Interview with Uru Co-founder Brunno Attorre

I had the chance to catch up with my Brazilian friend Brunno Attorre, co-founder of Uru, which I invested in. In the interview we talk about what he’s been doing since his company was sold to Adobe, the biggest differences between being a founder of a company and working for one, and how being a founder has helped him with his new role at Facebook’s Instagram. Read the interview below, or check out C2V Studios to watch the video.

You’re at a massive company now, arguably one of the most exciting companies — Instagram especially is one of the most exciting platforms on the planet. You’re also CTO, co-founder of a computer-vision company which C2 Ventures invested in. So, tell the audience and C2V Studios what’s the biggest difference in contrast? What are some of the pros, and what are some of the things you miss from being a founder of a company?

I think the biggest difference for me is that when at a startup right, you had more, you knew more about what was going on in the industry — not only in New York, but across the US. And I feel like when you join a bigger company, you’re kind of like, you slowly get out of that grind. Which is something that I miss, and you really have to try a little bit harder to keep learning and knowing what’s going on.

Like what’s happening on the pulse of the street. Cause you’re head scout, operating it, correct?

Exactly, what are people doing, what are the new startups coming out, what is the industry that is doing well, which industries are doing bad? So I think all of those are some of those things that I miss. Being at a big company’s good, I mean it has the stability, benefits, and all that kinda stuff. But that’s one of the things that I miss from being at a startup.

Who had more free food? Uru, a company of six, or Facebook?

Facebook for sure.

What are some of the things that you learn being an entrepreneur and a founder which, you know, a lot of people aspire to be, and how has that helped you in your current position? Not so much what you do there, but just maybe what your learnings or insights were being a founder.

I think that being a founder gives you a lot of empathy about how to run a business and how difficult it is, and what are the main challenges that you don’t see during day-to-day work. So being a founder you have a full view of how hard it is to sell, how hard it is to manage, how hard it is to build, how hard it is to deal with things like random stuff like paying your employees or to raise money, and all that kinda stuff.

And not only being at a bigger company but just having a job, you’re almost like blinding yourself with that, right? You’re just worried about operating in your job, and you don’t necessarily have to worry about what other people are doing. So I think that empathy is good for life overall. I think I learned to appreciate more things and you learn to see hard work in everything that’s going on around, so that’s good.

I love that, I’ve heard a lot of different things as we’ve had guests, but not so much the empathy of how hard it is to be a founder, how hard it is to build a company, how much that can allow you to appreciate that. But for founders that you know now, maybe your next company, your friends that are building something, you’re just gonna be able to understand a little bit better.

Yeah, for sure. I think that that’s part of it. You need to have empathy for your users, you need to have empathy for your partners, the people that are trying to sell, people that are trying to hire, so empathy is always good.

Last question, you’re from Brazil, Sao Paulo specifically, is there anything interesting going on there from a tech perspective or how people are thinking about technology? Any insight that kinda represents what is happening? I’m putting the entire population of Brazil on you right now, so what do you gotta say about it?

I think that Brazil overall is getting pretty good at startup business. There are some really nice tech startups coming out of there. From the population and the kind of towns that are around, it’s a little bit more difficult to see very high tech companies coming out of Brazil, but you see a lot of consumer tech and intel tech coming out of there. And, I mean it’s a pretty big market, right? So even creating a localized version of an app that exists here in the US, it’s already a pretty big business there, so yeah, it’s exciting.

And good football, if I’m not mistaken. What I didn’t mention about Brunno, before we sign out, I think he’s our first Forbes 30 under 30 that has joined us at C2V Studios, so Brunno, awesome seeing you. Great that we got to stay in touch. And good luck with this next chapter.

Thanks, Chris.