#754: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann Miura-Ko
This episode is a two-for-one, and that’s because the podcast recently hit its 10-year anniversary and passed one billion downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best—some of my favorites—from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited. The episode features segments from episode #60 "Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare" and #331 "Ann Miura-Ko — The Path from Shyness to World-Class Debater and Investor."
Please enjoy!
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Timestamps:
[00:00] Start
[04:08] Notes about this supercombo format.
[05:11] Enter Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[05:45] Where did Arnold develop his cast iron confidence?
[09:15] Mastering the psychological warfare of bodybuilding.
[13:58] Transferring this skill set to Hollywood.
[17:13] On making millions before becoming a movie star.
[19:48] Playing good bricklayer/bad bricklayer with Franco Columbu.
[24:41] How Twins came together.
[29:14] Meditation as one of many answers.
[35:47] Enter Ann-Miura Ko.
[36:14] Ann's childhood shyness.
[38:14] The Japanese phrase Ann used as a hostile kid in Michigan.
[40:20] How Ann overcame introversion.
[43:13] Ann's first solo stage speech.
[44:22] Why Ann continued with speech and debate.
[45:17] Ann's love for competition.
[46:54] Ann's extreme efforts for pizza.
[48:57] The catalyst for Ann's debate improvement.
[53:01] Debate competition format.
[56:56] Ann's recommended resources for improving debate skills.
[59:56] Observations on modern debate in politics and family.
[1:02:01] The most important lesson from Ann's debating years.
[1:04:50] Differences between debate and negotiation.
[1:06:53] Ann's father's journey to America and favorite phrase.
[1:10:29] Ann's world-class effort in menial job tasks.
[1:13:15] How a Yale tour led to shadowing a CEO.
[1:18:36] Ann's first job experience.
[1:20:20] Ann's favorite office supplies.
[1:21:32] Ann's cherished personal artifacts.
[1:23:06] Ann's experience teaching Mayfield Fellows at Stanford.
[1:24:42] A reading list and plans for Ann's Stanford startup class.
[1:28:05] Spotting artificial inflation in startup valuations.
[1:31:29] Why Ann changed her career path from medicine.
[1:34:45] What Ann knew about herself that her parents and test scores didn't.
[1:38:55] Ann's entry into venture capital and startup investing.
[1:39:29] An encounter with Steve Jobs.
[1:40:40] A job offer based on shared interests.
[1:44:40] Ann's experience at CRV during 9/11.
[1:47:55] The most expensive words in investing.
[1:48:16] First principles thinking and common leadership decisions.
[1:50:52] Winning strategy vs. strategy not to lose.
[1:51:59] Manifestations of hedging as a defensive strategy.
[1:53:46] The importance of focusing on your own race.
[1:55:47] A need for aggressiveness to win.
[1:56:38] How Ann met Mike Maples, Jr.
[1:59:26] Ann's PhD plans and shift to working with Mike.
[2:02:12] Ann's reaction to Mike's unusual proposition.
[2:06:40] Ann's hectic first year at Floodgate.
[2:08:41] Ann's real first name.
[2:09:21] Ann's struggles and coping mechanisms.
[2:14:56] Ann's superpowers.
[2:18:44] Thunder lizards and Ann's pursuit of them.
[2:20:20] Ann's view on AI and machine learning's impact.
[2:23:11] Philosophy exercises and real-world applications.
[2:24:50] Aligning collective and self-interests in problem-solving.
[2:27:08] Books Ann has gifted or reread most.
[2:29:09] A recent, game-changing purchase under $100.
[2:30:28] Ann's billboard.
[2:31:19] The meaning of Ann's Japanese name characters.
[2:32:19] Ann's online presence and Floodgate's name origin.
[2:34:58] Parting thoughts.
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#558: Ann Miura-Ko — The Path from Shyness to World-Class Debater and Investor (Repost)
Ann Miura-Ko — The Path from Shyness to World-Class Debater and Investor | Brought to you by 80,000 Hours free career advice for high impact and doing good in the world, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving.
“The main difference was that I was willing to outwork and outdo every competitor who walked in through that door.” — Ann Miura-Ko
Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) has been called “the most powerful woman in startups” by Forbes and is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford. The child of a rocket scientist at NASA, Ann is a Palo Alto native and has been steeped in technology startups from when she was a teenager. Prior to co-founding Floodgate, she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth.
Due to the success of her investments, she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. Ann is known for her debate skills (she placed first in the National Tournament of Champions and second in the State of California in high school) and was part of a five-person team at Yale that competed in the Robocup Competition in Paris, France. She has a BSEE from Yale and a PhD from Stanford in math modeling of computer security. She lives with her husband, three kids, and one spoiled dog. Her interests are piano, robots, and gastronomy.
Please enjoy!
This episode originally aired in 2018. You can find the show notes here: https://tim.blog/2018/08/02/ann-miura-ko/
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20VC: The Lyft Memo: Floodgate's Ann Miura Ko on Why Successful Seed Investing Is Not Investing In a Company But The Development of a Set of Secrets, Whether Capital Is a Defensible Moat Today &How Startups Should Approach Competition
Ann Miura Ko is the Co-Founding Partner @ Floodgate, one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Okta, Outreach and more. As for Ann, not only did she lead the round for Lyft but in the last 12 months has led rounds for 2 of the hottest companies in the valley; Popparazzi and Popshop Live. Due to her immense investing success, Ann is a multiple Forbes Midas Lister and is also a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford, a co-director of the Mayfield Fellows Program at Stanford, and a member of the Board of Trustees for Yale University.
In Today's Episode with Ann Miura Ko You Will Learn:
1.) How Ann made her way from a PhD in Quantitative Modelling at Stanford to co-founding one of the leading early-stage firms in the valley?
2.) What does Ann believe is the secret to successful seed investing? What insight development did Ann believe Lyft had? How had they approached customer development in such a unique way? What are the leading signals to Ann today that founders really understand the customer development process? What questions does she ask to discover this?
3.) Why does Ann not engage in the compression of fundraising timelines today? How does she build relationships of trust and honesty with founders so early? Does Ann worry that founders have such large capital injections too early today? Why should employees examine capital efficiency, not capital raised? How does Ann advise founders on pre-emptive rounds?
4.) How did Ann and the Lyft team approach prioritization in the early days? In what ways did Lyft decide to "play their own game" when it came to the competition? How did Uber and its growth impact the financing strategy for Lyft? In what deliberate ways did John and Logan set the culture for Lyft? What have been Ann's biggest lessons from them on culture building?
5.) Does Ann believe that capital in itself is a competitive moat today? What does Ann believe needs to be proven before capital can be used as a weapon to win? In the case of Lyft, what signals or measurements did Ann define as guiding metrics for success? How did they change over time? How can founders determine their own in their businesses?
#447: Books I've Loved — Ann Miura-Ko
Books I've Loved — Ann Miura-Ko | Brought to you by Audible.
Note: This episode was recorded in November 2019.
Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types—from startup founders and investors to chess champions to Olympic athletes. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a shorter series I’m doing called “Books I’ve Loved.” I’ve invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books—the books that have influenced them, changed them, and transformed them for the better. I hope you pick up one or two new mentors—in the form of books—from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.
Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) has been called “the most powerful woman in startups” by Forbes and is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford. The child of a rocket scientist at NASA, Ann is a Palo Alto native and has been steeped in technology startups from when she was a teenager. Prior to co-founding Floodgate, she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth.
Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. Ann is known for her debate skills (she placed first in the National Tournament of Champions and second in the State of California in high school) and was part of a five-person team at Yale that competed in the Robocup Competition in Paris, France. She has a BSEE from Yale and a PhD from Stanford in math modeling of computer security. She lives with her husband, three kids, and one spoiled dog. Her interests are piano, robots, and gastronomy.
“Books I’ve Loved” on The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Audible! I have used Audible for many years now. I love it. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. I listen when I’m taking walks, I listen while I’m cooking… I listen whenever I can. Audible is offering Tim Ferriss Show listeners a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership. Just go to Audible.com/tim and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs. Then, download your free title and start listening! It’s that easy. Simply go to Audible.com/tim or text TIM to 500500 to get started today.
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How to find a mentor in tech with Floodgate’s Ann Miura-Ko
We have a special guest host for this episode, my teammate at Product Hunt, Abadesi Osunsade. She is the author of Dream Big, Hustle Hard: The Millennial Woman's Guide to Success in Tech. She'll be hosting more episodes alongside me this year.
Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate, a seed-stage VC firm in Palo Alto. She has been called “the most powerful woman in startups” by Forbes and is an early investor in Lyft and TaskRabbit. She is also a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford's School of Engineering and a founding member of All Raise.
In this episode we talk about:
Ann recounts how she got to where she is today, including what it was like growing up with a NASA scientist for a dad. She talks about some of the formative moments in her career and explains why she says that a “career path” is a misnomer.
The mentors that have helped Ann throughout her career, and why she never approaches a relationship with an expectation of mentorship, but instead always “begins with an act of service.”
Why the tech industry should always take a step back to question whether everyone prospers from its work, the five values that drive her investments at Floodgate, and why they tell entrepreneurs “your life's work is our life's work.”
How she manages her children's relationships with social media (“browsing Instagram feels like not being invited to every party everyone else is having”), how she is personally working to increase the number of underrepresented founders, and the business benefit of diversity.
We also discuss some of their favorite products including an old-fashioned note-taking system for the digital age, a better way to organize your tabs in Chrome, and a built-in CRM for your Gmail inbox.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, Rally Rd and AngelList, for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“My belief has always been that I never asked someone to be my mentor. I would start off with an act of service, and it wasn’t built on a belief that that act of service would then lead to mentorship.” — Ann
“In ten years, I’ve seen huge changes in the funding landscape. The opportunity for someone to access capital is so much greater than when I first got started. The playing field is not level at all but it is so much more accessible than it was ten years ago.” — Ann
“When we think about economic opportunity for the masses, when we think of better education for the masses, I believe that people envision technology playing a critical role in that. To separate out prosperity from technology advances, I think is crazy. We need to have a way of creating a better future that’s characterized by optimism and hope rather than insecurity and fear.” — Ann
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
Bullet Journal — An analog note-taking system for the digital age.
Streak — CRM in your inbox, for Gmail.
Trello — Organize anything, together.
Workona — Transform Chrome into a professional work tool for free.
#331: Ann Miura-Ko — The Path from Shyness to World-Class Debater and Investor
Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) has been called "the most powerful woman in startups" by Forbes and is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford. The child of a rocket scientist at NASA, Ann is a Palo Alto native and has been steeped in technology startups from when she was a teenager. Prior to co-founding Floodgate, she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann's investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth.
Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. Ann is known for her debate skills (she placed first in the National Tournament of Champions and second in the State of California in high school) and was part of a five-person team at Yale that competed in the Robocup Competition in Paris, France. She has a BSEE from Yale and a PhD from Stanford in math modeling of computer security. She lives with her husband, three kids, and one spoiled dog. Her interests are piano, robots, and gastronomy.
Enjoy!
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20VC: The 4 Required Powers For A Startup To Be A $500m Business with "The Most Powerful Woman in Startups", Ann Miura Ko, Co-Founder @ Floodgate
Ann Miura-Ko has been called "the most powerful woman in startups" by Forbes and is the Co-Founder of Floodgate, one of the valley's leading early stage funds with investments in the likes of Twitter, Twitch and TaskRabbit. Some of Ann's investments at Floodgate include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, Chloe and Isabel, Maker Media, Wanelo, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth. Ann is also a lecturer in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, where she got her PhD focused on mathematical modeling of computer security.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Ann made her way into the wonderful world of VC?
2.) Ann's 2nd day in VC was 9/11, how does Ann view investing in times of crisis and downturn? How does this effect the macro-economy and her investing cadence?
Floodgate state that all venture bankable high growth companies share 4 very common characteristics with regards to power. Here we break them down:
Proprietary Power: What is it? What are it's characteristics?
Product Power: What does this imply about product market fit? What are the nuances and complexities?
Company Power: What does it take to be created and maintained? How have so many unicorns established themselves without credible and sustainable business models?
Category Power: Why it is so important to create a new category? How can this be done and who has done it well in the past?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Ann's Fave Book: The Poisonwood Bible
Ann's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Benedict Evans
Ann's Most Recent Investment: The Greatist
As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Ann on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Snapchat here! This episode was brought to you by DesignCrowd, the online marketplace for custom graphic, logo and web design that helps startups, entrepreneurs, web developers and agencies outsource design projects to designers from around the world. How Does It Work? Once you have launched your brief, designers will begin submitting quality designs for you to review. With some constructive feedback, you can quickly generate a large gallery of designs that really do fit your needs. You can have exactly what you need within just three days. Once you have selected your favourite design, you will be sent all the files you require to update your branding. If you don't like any of the submitted designs, then DesignCrowd offers a money back guarantee. So checkout designcrowd.com/VC and enter the promo code VC100 to get an astonishing $100 off your next project.