The Life Lesson That Cost Her $1M | jasminericegirl, Head of Creators @Suno ​

The only thing I was allowed to do or say was resign from the company. I co-founders literally thought I'm going to sue me at the time. And there was very little I could say about it, yeah. Yeah, I think you really have to play the. I want to protect myself from the ego reasons and safety reasons. Yes, there are a lot of threats happening. I would have gone something if I had stayed through the acquisition, but because I made the stand, I lost something in the few hundred thousand dollars. I wanted to do it forever, felt like my baby, and then it felt like someone showed my baby, so. And now I actually really pride myself on things completely unrelated to work. Like, like, yeah, I'm a lot more impressed by this version of me now than by raising twenty million dollars. Hi, it's Chloe. This conversation with Rosie actually went on for almost three hours. I kid you not. This episode is about Rosie's insane lore and everything it took to become the Rosie you see today. As a heads up, this episode is going to be deep. It covers depression, mental health, suicide, and pretty heavy life experiences. Sometimes the people with the gentless hearts go through the darkest chapters, and Rosie's story is one of the most earnest, vulnerable, and real that I've heard. Rosie is a bright girl with lots of spunk and gusto. She's hilarious, she's funny, she's smart, she's talented, and I hope this story is an empowering one for those of you who've gone through struggle. Let's get into it. Welcome to Office Drama, where we sit with people obsessed with their work, talk about their career breakthroughs, and reveal the drama within today in the office. We have perhaps the most interesting woman in tech. She has done so much across tech, creators, and AI. She's been featured in a crazy amount of media outlets. Here they are. Bloomberg, the information, this is Insider Tech, current CMBC, and so many more. And she's also another 430 under 30 lister. Woohoo! She has a panel from Penn, studying finance and operations. She actually started her career in banking at Credit Suisse. But she was staying up late at night trying to build a fan house, which she ultimately co-founded, became the CMO of, and it is a subscription-based platform that supports creators to help monetize their social media. And then she joined Cantina, which is famous for being founded by Sean Parker, who was the co-founder of Napster, and then was the first president of Facebook. Like, what is this tech royalty? Now, it marks her one year as the head of creators at Suno, the world's largest and leading generative AI music company. Let us welcome Rosy Nene! Let's go! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so impressed you did your research. I'm like, you know you're back from better than I do. I forgot. No, I went deep last night. I didn't sleep that much and here we are. Here we are. Welcome to the studio, the office drama. You're actually the first guest to be on this. Like, we literally built this last night. No way, wait this means so, I'm actually so honored. Oh, I am honored. Like, Rosy does not live here right now, so she's just visiting. So I'm just like capturing her when she's free. Yeah. I'm glad we were able to make time for this. I'm excited. One of the most interesting things meeting you, Rosy, because you have such like a wild public presence online. I didn't know too much about you, but I did see a couple of like, crazy, wanchi, gorilla grippy. (laughing) Captions and tweets. And I was like, oh, I didn't know we could say stuff like this out loud as the even girly popping in tech. Yeah, I didn't know either. Honestly, I just did it anyway. (laughing) And then I met you and you are so different from what I thought you would be. My experience of Rosy is that she's incredibly sweet and very normal. And she just likes tea, soup, music, and hanging out and playing video games and chillin. Yep, yep. He's pikes me pretty right. Yeah. He's a double-on-chonday that I'm not gonna make. What does that mean? What's, is that a sex joke? Yes. Okay, well, I said moving on. So that was my first impression of you, but little did I know how much depth and vulnerability you have. And that has been a really great honor to see the difference between how the public has perceived the work that you've done and how you actually act privately in our personal lives. So I really, really wanted to bring you on and show the duality of what it means to be vocal and be like a strong voice and understand the repercussions, consequences, and the opportunities it gives you. And hear the entire story. So I'm really happy you're here today. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I mean, it's really interesting to think about, which is like, yes, I am all of those things. Like, again, I think the way you describe me is how I would describe myself. Like, I care about so many things in my real life, way more than like what my online presence, I think would tell people, which I guess probably isn't even true, though, because I would say if you actually read every single tweet or everything I've ever put out online, it actually encapsulates me really well. But I think, I don't know, maybe because I'm a female concert because I'm, you know, Twitter is my main platform because tweets are so limited to what you can share about your personality when it used to be right, 240 characters, that people end up with a very limited, one-dimensional view of creators that tend to be on Twitter. Although I would actually argue for a lot of content creators in general, people see a lot of content creators as this one thing. It's your niche, even if you're a gamer. Then that's your thing. And if you ever try to break out of that, like, what do you mean you also cook? You can cook your Valorant player. I think there's a little bit of that where people can see content creators as objects of consumptions, rather than just a person that does stuff outside of this one thing, which can be work for us, right? But, anyways, yeah, speaking of more than one thing, can you explain what this is? Yeah, it's one of my favorite-- Oh, my God, it's one of my favorite memes that I've made. I don't understand it. Well, one, I love soup. So I'm Vietnamese. And if you're Southeast Asian or I think Asian, I think you can probably relate to, like, we eat a lot of soup. Like, growing up every meal, there is a bowl of soup. So I was used to eating soup every single day. It wasn't until, like, I feel like moving out of my family home where I was like, people don't consume soup this much and they should be. And so I started making-- just talking about soup online for fun, like, this one thing that I love. And then you're not going to believe this. But then I got soup hate. Like, there were people that were, like, you know, commenting being, like, soup is so underrated, like, soup is like, is bland and, like, annoying and whatever. I was like, what are you talking about? And I-- That's crazy. Something we'll go into more is, I think I have a rebellious streak to me, which is when people hate on something that I feel like I really believe in. I, like, double-tripled down on it, which is, like-- I'm like back. So then I was like, OK, if people think soup is underrated, I'm going to, like, make soup my personal. I'm going to talk about soup for, like, a year straight. I'm going to tweet about it every single day. Yeah. So I went on this run just, like, talking about soup all the time. And before that, which you mentioned, like, I was on a run where I was tweeting, like, sex positive stuff all the time. It was a very similar thing, which is, like, I think I made one sex positive tweet. And then you guys might imagine I got a lot of slush aiming, a lot of racist comments, a lot of, like, oh my gosh, your parents must hate you, like, all the sort of things you imagine people saying to, like, women online who are, like, sexually free or sexually open. And but that was, again, for my-- when I first blew up on Twitter, it was because I was getting all these slushing comments that I was like, you know what? There's nothing wrong with being a woman and talking about your sex line. Like, I actually think that's something really important to talk about, because it's really important for us to have conversations about, like, consent and what that looks like, right? I think so many women feel like they can't express the things that they want or don't want, because we shame women from talking about it at all. So anyways, when I started my content, that was kind of the reason I was like, I'm going to talk about these things. I'm going to say crazy stuff and, like, normalize this for other women, right? Like, if I can say the word pussy online, guerrilla grip, pussy online, and, like, that's quoted in the information, a tech article. But that's okay for you to, like, explore your sexuality. Like, it's okay to be who you want to be. And then engagement is mild too, and everything anything like it. So great work. Excellent. This should be a master class. Yes. I mean, I actually think that's something, I feel like my brain is really good at, which is you give me a topic and I can kind of, like, well, what is trending and what are the ways to work this? That will capture a lot of attention or, like, be relatable to a lot of people, right? Three soups, hot pot, specifically, like, one side, the beef bone broth, and then one side, like, the spicy, like, this one. And then I really love miso soup, and chicken noodle soup is classic. I think I'm not far. No, far is top 10, as tier for sure. But, you know, there's this in ranked list. I actually did that once. I did a stream where I, like, ranked all soups at the minute here. That's controversial. Really? I think the people have opinions, obviously. Oh, sure. But I think it's one of those things where it's like, it's very innocuous. Like, everyone has different preferences of what they like to eat. Yeah, I don't know. It's not that deep. I've been on the day, actually. Yeah, it's not that deep. So for every office drama episode, I always, like, doing a segment called "Tersonal Shields," which essentially talks about your values, your role models, your turning points, your skills, and where you see yourself in five years. But I want to talk about it anyways, because you have such lore and an interesting bringing background that you have shared publicly. But sometimes people don't remember where people come from. You had to claw your way through and build your career brick by brick. Da-da-da-da! Walk us through. Tell us who you really are. This is so cute. By the way, I'm sorry. I'm terrible at drawing. No, I think this is the best playing "Tersonal Shield" I've seen. Everyone else suck really badly. I'll try to explain each thing. So should we just start, like, like that? The first thing I put in this is the most important thing to me in my life. Like, I would give up anything that I have in a heartbeat just for this one thing in its family. My family is everything to me. And I think both just growing up, like, you know, coming here as an immigrant with my family. parents, the stuff that they've sacrificed for me to be where I am, the just the, I mean, yeah, like we were on food stamps growing up, we've been homeless before, like my parents made 10K a year growing up combined income. And the kind of like watching my mom, you starve herself so that we could eat like that kind of unconditional love. It is the most important thing in my life. And like, yeah, now I provide for my parents, right? And I pay their bills and I pay their rent. So that is really important to me. Like, everything I do is in motivation of that, but also like future family. Like my biggest dream in life. And I feel like anyone that has ever asked me this. And it might, it might seem ironic or like, maybe even controversial for people, which is like to like see someone who is such an ambitious woman in like tech and do so many things tech, right? And then people ask me stuff. And I think they, they expect me to like, oh, I want to be a billionaire. I want to like found a unicorn about it. No, I just want to have a family. Like if that's all I can accomplish in my life, get married and have kids and be a good mom. I will have lived a very, very full life. Honestly, everything else I do is in service of that. So that's family. I drew here. These are shoes. Okay. It's supposed to represent empathy. Like putting yourself in other people's shoes is something I try to do all the time. And no matter who it is, like people who love me, people who hate me, people who disagree with me, people on the opposite side of like the political spectrum, I think it matters a lot for me to understand where people come from. I like him a very anti-violence person. There's so much hate and divisiveness and like violence, I mean, increasingly so. And sometimes I wish you could just put people across the table at each other and talk to each other and hear and hear this from each other, right? Hear their goals and dreams and hear how they grew up and hear the things they care about. And I actually, I really believe like we find more in common with each other than differences. So it's something I just try to do a lot like no matter who's hurtly. My mom was abusive growing up, but just trying to see that from her perspective. Like dude, this woman, right, escape from both, like was in prison several times, like never graduated from high school, like move to a country, she doesn't speak the language, isn't making enough that she can even eat. Yeah. And oh, she goes crazy on her kids because she really doesn't know how else to like express love. Like and it doesn't justify the stuff that she does, but it gives me, just simply, it gives me an understanding that like, damn mom, like you haven't had it easy too. So could I forgive you for some of the stuff that you've done? That's all it is. Oh, for the viewer, so what is your heritage? I'm Vietnamese. So I was born in Vietnam, and then my family immigrated here in 99. And then the last thing is like, this is just me looking to a mirror. Yeah. Yeah. It came across. That's a mirror. And the value for me is just authenticity, like honesty. I think it's really important for me to just be true to myself and the things I care about. Like I care about a lot about just like spending time in things that are important to me. Maybe it's actually not even relevant, but I think you say something that stuck with me, which is like the grass is green or where you water it, right? Yeah. So just always making sure I'm watering, like the grass. Yeah, exactly. And I love gardening, actually. So I love that analogy. But like the things that I care about and I'm passionate about, like even the work that I do, like it's actually really important for me to do stuff I'm passionate in, and I've tried doing other things where I like, yeah, I had a six-month stint in investment banking. And I was like, I don't care about this. And then like as a content creator to the things that I say online, right? Like everything that I say is something that I would like, yeah, like 10 toes down, right? Like you could search my Twitter, and you can probably, like if you search the word pussy stuff, full stuff, full stuff. Or you say, though, if you search like gorilla grip, things will still come up. I don't believe that. I have to think of what a gorilla grip was. Oh my God, that's so funny. I was like, that's interesting. Is this what is it a metaphor for life, for business, for life? Hold tightly. Yeah. Hold tight. Okay. And I think it can be, right? It's like, hold tight to the things you believe in. I'm not gonna live in your own brain, it's like you're not working. But yeah, I like I'm never gonna delete those tweets. Like, yeah, I said those things when I was 23. And like I still would stand by sex positivity. I still will stand by, yeah, like women can talk about sex. I'm like men can talk about sex online. Women's all about periods online. Like I think just the more we have conversations actually, like again, like a more connected, we can be with each other. So, so that's lasting. This quadrant was skills. I should kind of really struggled with this because I was like, I feel like I'm, I can be good at such like random things. Okay. But I tried to pick the things that I think are career focused because that's probably the theme here. So growth, the first thing, yeah. Stonks. Stonks gone up. Well growth. What I drew was stonks, but growth. So I have done a lot of growth marketing in my career. Oh, growth marketing growth. Yeah. But even before, right, like so it started as a content creator. And a lot of, like what I did, I don't think people realized was like very like intentional and algorithmic. Like a lot of my tweets seem silly, but I'm sitting there, workshopping every tweet for like an hour. Right? Like it's for me, it's actually like comedy writing. Like it was like wordplay. It's like, Oh, do you use the word really gripper? Do you use the word tight? Like, yeah, I'm sitting there. Like what is a funny or word, right? And then I land on a certain thing. So it's actually very methodical. Like I think, I think people have this impression that like, oh my god, I'm literally tweeting my stream of consciousness. And this is like, I'm like, no, this is content. Like I'm tweeting what I think is going to get 100K likes because it's going to make a lot of people laugh. It's going to make a lot of people share. It's going to make a lot of people comment and retweet. But yeah, some of my most popular tweets aren't even like actually or not sex-related at all. They're like, they're things that are like super related. Like I have a tweet that was just like unnormalized touching women's waist when you pass by them. Oh, yeah. Right. It's weird as hell. I do know like my second most like tweet ever is I was like 400,000 likes or something like that. But it's kind of yeah, like what are what are the things that a lot of people can relate to? Like having that kind of mindset. But I apply this both. Yeah, I apply this for content creation and I apply that a lot with work. Right. A lot of the work that I've done is like social media marketing, creator marketing, like when I was growing my company fan house, right? It's like, well, how do we talk about this company in a way that gets people to care? Or now working as soon, like how do we, right? Like share this company that I think is like really misunderstood in a way that feels really authentic. But you know, it's also true to the musicians and the artists and the creators that we're working with. So that's one. And then two is like. I do your own networks. Kind of what I was trying to get is like connecting with people is something that I like to do a lot. I care a lot about doing and a lot of my work rate is very like there's a lot of soft skills involved. It's a lot of just like sitting down with someone and I mean again, getting to know a person, especially working with creators, which is what I do now. Like what I care about so much is actually like what is this person's goals when I used to work with creators for fan house, which again was a creator monetization subscription platform. Like not everyone goals are the same. Like some creators come in and are like, yeah, I want to make a lot of money. So what's the best way to make a lot of money, right? And then I might tell them, yeah, well, you should enable this. This isn't that. And some people come in and are actually like, I'm pretty hesitant and I don't really know. And I just want to kind of get a feel for it and see what fits me, right? And I'll give them very different advice, which is like actually, yeah, like don't post all the time, like treat this as a secondary thing and prioritize other things in your life. Is this even the right platform for you? Like I don't know. See, a lot of people asking you for advice on posting content and like building an online brand. Yeah. Well, a lot of fan house creators at the time is like, like, what do we post to fan house or like, how do I, like, market myself online? Yeah, I get that a lot. And then now, right? Like when we work with musicians and artists, like everyone has different goals. Like some people want more of an audience, some people want more exposure, some people want. So yes, just connecting really deeply, connecting with people getting to know them and trying to just help them like do the thing that they want to do. So that's what I wrote. And then the last thing is this is a chick hatching from an egg. Yeah. What I'm trying to represent is zero to one. So I think I'm very good at taking something from nothing and to the first what have you. So like, fan house, we took from zero to 10 million in GMV, like annual GMV with zero, like, marketing dollars because it was just me grassroots, like it was just me reaching out to people, like getting people on board it. Or yeah, like tweeting about it. And I get a viral tweet, a bunch of people would sign up. Also, just like the actual product building of it, right? Like, what are the right things to build? What is, you know, what do people need and want? So they're kind of connected because it goes back to this, right? Like building things people need. So the intuition to take something from from zero to something is you have to build something that's valuable for people. Oh, three turning points in your life. Is that pen? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I mean, I had to look it up. But yeah, I would say the first one I remember is getting accepted to college. And there's actually a YouTube video on my, it's my only YouTube video ever. But it was me opening up my, like, match, like college decision results. Actually, my first viral moment when I was like 18, it has like a hundred K views on YouTube because I, yeah, I like opened this up and I just started like crying. And I remember at the time I like didn't think I was going to get into pen. Again, my, my school was like 95% minority, like 60, 70% low income, like we lived in a low income neighborhood, which means a leaf Texas, so Houston, Texas, but a leaf is an neighborhood that people in Houston call like the ghetto neighborhood. Like if you're, if you're from Houston, you know this, I think I was the first student from my high school that ever went to pen, right? So that was just not a thing that like my counselors never knew about this. There were no resources for me. My parents didn't know shit about it. And I, I had such impulsory syndrome where I just like, like, am I even that smart? I don't, like, like I literally don't know. So I was really expecting to get rejected and, and just see one of the reasons I wanted to apply to pen is because they offer full need-based financial aid, watching my parents break their back. My dream throughout high school was like, I want to go to college and not make them pay, you know, anything. So that was just as such, that was my first dream ever come true. It was such an emotional moment. My mom and I like hugged and cried. And I, and I said, - My mom was in like tear, like cry. - I know, it's in the video. I like started yelling for her. It's the first turning point in my life 'cause I think it's the first moment. I started believing in myself that I can like get out of poverty. Social mobility is really hard. Like a lot of people who are in poverty stay in poverty. Like the stats are really against kids that grow up poor, really sucks. And it makes sense, right? You don't have resources. You don't have all these things. You don't believe in yourself. You don't have people that believe in you. And I think this is the first point of my life where I was like, oh my gosh, I have a chance. My family has a chance. So it's just so many things for us. - I know, I do me. - Oh my gosh. - Is that Boba? - No, I wish. - This ends on a positive note. I promise, but it's gonna get worse before it gets better. - Okay, okay, okay. - And I think that's a theme that's actually something I really believe too if anyone watching this scoping a hard time. Like it gets better, it's better. Probably one of the biggest turning points of my life. I'm just feeling so dumbass. Is that a Boba ball? Is that Boba ball? - No, it looks like when I drew it too, I was like, "Fuck, this looks like Boba." - Is that a cake to your moly tea? Like, were are we debating? (laughing) - So it's a pillow bottle of hydrocoding because in July of 2023, three years ago now, I almost took my own life. We'll probably talk about this a bit, but I was going through just really tough things at the time. So I had been pretty depressed. I would say for a year already going into that, right? It wasn't a single moment. It was waking up every day for a year, hating yourself, thinking you've done everything wrong, thinking you're a failure, thinking you've let everyone around you down related to my company. It was a lot of falling out with my co-founders and getting demoted at my own company that I founded and one that I really cared about and feeling like I wasn't able to make decisions for my own company anymore. This was around the time when my co-founders voted against me to sell our company. And it was again, it was a company that, it was my idea. It came out of my own experiences, trying to monetize as a creator and prime for my family. So it was something I cared about. I felt like put my whole identity into and a little less so from my co-founders, it was more like, I had this idea and they were like, oh, well, we can build it. I think they saw the opportunity in it. And not to say there's anything wrong about that, there were a lot of founders that do that. It was just different for me. I wanted to do it forever. It felt like my baby. And then it felt like someone killed my baby. So yeah, the TLDR there was my co-founders voted against me and sold the company and sold it to someone in a company that I didn't think was a morally good company. And I've talked about that online. - So you're public that you think they're not morally good? - Yeah, so I felt like I lost my job, my identity got ripped from me. That led to a cascade of things that just worsen and worsen and worsen. And I, you know, I'll say it here for context. I was living at the company house at the time and my parents were living with me because, and I mentioned this, right? But my parents have never owned our entire lives. We lost our home in the '08 recession and we jumped around ever since then, basically. So they've kind of been in the state where they kind of go where their kids can support them. I did not make that much as a founder. We paid, I mean, as founders. And I think this is going to surprise so many people because our company raised $20 million. Right? I think people see that. - There's about 20 million, and recent. - Yeah, and recent. - So I think people see that. And they're like, oh my gosh, that means you have $20 million. That's not how startups work. You can't use the money you've raised for personal expenses. Like they go to company expenses. Well, I'm sure they're founders that do and then they go to jail for it. That's fine. - Oh yeah, there's the folks to jail. - Yeah, yes. Basically in the course of like a month or like a week, it just like the sale happened like this, we did not sell the company for very much at all. So, sure as always, I got nothing from that. I lost all my equity and I got nothing from the sale. I don't understand how that happens. Basically when you raise money, right? Your investors now basically hold more rights than you to any money that you earn. - Are you allowed to share your equity stake or no? - Yeah, so I had 33% in the company. So we had three co-founders, we split it equally. And then that gets diluted when you hire people when you give them equity. So I would say by the time we sold, I had probably 20% of the company. My co-founders probably own another 40%. No, like 50% actually, and then the investors own the rest. So we had raised 20 million. We had spent about five million of that in the three years that we did fan house. So we had 15 million in the bank, which, you're, yeah, if you're a founder hearing this, you're like, wait, why did you guys sell? Because 15 million is like five years runway. Like you can keep running this for a pretty long time, especially if you were generating income, which we were. But the reason why we always just, my co-founders just didn't want to do it anymore. They are what they would call entrepreneurial, or it's serial entrepreneurs, which is they basically want to jump into like pipes. Like when something is sexy, creator economy in 2021 was sexy, they jump into it in 2023, less sexy, like we don't want to do this anymore. Usually if you have a real sale process, like again, founders might know this, it takes a long time to sell a company. It could take six months to a year, 'cause you're shopping around, you're trying to find the right fit. To sell a company in less than a month is really crazy. It's crazy. And I will tell you what happened now that the lawyers are not threatening to sue me, and my co-founders literally threatening to sue me at the time. So there was very little I could say about it. Yeah, it was a, I know. It was a whole thing. Yeah, I think you really have to play the, I want to be vocal, but I also, I want to protect myself for legal reasons and safety reasons. Yes, and there are a lot of threats happening. Yes, privately. Oh, yeah. And right there, back by Andreessen, who wants their $15 million back. So it's like really fighting the industry at the time. So the only thing I was allowed to do or say was resign from the company. So that's what I did. And you can find this online. You can search the word resign on my Twitter, whatever. I resigned from the company when I found out they wanted to do the sell and I really disagreed about it and they voted against me anyways. So I resigned, which meant I didn't get even like, what's the, like I just got no compensation. Like I would have gone something if I had stayed through the acquisition, but because I made the stand, I lost, and I don't really know exactly how much I lost, but I lost something in the few hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, sort of range. And so I also don't know exactly how much they sold the company for. All I know is it was under that $5 million price point, 'cause if it's under $5 million, that goes to investors first, basically. Right. Are you open to share the compensation, the base salary you would, yeah. So when we started the company for the first six months, we didn't pay ourselves. That's the founder life, right? And so that's why I was still an investment banker at the time 'cause I needed to pay my bills. 80 until like 12 a.m. were of my rough banking hours. And then 12 to like four is when I would do the come, I just didn't sleep. That's great. Oh, I know. What a young man. Obviously regret it for a lot of health reasons I do it now, but at the time, you know, it's what I was so passionate about. I was just like, oh my God, I want to help creators make money. It was a mission I really wanted to do. So yeah, first six months, we paid ourselves nothing. And then we raised our precede, which was $1.3 million, $1.2, $1.3. And after we raised our precede, we paid ourselves $60,000 each for a year. And after a year was when we raised our series A, and we raised 20 million. And then we all got to pay raise to like 125K, something like that, like low, low six figures. When you subtract, okay, I'm supporting two parents and I'm living in LA. Was land, you have siblings. Oh yeah, and my brother, my brother, who was, sorry. I've been there too. I have my two younger brothers, all brothers. Well, he pursued medicine, which meant he made no money and still makes no money, right? And so I was trying to, yeah, provide for him too, like anything that he needed for school. Yeah, if you need a laptop, I'm going to help you get a laptop. Yeah, college like is so expensive. Yeah, because my parents are so can't. So I had no savings. I literally was like broke, like living my paycheck to paycheck at the time. And so when my co-founder sold the company, I lost my job, my income job, and I lost my creator income, 'cause I had put all of my creator income into fan house to like, hey, show like, hey, this platform is helping creators make money, really, doing the thing that you're telling. Like I believe a lot in doing the thing, you know, you're telling others to do. Had to send my parents back to Vietnam, 'cause I couldn't keep housing them anymore. Oh my God. And you're an immigrant daughter. So you, like imagine telling your parents that has lived in the US for 26 years, that they have to go back to their country. Yeah, like that's like their worst nightmare. That is like immigrant parents' worst nightmare. Yeah. So I did this thing to them, and then my mom got into an accident in Vietnam. It was a whole thing and like was, yeah, bad for a long time. So that, and then I started blaming myself. I was like, oh my God, I made so many bad decisions. I feel like my family down, like they thought that, like I thought I'd gotten us out of poverty, but here we are again. Like they don't even have a place to live. So that started that cycle, right, of like negative thinking. And then it's actually sold to buy a close friend and all of my friends, not all. People I thought were my friends at the time, took his side because he's a bigger contact creator. And we've talked about this and like I would see him, like I would see people I thought were my friends, invite him. Yeah, you know, to that knowing this. So then I started feeling like I had no friends. I started feeling like I had nobody that supported me. Also, a lot of people that turned on me because of the fan house thing, like, 'cause I couldn't say much about it online. So people are like, oh my gosh, you sold out on us. Like a lot of fan house creators, like you left. So that, like that is the antithesis of selling out. That is like I got out before they sold out. Right, well, as you know, some people saw that not everyone does. Not everyone seems to be, or not everyone just believes it. Like, okay, well, why don't you say more about it? Yeah, I can't. You're like, yeah. So there's a lot of noise there of just like, people I thought were my friends just stopped hitting me back. There's a, there can be a toxic culture in LA, which is like, people stop replying when you're less relevant, or have something to offer them, which I think when I was a founder with, you know, 20 million in the bank, everyone's hitting me up. And then when I wasn't, you don't hear back from people. So I felt really alone. I had no one but myself, and then I hated myself. So I think one more fact, there was just nothing. I don't think there is anything that. prompted it. It was just one moment where I was just like, I'm done. You don't want to do this anymore. I'd been coming up with a plan for a few months. And I was like, yeah, I have these strong painkillers, hydrocoding. They're like opioids that I had been prescribed from like a surgery a long time ago that I kept around. I'm bad at taking meds, which just met the bottle was like pretty full. And I was like, I have more than enough here to do what I need. And this is, sorry, I love to deal with hard stuff. It's kind of, it's funny to call this a funny story, but I think it becomes a kind of funny story because you know, you know Lonnie, but I got saved by a phone call from Lonnie, which is I was like, holding this bottle in my hand and I was like, this is it. I'm like, opening it. And then Lonnie calls me for no reason. He's a mutual friend of us that plays pickleball. He's like, hey, what up? Literally, literally, literally. You literally, like, I'm going on like, literally. And he doesn't even tell me that off it, you know? Maybe every few months or something like that is a hobby. What do you call it? And it just, it was enough to just take me out of that moment. Like, I think about this a lot, actually, which it's like golden gate bridge in SF. Yeah. A lot of people try to commit suicide from that bridge. They jump off, right? And what a lot of people don't know is they have installed safety nets under the bridge. So a lot of times people jump. And when they get caught by this bridge, they actually realize, like, I want to keep living. Yeah. And they don't try again a second time or write a lot of people that stand on the bridge and get pulled back from a stranger or someone smiling or someone asking him, they're okay, and then they don't try again. And that happened to me, essentially. So Lonnie called. It took me out of the moment. He just asked me, like, what are you doing? I'm so bored. I started, like, he's like, yo, I'm bored. And I started just sobbing, heaving into the phone. And I was just like, like, I think I'm, I think I'm going to do something I might regret. Can you come over? No context. That's it. He didn't even know I was like, depressing suicide all the time because I didn't, I mean, you don't tell anyone you, you feel so much shame in it, right? So no, he was like, no questions as he was like, stay on the phone with me. I'll be there in 15 minutes, came over, ended up tossing every single pill bottle, like even my add bill, my Thailand, like, everything out, this is gone. Yeah. And then I never tried again. So that is the turning point because I actually think since that I felt like I was given a lifeline and I like really took that seriously. I was like, you know what? It's in my power to make these things better for myself. Yeah. Guardian angel Lonnie. I know. And honestly, life just like started going uphill from there. Three years out now, I am the happiest that I've ever been. I feel so lucky. I feel like I have everything in life. I just keep holding out, you know, that, that like tomorrow is going to be another day. There's going to be another sunrise and another sunset. And there's always something to like look forward to. Yeah. That was that moment. And YouTube. I know. So I play YouTube because I met my husband now husband. Right. He's a YouTuber. Yeah. That was like what? I have a secret YouTube channel. I know at the Streamies, which is a YouTube event in LA. And he's the best thing that's happened to me. My favorite person, a world he is, like I would give up, again, I would give up everything. Like I would give up my arm and leg and everything I've ever owned for another day with him. I don't know what to say. He's, he's my life. So I am so, yeah, I'm so happy I stuck around to get here. Yeah. Your, your partner is the most important decision of your life. He's the best. He's the best. I'm so lucky. I feel like I another angel descended. Yeah. I feel like I treated all the good karma in my life for him. I don't know. Okay. Cool. Moving on. That's a crazy transition. All right. Next, next slide. Moving on. So this is a role models. The first one I wrote is probably my first role model is Andy. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Pudakom. He's the founder of Headspace. Oh, yeah. And Headspace was an app that I really, really loved. I like, has spent a lot of time meditating. And I think it's really helped me just like appreciate every moment, like being in the moment, right? Like, are you aware that you're breathing and how you're feeling and the things that are around you, like, you'll never have that moment again. Make the most of every moment that you have. When I was a founder, I related to him a lot because he kind of did the thing. Like, he's a very mission-oriented founder. Like, he was a monk in Tibet, something like that for like seven years. Live the life really, like, cared about it. And then came back here and was like, oh, I want to bring meditation to, like, the Western world. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think he still meditates like an hour, two hours every day. Like, he wakes up. That's the first thing he does. And then he goes surfing and he has a family. And like, I mean, obviously, I don't know him, but from what I've read and seen, I think he has a lot of his priorities and values in the right place. So he's a role model in the sense of like, here's someone that didn't think he cared about was really successful with it, but still lives in a really grounded way and like, prioritizes his family. Yeah, off topic. I do have a, someone who used to go to school with and we were project partners with. He did six months as a monk. I don't know, in career, something came back and did a six month internship at a banking company. He was like, yeah, I like reach Zen and then I raised it. I was like, brother, that's the worst sequence of events you can choose, but that's New York for you. That is so, I mean to each there on that. Yeah. That's what you're passionate about by all means, right? I hope he's happy. I hope he's happy. The second one is actually my boss at work, current boss at work. His name is Paul Sinclair. Yeah. So Paul is the chief music officer at Soonal. And he is someone that has been in the music industry like 20 plus 25 plus years, like all his life. He used to be like a GM general manager at Atlantic Records, but what I love and respect so much about him is he treats everyone genuinely like he cares about you. Like it doesn't matter who you are or how senior junior you are, like if you want 30 minutes with Paul, he's going to sit down and really like listen to your story. Like he is such an empathetic person. He's such a kind, like always has a smile on him. Like my first, he was one of the first people I met the company where I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel so safe with this man. And then I put his daughter here too because she is a musician, like super sweet, such as talented girl. And he has this quote, I think he's done for a billboard article that we think the same thing, which is his quote was he wakes up every day and tells himself like don't ruin music. He has a daughter who's trying to be in this space. So whatever it is that he's building today directly impacts her and he wants to build something that is a better future for her and for musicians like her. So he just wakes up and he's like, yeah, like we're at the forefront of technology. We're at the forefront of stuff that is changing the landscape both in positive and also in really scary ways, right? And I think it's really important to acknowledge that hey, there is a wrong way to do this. And how do we make sure we don't do this the wrong way? And so that is something that really stuck with me. And I think he's just a great dad. Like it doesn't matter how busy he is. Like I don't know if this man sleeps. Like he's always making time to be with his daughters. Like whatever college he wants to go. Yeah. Yeah. He has another daughter as well. But yeah, I really respect people that like at the top of their field care about what they do. Again, he's so passionate about it and make time for for things outside of work, right? Things in the life that ground you for me again, that's family. So that's Paul. And then the last one in the last year. Maybe honestly, maybe the biggest one is Eng. Last Airbender. I hope I can put fictional characters here. Eng anything is my favorite care. Well, after last Airbender is my favorite show of all time and Eng is my favorite character of all time. He represents all the ways I want to like live my life, like values, friendship and like kindness and like, you know, trying to do good for the people around you. And I think this is maybe an underrated aspect for Eng, but forgiveness and empathy. So if you've watched the show. Hi, this is a quick heads up for a spoiler. If you don't want to hear it, please skip to the next section, eggs entire tribe of people get wiped out by the fire nation. And he has every reason to be a hateful person. I mean, he has every reason to be bitter to want vengeance. I think there are a lot of movies and shows that like glorify vengeance and violence against the people that have hurt you. I don't know to each their own. But again, I've just never been that type of person. I actually like what I've been hurt. I I really want to forgive. And I in it's not easy. And not everyone like you don't owe your forgiveness to everyone. Obviously, I don't know. It's like an eye for an eye like makes a world go blind. But like I think we see it over and over again, which is just like people justify violence. And then the next person justifies violence. And then and then it's atrocities just being committed everywhere. I think something so stayed with me is when Ang had the fight scene with fire Lord Ozai, which is an incredible fight scene by the way. And like and he was grappling with this across the series to like he was having nightmares about it because everyone around him was like, you need to kill him. You need to kill fire Lord Ozai. And he literally came up with a solution on his spot that was actually like, yeah, justice, like took away fire Lord Ozai's power. But yeah, like didn't involve violence actually because he was a monk and he was just like, well, is there another way to this? I really love that he just found this other way to like peace and like stability and like forgiveness and and not, you know, and not using the pain to justify hurt against others is really beautiful for me. Five years. Oh my gosh, it's really forgot. I got so passionate about this kind of thing. Oh, so in five years, I mean, I kind of talk about this, but all I want in five years is I want a family. So this is my husband. And I hope in five years, we'll have two kids. That's what we'd like to have. And I've drawn, I've drawn like trees and flowers because we really love gardening. I think there's something so special about, yeah, like creation and creating something something in the world. I don't know. I think nothing beats eating produce that you've planted and grown into the world. But yeah, this is about we just planted a fig tree. So I hope it's I hope it I hope it fruits in five years. This is our dog down here. I hope piece alive in five years. Hopefully. Something so important to me in my life because I've never had is just home ownership and like stability and like family childrake. Yeah and like yeah my dream for so long is just like owning a home that we can call as ours that we'll always have and never worry like oh can we make rent can we make mortgage. So just like financial stability is what this represents to and then I do some music notes because I hope like I you know this but I love singing I grew up singing and I hope music. Your knock of hell yeah I did I did choir in high school acapella in college but I hope music stays a part of my life and I mean I love honestly I love my job right now and like in five years I still see myself as you know like I I feel like this is something that I feel so invigorated doing that I feel like I can do for a really long time so so continue to grow in all of those aspects but yeah if check back on five years and see we have two little two little kiddos running around. Have a Google calendar reminder yeah well thank you for your personal shields. Yeah I want to go back to fan house and hear more about your spins I know you shared a lot definitely one of those like Game of Thrones Silicon Valley things going on between Ellie and San Francisco but I wanted to hear more about what was the most challenging hardest thing from that experience. Losing the company I really cared about and not having any choice in that and you know feel feel like I lost even people in my life um was very hard but actually equally hard was what felt like betrayal. So a little bit of context is I started this company with someone that was my boyfriend at the time. So we dating first. We dated first and we dated we dated for like three months before we started this company together which looking back you know what probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but like you're in love and then you're you're excited about this vision and like and and for me specifically which is like why went I went to Penn which is and I was warden undergrad so that was very like business focus like it was really like a finance consulting feeder school so I knew a lot about my enhanced I knew nothing about tech at the time actually both of my co-founders and my boyfriend at the time was a Stanford grad whose dad was an entrepreneur so it was just like a person that had a lot of perspective I didn't have so it felt like the right fit but honestly mostly we were just like oh we're in love and everything is good and so we really trust each other and there was a lot of love there like there was a lot of love there was a lot of trust which I think obviously makes a hurt more when it all comes crumbling down a lot of it was easy when you're dating right because you agree on the same things you have the same vision and you know so on but well there there are also a lot of hard things in different ways and I actually would never do it again like I would actually and I've given friends this advice like I had a friend that was thinking about doing something with like a boyfriend that was like not that and I was just like don't don't do it because being co-founders is like a marriage I don't know if people realize that but it's like you will spend so much time with this person for I mean if this company goes years and years like it could be 10 plus years it could be 20 plus years right and you make huge decisions together like the type of person you want to decide on amounts of money like 20 million dollars what do we do with this who do we hire what's the direction the company should go in like there's so many things that I think are equal to like where should I where should our kid go to school where should our kid grow up it's kind of like that yeah and so you need to trust the people you're building with so much I don't think a lot of people realize this but I think it's some crazy stat that's like 75% of companies don't work out because of co-founder relationships like that many there's that many co-founder breakups actually because yeah it's it's just easy to disagree on stuff and then money's on the line he was on the line and it can get really toxic so it was a lot of fun until we broke up and so we broke up two years into the company and then that's basically when he started disagreeing with things that you know I wanted to do like I wanted to like serve the creators that we had we had something like 4,000 creators on platform at the time that we're making money what I wanted to do was like hey they're asking for features they're they have these problems let's prioritize those features let's like build for these people that we have and I'm not saying this that there's a right or wrong it's just different but my two co-founders were very like no we should build for our next 100,000 creators and so actually that means ignoring what these people want and making bets to attract a new market right and and again I say that there's no wrong because sometimes those are decisions you have to make you have to build if you want to grow and I think I I didn't realize this at the time but I think I'm what I would call lifestyle founder like a lifestyle business yeah same yeah lifestyle yeah and what that means is if if I am just working on a company that is at 10 million GMV forever and it's never a billion dollar company I'm okay with that that's great I'm more yeah I am willing to be great more than happy with that and for some people that's not ambitious enough for my founders that was not ambitious enough they wanted to be billion dollar companies and so we have to do things differently so everything needs to be a billion dollar company for real for real and I actually have a hot take that I think a lot of creator companies shouldn't be because if you're serving your creators well actually then then you serve that one market really well and you you kind of stays to as healthy and stagnant at that size but I think the VC world and and this is the whole you know thing with tech but like once you take VC money I think you kind of like the six I'm sorry once you take VC money I didn't need to I didn't need to know my brother once you take VC money you kind of are get into binary outcomes is what I think which is we raise 20 million at a 135 million valuation what that means is the investors that have just put 20 million dollars in your company want you to be worth 10X what they invested at if you invest out 135 million they want you to be 1.3 billion that's how they get their money back that's that's the business that they're in otherwise they're wasting their time so you get a lot of investor pressure from people that put a ton of money being like well no yeah you need to do this you need to capture that that might not be at the core of what you care about or want to build I think I mentioned this but to the point where like both of my co-founders ended up demoting me from chief marketing officer to an IC role well yeah they demoted me from what being an executive like I don't even know I don't think I got a new role it was just I was no longer chief so they sat you down one day and they're like you're getting demoted yeah and the reason I mean there were a lot of little things I think one was just like we really disagreed about how to build the team it's it's so interesting to say this which is like I'm gonna derail for a little bit but like fanhouse started out of my own social media experiences right so I built a following online or when we started fanhouse I had like 30,000 followers on Twitter something like that and I was making a few thousand a month from this like small core of the community through yeah like monetization and stuff like that right a lot of the early companies came out of my own experiences of like well I get a lot of message requests so maybe we should right like have a feature that people pay in order to like get a response right because you can't reply to like if you're getting hundreds of DMs a day yeah so that's one way to make money or like right I had a lot of extra content that I put didn't put on main that I put on you know my private like my finster basically yeah and that's where fanhouse was born was like okay well people want this extra content with you so here's a place that they can pay to access yeah that that's how it started and that's how we grew to yet 10 million GMV was a lot of creators that looked like me and had similar stories like me we had a lot of Twitter creators we had a lot of streamers we had a lot of female creators because those were the people that we were building for that I understood the most right and then basically the company was kind of like well we want to get these other people that we know which is like men and podcasters and youtubers and I mean the creator space is there's so many different types of people right so many and so they were like well Rosie we don't think you're the right face of the company when we're trying to target these people because brand at the time which was yet this female positive sex positive sort of brand I think they started looking down on it they started being like yeah like we don't really this association is like not good for our company was basically the thesis and again I'm not saying that that's right or wrong like maybe they're right but that sucked that sucked to hear from from people that benefited a lot from my brand and that I thought again like supported me and like believe the thing right believes in the same things that I like was fighting for so anyways that that was kind of the context around where they were just like yeah like we don't think you should be making decisions for the company did you fight back like not that much I mean we had been fighting so much like boy got there that I started I think I started becoming just a lot more passive in the company like I was just tired of fighting and while I also felt like I was fighting losing battle because it was two against one right and we have equal equity so I was trying to make my peace with like what little influence I can have which is like well I really love this company I want to keep it going and if this is what it takes to keep it going I'm gonna swallow my ego like if this is what it takes is they get to make the cause then then I'm gonna do it and then obviously that was a mistake because then they just sold the company but yeah I think the betrayal a lot for me was like they did they did a lot of the sale behind my back like they were like emailing companies about selling the company without telling me um and then lied to me about about a lot of things and then I found out and I was like I'm gonna resign and it was like again my ex someone that I had a lot of love for still and like again someone I had seen a future with threatened to sue me and like lied about that too was like oh like tries to tell me you can't even resign he was like actually if you resign we have because you sign NDAs and stuff like we can sue you um for like all the like all that you're worth sort of what yeah good go wrong did go wrong yeah like really strong army me and obviously again I believed him oh and and I had good friends at the time that was like no Rosie don't believe that get yourself representation I like had to get a lawyer that then told me no you can fucking resign you can publicly resign if you want you can make a tweet about resigning if you want as long as you're not going into like private company details. How? Yeah. And I was like, you literally lie to my face. - There's a lot of stuff controlling and then they do it. - Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. And like, I sail this again with like, I really understand where they're coming from. - Okay. (laughing) - Sorry. - Excuse me. Then we got Budo right here. - Oh my God. - Okay, what else is being a founder is so hard? - Yes. - Being a founder is I think, it feels like punching yourself in phase 50 times 'cause things don't work more than they. Like you never win as a founder because there's always more growth. There's always more things to do, right? The second you hit a milestone, it's, well here's the next one, especially again, when you're a VC company, it's just always. A series B, now it's a series C. Now you have to get the metrics to the IPO and everyone's. - So it's exhausting. And so I can empathize a lot because, especially because they weren't as passionate as I am about the mission, which is like, it just stops being fun. Like I don't think anyone should be forced to, you know, be a founder of something they don't believe in anymore. - Yeah. - Especially you get to really valid that they didn't want to work on the company. And so they're, the decision they came to was we should sell the company. I think that's a really valid thing to take, sucks for me. That hurts, but I understand where it came from. What was really hard for me to forgive for a long time was just yeah, like again, the lying, the manipulation, the kind of strong arming. And I'm sure like my founders were getting advice from the investors on how to handle these situations that they trusted because yeah, that's what the investors are there for. And again, also like I understand why the investors gave that advice 'cause they were trying to look out for their own pockets and their own jobs. - And it was just like, I mean, just so many little things about like being a woman in tech. - Yeah, do you think I would be different if you were a man? - I do. - I do. - Because one of the conversations I remember having was I was like, if my two co-founders went out but I wanna keep doing this, why can't I become CEO and run the company? Maybe if there's a woman, I don't know, maybe because I'm thinking incompetent and they just didn't have a lot of trust in me, but they said, what did they say? But the end result was just they were just like, we don't think you can do this. But I get it, right? If you're an investor trying to do risk analysis, like, oh, this was a three person company, two co-founders who are a technical girl are gonna leave and like this person has no technical background, like gonna be really hard for me to do it. So I can see where the risk analysis for them were like, we just want our $15 million back, right? That's a lot of money to get back. And yeah, and I don't know, like maybe if I was a man, I would be different. I mean, obviously if I had a technical background, I think that would be different. But I do think I got the sense sometimes that yeah, a little like little womaning of like, oh, you're the content creator and you're the girl online. We don't really take you that seriously a little bit, like even in the founding of the company, like it took me a year to fight for equal equity. I, the first offer my two co-founders gave me to join the company was two percent equity. Two percent? Two percent equity. That is disrespectful. Yeah, again, I didn't just didn't know that much about the tech world. I came into and what they were telling me is like, yeah, like marketing is not as important a role as like technical. So like that's why like you're, you know, you're a marketer. It's a little bit of that, you know, and I tried to like do some research and I was like, no, that doesn't feel right. Like this is literally like you guys don't have any market share without me. Exactly. Like you guys cannot get any creators without me. And so I came back and I remember when we started the company actually, like this is like an official documents, I have 20% equity and they both have 40. So they both had double my equity. And it took me a year of like, yeah, like I was hitting all these metrics and I was like, I don't think this feels fair. Actually, like I feel like I'm driving all of our revenue and I was and I want equal equity and that had to be, that was conversations that was like co-founded therapy. Just exhausting. Yeah, so, so that we came into like a context like that already. So again, I think by the third year, I was just like, I don't want to fight anymore. Like what is the biggest lesson you learned? Around building a company that's so many things. I think building a team is so important. I have a lot of regrets around honestly the people we hired. And I just think we hired people that weren't good fits. Like we hired a lot of people that came from like big companies, right? Mind you, we started this company straight out of college. So I'm 22. I'm 22 hiring like 40 year old guys that came from, you know, TikTok and came from CAA. And we're basically like, oh yeah, I know what I'm doing. Like I've done this for 20 years and you cut that line. And you cut that line. And you kind of believe them or I, I was naive. I just didn't know how to do this. I was like, oh yeah, he has an impressive resume. Like I didn't even realize people lied on their resume. So I was like, that naive, right? But yeah, we hired people that then came in and like, didn't do anything. They just sat there and took salaries. Yes. Like I would see my employees at like Coachella on like, and they didn't take time off, right? And I was like, well, that doesn't seem right. One, I wish we just were more rigorous and hiring. And actually, this is something I say now, but I think hiring is like dating. Again, it's very similar. It's like you're picking someone to work with very closely for a long time. Exactly. If they're the right fit, right? And you're gonna meet with them every day. You're gonna work on it more. You're gonna disagree. Can you resolve conflict together? So actually, you have to treat it with the same rigor and scrutiny as like, can I date this person for three years, right? Can I work with this person for three years? I was higher fast. Yeah. So I think we hired too fast. Was a big mistake that I, you know, I've really tried to learn now. And I like doing trials. Yeah, even in the company startup culture, tech, it's always trials. Yes. Again, back to like the impacts, like we paid out $20 million to creators, right? Like I remember every single story of creators on fan house messaging me and like Rosie, like you helped me get through like law school. Like you helped me like pay my medical bills. Like you helped me quit like this job that I hate. Like you helped me like my groceries. Like that is so, so, so meaningful to be able to do for someone that's gonna stay with me forever. Like I would do it all over again for those people that we were able to just help their life like be a little better. Yeah. That is awesome. And it was just so rewarding. Like I, yeah, I learned so much. I got so much out of it. Like I just feel so grateful. What is you, what was the biggest learning for yourself as, as Rosie, the human? So I think one thing that I actively try now just because of that turning point, you know, pill bottle story is not attaching myself worth to external accolades, right? It's a scary game to play. Right, which is like, yeah, $20 million, that, that's not actually yours, right? Like anything can like disappear so fast. And I think so much of my identity and self-worth was tied into being a founder. And like this company was everything to me that I lost such, I lost such a big sense of self for myself. And now I actually really pride myself on things completely unrelated to work like soup. Yeah, yeah. But I try to pride myself of like, am I a good friend? Am I a good wife? Am I there for the people around me? I'm a lot more impressed by this version of me now than by raising $20 million. I agree. I think Eric and I just had an episode on Jomo talking about our failures. And it was really hard for me to pinpoint exact failures because at the end of the day, if you show up to your day and you put your best foot forward and you're proud of the way you treat yourself and the people around you, how can you be more successful than that? Yeah. We are how we show up and who treat others. Like that's it. That's the human in us. There's nothing more. Everything else is extra credit. Everything else is like, oh, that's cool too. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, that is a great revelation for myself. You know, we're the immigrant children. We're just, we're chip on our shoulder. Yeah, I know. Put on our bio, Forbes 30 and under 30. We say, "Eck big company, ex-fang, ex-tech, ex-finance." We have all these headliners, but that comes from a place of, I needed to show my value. Yeah. And once you meet too many people, you have who live by headlines. Yeah. When it comes down to at the end of the day, the most important things are all the things that you said. Like, did I try today? Yeah. If you can go back to Phanhas Rosie. Yeah. What would you tell her? Oh my gosh. So we had the choice when we raised our $20 million. I didn't finish this story. And again, we were 23. Learning what a series is for the first time. We had the choice of selling the company for around $20 million, instead of raising $20 million, right? Okay. Again, the difference is if we had sold for $20 million, at the time we owned like 30% of the company. So actually like $5 million, give or take, actually would have ended up in my pocket. That's like life-changing. Yes. Yes. And by, I'm like, my God, I wish I had that amount of money. Like it would, you know, make a lot of, like my parents wouldn't have had to fucking be sent back to Vietnam. Like there were so many things that would have been easier for my family. But instead, right, my founders again, serial entrepreneurs were like, taking VC money gives you the chance of growth, or it gives you the chance of being a lot more valuable than $20 million and be a billion dollars. We took that chance and then I made a second mistake, which is we were offered secondaries. So if you don't know, secondaries mean selling your equity for money that like, that does go into your pocket. And I said, no, just because I didn't know what secondaries were at the time. And neither of my founders took it. So I was like, well, if they didn't take it, I'm not going to take you there. And that was also life-changing money. And I don't have it. That's okay, because now I find my joy in other things. But if I could go back, it's a trick question though. If theory, I would change it, but also in reality, I would change nothing, because I would change nothing prior to meeting my husband. So if I did anything differently and I didn't meet him, like, no, I would do everything exactly the same. All the pain, I would take it all over again, 'cause I wouldn't trade John for a trillion dollars. Like it doesn't matter. There's nothing, again, nothing in the world I wouldn't give up for him. I have to do things exactly as they were for us to be here now. That's true. Yeah, the money will come. I think that is in your 20s, you're meant to grind and make mistakes and fail and have this lore. Yeah. What is so fascinating about the way that you oppose your career? I don't think I've ever seen anything like it or to the scale that you delivered at, but you took viral marketing to the next level. Like it brought so much conversion to the company. It also created a huge public presence. There's a speaking at E. every single panel and being online everywhere. And you really know how to go viral, as you mentioned before, you really think about as a content piece, yet word play. I'm curious to hear what has approaching your career in this way, being so public, bringing everything online. What has that given you in opportunities? And what has that made you face the consequences of? Because it's a double-edged sore. - Oh my gosh. - And a lot of us are secretly very opinionated, but also we're really scared to put it out there 'cause we're not willing to deal with the consequences, but we'll never know what those bring us either. - Yeah. - Yes, it's always a what if. - Yeah. - You have lived out the what if. - I mean, I feel like everything I have, at least material today is thanks to social media, like my entire career, like became a content creator in college, like had this following, and then through that, met my co-founders, and was able to start a company, and like even raising our series, like this isn't some of the articles, but a lot of our investors invested in us because of my online presence, because they were like, oh shit, here's just doing something here. - Yeah, here's a girl that understands content that has a huge creator network, and then it's also, I mean, the downsides of it, as I mentioned too, which is like, it's hard to be vulnerable online. Not everyone makes content that's actually about their personal life I did. I shared a lot of stories about being low-income in college, right? I shared a lot of stories about being a founder. I shared a lot of like vulnerable things, and not everyone online uses that information, like a lot of people tried to hurt you online, right? Like they don't like you for whatever reason. They, there were a lot of people that hated me because I was so sex-positive. Like so many people, again, like slut-shaming is very normal. Again, the kind of DMs I would get, got really, really scary. Like I used to get death threats, right threats, unsolicited depicts, and those are things that you see, and it affects your fucking mental health. Like every hate comment, every hate DM that you happen to see, like even if logically you're like, these are people that know nothing about me. It like hurts, and it stays with you, because your brain is worried to care about what people think about you, because we used to live in tribes of 30 people or so, and feedback we got was actually really important to survival. Like feedback, like someone telling you, hey, you need to get up and hunt at 6 a.m. in the morning, actually made a difference to your life. So your brain is evolved to care, but like, oh, this is crucial to my survival. What do these people think about me? But especially when you're a content creator, and it's tied to your income, which it was for me, right? Like half my, like so much my income came from my fan house earnings at the time. So you actually have to please this audience, too. You have to make them love you. And I think it's really easy to start losing a sense of self. Like a lot of content creators can talk about this, right? Where it's like, the audience Pavlovs you. That makes sense, right? So Pavlov is the study with the dog where every time you, if you ring a bell, you give a dog a treat, you train it to every time, it hears a bell, it starts salivating. In a lot of ways, audience content creators get trained by the audience and the algorithm. Oh, you're screaming on Twitch. When you do this, you hear the subscription sound. You do more of that thing. My sex tweets are what do the best. So I need to do more sex tweets. I need to be more raunchy. I need to be more provocative. I need to be more shocking. And it's actually, like you said, it's actually such a small part of my dinner. I don't care that much about it. But it became like my brand and my presence. And it's because it was what was most profitable. Like that was what helped me grow the most. That's what like the algorithm picked up. It's so hard to walk away from something that's giving you everything. But it's like, there's a song by Billie Eilish that I love, which is called "Everything I Wanted." I mean, right, she's like someone that became famous very, very early. And I think she struggles a lot with mental health because I mean, very similar things. I think every, every young musician that goes to fame struggles with this because you can never please the audience. And so she, this song is just about like, "Hey, I woke up and I have everything I wanted." And like it's like the most miserable I've ever been as well. And like Charlie Demelio has had a similar quote which is like, "The only thing worse than losing everything I have tomorrow is everything's staying exactly the same." Like people are so cognizant of the unhappiness, like being so public online gives them. And it's just like that double-edged short. 'Cause again, I made so many friends from it. Like my husband threw it. I like found it a company through it. There's so much beauty in that. But I think for me is like, just finding that balance of like, okay, what is true to me? Like if no numbers were involved, what is the thing that I wanna say? And that was really hard to figure out for a long time. What do you think that the rules are that women have to play by if they wanna go online, especially if they're like a tech-ish background versus men? - I mean, for a long time, like I think when I started content creation, I felt like women were more limited in the things that they could say. Like I actually think like right if a man made a sex joke, like no big deal. Like they do it all the time. - Yeah, they do it all the time with each other. Like but the second a woman makes a sex joke, it's again, it's like, oh my god, this is everything you are. And I think it's less about, maybe less about rules now. Like I actually think, I mean content creation has changed so much as a spear. And I think there are types, like female content creators all over the place. But I think what women deal with is I think a lot of people love to put women in boxes more. So something I struggled with a lot, right? And actually like again, I tried to make a lot of tweets that were not sex tweets. Like I try to make tweets about college and my startup and like being a founder. And it's part that like a lot of them just didn't get as many likes. So not as many people saw them. I don't, I also think there's a part like no matter how many times I say like, hey, I care a lot about being in tech. I care a lot about like, yeah, like I graduated from college. I cared a lot about my education. I cared a lot about like all these other things. All people saw me was like, oh, the sexy content creator. Like, oh, because I talk about sex is it like felt like indicated everything else that I cared about. Like there are adult content creators online, right? That get put into a box very, very quickly. But I think way more if they're women than when they're men. Like I actually think male content creators can like have an only fans and do other stuff. And it's fine and less so for women. So I think it's a little more unforgiving how the internet treats you when you don't act the way that they expect you to act. I really like how you share a lot more about, you know, all other parts of your life. Your love for singing and artistry and music, your career updates. But last year there was an infamous post that you shared about working at Suno but also loving that you grew up singing and that you want to build for musicians. Your reaction was like kind of rough. It was kind of rough. What was that experience like for you? 'Cause you are a veteran in this space. Yeah. It was like 20 plus million views type of thing. And for people that don't know, I got a lot of hate and understandably so, honestly. Like I think AI is a really controversial topic. I think a lot of people are worried and scared about AI. I am one of those people. Like there are a lot of things about AI that scare me that I don't support and that I don't think, right? Like are things that we want for the future generations. But yeah, I grew up singing, I love singing. The TLDR was, yeah, I was at this company, Cantina. And I think it was, yeah, great healing is in a lot of ways. I just wasn't that passionate about the product. And I think something I learned about myself is I really wanna be passionate about what I'm working on. Like I missed that about being a founder, which is like when I became a founder and yeah, did all those hours while I was in banking, I did it 'cause I was like, I have to do this right now. Like I have to give this experience to other people and help people make money. Like that felt like my calling. Anyway, so, so sooner reached out to me. And this is a true story of my experience. I got on soon as you try it for the first time. When I was a kid, I used to wanna be a songwriter, right? Like when, when it's like those projects, like, oh, what do you wanna be when you grow up? I did a project where I was like, I wanna be a songwriter. I wrote a song, I like performed it to my class. Yeah, and I was like, okay, like here's this, like where do I go from here? And I begged my parents for piano. Like I wanted so badly to like learn how to play so that I could sing. Obviously we could. And a Ford piano, we couldn't afford piano classes. And then at some point, you know, and I'm sure there are so many people that can relate to this, but you kind of just forget that that was dream and you focus on other things, right? 'Cause it just wasn't like, there was no support there. I was like writing something like third grade, third grade through sixth grade. Like sixth grade was like the last year. So I had these poems and I had like voice memos from like way back when to. And the first thing to do was I uploaded one of these voice memos from like, I don't know, 2008 kind of thing. And so it had the melody of me just singing of this chorus like that I wrote. And then I wrote the lyrics and just, you know. And then it created something and I played it back. And I like started tearing up. 'Cause I was like, oh, this is what it might have sounded like if I pursued a music career, who knows, right? Obviously I didn't, but it, that experience like healed some part of this inner kid in me that was like, it just reminded me, oh my gosh, you loved music. And then it got me, like, and then I ended up buying a piano. 'Cause I was like, you know, it's never too late to start your fucking dreams. And I want to learn piano and now I can afford a piano. So I'm gonna start learning. So that experience got me to start self teaching myself chords. And now I can play chords and sing, you know. And like, it's never gonna go beyond that, but it's like a really meaningful experience for me. Yeah. So I had this experience and then I was just like, oh my gosh, like, I wanna bring this to like other people that, and another kids that might be sitting there being like, oh my god, I love music. And I don't know where to get started. Or I wanna make music and I don't know how to get started. Or I don't have the resources or the money to get started, right? 'Cause I think a truth about the music industry is so many people that are doing well, like, come from places with resources. They have parents that were in the music industry or they get signs of labels. And it's really, really hard to make it. Obviously, they're exceptions. Obviously, there are rappers, right? That come from nothing and are able to make it. And that is so, so amazing. But I don't think people realize how many more rappers that came from nothing that never make it. Because you don't hear about them. And there are so many more about that, right? We talk about social mobility. So anyways, I had this experience and I was like, I have to do this. Like, I really, really, really, really want to work on this and bring this more people. I love it. Honestly, I tell everyone I think is one of my favorite jobs. 'Cause I think it's the kind of company where I feel like everyone I get to work with has a similar story. And that's why they came to do it. Like, I took a pay cut to come to, you know, 'cause I was like, I love this product so much. And I think we have so many people on the team that are like musicians, that like grew up playing, like classically trained pianist. right? Or like our product manager used to score for Hans Zimmer. Like he is a producer. That's crazy. Yeah, for three years. For three hundred. Yeah. Like people who are like so, so skilled at what they do and like have some experience with their product where they're like, oh my god, this is like a life-changing experience. I really, really love the team that I get to work with. It's like my favorite thing about the company. I think so anyways, I made this post about that experience like growing up, loving singing, not having the resources, this dream falling off, and then playing with sooner and being like, oh my gosh, this felt really beautiful. And it got a lot hate. It got a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of hate. And I think for a lot of people, the post came really tone death because a lot of people were like, well, actually if you couldn't get a piano, you could have done XYZ to make music. Oh, you could have gotten on GarageBand. GarageBand is free. I know what a f**king laptop. First of all. And I was nine years old. That's crazy. Like, I don't know. But it's just again, like not my experience. Like I was in ESL trying to learn English for the first time. Yeah. But a lot of people were like, actually, yeah, you could have done it in all these ways. Like it doesn't have to be soon. So there was a lot of that. I think soon is a really misunderstood company because people think of us as evil AI company that hates musicians. You guys are trying to replace musicians. None of you understand musicians, right? That's all that you think about the company. You've never really like used it or talked to people that like seriously use it and like the impact it has. So you have this negative thing going in. And then you see someone that's talking about a music background that's right that someone that's being like, oh my god, I love music so much. I've done it on my life supporting the evil music company. And then you get really mad. You're like, oh my god, that's so hypocritical. You can't say you love music and then do this thing. So then people, a lot of people are just like, oh my god, how much did this company pay you to say this? You're lying out of your teeth. Like you sold out, you're a faker. And again, I didn't get paid. I don't need it because I really, really loved what I was doing and believed what I was doing. And I think there is a lot of stuff about again, AI and AI music that is scary. Like I again, my job as you know, is working with creators and musicians and artists and specifically independent musicians, right? So people, not scientists, labels, people that are on the smaller side like maybe you only have a few thousand followers online trying to pursue music, not making a lot of money. And so I like absolutely like I hear stories all the time where it's good and bad in the past, right? If you're a songwriter, yeah, you have to give your song to an artist. You have to give your song someone else. Ghost by Justin Bieber was written by someone that actually lost their grandma, that was their story. Yeah, they have to give it to the big artists to, you know, sing their song. And and again, like that's works for some people. But there are some songwriters that are like, I wish I could hold on to my song, right? Because I wrote it and it's my story. And so a lot of songwriters have found this empowerment and like being able to, yeah, here's my lyrics, here's my melodies, like, help me underpain it, right? Help me help me come up with, you know, piano and guitars and so on. And some of the songwriters that have more resources, what they do is they'll go and hire people and re-record, right? Which I think is a beautiful thing, right? Like awesome. Like take the tool and still create like beautiful things out of it that is inherently human in nature. And there are some songwriters again, like really small people that don't make any money that are living paycheck to paycheck that are like, I cannot afford to pay an entire band and a bunch of singers for this song that I wrote without like basically just selling the rights to their song. Like they want to be able to hold on to the song. So for you, what is the mission of the essence of artistry and music that you do want to retain as you know? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, like human at the end of it all. Like exactly like you say, no, no one wants to replace musicians. Like I love music, right? And I don't want to live in a world without music. I don't want to live in a world without musicians. When it comes to artistry, actually, I actually don't think artistry can be separated from like the human heart. Like so much of music is about the connection, about the story, about the feelings, about the life that you've had that you're that you're pouring out into this into either these melodies or these lyrics or what have you. Like actually, I'm a Taylor Swift fan. I think a lot of people would agree, like it's way less her melodies or her whatever that captures an audience, but it's her story. It's the world that she's built. The experience, the human experience that you've had that you're sharing with me, right? And if there was no person behind that, then that meaning really, like, isn't there in the same way. And I think what's interesting is like, I think our mission is, yeah, is we want everyone to be able to experience what it's like to make music, right? It's to get to experience creativity. And if they fall in love with music to become musicians, right? If you fall in love with making a song for the summer soon, develop that skill more, like go pick up an instrument, like go collab with people, like go sing, like go go do more of this in your world. Like that's what we want to get people to. And there are a ton of casual use cases, right? Like I think again, people see soon as this like, oh, all people do is type in a one sentence prompt and they get a full song and that song is like a billboard 100. That's actually, I don't think that's how artistry works. Like I think if you're someone using a bot to just write a bunch of songs and you're just publishing 5,000 songs a day and then you flood DSPs with the 5,000 songs, I don't think that's artistry actually. Because do you even know the songs that you're putting out? Like do you care about them? Like is your experience like, was that you trying to self-expression? Or was it just like a quick cash grab? I don't care about bots making music. I'm not trying to platform bot. I think what people don't realize is a lot of people using, you know, is a person with a story. I think art cannot be like confined or defined. Like I think art is self-expression and because it's self-expression, you can't tell someone what self-expression is, right? Like, so for some people it's poetry, right? For some other people it's it's drum loops and it's able to and it's like putting beats up. And for other people like me, it's singing. And what I think is really beautiful of the product is whatever it is that you love, you can make that into something more on soon. We partner with this charity called Songs of Love. Their mission is trying to help seniors with dementia regenerating their memory. And again, I think that's a valid use case. Like and what a lot of those seniors are using is pumps a song, which is the thing that a lot of people are like, oh, that's not artistry, that's not whatever. Go watch a video of this woman. I think her name is Joanne or Joan. And there's a video of her, yeah, like listening to this song she created and tearing up because it captured some of the emotions that she's feeling like, like the loneliness that she's dealing with that nothing else was able to capture for her before. And I actually I look at that and I'm like, that's artistry. I think you can disagree with that. But I care so much about just again, these human stories and these individuals and how this is able to like do something positive for them. And that is ultimately like why I wake up every morning really. Before we wrap, for better, for worse, every company does this. We must conduct your performance review on Office Drama. Legally, this does not affect your compensation, your job title, anything of the like, but it might affect your aura. So it's just rapid fire. Give me a quick opinion. And then I will assess how you performed on today in general and with your answers. Would you rather be right or promoted? Neither? What? Oh, I wanted to, I want to always be working on something I believe in. Okay. Does that mean you're, doesn't that mean you're right? Not in the like, oh, you're wrong and I'm right. Yeah. I feel like I believe in this. And if I don't believe it and there's a fire pay, I probably wouldn't take that. Right. But I, but I think I could work on something I believe in and be wrong. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That is bare. Okay. Hard question. But anyways, would you be down and make a million dollars, but you'd have to become a course person? A million dollars? If I thought the course was helping people, should filming a day in my life working in tech be banned or permitted in the office? These are hard questions. Anything that could be creative just shouldn't be banned. Are you living with main character energy or are you in your NPC era? I think NPC. I'm living in my life. If you imagine someone happily 35, that's me. It's giving him a little crossing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be, I want to be like an NPC in Stardew Valley. Oh, yeah. That's my dream life. Meetings before 10 a.m. Human rights violation or a personal problem? Personal problem. No one's ever a great with me. Out of 100% for a promotion, what percentage is skill and what percentage is visibility? 6040. 60 skill and 40 visibility. Is Gen Z cooked or trainable in the workplace? It depends on the person. If I had to pick one, I think kind of cooked and it sucks. Okay. Rough. Is any PR? Good PR? No matter how bad it is. No. Gun to your head. You can only pick one. Hotpot, miso soup or chicken noodle soup. Hotpot. All right. She has a clear favorite. That is it, Rosy. Thank you for joining us today. I am giving you an XT's expectation. That was like a D performance. No, I mean, it was the whole performance of the day. And also, you just gone through a lot of shit. I'm just happy for you being here and I'm happy you're back here in LA hanging out. I think I think they're tricky conversations to have and I think they're important conversations to have. So if we don't talk about it, then we can't solve it. Yeah. So honestly, like all the hate that I've gone, I don't really mind because I think it's valid. I think it was so important to see what people are afraid of so we can not do those things and build different things. And yeah, like all these stories that people share, like would you, Rosy, want to come back for a future of this stuff? Oh my god. I had so many more questions to ask you. Well, I love hanging out with you. I don't know if you understand how much of this for me is just getting to spend time with you. And I think you make such a safe space to like have open and honest conversations, right? And you ask great questions. And just this has been fun. Like I love you. I'm a huge fan of yours. Like your podcast, like all the content that you do is done with so much care and effort and intentionality. So getting to be a part of that is such a huge honor. Thank you so much for watching today's episode of Office Drama. Today's really been a vulnerable conversation. especially for the women who feel like they're underestimated, over perceived, or flattened to something that's super one-dimensional when they are not. I hope you found a lot of interesting threads and learnings and lessons from our conversation. If you have burning questions for Rosie, please drop them down below and maybe we can have her come back and answer those questions. If you also have other guests that you would like to come on office drama, let us know. Maybe tag them. Maybe they'll notice us. Maybe that's how it works. But thank you so much for watching and long enough. Hi, guys. Shout out to all the new drama llamas from the Patreon. I'm so happy you're here. Did you know that we actually hit top 10 on Spotify business charts? We're literally number nine today. At this time, I'm recording this outro. I cannot believe it. We're just behind Cody Sanchez and Cody has been in the game. She's like an OG. She literally has a $30 million business and a huge team. Everyone else on that top 10 or top 20 chart has humongous production teams behind them. And we are so, so small in comparison. Thank you so much for supporting. If you haven't already, please do rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It helps so much by showing the platforms that this is a podcast worth their attention. And so they might finally respond to my emails, I don't know. Anyhow, this particular episode with Rosie was actually originally about two hours and 40 minutes. It was so long we were going to split it into two episodes, but we ended up curating the most impactful and educational pieces in this one Omega episode. I think this was perhaps one of the hardest episodes to figure out editorially because it's just such an intense and controversial topic. It's like AI and music is such a heated space. What the headlines say is one thing, what the haters online say is another. But I always find that the people working these companies are actually incredibly passionate about making it easier for artists to build a living. There's a lot of misinformation that gets spread and negative news is always an easier headline than accuracy and nuance, so it's sincerely hope this episode was Rosie. It was eye-opening to AI, the music industry, building startups and being a creator with strong opinions online. Again, please be kind with your comments. You want to have healthy discussions around difficult topics that no one has answers to, but people seem to dog on really easily. This is how we move forward constructively. Thank you all for being so thoughtful around your comments thus far on Office Drama. As a woman in tech myself or a woman in content myself, I find it really hard to bring up strong opinions or tough topics or nuance conversations in case someone clips me out of context or I face irreversible consequences, you know. I always end up being so vanilla, playing it so safe and being just so blah. But podcasting is where I think we can finally bring hard conversations in and build understanding and empathy towards each other. The next episode should be our very first episode with a media and entertainment guest. To see me collaborate with her before on my social media, she's a great friend of mine and she recently just made her reality TV debut. But just a reminder that we're not just a tech podcast, we interview people in tech media and entertainment and talk about the drama and everyone's careers. Thank you so much for watching and I can't wait to see you next week!