When a senior partner at Goldman said to me early in my time there, I said, I really want to have more impact and think about how I align my values and the work that I'm doing. And he said, that's great. You can get to that in 30 years. Eventually. Eventually, right. Just be excellent here, make a lot of money, do a great work, and then you can go and think about the impact. And that just didn't really sit well with me.
I said, tomorrow is not promised. I don't know where I will be tomorrow or five years or 10 years down the road. And I want the work I'm doing to feel meaningful and impactful today. He reached out and she was like, I think I have a job for you. And I said, OK, great. She said, well, I'll tell you more. Let me make some introductions. It's a family. It's an individual family office. And when the dots were connected and she described it as Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company.
And I was like, what? This can't be real like this. I said, here, this is an episode of Punkter, some prank show. This is too good to be true because it was literally the mission of Pivotal is so aligned with what I had written on that on that index part and had in my mind. And so that's how I got here. There's a lot of narratives that, oh, you have to go to this certain school or have XYZ job. If you're in the room, you belong in the room.
And don't give up your seat because of that, because of some other someone else's perceptions or hangups. You belong. Being both a successful leader and a working mother, the work-life balance element can put a lot of pressure on women. Is there any advice that you could leave with women? What having it all really means? I'd say throw those terms out. Just let's bring them up. Because it sets up an unrealistic expectation.
This idea of I can achieve some sort of equilibrium. I don't know if I believe that. I think you have to really be honest with yourself, with your partner, your family life. And it worked, too. What matters to you and what are you not willing to sacrifice around? Don't worry about or care so much about others' perceptions of that. Because at the end of the day, success is when my kids are launched out into the world, they can say, well, wow, mom.
Mom was present. She cared for us. She did all these things. And she's a pretty awesome leader and investor. And again, maybe I had to miss a few things to do that. And maybe I could have a higher title or more prestige in other ways if I was only focused on work. But I have to live in a path that matters to me. I think each person has to define that for themselves. There's no magic formula or way to do it. What makes a company truly stand out that makes you want to write that check, like a direct investor?
For us, it needs to be you're building a solution for the 99 person. I always come back to, do you have the right team? A founder that has the lived experience, the passion, the grit that really is going to make them tenacious and wanting to address and solve this problem? And also a mindset that's growth oriented. At the early stages in our direct investing strategy, we focus our first check at the Series A. We want to see some revenue, product and market, a million ARR, if not more, a product and market.
The best founders have the ability to pivot, reassess an opportunity. And so really someone with that experience that motivates them to be tenacious, to solve and tackle a big problem. And then a big, big market, obviously. Thank you so much for watching this episode. If you could do me a huge favor and subscribe, that will really help us to make more content like this in the future. How do you become one of the most trusted advisors for Melinda French Gates and help one of the most iconic women make a huge impact?
This guest has been a personal icon of mine and someone I aspire to follow in the footsteps of. Erin Harkless-Moore is the Managing Director of Investments for Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates organization. Founded in 2015, Pivotal Ventures uses philanthropy, partnerships and high-impact investments to get more power in the hands of more people, especially women. Lead a Pivotal Ventures investment strategy, Erin manages a highly innovative team who invests in groundbreaking funds and early-stage companies.
Their strategy focuses on leaders who are unlocking market-based solutions for overlooked social problems like caregiving and mental health for young people. Under Erin's leadership, Pivotal Ventures portfolio is seizing the potential for breakthrough innovation across sectors, driving growth in individual industries and entire economies. To date, Pivotal Ventures has backed over 20 firms and organizations, including Millie, a patient-centered maternal health company, who in February secured $12 million for their Series A, and Ulu Ventures, who raised $208 million for their fourth fund.
Erin is also a Golden Saks alum and brings two decades of investment experience and a deep understanding of cultivating relationships and investing across market cycles. Through her work, she has proved that overlooked funds and founders are positioned to drive progress and innovation for everyone. She's a thought leader in the industry and has been featured in publications like CNBC, Fortune, and the New York Times.
She was also recently named in Barron's 2025 list of 100 most influential women in finance. Please welcome Erin. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this extremely special podcast episode with Erin. She is the managing director of Pivotal Ventures, a personal icon of mine. Today, we have the great fortune of getting to sit down and hear a little bit more about her story firsthand, the lessons she's learned, wisdom gained along the way, and how we could follow in her footsteps.
We'll also talk about the incredible things Pivotal Ventures is up to and how we could learn more and be continuously inspired by the incredible legacy of Melinda Fridge Gates. Thank you so much for being here on the podcast. Melody, thank you for having me. It's a real, real pleasure to be in conversation with you today. It is such a pleasure to get to learn about you from a distance in the way that you have inspired a whole generation of women, of people of color, underrepresented communities to get involved with impact investing.
You have been such a strong voice, and I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at TechCrunch. I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into your personal story, getting to know you better, because you have built this incredible legacy. And there are so many people out there who want to become the next heir, myself included.
I wanted to go back a little bit, talk about your early childhood and early story. You have this incredible legacy spanning on the East Coast, New York, now Washington, D.C., across the board. But you grew up in Texas. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about how your early life and those early experiences shaped your view on how you saw the world? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's a great question. And as you mentioned, I'm a proud Texan.
That's where my family's roots are on both sides of my family, both my mom and my dad. And I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, which is surprisingly to some now a top 10 city in the country. Several million, a couple, two million-ish, million and a half million people live in, in San Antonio. And I have to describe it as the littlest big city in the country. But it's such an amazing, it was such an amazing place to grow up.
So many different cultures and backgrounds there. And I think to get to your question of my values and what was distilled in me from a very early age by my parents, it was a lot of focus on community, giving back, being connected to your roots and to where you came from. And that was something that I held really dear. Both my parents could have had professional pursuits that were very service-oriented. My dad's a doctor.
My mom also worked in a hospital for many years before my brother and I were born, managed my dad's medical practice, and then taught continuing education in health education fields. So both of them, I had that example very early of someone who lived a life in service of others. And for me, those values of kind of the golden rule, you know, treat people as you wish to be treated. Another kind of common value or refrain in the Harkless house was to whom much is given, much is expected.
And so to me, it was always just a high bar for achievement, but making sure that I wasn't forgetting kind of where I came from and the sacrifices that had been made to give me these amazing opportunities in the world. And to not take that for granted and to really have an orientation to do more and give back. So those values were foundational from day one and I think really set the cornerstone for when I went away to college.
And then, as you said, you landed on the East Coast as that person looking up at all the buildings. Wow, I live in New York City. How cool is that? Staying connected to those values and those roots when I started my career at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street and have been in the industry ever since. Just never forgetting those where I came from and what my family represented. Absolutely. Having those core values of service, of family are so deeply enrooted and ingrained in you.
And I'm sure it perpetuates into the values that you have today. For sure. On Icon's podcast, we like to talk through what each of the guests did at each crucial stage of our lives that set you up for success. So whether it's things that you did that differentiated yourself from your peers or things that you actively engaged with, whether that be practices instilled from your parents or from your university or from your mentors at the time.
Maybe we can walk through each stage, starting with childhood. What were the key formative experiences that you had and what you did to differentiate yourself in early childhood? Yeah. I always loved reading and learning. I have to say kind of these competing tensions that still reflect in now my adult, middle-aged life. But I played sports. I loved reading. I loved writing. And so really kind of throwing myself into those passions.
But I think the sports side, I played basketball all the way through high school. I ran track as well. Always being a part of a team. I think that was really important. I wasn't the best player. I often describe myself as the sixth woman, often first off the bench. But once I was in the game, I knew the role that I had to play. And you don't want to let your teammates down. You still show up to practice every day. You make the starters better.
And so that mindset of you have a contribution you can make is incredibly important. And so I think that was something that was very important to me. Just I love playing. I still love to watch sports and be active. But I think that ability to know your role on a team is really important in any job one may have at any point in your career. And being able to work with people from different backgrounds and personalities and skill sets and kind of the whole being better than each part was something that I learned as a kid.
And kind of growing up playing sports and I think was really important. The second piece of that, and it was something my parents always said, that I now try to impart with my own kids is you finish what you start. So sports was kind of my thing in an extracurricular, but I got into dance at a younger age and I hated it. I was terrible. It was not fun. My cousin was a really good dancer. And so I think I had this, oh, I'll do dance and I'll be her.
And I remember I came home and I said to my mom, I don't want to do this anymore. And she was, well, you have to finish. Right. You committed. You committed. You signed up. See it through. And then we don't have to go back. You've tried it. You've done your part. But that was just such an important lesson to me. I think in how you work and how you show up in whatever you're doing. Again, you may not be the best at it, but you finish and you don't leave anything behind and leave anything on the table.
So those were a couple of things from the kind of more sports or athletic side, dance side. And then, as I mentioned earlier, too, as a kid, I loved writing. I wrote for the newspaper and literary magazine in high school. I wrote for my college newspaper. And I think that really set up this, developed a skill set, I often say, around asking questions, which has served me incredibly well in my current job and jobs sort of in my adult professional life as well.
And so I think that curiosity and just being someone who's always interested in where people are from, what they're doing, what motivates them, what drives them, the ability to kind of listen and ask questions, I think was another skill that or interest of mine that I had at a very young age that was cultivated and I think helped to help to distinguish me. And I school, too. I mean, I did good in school, which is important, right?
And I think that I did well in school. I think that that sets you up, too, for success. But that's not the end-all, be-all as well. I think my parents always encouraged us to, again, be curious and just have a love and passion for learning, even if in try-hard things, you may not get 100 or an A-plus on a test. But did you take that risk? What did you learn from pushing yourself? And so those values, too, were so important in those kind of younger years.
Absolutely. It sounds like curiosity that you had was really calcified in the early childhood period. And then going to university at Washington University in St. Louis, how did that hunger and curiosity continue to grow? Yeah. And what did you do in that stage that really set you up for the next chapter of Wall Street? Yeah, I think that curiosity, you're exactly right, Melanie, is a through line of probably my whole life.
But for sure, in college. And that's such a natural time to explore, I think, just being willing and open to spending time with other people. And again, taking the classes that might push the limits a bit. Things that were a little bit outside of your comfort zone. I always tried to do that as much as I could when I was at Wash U. And I'd say probably a thing in that time and that college experience that was really foundational and set me up for success with really two things.
In the jobs that I had when I started on Wall Street, I did a study abroad program through Wash U in London. So I was there for six months. And part of this program, we both worked and we were taking coursework and doing a research project. And I had never, I had traveled all over, you know, fortunately with my family, all over the United States. I've been to Canada, Mexico, but I'd never left sort of North America, let's say.
And I just, I got on that plane with my big giant suitcase and flew to London. And I remember landing at Gatwick Airport and having to figure out how to get on the tube. And I'm just, what did I do? There's no breakfast tacos here. What am I going to do for the next six months? But it really set up that ability to be independent, to find your way to, again, build community in a new place. Some of the other students that were in that program have remained great friends since 20 plus years later.
And so I think taking that risk again and that leap to learn and to be in a different environment was great. But I had that internship. So when I came back and had other summer internships, when I was interviewing for a full-time job, people were like, wow, you worked, you worked at London? And you had this, tell me more about that. And I think that was something that helped me stand out a little bit, maybe relative to the crowd.
Doing SEO really was a distinguishing kind of experience in my college years because I had two Wall Street summer internships in college. One after my sophomore year, one after my junior year. So when I went to interview for full-time positions, the recruiters and the folks on the desk were, wow, you've been around. You kind of know the lingo. You kind of operate. And I think that that was incredibly helpful in another really foundational moment at that stage of my life.
And then going to work on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and then Cambridge Associates. Yeah. What happened in between that you really took initiative in ways that really differentiated you from your peers? I was told by a mentor once, actually in that summer internship program, that you should be the first person in and the last person out. Kind of phy-low those accounting terms. And that was something that always resonated with me as well of just putting in the work and no task ever being too small.
And I think as an analyst, obviously, you are the low man or woman on the totem pole. And Wall Street could be a very hierarchical analyst, associate, VP, MD, partner, et cetera. So I was just always someone who was game and willing to step up and raise my hand and I think kind of do any task, whatever it might be. And just being really excellent and having that attention to detail and delivering on what was asked and maybe going that 10% above and showing that hustle and initiative was, I think, really a thing that distinguished me.
And back to that curiosity too, right? I always would try and come with questions myself or things to seeing how my more senior colleagues, what their pain points were, how I could help that. And again, someone, another mentor said to me once, you want to look at your boss or the person kind of a step or two ahead of you. What can you do to make their life easier? Absolutely. How do they dress? My dad always said, look the part, right?
So kind of coming with that eye towards, okay, I have to be excellent at the analyst level responsibilities, but how can I make my associate take something off his or her plate or the VP or whatever it may be? And I think earning that trust was huge and something that really helped accelerate my career for sure at Goldman, but opened the door to the job I had before I went to business school. I joined a firm called Summit Rock Advisors and it was led by a bunch of former Goldman Sachs people, but former colleague of mine kind of vouched for me and said, Aaron would be a great addition to this team.
And that was a tremendous experience. I say it was my startup experience because the firm had launched not long before I joined. So we were in the business of advising families and foundations and building investment portfolios for them, but it was a new organization, new platform. And so there were those kind of startup growing pains that were present there too. So it was a really fascinating time to work there. And then I went to business school and that was really a time for reflection.
And I think someone, a senior partner at Goldman said to me early in my time there is I was having a kind of mentor coffee type conversation. And I said, I really want to have more impact and think about how I align my values and the work that I'm doing. And he said, that's great. You can get to that in 30 years. Eventually. Eventually, right. Just be excellent here, make a lot of money, do a great work, and then you can go and think about the impact.
And that just didn't really sit well with me. I didn't, I said, tomorrow is not promised. I don't know where I will be tomorrow or five years or 10 years down the road. And I want the work I'm doing to feel meaningful and impactful today. And so that was just an internal kind of thing I was grappling with. But when I got to business school at Harvard, that was a great opportunity to be in community with other folks that I could learn from and see and talk to professors and reach out to alumni who were, who I saw as sort of living their values.
Their values, but still being amazing leaders and businesswomen and investors. And so that was a moment where I said, yeah, I think I can figure out a path to do, to bring these together and have greater harmonization in my work and with the world I wanted to see. And so that led me to Cambridge Associates in large part for a couple of reasons. One, just the client base, predominantly nonprofit institutions, endowments, foundations, or families that are very philanthropically oriented.
And I said, well, if I'm going to be investing, I would love to do it on behalf of those sorts of organizations. And the firm also had, at the time, what was called the mission-related investing practice. So a group dedicated to advancing kind of impact fields and ESG and what have you. And so I raised my hand and said, I'd love to be a part of this group and support that thought leadership, research, manager diligence at the firm to further those efforts.
And so that was kind of me getting the train on that track to greater harmonization. And I've been moving more and more that way ever since.
Another common theme, it seems, is pushing the needle, willing to ask those questions. Why don't I start now? Isn't there an opportunity to create impact right where I am? And these constant questions in the sense of urgency that you have towards creating greater equality, towards DEI, whatever it may be, seems like it was always at the forefront because these things don't just happen where you end up in a role that's making this impact.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's exactly reality. No, it's intentionality. And it's taking the time to really pause and reflect. Because when you don't do that, I think life can sort of in some ways happen to you instead of you really driving and taking control of a path that you want to be on. Right. And so I have a practice every year at the end of the year. Now my husband and I do it together. But it was a sign we were meant to be together because we both kind of independently were having this sort of personal goal setting strategy time.
Now we do it to get to support each other and to focus on things for our household and our kids and our family. But it's that moment to pause and you could do it at any point. We do it. I do it at kind of December. But just to sort of assess where you are on your journey. Right. And how is your work fulfilling you? How you're spending your time? What's exciting you? What's motivating you? And then having a kind of accountability partner.
In this instance, it's my husband. But I have other kind of personal board of director types that I pressure test these questions with. And yeah, saying, okay, this job is really helping me sort of where I see it's meeting these objectives. Or no, hey, maybe it's a time for me to make a pivot or start to consider something different. But if you don't pause and be similar, ask the questions, really interrogate yourself, you'll miss out on that opportunity.
So important to have that constant reflection. Take time to understand what's important to you and not be afraid to redirect if you're not on the right track for where you want to be. Yeah, because that can be scary, right? It's easy to sort of stay on the path of least resistance. But I think without taking risk and investing is all about sort of taking risk and managing risk. You want to be smart about it. But you have to be willing to kind of step out on faith sometimes and see where an opportunity might take you.
Going back and looking at the younger version of Erin, if you could tell her one thing. A lesson that you learned around the resiliency and tenacity that would be required for her to overcome all these challenges and get to where she is now. Yeah. What would you leave her with? Oh, that's a big question. I would say just know yourself and don't be afraid to trust yourself and your instincts. Because I think sometimes you can get swept up in worrying about what other people think.
How is this going to be perceived by friends or peers or colleagues or classmates? And I fell prey to that myself. Okay, well, I'm going to do this because it feels that checks this box or it'll be better received by other people. And again, I don't want to sound like I'm saying you don't care what other people think. But I think it's just really being true to yourself, holding that boldness within yourself. And yeah, recognizing that some of the setbacks are part of the journey.
And that's what makes you stronger and builds that resiliency to keep pushing forward. As we were chatting about too, Mellie, you look at someone's bio or you read their story and you think, Oh, gosh, look, they just went from here to here to here and all this success. And that's not the case. I've had many moments where I thought, gosh, I thought I was going to get this promotion and it didn't happen. Or it happened much later than I thought it would.
Or someone got an opportunity to do something that I thought I deserved. And you have to just go back to your core values, what's motivating you, and staying true to that to push through. So that's what I tell the younger Aaron to just keep your eye on the prize and don't lose sight of that. So now you're at Pivotal Ventures. How did this opportunity come about? It was a bit, I'd say sometimes, you know, luck and preparation coming together is how I found myself at Pivotal.
But if I roll the clock back, I was actually kind of having a bit of a moment of, I don't want to say crisis. That sounds a little dramatic, but perhaps a professional crisis and where I'd been at Cambridge for many years and love the work, love my team, love the things we were doing there and the investments we were making. But I looked around, kind of actually countering the advice I would give my younger self. It's like, well, gosh, I looked at some peers and friends who had gotten these big promotions or had moved to different jobs, different firms.
I'm like, I'm still doing the same thing, same place I was after business school. And I had a conversation with my husband and he actually was in my little coaching at the moment. But he said, step back and think about what type of impact you want to have in your work and write that down. And don't write a novel, write it on an index card or just a couple of bullets. Think about what I would say to someone. Oh, my wife does this or, you know, not to be morbid, but I'm writing the part of your obituary.
That's like the professional side. I obviously know you as a life and a mother. What am I putting in there? And that gave me just this like clarity of really purpose and vision. And what I wrote down was I want to change and push how change to push how capital is allocated. That's the job I have. Right. And bringing more perspectives around the table. Women, people of color. You're really, really everyone. Right. I think is talent does not just come from one place or look just like one person or pattern.
That's just a very personally strongly held belief. And so I wrote that down. And one of the things I was was chatting about, my husband said, well, you can take this and then walk back into the room at Cambridge Associates and say, OK, I want to spend my time doing work that advances this type of impact. Because it's not about where you work. It's about what kind of what you're doing and what you're getting out of that experience, what you're learning and how you're growing as a person, as an investor in the professional sense.
And so doing that, I also think, allowed me to kind of open up my eyes to what else might be possible in other jobs and other opportunities. And I think putting that intention in some ways out into the universe, I don't want to over sort of state like, well, then Pivotal called me the next day. That's not what happened. But there was an element of I think I was just talking more about this is how I want to spend my time, the type of work I wanted to do.
And someone that I had gotten to know, now a friend, but had gotten to know through investing circles and kind of some co-investing that she had done at her prior firm, had been working with Pivotal as a consultant and helping them. One of the many parts of her job, I think, was to scope the role that I ultimately was hired to fill to director investments at the time, leading the investment team. And so she reached out and she was like, I think I have a job for you. You should have got to introduce you to this team that I've been working with.
And I said, OK, great. She said, well, I'll tell you more. Let me make some introductions. It's a family. It's an individual family office person. I was like, OK, great. I know that world. And then when the dots were connected and she described it as Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company. And I was like, what? This can't be real like this. I said, you're here. This is an episode of Punkter, some prank show, like someone going to jump out of a car and laugh at me.
Is this is too good to be true? Because it was literally the mission of Pivotal is so aligned with what I had written on that on that index part or and had in my mind. And so that's how I got here. And once I or I say I was introduced and then I had those first couple of conversations with folks on the team. And then I said, well, now I really have to get this chat. I sure hope they hire me. And it's been the joy of my my career, you know, getting to lead this team, deploy capital to get more capital in the hands of women and advancing social progress and women's power.
It's it's it's tremendous. It is one of the most amazing firms out there and what you're doing and espousing and what an incredible alignment that what you had written on that card. Yeah. Well, the intention that you set and up and ended up worth more now. Yeah. So again, be intentional. Yes. Reflecting. Yes. And relationships, too. I think people on the network. Yeah, I wouldn't under we talked about that a little bit, but just to double click there before I talk more about Pivotal.
It's so again, it kind of goes back to the values. My parents say treat others as you like to be treated. My mom always used to say, you don't have to be nice, but you should be kind to people. And I firmly believe you just never know where someone might pop up. The world is very small and we're in these like circles that are even smaller. Tech, investing, venture. It's it's not like there are millions of people doing this work.
And so how you treat someone, how you show up in a space really, really matters. And you never know who might be sitting on the other side of the table from you, who you might have been the boss of someone one day. Next thing they're in a position to hire you. And I just think you have to treat people again the way you want to be treated in those relationships. And that network, networking can have a kind of negative connotation or transaction, feel transactional.
But I don't think of it that way. I think of it as, again, coming back to relationships, really wanting to get to know people, what motivates them, understand them, and then how you can be helpful. And I think in turn, they'll open a door and be helpful to you. And that's that's sort of how, again, I ended up in this in this role. What you said about always thinking about making people's lives easier, how you can add value coupled with kindness, the genuine curiosity.
All these things are the perfect recipe for getting you into the right room at the right places. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. Can you talk about the boldness that is required to speak up in those rooms to raise your hand to whether it's to take on the additional workload of someone else or to sign yourself up for a certain opportunity or to put yourself in these rooms? I think there's a lot of potential fear, whether it's coming from yourself or from society, that it seems so difficult, so impossible. Why even bother trying? What's the internal narrative that you have in your head?
Yeah. To push forward. It's tough because those feelings of self-doubt or the questioning will, we all have that. The most successful people have those moments and struggle with that. I come back to, you know, you are in this position because of the work you've done to get you to that point. And so don't doubt yourself and your preparation is sort of what it comes down to. And I shared a story once with a colleague where we had had a kind of contentious investment committee meeting.
And it was tough. I mean, we were, the committee chair was not happy with performance and some other things. And the colleague came back. So you really like held your ground and were confident and knew your stuff. And I said, well, yeah, I do know my stuff. But that's, this is, I've been preparing for those moments. And yeah, I think back to when I was in business school at HBS. The case method there was in some ways great preparation for sort of what we're talking about, right?
To speak with conviction. I was speaking with conviction on topics I had no, I just read a case. What do I know about operations in a factory? But you learn how to get to the core thing and be able to articulate that. And I think that, that pressure kind of ability to thrive under pressure, under fire. If you, if you get those reps in, then when you're in a position where you're doing the thing that best and you've been preparing for, just don't lose sight of that and be bold and in that moment.
But it's hard, as we said, it's, it's, it's those, those feelings of self-doubt. I have them still as I prepare for meetings and, but that's where the preparation is key. Is it also that the belief in what you're doing? Oh, yes. Is so much greater than the fear. Yeah. That you have to overcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The conviction in, no, exactly. The conviction in what, in this case and what I do and what we're investing, our thesis here at Pivotal, the job I am now at Pivotal.
That's what I come, come back to. Cause we don't, I don't want my, my, my hangups to get in the way of moving the capital effectively to get in the hands of these amazing investors and entrepreneurs. Absolutely. That's, that would be failure. I mean, then again, that's fine, but it's like, don't lose sight of, like you said, how big the goal is. Exactly. Melanie. That's, that's, that's where we should be focused. And I'm just at this point in time playing a small part in that.
So, so that's maybe a lesson in just not letting it get so big too. Right. Like, but you, you don't want to lose sight of that eternal motivation and kind of what we're trying to do in the work here. And that coupled with the confidence that you had in the preparation, the experience. Yep. You belong here. Yes. And that's the message that we're trying to total courage our listeners and aspiring visionaries, entrepreneurs, and investors is they do have a seat at the table with them.
Do you do? You do. I think there's a lot of talking yourself out of it. A lot of the fear based. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really important to hear someone make you talk about how the mission is so much greater. The mission is greater and to bring it back to sports, which is a passion and just something I love to watch and, and, and play growing up. But you're, what's the line? You don't miss the shots you don't take.
Right. And so you have to, to do your work and be in the gym and reading and prepping or whatever it is to be excellent. But once you're there, you belong. And I think there's, there's a lot of narratives that, oh, you have to go to this certain school or have XYZ job. If you're in the room, you belong in the room and don't give up your seat because of that, because of some other, someone else's perceptions or hangups.
You belong.
So Pivotal Ventures has been reshaping who holds the power in venture capital. We know that women make up only 19% of the decision makers in venture capital and only 2% of women founders will receive funding. We were able to speak with Jeremy Liu, general partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, about a similar gap in underrepresented groups, East Asian founders in particular, why there is a lack of East Asian founders.
And he talked about the direct link between the lack of founders and the lack of investors in the same group. Beyond recognizing these gaps, what can we be doing to address them and the systemic changes that Pimino Ventures was working on? Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's really animates your question. It's at the core of why, why Pivotal was created and how we're designed to use multiple levers to drive social progress and advance women's power.
So we deployed philanthropic capital. We have our investments and we also do policy and advocacy work because I think all three of those levers you need to pull to get at some of the structural barriers and systemic issues that exist. And so a lot of it comes back to, I think it's not about, as we've been saying, the talent is there. It's how do you not lower the bar? I talk a lot about that in our, and think a lot about that in our investment process.
We're not lowering the bar, we're perhaps reframing, reframing it and rethinking some of the truisms of how we make decisions, how we conduct our diligence, how we source. To really make sure you're taking some of the bias out of that and not relying just on the patterns that have been successful in the past. Because again, many of those patterns have excluded, to your point with the data you shared, Melanie, like there are wide swaths of the population that may not have had access to certain rooms and certain tables.
And so for us, it's, again, it's coming at our work, not with a less, a deficit framing. It's just how do I make sure I'm building a process that gives everyone an opportunity to really shine and show their thesis and demonstrate their edge. So I think it's setting up to really get to the core of your question. It's leveraging the different tools at our disposal to build processes that acknowledge some of those barriers.
And again, not lowering the bar, but just working to make sure that we're expanding the opportunity set to bring those different groups in. Absolutely. And the different lovers of the philanthropy investment policy. Can you talk about how they all work together and how you work cross-functionally? Sure. Yeah. So we're incredibly collaborative here at Pivotal Ventures to advance women's power and influence and make sure that women are able to control and resources and have a voice in their
communities and their schools and the boardrooms and their careers. You need all of those levers working in tandem to advance the type of change that we want to see. And so we're constantly sharing ideas, working across the entire platform with these big sectors and themes in mind. So tech, what are the barriers that are holding women back? And then bringing all of the resources that we have at our disposal to bear, to tackle, to tackle them.
So I'll give maybe two examples of this, of how we work collaboratively. One was a partnership that sort of was formed out of an initial relationship that I had with the team at Recast Capital. I'd gotten to know the partners there. They have a fund of funds. They invest in emerging managers. They also had some programming to support the emerging manager ecosystem. And so we were chatting and they said, well, we're looking for some partners or some support to continue to build up this enablement program and maybe launch some other programming.
So the light bulb went off on my head. I said, wow, that's that would be very aligned with some of the programmatic work we're doing out of our philanthropic portfolio to make the on ramps into venture and to tech smoother for women and people of color. And so I introduced them. I didn't have any proprietariness about a relationship. I said, hey, you should talk to my colleague. And next thing, we're partnering with Recast on their Accelerate program.
Through that, we're giving $100,000 to, I think, now over 30 to 50 women-led firms to support their back office, really setting up their firm so that they can turn their attention to investing and sourcing and finding the best founders and supporting them. So that's just one. Maybe I'll just leave it at one. One example of where we were working together as the whole Pivotal team, not just the investment team and not just the program team, but saying, here's the problem.
And then how do we use the different tools to solve it? Speaking of the different tools that are used to solve these problems, how do you see the elements of the three different levers, Pivotal Ventures, supporting the portfolio company, the direct investment team? Yeah, it's essential to our edge and value add as direct investors is this platform that we built and these levers that we have to pull. So probably the best example is partnering with our advocacy and public affairs and our policy teams to really get insights that could be useful to our founders and to our CEOs as they're navigating critical decisions about, okay, what is the Medicaid policy changes in the state of California?
I mean, this is a question that was, I'm not identifying exactly as it was asked, but it was something in that vein that we were able to, our investment team, reach out to our policy colleagues and say, hey, we're hearing this from some of our partners, some of our founders. What is your take? What are we hearing from our ecosystem about this given issue? And then being able to bring that intelligence back to the founders is huge, right?
And so it's like, that's a small thing, but I think trying to also connect different stakeholders in our broader Pivotal Network together. So who are some of the people that our founders are interested in connecting with that could be helpful as they bring on new customers or suppliers or et cetera? I think, again, a platform that touches a lot of different parts of kind of the impact ecosystem can do that pretty effectively.
So those are just two examples, but we're not doing our jobs if we're not tapping everything that we have at our disposal here at Pivotal to support our founders, their growth, and their impact. Pivotal Ventures Investment Thesis. Pivotal Ventures Investment Thesis. I understand that Pivotal is expanding to potentially other new verticals, climate, tech, and sports. And what strategic shift inspired this evolution and how does it relate to women and gender equality?
Yeah. So that's exactly right. We've made some commitments in our fund portfolio in the last year and change in all the sectors that you mentioned. And it really started all maybe pick on climate and women's sports, but climate, I think one of the biggest, if we don't solve climate change, we won't have a place. We won't be sitting here, right? Melanie, so these are huge opportunities and pain points where we need innovation, we need new tech, new solutions to solve them.
And women are underrepresented. So when we really started to parse the data, we said, hey, we want to make sure we have women leaders, investors in the climate space, well capitalized. Because I think they will potentially, again, come at problems and identify solutions that others may not see or see differently. And there's room for that in a portfolio. And so that really animated what was almost a year's worth of market mapping and landscaping to align around what is our point of view and then what are some of the funds that we think would be best positioned to execute on that.
On the sports side, again, sort of similarly, what are huge sectors or industries that have a disproportionate impact on society? Sports is one of, I mean, I talked about my love of sports many times on this podcast, our conversation, but sport is one of the things that brings us together, right? There are very few things that people will sit around and want to talk about or watch live. It's like, okay, I watched this show on Netflix or Max and it's like two people, but hundreds of millions of people are watching the Super Bowl or the World Cup or the Olympics.
And so seeing where women are really at a tipping point, but it's still such a small slice of the total revenue, the total eyeballs on women's sports. And these women athletes are some of the best competitors in the world, right? I mean, this past Olympics in the summer was the first one where you had 50-50 women and male athletes. And so we saw, I think, an opportunity to kind of drive change and influence in a sector that is hugely important.
And at the same time, it's undervalued. It's an opportunity to make some money, which is in the business of doing that as well. So we had invested in a fund, Monarch Collected, that invests in women's sports teams, leagues, basketball, and some other core sports. And I think they're bringing that lens of, again, operational excellence, value, but community as well. A central theme of Pivotal Ventures is being able to capitalize on solving the inequities in society.
Can you tell us a little bit about how the investment thesis of Pivotal Ventures has changed or the areas that you're most excited about exploring in the future? I know you've mentioned sports. I know that caretaking, caregiving is a huge element. I was the sole caretaker to my grandparents during COVID. And I was really aware at that time of the key challenges and problems in that space. We discussed looking at areas of sports, fintech, climates, digital health, etc.
Other themes, though, that I'm excited about is the one that you touched on, which is the care economy. And you just really brought to life a point that I often make, that we're all caregivers at some point in our lives for someone, whether it's a parent, a grandparent, a child, a neighbor, yourself, caring for yourself in some way, shape, or form. And it's foundational. And a lot of that unpaid caregiving burden falls to women.
So when we think about barriers that hold women back, that's a big one. And we did some research with the partners that size the care economy as $648 billion market opportunity. So it's huge and ripe for innovation. So there are a couple of things I think we look to to your question of how caregiving and that innovation can really impact and change lives. Some sub-themes that are interesting. Women's health, we look at that.
It's sort of a lens around care and particularly these high kind of acute caregiving moments. So think about maternal health, menopause, that are massively sort of underinvested and appreciated. We see, again, great opportunities to invest there. The other piece is the silver tsunami and the aging population. They're over 60, I think it's about 62, 63 million Americans that are baby boomers that are over 65 plus. And that number is only growing each year.
And they control a disproportionate amount of sort of the financial wealth in our country as well. And so we need solutions that can support this aging population as people live longer to live healthier, right? And to have that lifespan and that healthspan really intersect and overlap a bit more clearly. So we're excited to look at opportunities that are also lowering and reducing some of the burdens and costs in more of that end of life aging longevity space as well.
Do you think there are any regular levers in AI for these companies, whether it be caregiving, whether it be sports, that you're keen on really being capitalized during this time? Mm-hmm. AI is table stakes now. I often joke and say if I go into a meeting or have a conversation and AI isn't mentioned, I will, I don't know, leave the room. It's just so foundational to the work that we're doing. I think in this care space, exactly, in healthcare, care economy, there's huge opportunities to drive greater efficiencies and bring costs down through AI.
A couple of our most recent investments, one is a company called Little Otter that's focused on mental health for kids and families, is as an AI integrated into their whole system and platform. And I think that allows them to meet the patients and meet the caregivers in a better place. Optimization for sort of the home, very interesting tools that are kind of being built, leveraging AI to do that. But with that, it's important to make sure that we're leveraging this AI in a responsible way and that we're not, I think about this a lot, perpetuating some of the biases from our existing world into these new paradigms and systems that are being created.
So the AI is here. We're going to use it. It's going to make tech better and more efficient. But I think we need to make sure we're also asking questions and interrogating some of the use to make sure we're not harming some of these maybe more vulnerable populations as we're building these businesses. And what sectors in tech do you believe have the most potential to create financial growth and long-term social impacts?
Not sound a broken record, but I will maybe repeat sound a broken record. I think this care economy thesis is a huge opportunity to drive financial outcomes and returns and also help society. For the data points that I shared earlier, particularly on the kind of aging and longevity side, there's so many more of us that are moving in that direction. And people are living longer and we want them to live healthier and better lives.
And so I think there's a good opportunity there for both great social outcomes and also good financial returns. Women's health, too, for some of the themes and areas around. I mentioned maternal health, menopause. Women are half the population and 80% of the health care spend. And so we need to develop solutions. And there are diseases or things that present maybe differently in women that need different care or different sort of tools to address.
And so I think that's another huge opportunity that would benefit folks that, again, have been underinvested in, things that have been under-researched, underappreciated over time. So those would probably be the two biggest ones. I point to that, again, tied back to a lot of the work that we're doing here at Pivotal.
Innovation and diversity are linked together. Yes. For companies that are looking to pitch to Pivotal Ventures in these different areas concerning DEI, concerning women's health, gender equality, what makes a company truly stand out that makes you want to write that check at the direct investment? For us, it has to be you're building a solution for the 99%. I think that's a belief that we have as investors. So that's sort of one criteria probably to start.
But I always come back to, do you have the right team, a founder that has the lived experience, the passion, the grit that really is going to make them tenacious and wanting to address and solve this problem? And also a mindset that's growth-oriented, right? Because I think at the early stages in our direct investing strategy, we focus our first check at the Series A. So it's not, there's revenue. We want to see some revenue, product and market, a million ARR, if not more, a product and market.
So it's not just an idea on a napkin at that point. But I think the best founders have the ability to pivot, reassess an opportunity. And so really someone with that experience that motivates them to be tenacious, to solve and tackle a big problem. And then a big market, obviously, too, in something we do a lot of time as a team, spend a lot of time as a team doing deep dives into different sort of sub-themes around this care thesis to come with a prepared mind, right?
So that when a founder reaches out to us, we have a good sense of the types of, again, questions that we want to assess to really understand how they're positioned to grow and succeed. I'm sure there's going to be some people listening to the podcast thinking about, I would have an opportunity to niche to Pivotal Ventures and building something that is helping and improving the lives of so many women. Any advice or tips on how they can, if they don't have any connections, they don't have, let's say, the checklist of all the good schools, great resume, but they have a really great idea and a company that's working, making some revenue.
How should they go about securing that first meeting? Yeah, it's a great question and something I respect a lot of the funds we've invested in. And I think to change venture and a lot of the patterns that we've talked about in our conversation, Melanie, you need to take a different approach and be more open to inbound from all sources. We currently don't have a way to contact us on our website, our investment team, but we're out and about in the world.
We don't necessarily need a warm intro. And if you find your way to us at a conference, at an event, LinkedIn from our investment team, if the strategy or sorry, if the company or the strategy from a fund perspective is on thesis, I think we're very open. And I've taken things where I've gotten a cold message on LinkedIn and I read, oh, okay, this sounds like it's on thesis. Let's talk. And so I think it's just an openness and a willingness to, as investors, to not rely on, oh, Melanie knows this person.
I know Melanie, so I'll take the meeting. And we're trying to do more to lower some of those perceived and real, not just perceived real barriers to access. And then once someone is able to secure a meeting with Epifinal Ventures, what can they do to really stand out? What are you really looking for in the qualities, Little Otter, Summer Health, and Tia? Yeah. What were the qualities that they had that secured? Yeah.
Yeah. I think in all of those three examples, companies that we've invested in, you had just, again, a hungry, scrappy founder and leadership team that, again, had that lived experience and perspective about what problem they were trying to solve. A willingness to know, okay, I don't know everything. I don't have everything. I don't have everything right. But I think in all of those instances and really all the founders that are in our portfolio, I think you kind of bring something to the table that gives them that perspective, that edge, as they've identified this market gap and positioning themselves to build around it.
And then on the flip side, for those who have a dream of working at Epifinal Ventures as an investor, if you were to give them a playbook on the first three important strategic moves that they should make, what would they be? Again, it's coming in with an open mind. I think being curious, as I've said throughout. I love, we have the best team in the business. I'm biased. Yeah, I've had the pleasure of hiring and working with all these tremendous colleagues.
But I think everyone tries, and I try to foster this, everyone's voice around the table is important to our process and our decision making. And so I think it's having a comfort with speaking up, not holding back, and being contrarian, too. I think that's probably the third thing I'd point to. If I wanted a bunch of yes men or women, yes women sitting around me, I don't think that leads to good outcomes. I want us to challenge each other.
When we're making our investment decisions, someone takes the bull side, someone takes the bear side, and kind of comes prepared to defend. And I'll often say, well, you've spent more time with this fund, or you have a better relationship, so you might be more inclined to invest. You should take the bear case and position and pitch why, not why we shouldn't invest. And so I think those are some of the traits and characteristics I'm looking for, strategically steps I'd encourage someone, not just at Pivotal, but at any investment firm, any investment job.
I think those are things that are important to bring to the table. I think getting into becoming an investor at any large venture capital firm or prominent firm, Pivotal Ventures, can be so daunting and seem such an impossible feat, especially getting to your level of being a leader. But to start off, for those that are interested, to pursue a career as an investor, what do you think they should be doing to set themselves up, especially in this incredibly competitive landscape?
I think any background can be useful and relevant in investing and in venture. And I often, instead of maybe focusing just on what sort of the person did, it's what is going to be your edge? What problem are you trying to solve? What sectors are you investing in? And how is that track record, that experience you've built to date, give you the edge to win in whatever it is you're doing? And so you don't have to be a finance major or have worked at XYZ firm.
Yes, those things are also useful skills and can be helpful. But if you've been investing your own capital, maybe as an angel, or if you've been, again, working at startups and have a lens of that kind of operator mindset, that can also really be valuable moving into investor seats. Because, again, I think as someone who has hired and built a team, I don't want everyone to come from the same school, come from the exact same companies that they've worked at previously, because we're going to have people with the exact same experiences around the table.
And that's not helpful when you're trying to assess a different technology or a different fund manager's thesis or whatever it might be. So, yeah, I'd say to someone, don't worry a little bit less about what boxes you might think you need to check and look to where you want to be and how those skills that you've been acquiring to date set you up for success in that. And make that case to a potential hire or a potential firm that you're wanting to work with.
How did you go about developing your investor thesis and homegrown advantage? Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of it was, again, some of it looking to what were my, again, sort of closely held values and beliefs. I believe there's talent sort of everywhere. I think that there's value. If you can go and skate where the puck is not going and look around corners or find opportunities that others are maybe missing because of their biases or blind spots, that's a way to win and to add value as an investor and to generate alpha.
So those two things were, I think, kind of foundational to my investment philosophy and thesis that were honed earlier in my career by observing and seeing what some people I respected, how they approached the portfolios that they were investing and building and the decisions that they were making. But I think it, again, ties back to also our thesis here at Pivotal, too, which is aligned with my worldview. And we want to have a diverse set of investors and stakeholders around a table because that will lead to good outcomes.
And I think that's key to my investment philosophy still today. And there is so much overlap between what you were pursuing your whole life, the values you were ingrained with, the vision and mission of what you wanted to accomplish has been fully realized, the work that you get to do today. Yep. Great to know that those are things that every aspiring investor should keep in mind, is how can they take their life experiences and turn their perspectives into their home ground advantage.
Exactly. Exactly. And whether it's through the operating, the founder experience, the personal maybe investing. Yep. Whether it be through small checks or things like that. And I think that it's also so amazing that you've been able to not only have this amazing career, but also balance motherhood, all these different facets of you being so multidimensional. I think being both a successful leader and a woman, a working mother, the work-life balance element can put a lot of pressure on women.
It can be such an aspirational dream that women may feel that they're constantly falling short on. Is there any piece of advice that you could leave with women that what having it all really means how to navigate this work-life balance? Yeah. I'd say throw those terms out. Just let's bring them up. Because it sets up an unrealistic expectation. There are days that I think I'm doing kind of B- on the home front and also B- at work or an A-plus day at home and a B- day at work.
This idea of I can achieve some sort of equilibrium in both or balance. I don't know if I believe that. I think you have to really be honest with yourself, with your partner, in your family life. And it worked, too, of what matters to you and what are you not willing to sacrifice around. So I'll give an example. I was looking with some colleagues at some potential speaking opportunities in the first two weeks of June.
And they said, well, would you want to commit to this? And I said, well, I'm no, because I don't know the date yet, but my son's kindergarten graduation will be sometime in that two weeks. It's usually toward the end of the school year. I said, I don't want to have to make I'm going to make that choice now. That's what is important to me. Now, am I at every single thing that happens in the classroom for my son or my daughter?
No, that's just not possible being a professional person who's out trying to win deals and do our work here at Pivotal. But when I look at the things that matter to me, I know matter to them and where they really want me to show up. And that's when the calendar is blocked. And that's when I might have to say what I can't speak at that conference or this is why I have an amazing team. You go close that deal or you go speak at that conference.
It doesn't just have to be me. And so I think it's maybe that is balance. Maybe I'm sort of arguing against the point I made. But I think this idea that I can make the cupcakes and show up and be in the classroom and and be here recording a podcast with you. I couldn't go to the Valentine's Day party today, but I went to the other party, the Christmas party. And so it's just figuring out. Tradeoffs. Yeah, the tradeoffs.
And again, what what values what's most important to you as a as an individual, you as a wife, as a mom, as a as a career person, working professional woman? What matters to your in your family unit? Because that'll look different to different folks. And don't worry about or care so much about others' perceptions of that. Because I think at the end of the day, I said, I hope for me, success is when my kids are launched out into the world, they can say, well, wow, mom, mom was present.
She cared for us. She did all these things. And she's a pretty awesome leader and investor. And again, maybe I had to miss a few things to do that. And maybe I could have a higher title or more prestige in other ways if I was only focused on work. But I have to live in a path that matters to me. I think each person has to define that for themselves. There's no magic formula or way to do it. I think that women put so much pressure on themselves to look a particular way.
Yes. And I think that that's so helpful, what you shared, is that it will look different for every person. And it will be different compromises. At different points in time, too, right? I remember when my kids were babies and I was just, oh, my gosh. And now I'm looking at them as kind of in their elementary years. And I was chatting with a mentor whose kids are in high school and off the college. He goes, you think they need you here?
They actually really need you a lot when they're at that stage. And so that was a little bit of a moment for me because I said, wow, Erin, how I might need to orient myself professionally or where I'm spending my time could look different in five to seven years. And it'll probably look different five to seven years after that when the kids are off to college and out in the world. And so you have to be flexible and willing to pivot.
As needed. As needed. Yes. Yes.
In this climate where DEI is under attack from the government to trickling down into businesses where the DEI division is shut down as a whole. What is the message of Pivotal Ventures during this time? Diversity, equity and inclusion is so important and at the forefront of what you guys are doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely want to acknowledge the moment. It is challenging, as you noted, but we are staying true and believe in our values and our thesis and that when women are in positions of really fully represent their power and influence, that benefits the economy, that benefits society, that lifts up everyone.
And so to me, it's making the pie bigger. I have to come back to this idea of we all want the same things. We all want to have opportunity and growth for ourselves, for our families. And yeah, I think some of the language or the acronyms can become a fast way to other or say, no, I don't want that. But when you really boil down to, and you look at the data and you look at the numbers, we're in the business of trying to create more opportunity and more, more, more pathways for people to lift each other up.
And so that's not changing. And that's what I would orient the focus back towards and less about let's be in opposition and fighting each other. And there's just more opportunity when we bring these concepts to the table. And the last question is, you've empowered and inspired this, again, generation of women who are going into investing, into philanthropy, leadership, even founders, to see that there are some new at the table at this incredible organization.
Beyond the financial returns for your portfolio companies, what legacy would you love to leave? That's a great question. I would say the legacy is more, more pivotals, more, more errands that are leading, that are building portfolios, that are trying to really come back to this, this thesis that you can do well and you can financially while still doing, doing good in the world too. So, so that's, that's the legacy I have to see.
My daughter is my age that, yeah, that there, that there are more companies than us. And there are, I don't want to imply that Pivotal is the only one out here doing this, doing this work, or that maybe we won't need it because we'll have made some progress and it'll just be not a thing that it just, it's sort of in the norm. It's, this is how everyone is investing because they see the opportunity. So, so that might be, that that's one part of the legacy, I think, just to have, to have fun and find the joy in the work, the work too, and, and stay curious.
Less certainty, more inquiry is a quote I, I came across once and I, I have it a little sticky in my, my office and my desk at home and I think about that all the time. And so I'd, I'd love to have that be a part of the, the legacy too, to just continue to, to ask questions and, and that, that mindset towards continuous improvement and growth is the type of, again, we, a world I, I hope to see more of. And that I think hopefully we, we are building through our work here at Pivotal.
I have no doubt that you will continue to grow and accomplish all the things in exponential ways. It's been such a pleasure to get to sit down with you, hear a little bit more about your life story, what Pivotal Ventures vision for the future looks. It's been such a pleasure having this iconic investor, leader, and, and change maker on today. And I hope you guys all had a chance to learn a little bit more about how you can be bolder and stay curious and more inquisitive and that there is no limit to what you can do.
Thank you, Melanie. This was so fun. Thank you for having me. Hi everyone. I'm so excited to welcome this extremely distinguished guest, ecosystem builder, and head of community in San Francisco, Christopher Floyd. He runs one of my favorite organizations in San Francisco, Founders Bay, along with Marianne Becker. And here to talk to us a little bit about all the amazing things and how you guys can be involved in person through different conferences, events, and get connected.
Christopher, so can you tell us a little bit more? First of all, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and I love what you're doing. Founders Bay, it's awesome. So we're based in San Francisco. We're a community of getting close to 80,000 members. That's huge, guys. You have to be a part of it. Yes, you have to be a part of it. So we're based in San Francisco, but our members are spread across the country, across the globe.
But we have a very high concentration of folks that are based here in the city. We do events constantly. We do large events, you know, 2,000 plus people. We also do smaller events. Basically, what we're trying to do is connect founders, investors, operators, and even just tech enthusiasts to each other and give them an avenue to share ideas, collaborate, and kind of expand their networks. At founderspay.com. Thank you.
I'm a perfectionist and I often don't feel like these videos meet my standards. And for me, that's where Be Creatives comes in. I sent them my raw, imperfect footage and they worked their magic. They helped me clean up the audio, video quality, fix the lighting, and helped me make everything look more professional and polished. Now, no matter where I'm recording, I know my content is going to be in good hands. It's been a game changer and one of the best decisions I made for this podcast.
Be Creatives and I have partnered for a special discount of $150 off per month for the Icons community. Please click the link here to sign up. If you're an investor, a builder, an entrepreneur, and someone who likes to attend events in person, you guys have to check this out. It's great to meet the Icons community here. It's amazing work that you've done. AIFI produces events, everything from summits with thousands of people to workshops, hackathons, and we'd love to invite you.
Go to AIFI.io for links to all the events we have coming up. And if you put in icons when you go to purchase your ticket, you'll get a significant discount on all of our upcoming events. Please visit the website at AIFI.io. If you're tired of LinkedIn and X, check out Inspo, a new social network for thought leadership. Publish your insights, connect with a professional audience, and engage with an exciting community focused on sharing high-quality thought leadership and expert perspectives.
Now join now on the Apple or Play Store as Inspo experts to find your community of growing professionals now building their own brand and unique perspectives.
Thank you.