot of gray. And do you want to give us the 30 second pitch for Better Tomorrow? What kinds of stuff do you invest in? What checks?
Sheel Mohnot:do you?
Maia Bittner:write what stage.
Sheel Mohnot:Totally so. We are pre-seed and seed investors in FinTech. So everything we invest in is FinTech or FinTech adjacent. And when I say FinTech adjacent, that could be vertical SaaS that's going to have a big FinTech component, or B2B marketplaces that are, which is a $150 million fund. We also have a follow-on vehicle that's under $75 million and our check sizes range between a half million at the lower end and up to about $4 million at the high end for a first check. And and the half million dollar checks are usually pre seed investments that we do out of an accelerator called the mint, where companies come here, work out of our office, work super closely with us, and we invest a half million, as I said, and then you know, larger checks tend to be a little bit further along into our sort of seed bucket.
Sam Maule:Yeah, it's something I don't know, so I'm curious. You know, when you're in startup life, I'm back in startup life everybody if you didn't know it, congratulations. So yeah, I'm at the Series B company, so when you're in startup life it's it's almost like being a politician right. It's all about oh God, what's the raise I got? I got to do a raise. What's the next raise? What is it? I got to get to do that, well what's it like? Raising a fund. I mean, that's gotta be just as painful, isn't it?
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah. So I've done it three times now. First time was really painful, second time was a little less painful and the third time we just got really lucky on timing. So I can tell you a little bit about each of them. So the first one it was my first fund 500 FinTech ended up being $15 million. Originally I was masquerading as having a fund and I was actually investing my own capital and did a bunch of investments out of my own capital, sort of masqueraded as 500 fintech. And I did that not because I wanted to or because I had so much money, but because I had to because no one would give me money and so I faked.
Maia Bittner:What year was this?
Sheel Mohnot:Because I feel like yeah, yeah, yeah, this was started investing in January 2016. Cool, Okay, so we started investing in January 2016. And every investment I made until May 2017 was out of my own pocket and it was a 0% interest loan to the fund yeah.
Sam Maule:So your wife really loves you. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that she really loves you yeah, so it was.
Sheel Mohnot:It was a lot, it was, and it was a significant part of my net worth, to be frank, um, and but I knew that I was gonna do whatever I had to do to have a fund and that was part of it and eventually, you know, we just record an episode on ftx and sbf and one of the things I was saying is I really think there's some like this fake it till you make it right is is on a continuum with fraud.
Sam Maule:Yeah.
Maia Bittner:Do you?
Sam Maule:know what I mean and, like you, invest in your own money.
Maia Bittner:like it's not like nobody can follow. It's like that's awesome, Like it's such like you know, like obviously not fraud. It's like incredible and you had to do what you had to do to make it work and like now you're the shamanaut. You know SPF right, okay, like misappropriated you know, like I think it exists on a continuum and, like you, kind of hustle to make it like tech.
Maia Bittner:It's like this is kind of one of the biggest games in the world. It's very competitive, like people are very ambitious or trying and like you know you got to give it all, you got well you know what I find fascinating, and I'm you know we died laughing recording that last episode.
Sam Maule:When we're talking about this, because there's this is part of a persona right when you look at svf. Right, it's a persona of well man I mean.
Sheel Mohnot:There's a million different ways you could take that, but but you've got the same thing right.
Sam Maule:I mean, if there was like a the same thing medium you're always laughing, you're always happy. You're doing, you're doing metal verse, freaking wedding nonsense.
Maia Bittner:That's who you are, but I know behind the scenes sbf has with the playing video games games during the pitch. You know it's like that's the lore she'll get married at Taco.
Sheel Mohnot:Bell it's true.
Maia Bittner:I'm not saying the word because I don't know how to pronounce it, but is it hutzpah? What's the word?
Sam Maule:hutzpah, hutzpah, yeah, yeah yeah, okay.
Sheel Mohnot:So back to raising the funds. So fund one, so fund zero. We call it 500 fintech. It was really hard. Then fund fund um, btv one, um. So I had jake as a partner and it was also took a while. So the first like, we raised million. The first 20 were fairly easy to raise. Like I had raised 15 million before. Most of those folks are almost all those folks came back in and we had some other friends, um, we had a little bit of a track record. People liked us, people knew us, um, so the first 20 was easy. And then it was tough, um, it was also the beginning of the pandemic we were hoping to.
Sheel Mohnot:We did a first close december 2019 and we had to do that close because we had committed to leading our first deal, which was unit. We had committed to it in like august or september and we were like we promise we have the money or we'll come up with the money. And so they waited a few months and we wired them the money for their seed round and that first 20 million that we raised was enough to do that. And then we were like, okay, we're going to do another close March 30th 2020. We were like, okay, we're going to do another close March 30th 2020.
Sheel Mohnot:And obviously March 2020 did not pan out as we expected. We did our first ever, actually first and only to date ever trip that Jake and I went on for fundraising was like the first or second week of March. We went out to the East Coast and everything was normal when we went out, and then, like two days after we got there, like the NBA shut down, like everything shut down, all of these meetings we had planned, everyone was just canceling, and so we ended up being in New York for a few days doing meetings in Zoom.
Maia Bittner:Anyway, I think we were sharing a hotel room at like a courtyard Marriott.
Sheel Mohnot:Is this a fund that was lucky with timing, or is that a different fund? No, that's not the fund that was lucky with time, although although, to be honest, like look so. That was really tough in March and we kind of paused fundraising for a couple of months figuring the world had to figure itself out. But then, you know, the money printer started going.
Maia Bittner:The economy was booming that summer. Everything was-.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, interest rates were zero. So actually, like, a bunch of folks that had told us no earlier came back and said, hey, actually we're interested in you guys. So then we had raised our money. We actually had only planned to raise 60 and we raised 75 by that August. So it was easier to raise than the 500 FinTech, but still it wasn't easy. And then the last fundraise, we got super lucky on timing. It was December of 2021 and it was peak market. Our fund was looking great, fintech was looking great. Fintech was really hot yeah, fintech was really hot. So everything conspired to be like, okay, people could not give us. It felt like people were throwing money at us. They would commit an amount and then increase their commitment before we closed and we had to turn people away. We had to cut their commitments. It was super interesting because I think never in my life actually not, I think I know for sure Never in my life before then had somebody been giving me money and I said, no, I can't take your money.
Maia Bittner:Well, I actually, yeah, tell me why you did that right? I've heard like is it because you didn't think you could deploy it? Like your fund strategy didn't make sense?
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, there's this saying your fund size is your strategy, and it's true, right, I think the larger your fund goes, the more you your fund goes, the more you you know. We feel like 150 is a great size for our, our team, um, but beyond that it becomes like you end up getting pushed and doing things you don't want to do.
Sheel Mohnot:You have to own more of a company or or you know we already feel like we have to own a lot of our company at a 150, but um you, you start to write larger checks and this is not what we enjoy. We love helping companies at the earliest stages precedence seed, and so growing more didn't really make sense, and we are not in this business to get rich off management fees. When Jake and I went into this business together, one of the core principles was we don't care about management fees. Together, like, one of the core principles was we don't care about management fees, so we we actually pay ourselves less than um than you would expect from a fund of our size, because we want to reinvest into the fund and we only want to make money if our companies do well and we want to make money through carry and raising a larger fund is actually kind of at odds with that. Right. Where do you think that?
Sam Maule:comes from that, that commitment to you know pre-seed and seed rounds, and yeah, Kind of make your next billion.
Sheel Mohnot:I think it's just more fun. I think like we could easily. We would be richer if we went down a different path, but it wouldn't be as fulfilling. I think there's nothing like being the first person to believe in a founder and like that stays with you.
Sam Maule:That is a great quote.
Sheel Mohnot:And it's like these, I tell you like right now. So I ran Accelerator 2016 to 2018. And those founders like now I'm running Accelerator now and those founders you know that are successful like anything I ask them for, like they're flying in from around the country to mentor these companies Because they're like, hey, you gave me a chance. I want to pay it forward to these guys and it's just a great feeling and I love being in the same room with people building something, helping in any way I can, just jumping on a whiteboard when they have a problem to solve, and that's what I love doing. The earlier you go, the more you are investing in people and helping sort of people in a dream, and the later you go, the more you're investing in a spreadsheet and I'm more a people in a dream kind of investor.
Maia Bittner:Have you ever invested in a founder where you hated the idea?
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah.
Sam Maule:Multiple times.
Maia Bittner:Multiple times.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, putting a bet on a person. I'll give you just the first example that came to mind. I think it's a company you know, Maia, the company's, albert albertcom, and they started out as a personal finance manager, and this is in 2016. It was one of the first companies I invested in January 2016. And there were a lot of personal finance managers and none of them really were successful.
Sheel Mohnot:Mint had a decent outcome at the time I think it was 170 million or something like that and then a lot of other people said, hey, we can do this better. Plaid comes along, makes it super easy, and it's so easy that everybody does it. Everybody tries to build a personal finance manager and Yinon was a founder who was doing that. But he really compelled me. You know, I think I was like not that sure I was into it. He was based in LA. He actually flew out to San Francisco and said, hey, why don't we get breakfast? I'll convince you, and he did. He was just like you know. I had the feeling that he was going to do whatever it took to make this company successful and in that case, it turned out to be right, like it was totally the right call. He, you know, he expanded beyond personal finance management, kept on adding more and more features. Now you know it's a nine figure revenue business and if I did my math right in the hundreds of millions of revenue counting zeros over here.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, um and um, and it's really a testament to the founder, like it's really. It's that first business wasn't the right business but he kept pivoting, micro pivoting his way into something that made sense. And another. Another great story about him actually is at the at the post post pandemic sort of like 22 interest rates go up, world changes. He's burning a ton of money I won't say how much, but like a lot of money and he just gets the memo quicker than anyone turns the business around and he's like hey, listen, I'm not going to raise any more money, this is it. I don't want to have to raise money, I'm going to get cashflow positive. And I literally laughed on the phone. I was like, dude, you're burning X millions of dollars per month. And he did it. He made it happen.
Sheel Mohnot:I think within six months of that conversation he was cashflow positive. Now he's got tons of EBITDA and so it was really a founder bet. But I didn't like the business he originally presented and that continues to be the case today. It happens from time to time and because of those early examples I have with him and a few other companies, I'm willing to make those bets, but you have to make those bets at the earliest stages. So you have to make that bet at pre-seed accelerator stage, because the longer things go on, the more chance, the more set you are in the business that you're building. So at pre-seed I'm willing to invest in a founder in a business that I might hate might hate.
Sam Maule:So I went on Twitter about an hour before we did this and just went ahead and said if you've got a question for Shiel, ask me and I'll make sure I'll ask him. So I've got to do this now and I'm going to slaughter names. So, everybody, when I say your name, come on, just you know, be nice to me. So Sashi Belumkanda asked all right, you already said that you invest in pre-seed and seed fintech. What would you do outside of fintech?
Sheel Mohnot:For investments, any verticals you look at yeah.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, I think I really like investing in vertical SaaS too. I like thinking about the problems that an SMB has in trying to solve them. Where we've invested for the most part has been at the intersection of FinTech and vertical SaaS, and so, as an example, companies like Unit that sell a banking product into vertical SaaS that's embedded banking. We have a company called Salsa that sells embedded payroll and then we have a company called Layer that's embedded accounting. They're all sort of of a similar thesis that these vertical SaaS companies will become fintech companies by plugging in these various services. But I'd also like to invest in those vertical SaaS companies directly. We've done a couple, but not as many as I'd like, and I think the reason is we have built a brand and reputation around FinTech.
Maia Bittner:I was going to say people don't send you their hot vertical SaaS founders, they don't think of you. Yeah, you don't have that reputation.
Sheel Mohnot:Exactly, that's exactly it.
Maia Bittner:You get all the best fintech deals.
Sheel Mohnot:So, yeah, I think we have some ideas on how we can build more of a brand in vertical SaaS, but right now we don't have it. But that's sort of the space. I would go into A couple of things there that the listener might find interesting is there are really vertical SaaS companies being built in every category and like the nichiest categories. You'll see one moving companies, golf clubs, what else, like lawn services, businesses and while I want to invest in these categories, in vertical SaaS as a category, I do think some of these are too small. Some of these will lead to $200 million business, $300 million, $500 million business, which, for a $150 million fund, unfortunately, an exit of that size doesn't move the needle for me. I'm still interested in the category, but it has to be one where I think there's an opportunity to build a billion-dollar-plus business.
Sam Maule:All right, the next one. This is for Maia and Sheel.
Sheel Mohnot:This one comes from our friend Jesse.
Sam Maule:Padel who doesn't know Jesse Talking about Pittsburgh. He said look, I'd like to know both Maia and Sheel's perspective on consumer, fintech and non-bank financial providers.
Sheel Mohnot:Where is the growth and?
Sam Maule:expansion going to come from? Should there be more neobanks? And Maia's smiling at me.
Sheel Mohnot:Maia, you go first I could go first.
Maia Bittner:So I'm excited about consumer fintech. I think it is really hard to build a billion-dollar business in consumer fintech. Like Sheel was saying, it's like you've got to build something big and it's really tricky to find the business model that's going to make sense there. In terms of neobanks, I think there could be more neobanks, but you've got to be really precise about the customer that you're serving and why your solution is going to be better than what's out there. We've talked on this podcast before about chase. Chase does a damn good job at credit cards. They do a great. Their atms are incredibly cool. Have you seen the like blinky lights and you can scan?
Sam Maule:I like their ATMs.
Maia Bittner:That's what I'm saying. Their ATMs are great, like Chase does a great job at consumer banking the middle class and their app. I don't know if you use the Chase app. It's great, it's easy to use, transfer your money, do your thing. It's got my mortgage and my credit cards in one place. So I think you know. I'm not saying there's not room for more neobanks, but you got to find the customer segment that is not, that is not getting what they need from Chase today or all the other like. There's just a lot of options, really crowded space. That's my answer.
Sheel Mohnot:All right, shiel, you're up, okay. I tend to agree with Maia. So I would say I think there are verticals where you can make it work. It's really hard. I think a couple of reasons why it might be more exciting than it was in the past.
Sheel Mohnot:We didn't, during the like golden age of neobanks sort of like 2020 and 2021, when every single neobank was getting funded you know the neobank I used to joke that there would be a neobank for pets and then I literally saw a neobank for pet owners and you know, while all those were getting funded, we mostly stayed on the sidelines. We did a couple. We did a company called Relay that's an SMB focused neobank. It's doing very well, and then we did a company called Charlie that is a neobank plus plus for seniors, and we felt like that one was an underserved market and a founder that we really liked, but we stayed away from the bulk of them. Now why? I think now could be a better time than it was then. If you find the right vertical, the right niche to go after is one. Actually, these companies won't be overfunded and part of the problem was overfunding in the sector, not to say that a neobank for pet owners is what I would invest in, but some sort of consumer app that was interesting and innovative could totally work, and not having too much money is actually a superpower.
Sheel Mohnot:I think the overfunding led to sort of not getting to product market fit soon enough. It led to long payback periods, stuff like that, and having less money might mean a more efficient business to start with. And then I actually think customer acquisition has gotten a little bit better. I think it isn't much talked about, but meta has made a lot of strides with AI and some of those have been better ad targeting, so you actually can do paid a little bit better In consumer fintech. I generally think, generally speaking, you have to start out with paid marketing. There are some businesses that have some other way to do it, but generally, paid is part of it. So you are, generally speaking, shoveling some money to Facebook and Google, and the fact that they've gotten a little bit better is a good thing. This is a personal question, this one's for me, because I'm like I think I already know Maia maya's position on this, because you're talking about M meta and I've I've had issues with the company in the past. Just yeah, you know, let's be frank, but what they've done in this partnership with R rayban, I'm beyond impressed, dude, I feel like she'll, she'll wearing them.
Maia Bittner:Sheel and I are biggest fans.
Sam Maule:Yeah, I'm impressed. I didn't see that coming, really slick.
Sheel Mohnot:It's a great product and I think it's it's interesting Like I've had these since December now and I've literally only seen a couple other people. I actually just I think I've only seen one other person wearing them.
Maia Bittner:There are all these AI products out there, you're in San Francisco, right, I'm in San Francisco exactly. They tell you how good it is.
Sam Maule:We have done this entire podcast. We've been talking for 29 minutes and I just now figured out you're wearing them. They actually look. That's the confidence.
Sheel Mohnot:They're just my everyday glasses Shooting video, video, video, audio. Um, video, photo audio are the most useful things, but actually I'm starting to use the ai thing more. Um, and it's just like you know, meta, ai, um, whatever they use in these glasses, it feels you know reasonably good um, as goodGPT, but the answers are pretty short. So, better, yeah, nice, and so I really like it. And, sam, you should get them. Anybody who wears glasses already it feels like if you wear glasses and you like technology, you're okay trying a V2 product. It's a pretty slick V2 product. So, yeah, I'm a big fan. And in general, meta, I think you know I think so, a like caveat, my wife works there, but B and I'm a stockholder. But yeah, I think the year of efficiency was really good for them and they did have too many people, but they're working on really cool stuff. They're investing a lot in AI. They're building products like this that are great, like this that are great and um, I think zuck said he thinks the future of the mobile phone might be glasses like these and, um, the future laptop might be your vr goggles, like the meta quest or apple vision pro I made maya convince me.
Sam Maule:I've been following Maia on Twitter and her interactions using it with her kids. It just makes all the sense in the world to me.
Maia Bittner:It's really cool for kids. Sheel, have you tried the Soul Reader?
Sheel Mohnot:I haven't. People talk about it and seem to love it To read books right.
Maia Bittner:Yeah, to read books. I just bought one. Don't have it yet.
Sheel Mohnot:I know it's super hype Like there's like a waiting list to get one or something.
Maia Bittner:Yeah, well, I mean, anybody can have a waiting list. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is hype. I'm excited. I mean, a Kindle is pretty light and easy to hold, but people say it's a great reading experience. I just I have to say I really didn't expect that glasses would be like the new human computer interface standard.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, I feel now, for the first time, fortunate for my poor eyesight.
Sam Maule:Yeah, well, that that and again. I mean, you know, as a former Googler, remember when Google Glass came out? Yeah, I had that, yeah, so it's the whole. You know there'll be a glass hole and that whole effect. And, like I said, we've been talking for 30 minutes and until you turned your head I didn't realize you were wearing them. You know, Until I saw the Ray-Bans logo, I was like holy cow.
Sheel Mohnot:I actually think Like so I think the world has changed in the. What has it been? It's been 12 years since Google Glass launched and you know there were the people kicked out of the restaurant in San Francisco for wearing it or whatever back then. But the world has changed. Like, everybody has smartphones, everybody's taking photos all the time. Everybody has smartphones. Everybody's taking photos all the time. I don't think the perception of being photographed is the same as it was 12 years ago, so the privacy issues, I think, are much less than they were then.
Sheel Mohnot:I do have people like, whenever I post something from it, like I posted something today. I was in New Orleans yesterday at Jazz Fest and I posted a short video of, like, walking down the street Cause it's something where, like, I didn't want to have my phone out, I just want to enjoy the moment, but pressing a button and recording was really fun. And somebody is like, oh well, did you get? Did you get sign off from all those people that you took video from from your glasses? It's like no, but like there's a bunch of people out there with phones out and they didn't either. And, by the way, if you're in a parade, a TV station is taking a video and they're not like. Every time I post something, somebody is like talking about the privacy concerns, but it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. That's not a rule we have in this country.
Maia Bittner:It also you're allowed to take people on the streets Blinking light on it.
Sheel Mohnot:It has a blinking light, true, yeah, exactly, yeah, it kind of shows you. I'm taking a video right now. You can see the light.
Maia Bittner:It looks electronic, it looks like you're doing something, even if you didn't know, that meant you were taking a video. I feel like it's more in your face than if somebody's like oh, it looks like they're texting on their phone and they're actually recording totally, totally.
Sam Maule:This is a form factor. Makes sense to me. You know the iphone or the android order. They have this brick. It's been around now for forever and a day. You know, we're almost coming up on 20 years and what is the next thing? And I gotta say I was watching one in miami over the weekend and at the start, and all the people with their phones out recording, I thought, man, it just makes much more sense for the glasses you know to be in the moment to do both to record and all that, but to be in the moment and actually not looking through.
Sheel Mohnot:You know this handheld device that was the first time where I went uh-oh, I think I'm starting to see maybe a paradigm shift, you know it is funny.
Sheel Mohnot:You go to a concert and people like everybody has their phones out and is basically looking at the concert through their phone. It's just like kind of weird. Um, I do, I don't, you know. I haven't figured out what people who don't wear glasses already are going to do, though, like this makes sense if you already wear glasses. If you don't, are you going to start wearing glasses with clear, clear lenses? Um, maybe I? I don't.
Sam Maule:Yeah, it'll be curious to see how the adoption goes for it.
Maia Bittner:So, Shiel, you're recording this podcast for us, and I noticed that you're wearing your glasses and your AirPods. I'm curious if you thought about just having the sound through your glasses and if you ever do that?
Sheel Mohnot:yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, great question. So I um, I don't use the audio from my glasses for my laptop it's not, I use it on my phone.
Maia Bittner:Okay, well, and I could use.
Sheel Mohnot:I could do it, but the handoff is not, so I only use the glasses. Audio for my phone Okay, and I think the audio quality is probably a little bit better on the AirPods, but it's pretty good on the glasses. Like when I'm talking to people on the phone, most of the time I'm using my glasses. And like when I'm walking or biking around the city, I usually use my glasses. Okay, I I'm walking or biking around the city, I usually use my glasses.
Maia Bittner:Okay, I was just curious, right, if it was your all-day Zoom meeting setup or not. That makes sense.
Sam Maule:Okay, Sam, you can go. You got another one for him.
Maia Bittner:Yeah, back to you.
Sam Maule:I should have done this whole thing on this man dude. I really didn't realize. Rachel, you edit all this out.
Maia Bittner:I really have no clue. And I don't wear glasses and I love the metal glasses.
Sam Maule:Yeah, I know you do. I mean.
Sheel Mohnot:I did?
Sam Maule:I got laser eyes.
Sheel Mohnot:All right, one last question, so do you wear the sunglasses or do you wear transition? What do you do?
Maia Bittner:So I got the transition ones. Sunglasses, or do you wear transition, what do you? So I got the transition ones. I kind of regret it, um, because transitions are, they're like. They're just, I feel like they're kind of lame. They don't get like as dark as I want. They're not as clear like it's too slow yeah, I don't do that.
Sam Maule:Yeah, I talk to. I've worn glasses my whole life and I put on I put on well, I need my phone. I put on prescription glasses, sunglasses, ray-bans, of all things. When I go out, I just switch them around.
Maia Bittner:I'm thinking so the medical glasses. I think they're like sold out and there's a wait list, so I was thinking about selling mine on eBay or something and buying two of them clear ones and sunglass ones because the transitions bother me that much. Or maybe even just sunglass ones, because the transitions bother me that much, I but, or maybe even just sunglass ones, um, I'm not sure.
Maia Bittner:the thing is, I love talking on the phone with them because I feel like I can hear everything around me, they're just the best way to do phone calls and, like sometimes, I'm just in my house and I don't want to be wearing sunglasses in my house to take a phone call.
Sam Maule:Yeah, or any of the big.
Sheel Mohnot:No, I think I think it's. It's just with with Ray-Ban, I think. I think actually what happened was Ray-Ban hired people. So there were these Bose Bose sunglasseslass, sunglasses with audio and then I remember those, yeah, yeah they didn't really take off, but if I think, ray ban hired some people from that team yeah and so they were building something already, and then they teamed up with meta to do the smart stuff. There, you, go.
Sam Maule:Okay, that makes sense. Okay, sorry, rachel, that was just selfish because I had to know. Okay, last question this is coming from andrew morris, um, and this is actually a pretty interesting question. So, shiel, what's the best thing you've ever said on stage at industry event and what's the worst thing you've ever said on stage?
Sheel Mohnot:that is a great question best thing you've said on stage worst thing you've said on stage oh man, I I can think of the worst thing I've said on stage. Probably I think I was, um, I was skeptical that this is probably 2016 or something around then and I think I probably I shared my skepticism around wealth front being a big business and I think you know I was just like they make a small margin. You know it's kind of race to the bottom on fees, costs a lot to acquire customers and it's tough, and I think all those things are true, but they've done better than I expected. You know they had that whatever $1.4 billion acquisition that didn't end up going through, but I think now they're doing better. So, you know, worst thing I did was was doubt Wealthfront. Best thing I've said, I don't know, I think.
Sheel Mohnot:I think I think around that same time I probably said, probably had some like negative thoughts on lending that most of these lenders should not be, are not venture businesses, and the reason that I believe that is, as venture capitalists, we invest in growth and it's easy to grow giving out money and it's hard to get that money back sometimes, or or sometimes an event happens where it's hard, where things change, and so I kind of said, oh no, guys, here's, here's a downside of these glasses. I just touched the side of my glasses and now can you hear what? Can you hear what's happening? And it's playing your podcast artificially intelligent.
Sam Maule:That's actually crazy.
Sheel Mohnot:Okay, meta use case yeah, sorry, okay, so um what I was saying? Okay, lending, um. So I think the smartest thing I said was you know, pure play, lending is not a venture scale business I love that.
Maia Bittner:Both your best and worst were skepticisms of businesses and their business models. That's.
Sam Maule:That's what happens when you're an OG. So, folks, we got, we got to have to wrap. We could do this for hours.
Sheel Mohnot:Yeah, this is fun guys. It is, you guys are fun conversationalists.
Sam Maule:What's the best place for folks to learn more about you and learn more about the club?
Sheel Mohnot:Probably Twitter at pit. They see p-i-t-d-e-s-i I. I actually did a. Somebody asked me to review the glasses, so I like recorded myself walking around for six minutes with them so you can find that on there, um, but yeah, and from there you can find my website and other stuff too. I'm 100 per se.
Sam Maule:Yeah, I will say if you really want to have a lot of fun, follow MaiaB on Twitter. File show on Twitter. I do both. I think it's funny as hell, but you also learn a lot. So there's my recommendation For me LinkedIn or Twitter. Just ping me If you have ideas for a show let us know. We'd love to hear them Also give us a review, five stars, of course, anything else, go write another podcast.
Sheel Mohnot:Thanks for listening everybody. We love having you here. Send me an email Good review, bad review - Screw, you Don't do it.