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Welcome to Office Hours of ProvG. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech entrepreneurship and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for you next time, you can send a voice recording to Office Hours of ProvG.me.com. Again, that's Office Hours of ProvG.me.com. Or, push your question on the "Skack y'all always subreddit," and we just my featured in our next episode. First question. Our first question comes from sillyemule8312 on Reddit, they say. Everyone always says, "Don't start a business with family and friends. What's your realistic opinion on this?" For context, I own some multifamily real estate with one of my oldest friends and it's constantly for over four years. Yeah, they say, "Don't start businesses with the friends." I have what started businesses with friends. Although some of the businesses I've started, I've ended up becoming friends with the senior people in the company. But I have started businesses with friends. I started my first business with a good friend from business school. I started my business profit with my friendly Lotus. So I violated that rule. I think it's situational. I think family is a different follow-ax. I'm not sure I'd ever want to work with my wife or my family because if things don't go well, it kind of ruins Thanksgiving. That's a lot of eggs in one basket. I know Michael and Cass Lazarus starting to go buddy media. And I'm like, a very couple who works together. Jesus Christ, that's God. I can't imagine that. But I think starting a business with friends, I err on the side of, I think it's a good idea because one of the keys to partnerships is being generous. At some point, you're going to add more value to the business than your partner. And at some point, they're going to add more value than you. The problem is you tend to inflate your own contribution and diminish theirs. And if you aren't generous with that person, you start complaining or bitching that you should be getting more and creates tension. And you want to see a thriving small business go down the tube's really fast. It's when the partner start finding. And sometimes people get therapists or coaches to help them negotiate stuff. Which I think is a good idea. So I have a bias towards starting a business with a friend because you're naturally going to be, I think, a little bit more generous with each other. It makes the breakup harder because there's more emotion involved. But also at the outset, a general best practice is to outline what happens if this doesn't work with us. Can one person buy the other out? Kind of come up with a framework for what happens if this isn't working, if one person wants to leave, if one person isn't happy with the other one. Like, what are we going to have a board of advisors to help us make decisions or board of directors? But sort of say, what do we do maybe upfront if things get dicey or spicy with us? I don't think that's a bad idea. Having said that, I never did that. I just always kind of let the chips fall where they might. The same bias I have towards working with friends is working, is not working with family. And granted, I've never done that. The reason most people work with family is because they inherited an amazing business. I don't think Arthur Solzberger, the CEO of the New York Times, or the publisher, wanted to work with family. But the thing is, he wouldn't gotten anywhere near the fucking New York Times, because he wasn't that talented a business person that had he not been the nephew of the son or whatever it is. So occasionally, a family business oftentimes just gets you to let our L economically faster than working your ass off in going through ABCD, etc. So sometimes second generation families involve with their business. Because it's quite frankly just a much better opportunity. And it's unfortunately, I think really can be really stressful for some of the people. I was thinking it's a good idea if you're going to go into the family business to go to work for an outside corporation and prove yourself there. And you have more respect when you go into the family business and you have better perspective, if you will. And also better life experience. I would just be worried to be in a business with my sister, or I wouldn't been a business with my dad. He was unemployed by the time he was 55, and my mom was a secretary, so I can't really relate to it. But I would just hate to have a bad day at work, and not be giggling with my partners, and then have to go home and eat with them or see them at Thanksgiving. I think that would be especially tough. But again, it's all situational setup and agreement or general parameters around what happens if it's not working, maybe get a coach, to help you work out problems. If they pop up, try and be really generous with one another. I have a bias against working with family and a bias towards working with friends. But again, it's all situational. Very much appreciate the question. Question number two, question number two, comes from Wadi on Reddit, they say, we're becoming increasingly polarized as a society, especially when it comes to social and political matters. As a communicator at some of the largest stages in the world, both physical and digital, what is the most important thing you think regular people can do to try to facilitate better conversations on these and other topics? We're going to need a bigger boat. So a lot of our polarization is a function. It's multi-dimensional, one, gerrymandering. They must love their job so much that they're willing to pass all these Byzantine laws, the gerrymandor every district. So if you look at all the congressional districts, they've been, they're like a fucking jigsaw puzzle to what we end up with. It's an electoral system where the election isn't a general election. It's the primary. And in every primary, the people that turn out on the left are unions and crazy fucking hippies from the 60s and the people that turn out on the right. Our MAGA or people who believe that vaccines are terrible and that, everyone should be able to carry an era of 15 to their third grade class. So we just keep sending more crazier and crazier extremists to Washington who don't represent the three middle quintiles, which is, you know, 60% of America. So we're divided politically. More than anything, though. I don't think it was divided personally as the people who are trying to divide us specifically technology that sees a profit incentive in polarizing us. Why? Because as soon as we figure out your politics, send you far left, far right, and then making more sensitive and inspired, and tickle your spend sensors when, you know, AOC destroys dead crews. But if you're someone else, dead crews destroys AOC. Creates more comments, keeps you engaged and raise many equals engagement, which equals more Nissan ads, which equals more shareholder values. So these algorithms have a vested interest in dividing us and elevating content. It's divisive because it gets the most engagement. And also, I think generally speaking, people are anxious. They feel more economically anxious and more likely to be angry one another. We're divided technologically online. Where we're spending more and more time in an environment that divides us. If you go out in the real world, this is the shame about AI. If AI were crawling the real world, it'd be a much better place because people in general are lovely. I live or did live in Delray Beach, which was kind of a purple district. And a lot of friends that were Republicans and well, it's not big of me. It's not smell me. I have friends who are rep. What a progressive like new age man. Anyway, you got to separate the person from the politics in my view. And there generally must be a finer, generally good people. Just getting up, love their kids, want to make a good living in like their country. But the problem is online is convinced us that our neighbor is the problem. And also, we've taken on ideology's identity. What do I mean by that? This is actually from George Collin. And that is the danger of taking on a religion or political philosophy as your ideology. It becomes your identity. Or when you let it become your identity and you start judging other people on it, it's because you personally feel affronted or offended when someone questions your ideology because it's not questioning your ideology. It's questioning you. It's not saying, oh no, you are wrong about this. It's saying you're wrong. So I just think it's dangerous to attach your political ideology to yourself as an identity. So I quote unquote, identify as a center left. I'm a bride of center left Democrat. But it's not my identity. And I don't want it to be. And I don't want to, I'm trying really hard not to immediately kind of check up and think someone's an idiot because they start with their Republican talking points. And I have found it is unlocked a lot of relationships for me. It's just having easier time. And I don't want to be that judgmental. So we're divided technologically. We're divided electorally. And we're also, I think, anxious and looking for people to blame, especially young people who get radicalized online. And then are served up content that says you're not to blame. Immigrants are to blame for your economic problems. And we're going to blame for your romantic problems. So I think there's a lot of factors of play dividing us some solutions. One, turn down the heat. Personally, just be trying to show more grace. Don't engage in online. I don't, I don't respond to comments anymore. I just don't. I don't get in people's face. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm a fucking old man now. I can show a little bit more grace and just be occasionally takes them ahead. If someone says something stupid or mean about me, I just let it, it's okay. I'm going to be fine. Turn down the heat when you see something you like or someone says something you like. Trying to show more grace, put more good vibes out there, compliment people, be nice to them. Vote for moderates. Just sort of take down the heat. Vote for any trust to break up big tech. Also mandatory national service, I think would go a long way. I think that we need to raise a generation of young people that love America. More than they love their Republican or Democratic party. And see that people from different ethnic income, sexual orientation, background, different communities are wonderful. And that they share more in common and their differences. And that they find a, have an easier time identifying with the flag, then identifying with the political party. Israel and Singapore, lowest levels of young adult depression. And they both have national service. Singapore, the most religiously diverse nation in the world. And the leader there, patiently saw the opportunity or the danger of ethnic violence. So we said everyone's got to serve in the army together and see what wonderful people live here in Singapore regardless of their ethnicity or their religion. Thanks so much for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder? Introducing Odo. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? So why not you? That's odo.com Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. It's a shame when the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience. Like imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoon. So we're running a promo for this show on a video about roadblocks or something. No offense to our gen alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers according to their data. That's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target buyers by job title industry company, rural seniority skills, company revenue, all suit and stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn ads both one of the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. It's been $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/scot. That's LinkedIn.com/scot, terms and conditions apply. A lot of us have spent a lot of the last week watching videos of what's happening on the streets of Minneapolis. And understanding what it is that we're seeing, but also what's real and what isn't and what's AI. And who is taking these videos and how we're supposed to understand the source feels harder than ever. So this week on the Vergecast, we're talking about what's happening in Minneapolis, how information moves in an AI age, and what it means to make sense of it all. All that, plus what's new with the new TikTok, why everything feels like it's falling apart on TikTok, and more on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. Welcome back onto our final question, which also comes from Reddit, Arya, 1010, asks, "Hello, I've heard you mention keeping scorecards and relationships friendships. My question is how and why you decided to stop keeping scorecards and what helped change your mindset. Especially in modern times, we tend to default to approaching relationships with a more transactional mindset, and I really want to break out of this so curious to hear more about your journey." Thanks for the question. Yeah, this was specific or situational or had to do with one relationship. And then it's the relationship with my father. When I was eight years old, my mom just disappeared for a couple weeks and my dad didn't tell me why. It was the 70s, you know. I remember being on the couch watching the Partridge family. It's like my mom's been out for two weeks and I just started sobbing and controlling him. My dad's like, "What's wrong?" I'm like, "Where's mom? Where's mom?" I just like dawned on me, the mom's not around. And my dad, I remember the first time I ever saw my dad, like fearing his eyes, like he didn't know what to do, and had a handle and eight-year-old sobbing on control, belly on his couch. I think that's when he decided that my mom should come get me. And a few days later, my mom showed up and said, "Pack your stuff we're leaving." This wasn't exactly a brining brown, a stare-parelle, like child care, and said, "You know, we got to be out of here in 15 minutes." And I'm like, "15 minutes." I can't pack my, it's just like, "We need to get out of here. Dad's gonna be home soon." I don't know if she was kidnapping me or just want to see my dad. I don't know if the fight was going on. He was eight years old. And as is often the case, well, because my mom was saying, "Care of me." I had a tendency to sanctify her and demonize my dad. And my dad didn't make our lives very nice. He was so extraordinarily cheap that we struggled economically. And that is, as soon as my parents split, my dad went on to be upper-middle class. And my mom and I immediately dove to the lower-middle class, which was hard. And it wasn't that it was hard on me. Kids don't really need a lot of money. I was able, you know, $0.35, and Abba Zababar and Ashwin Baik. And you kind of got everything you need. We didn't have streaming media or iPhones. But it was very hard on my mom. And when you're the only child, especially I think the only boy, that's probably the only girl. You just absorb their anxiety. I remember my mom coming home and my mom was on the floor sobbing because the vacuum cleaner broke. And I'm like, "Well, you can get a fix." And she's like, "We don't have the money to get a fix." And I was like, "If I can nine years old." And you're like, "Okay, what can I do to get a paper root to get the vacuum fix?" So that economic anxiety that was a direct result of my dad being such a bastard quite frankly, because he could have helped us, made me resent him. And it stuck with me. And as I got older, again, in college, I had no money, constantly stressed, constantly broke. Dad could have helped me and the bottom wise, he didn't. And so I was resented him for that. And now having said that, my dad was a kick in the ass. My dad was a ton of fun. Funny, nice, smart. He did love me. He would make an effort. He'd be in town and he would take me to movies and stuff. So he did try. And when my mom passed away, I kind of, I think my resentment towards him grew, and I would go months, and I think one time a year without speaking to him, and he didn't really know what was going on, but didn't have the presence to try and figure it out. And then I just sort of decided that I wanted to have my father in my life, and that I decided to focus on the good things. And rather than having a scorecard and thinking, "Okay, he did X amount, he gave me X amount of love. I'm only going to give him X amount of love." And well, what kind of Sunday I want to be, and the reality is I wanted to be a loving, generous son, and I was going to hold myself to that standard, and just put away the scorecard. And that was such an enormous on mark for me, because I think about what kind of boss do I want to be? If I pay someone more than they're earning, I don't, I used to think, "Yeah, that pisses me off. They worked here for a year. I paid them a shit ton of money, and they added no fucking value. I hate that person." Now it's like, if you are a boss, and people get more out of working for you, then maybe you get out of them, or you pay them above market, that's a win. That's a victory. If you're a better spouse to you, if it is really hard for your spouse to figure out ways to be as good to you as you are to them, that's a win. That's the whole fucking shooting match. That's what it means to have kids. I hope at some point my kids level up what I've done for them. It's going to take a while. I've invested a lot of my kids. I always tell them you're negative surplus value. So approaching relationships from the mindset of always wanting to have surplus value, and say, "Okay, what kind of boyfriend do I want to be? What kind of Sunday I want to be? What kind of employer do I want to be? What kind of investor do I want?" I used to get mad at CEOs that come to me as my best and lost money. Now I'm like, "No, I want to be a magnanimous generous supporter person. I've been on the board of a lot of companies I'm investing in, where they fucked up and lost all my money, and I try to be now." It's no problem. You're going to get back up. This is great. I went into the size wide open. Well done. Let me help you raise money for your next thing. That's the kind I want to be, and I wasn't always that way. You decide what kind of person in every relationship will kind of roll you want to play, and then hold yourself to that standard and put away the scorecard. Because the scorecard is incorrect, it's not accurate, and you'll always be unhappy. Having said that, don't be a doormat. I shed relationships all the time. On a regular basis, I decide I'm just not getting a lot out of this relationship, and I do a slow fade. Well, that's what I do. But just decide what kind of person you want to be in the relationship and hold yourself to that standard, and just don't measure. Put the measuring stick in the scorecard away. You're just going to be much happier. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to office
[email protected]. Or, if you'd prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the scorecard now I subreddit. I've got a subreddit. I like that. And we just might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our associate producer is Laura DeNair, Camille Rieke is our social producer. Juberos is our technical director. Thank you for listening to The ProptiPod from PropG Media. Introducing ODO. And the best part? So why not you? That's ODO.com.
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