Vivek Garipalli in Conversation with Nexus

We had the pleasure of having Vivek Garipalli, cofounder & CEO of Clover Health, for our most recent Conversation with Nexus session hosted by Abhishek Sharma.

Vivek is a serial entrepreneur having started three successful billion-dollar plus companies. Welcoming Vivek to the session, Abhishek described him as one of the most audacious and fearless people Abhishek has ever met in his life — “someone who’s always thinking big”.

Our journey with Clover started in early 2016 with Abhishek’s cold email to Vivek, insisting that he meets us. Fast forward to Dec 2020, Clover has announced plans to be publicly-traded. It’s been a true privilege for us at Nexus to have been part of their journey.

We have penned down the transcript of the 45 min long insightful conversation between Vivek and Abhishek for you.

Read through the article or jump to the portion that interests you the most.

1. Vivek’s journey — how did he start as a healthcare entrepreneur and what inspired him to start Clover?
2. All about Clover Assistant — how integral is it to Clover’s model and its success?
3. Full-stack approach for Clover — how did Vivek go about it?
4. Healthcare in America — what’s on the horizon, particularly around Medicare and how is Clover positioned to benefit from it?
5. Healthcare in India — how can India benefit from tech-enabled healthcare?
6. SPAC vs Traditional IPO — how did Vivek make the decision?
7. Advice to entrepreneurs — what advice would Vivek like to give to his younger self?

You can watch the full recording of the conversation here.

Transcript

Abhishek
Can you please share with us how you started your journey as a healthcare entrepreneur, and what really inspired you to start Clover?

Vivek
So both my parents are actually physicians, or they’ve been retired for a long time now. I guess I’d always been looking at healthcare as something that I was inevitably going to end up working within, I really thought I was going to be a doctor, that was just my assumption. And going into high school, going to college. And I would say in college I wasn’t excited about the prospect of many, many more years of school. It just wasn’t what drove me on a day to day basis. So I ended up going into finance out of college, working in banking, bankruptcy restructuring, advisory, private equity all at a pretty junior level. I learned a ton from that, those experiences, but wasn’t necessarily passionate about finance and felt almost, I think, kind of guilty for not going or trying to go to medical school. But I had definitely gotten the bug of entrepreneurship just in terms of you know, where when I thought about conversations that excited me the most with friends or family or things I read about, I was always fascinated with the concept of just building something. And so I just went headfirst into healthcare on the service side, I would say a common theme of a lot of things I’ve gotten involved with over the years from a business perspective is approaching something with a kind of naive vision or goal, and then realizing all the hurdles and barriers to get there. And which I think to some extent is the nature of entrepreneurship, you need to have a lot of optimism and a very high pain tolerance. And even those two things don’t necessarily mean success. But it means like you have a chance at success. And you need a lot of luck along the way. And that’s something that I, you know, I’ve been fortunate to have, and just have great supporters, great people around. So my first set of businesses I started were on the services side. So outpatient services, the hospital and in terms of owning and operating acute care hospitals then built a revenue cycle business, and I got to see a lot of different aspects of the health care system inner workings, how value is generated. And, you know, I’ll be the first to admit that while I’ve done very well in healthcare from a financial perspective, I would say the most business models within healthcare are pretty misaligned with consumer value. So the way to generate business value if we go across the spectrum and, you know, at least in the US, if a hospital wants to generate more business value, drives more market share consolidation, and gets higher pricing from payers. And through that volume aggregation, as an example, skilled nursing facilities generate more business value when they can keep patients in their facilities longer because they get paid on a per day basis. Or PBMs generate more business value, which are pharmacy benefit managers, they’re essentially the distributors: the intermediary between pharmaceutical companies and the end consumer. Pharmacies, they generate more business value, when drugs actually stay on brand longer, because their margin, their actual dollars or margin are higher. Electronic medical records companies, which are the operating systems that sit inside of practices actually generate more business value when they can take control of data and charge for use of it and access to it. And, and so it doesn’t mean that those businesses aren’t adding value necessarily. Obviously, we need hospitals, we need skilled nursing facilities, we need PBMs, we need EHRs all to some extent, but it’s the cost at which that value is driven. So, when you think about the many trillions of market cap that sit within publicly traded healthcare businesses today, it’s very hard to argue that trillions of market value is actually correlated to consumer value. What is really correlated to is a couple decades, many decades of medical cost inflation in the US, and business models that have kind of grown out of that. So, I would say I had a kind of like a mid-career, sort of like industry mental shift, probably around 8 to 10 years ago, or maybe longer. Where I started to lose my passion for just trying to build more and more services businesses in healthcare, and really wanted to see if there was an ability to build something that was driving a solution to what I thought was an important problem to solve, versus just trying to generate more business value. So is there a way to solve an important problem while generating a lot of business value in healthcare? And that’s where the idea for Flatiron Health came about. My partners in that business, obviously, great background on the technology side, and we coalesced around, trying to solve something that we felt was important on the oncology end. That was my first experience being involved with anything in the technology space, in healthcare, out of healthcare. And I think, you know, as someone who has entered technology, not at the beginning of my career, but during my career, it really rewired my thinking on how problems could be solved. And when software is part and technology is part of that equation, or toolkit, you really think differently one, what problems could be solved, and two, how to solve those problems. And then the scale of which you can solve those problems. And it’s a very different way of thinking and a capability I really didn’t have prior and one that I’m obviously still trying to, to hone and improve, you know, every day, month, year that goes by. And so Clover is really born out of that way of thinking. And the problem we set out to solve at Clover was a simple but ambitious one, which was: how do we dramatically improve the decision making by physicians? And when we think about where that positive impact of that can be felt the most, it’s really in the elderly population. And in the US, that’s the Medicare population, which we have over 60 million individuals covered by Medicare, which essentially government funded health care for those 65 and over, and/or those who are disabled. And we came to a conclusion early on, if we were going to build the best software platform to help physicians, we needed access to a few certain things in a certain framework in place. So we needed access to data on our consumers. We need to ensure physicians would use our software. We needed to ensure we could create a really great experience using our software and then if we drove better decisions, and that led to improved outcomes and lower costs — how does that actually align with business value for Clover? And then when we just take a step back, we take healthcare today, if you take someone who’s elderly, let’s say 80 years old, and he or she goes to see 10 different primary care physicians, each physician will actually come out with a different set of conclusions around diagnoses, treatment plan, medication regimen, even different dosage levels. And it’s not because they’re bad doctors or not, it’s that lack of prioritized, transparent, actionable data at the point of care really leads to a dispersion of decisions and a dispersion of outcomes. And, we felt, the only way we could really build powerful software is if we purpose built it inside of our own insurance company, within Medicare. So, we didn’t start an insurance plan to build the best insurer. We really concluded that if we really wanted to build a powerful software platform, we had to start with building it inside of our own insurer, we could have that data access, iterate really rapidly on it, gain engagement with physicians, and drive alignment of interest with our consumer because as we reduce ER visits, reduce hospital admissions, that leads to lower costs, we can pass that on to our consumers, which leads to more growth on the Medicare Advantage side. And we’ve proven that out now over the last few years with what we call the Clover Assistant, which is our platform that’s deployed to physicians.

Abhishek
Fascinating, Vivek. In almost every conversation you have stressed upon, how to align mission with profit and establish alignment of incentives between all stakeholders involved — payers, providers, pharma, and patient. It struck us hard that you were thinking of a technology-driven approach from the very early days. You talked about Clover Assistant. What is Clover Assistant and how integral is it to Clover’s model and its success?

Vivek
Yeah, absolutely. If we think about what makes great software, where you want someone to use it, use it frequently, trust it, and get real value out of it. Let’s pull aside whether it’s healthcare, or e-commerce or in a b2b kind of construct. So one, just in terms of tenets of that, there needs to be trust in what’s presented. So if a user of a piece of software, if a customer of a software, so in this case, a physician, but let’s just pull aside healthcare. If we’re participating as an Amazon consumer, we need to trust that the products presented to us are what is being presented. So we need to know that if a product’s pictures are showing what they are, if we choose to buy it, that’s what’s going to be shipped to us and shipped reliably. Sometimes that doesn’t always happen. But then there’s got to be a recognition if a mistake is made. So that kind of goes to trust as vital. So without that, you’re not going to engage in a way that would allow an e-commerce platform to grow. Two, when we think about pricing, if we’re saying we want our products to be ranked from lowest cost to highest cost, we need to know that and trust, if there’s gonna be continued use and growing use of the platform, that that’s actually what’s going to happen. If that promise is broken, and you find out or large sets of consumers find out that it’s not actually lowest to highest and it’s another approach where it’s obfuscated, trust will erode. And so that trust is key on the pricing side. And then when we think about engagement, and features and stickiness. As you see more features roll out, what is more product, and so forth, more products being offered, better user experience, your excitement around it grows, your time on it grows, because you feel they’re actually trying to build towards what consumers are going to want more and more what you want and you feel they’re taking into account your hidden thoughts or whether it’s active feedback, but the features coming out are tying into what you want. So we kind of break that out. We’ve got trust in the data being presented. We have how the payment structure is working, where it can be trusted. And then three it’s how is the platform improving. And you could take those three constructs and apply them to any really successful technology company where there’s a software layer between company and consumer of that software. And so that very basic framework, but vital framework that you know, that I know, in terms of successful technology companies outside of healthcare, that is not the framework that’s used in healthcare with physicians. So instead, you hear folks, so folks who don’t understand software but who know a lot about health care, say things like, “doctors will never use software”, “doctors don’t like technology”. They feel like it doesn’t help them. It’s been tried before, it doesn’t work. Those are things that make a lot of sense to someone in healthcare that doesn’t have software experience. So when I think about kind of like the rewiring of my brain going from thinking about the world, only healthcare to thinking a little bit more broadly as to how can software drive value — that’s the same approach, that framework I just described is how we approached it with the Clover Assistant. So, we said, okay, one, how do we create trust around the data. So being the plan, the MA plan ensures that not only do we have reliable data access, starting with claims, but then it gives us the lever to get access to more than that. So the underlying clinical data, whether it’s in charts, whether it’s RX data, whether it’s in lab results, radiology results, and so forth, we have a primary access point to get that information. Now, granted a lot of information beyond claims sometimes comes in a very messy format. But we’re able to abstract that, organize that and present that. So, there’s the reliability part of the data. And the second part is, when you think about reliability, it’s also being clear when something should not be relied on. So, for example, if you’re presenting evidence-based protocol, which we do, or evidence-based protocols around a treatment plan, you have to be transparent as to what are the data points that you’re leveraging to surface that protocol? And you have to surface where did you get that evidence from? What is the root source document? Or if you’re surfacing a recommendation around a potential diagnosis via machine learning, are you being transparent, that it’s literally based upon essentially blackbox suggestions. You’re not directing a physician as to what to do or not do. And that is not what the Clover system does. We don’t direct. We assist, we surface information that we think can be relevant. So from a trust perspective, all those components are really, really vital. So that’s the trust part. And then the second part, when we talk about the payment side, so physicians did not get into healthcare, so they can run a hedge fund, and take on massive financial risk. That’s just not the reality of it. And so when you hear a lot about value based care, my head always goes to — if you’re leading a value-based care initiative, what specifically are you doing, whether you’re the payer or the vendor with the payer, to actually help the physicians make better decisions? It’s not as if value-based care got introduced, and a physician said, ‘Ah, now the value-based care is here, I’m now going to make good decisions. Because before I wasn’t.’ That’s not the reality. But it’s sort of, in many ways, how value-based care is discussed. It’s almost as if, now that we have someone in a value-based care initiative we’re all okay. That’s just not how it works. And it’s just not human reality. Right? So when we think about value-based care or anything, it’s really around trust in the payment model. So we said, well, we have trust in our data platform. We have trust in what we’re surfacing to physicians. We have trust in physicians, that they’ve gone to medical school, fellowship, residency, many years of practicing medicine, trust of their patients, they’ve taken a Hippocratic oath. We firmly believe that if you just give them helpful information in a prioritized actionable way, they’re going to use that to make better decisions and if you present it in a way, that is not telling them right versus wrong, but suggesting and providing source data, but making sure it’s useful, actionable, that their decision-making will improve. And, and so if we think about how do we tie that philosophy to payment, it’s not to modulate payment up or down, tied to what they click on or don’t click on, or what they agree with or don’t agree with. So the purest form of that is paying them a fair rate, taking into account the increased effort of using a standalone platform, and making sure that they get that payment, no matter the decisions they make. And if that’s a radical departure from the traditional philosophy of value-based care, we view that is creating payment trust. So the trust is tied to use our software, and it’s upon our software to provide you value. We’re paying you for that additional time, we’re asking to use another piece of software. But that’s how we create that trust on the payment side. So a physician now knows, he or she doesn’t get benefited or penalized by what they agree with or don’t agree with. They just have to use our software. And then the third part, when we think about consistently improving the platform, we started with creating an initial great set of features and continually improving upon it. So we’re today over 90% engagement rate, we’re around a 60 NPS. Those are unheard-of metrics for software that’s deployed with physicians that we don’t employ. These are not our employed physicians; these are network physicians. And they are in many ways non-believable to folks in healthcare, because they’re not coming with a software framework. These three prongs are not part of decision making when developing products for physicians, they’re very, very normal ways of thinking on the technology side. And so when we think about great software, one of the decisions we made early on was to not push workflow back into existing EHR platforms, we think it’s really important to pull data out, we want to ensure we have access to all the relevant data, including physicians’ existing software that they’re using. But when you’re pushing software back into EHR platforms, what you’re doing is your improvements are limited by the IT cycles of those EHR vendors, your UI experiences are now also tied to EHR platforms. It’s not uncommon for EHR platforms to have a negative NPS. So why would you want to take great software, and then push it through a UI that physicians don’t like. And so that’s why we also made the very important termination to build it as a standalone platform. And then that allows us to rapidly iterate on it and keep delivering features that physicians want and value and that we value and that are aligned to driving consumer value. And so, you know, it’s a combination of taking an understanding of what’s valuable for physicians, what is reliable data access, and reliability in the source data? What is trust for them on the payment side but understanding that those are three frameworks are what’s needed to create great software that individuals want to use but using healthcare knowledge to solve each of those three frameworks. And usually in a healthcare company that’s not led in tandem by a technology leader. So, you know, my partner at Clover is an individual named Andrew Toy, who’s an unbelievable technologist, but also really thoughtful around the business side and healthcare. And I think it’s very rare for healthcare services companies to cede a lot of control to someone like that. And certainly, to formally partner with someone like that. And when you’re not willing to do that, when you’re someone like me in my role, someone like me will make bad decisions, if I’m not willing to cede a lot of those nuanced decisions on the software side to that technology leader. And the decisions might be well-intentioned, but you end up leading to a graveyard of products that physicians never used. And that never drove value. And I’m sure every payer has very sad horror stories of lots of money being poured into software that was built and never gotten a high engagement and, and maybe the wrong people were blamed for that. And it’s sad.

Abhishek
Vivek, most healthcare startups would choose a business model where they build and sell software to an incumbent like a payer or a provider or an employer. But on the other hand, you took a full-stack approach aspiring to offer a vastly superior alternative to these incumbents and compete with them. How did you decide to take the full-stack approach for Clover Health?

Vivek
No, it’s a great question. And I mean, there’s no doubt that we picked a hard path and an ambitious path, but one fraught with tonnes of hurdles, challenges, capital needs, etc. But it was partially out of necessity, and partially being at a career point where we feel comfortable to take that risk and that approach. It’s much lower risk of failure if you’re trying to service existing incumbents, existing participants, much less risk doing that than trying to actually become a future competitor to incumbents. And so it started the necessity part is, we really wanted to focus on a problem that we are passionate about. So we think about improving lives, it’s about improving decisions. And the area that we think that impacted me most about is in the elderly population, where 80% of individuals have at least one chronic condition, or almost 70% have two or more. So the impact of improved decisions, they are dramatic. And if we felt confident or reasonably confident, we can have as high a probability of solving that problem servicing existing incumbents and participants, we would have definitely taken that approach. So it wasn’t because we wanted to pick the most painful route. I think there’s always beauty in simplicity and trying to solve problems in a simple way. It was really out of necessity, that we felt we had no choice but to build our platform into something that was verticalized. And we definitely knew when we did that, we were introducing massive risk on execution. But we thought that if we executed successfully, that would give us the highest probability with solving the problem we were passionate about. So we have always weighed into what gives us the highest probability to solve the problem that we’re passionate about. Then in terms of willing to take that execution risk, I think it’s just kind of a where you are in life type thing, where myself and then Andrew, we both, you know, been very fortunate to have our successful prior experiences with the companies we’ve built. We’ve met kind of a lot of what we would call the personal career milestones, etc., where I think we have that personal ability from a psychological perspective to say, ‘Hey, we’re here to solve the problem. And that’s really what we’re what we’re setting out to do.’ And secondary to that is trying to set up an easy way out in terms of selling or whatever, it’s just not how we think about our lives at Clover, it’s really around what gives us the best chance to solve the problem, even if that best chance is fraught with risk. And that risk tolerance is tied to really where we are from a career perspective. These are not risks we could have, or would have, or should have taken 10 years ago, as an example.

Abhishek
Strong perspective. What’s on horizon for healthcare in America, particularly around Medicare and how is Clover positioned to benefit from it?

Vivek
Put aside kind of like the hot button kind of political topic, but I’ll talk about, you know, the long-term trends. So birth rate has steadily gone down in the United States over the last few decades, which I think is common in any country, where as the middle class grows, and per capita median income grows. And then you have a population that is getting larger relative to the younger population when we compare elderly versus younger. We have individuals living much longer. So the fastest growing demographic percentage growth year over year is 90 and over. And soon, that’s going to be 100 and over. And so you have individuals living longer and in a way that was not contemplated 40–50 years ago. So Medicare originally was rolled out, I think it was 50 years ago or so 60 years ago, it was under the belief that okay, well, people are now living past 65. There wasn’t really a thought that in 60 years, folks are going to be living past 100. It just wasn’t normal to assume that. So now the costs for Medicare are just growing, just because the population is growing, who are elderly, and then the length of time they’re living is longer. But at the same time, the satisfaction of Medicare is pretty high when you ask consumers, whether they’re in government Medicare, private Medicare, and comparing that satisfaction to non-government run plans, or non-government funded plans. And so I think we are, over the next 20 to 30 years, on a very slow walk to fully government-funded healthcare across all lives, all individuals who live in the US. I don’t know that whether that takes the form of a public option. I don’t know if that takes the form of a steadily lowering Medicare age. I think there’s definitely participation that can be had where private organizations can drive positive value throughout the system. I think that’s where kind of the point, you know, we’ve chatted about a lot over the years around ensuring that those interests are aligned where those private organizations can only benefit if they’re driving positive value for consumers and the government. Long term, that’s where I think it’s heading. And even when we look at employer-based insurance, employer-based insurance was introduced, I want to say, maybe 70–80 years ago, when healthcare was a very tiny percentage of GDP. So it was introduced as kind of an interesting tax deduction perk for employees, or employers could deduct it and give it as a perk to employees. If employers knew today, or then what it was going to turn into, they would, they would just have been shocked. That’s kind of the rise of medical cost inflation. And what that medical costs inflation has been great breakthroughs and great service but the cost increases relative to that has been massive. So I think employer-based health insurance is a legacy type thing, based upon a different set of facts, assumptions, reality 70 years ago. So now those approaches don’t disappear overnight. It’s going to be one of those very slow, painful, politically-charged type transitions, where inevitably, math and outcomes sort of dictate where that goes. And, you know, I always talk about folks when it comes in that we don’t really care if it’s Medicare Advantage, or Medicare for All. For us, we’re in the business of improving every life, improving decisions by physicians. So for example, the government is rolling out a new programme next year called Direct Contracting, where companies can take and primary care doctors can take full global risk, financial risk on their patients. We think that’s a really exciting opportunity for technology companies, and technology companies like us, with our focus, where we feel that’s great alignment, where if you improve decision-making, lower total costs, you can generate savings, savings for the government, primary care physicians benefit from that, consumers benefit from that. And if you’re servicing or playing a role in driving a lot of value there, we can benefit from that. So to us, it’s really around as long as the there’s a push on a policy level to keep ensuring alignment of interests. And there’s a reward garnered if you’re driving value for the consumer, driving value for the physician, driving value for government, we feel we’re always going to have an ever-expanding role to play.

Abhishek
Shifting focus from us to India, as you know, through our past discussions, I often think about what the path of healthcare transformation could look like, in India with 1.3 billion people. Given your experience, Vivek, would love to hear your thoughts how India can benefit from tech-enabled healthcare.

Vivek
I think countries like India that are at an earlier stage of infrastructure, development, and earlier stage of entrepreneurship have a big advantage versus countries like United States. So I would say the best and it’s a crude comparable, but would you rather be given the task to build a subway system, a new subway system in India? or a new subway system in the US? I’ll take the India because the United States already has this legacy infrastructure. Like you take New York City, you’re really stuck with having to enhance the existing system. You take countries like China and Japan, which started when they wanted to create their underground transport or above ground transport system, because they didn’t have to deal with legacy infrastructure, legacy interests, legacy value chains. They were able to just build a better infrastructure because it was more of a standing start. That’s harder for countries like the United States to do, to say, okay, you think about the sheer you know, government willpower, you need a colorful personality, you need then a legislature, you need local support, to say, okay, we’re gonna just close off the New York subway system and rebuild a new one. That’s what I would call really high EQ, high risk-taking companies do and it’s very rare for them to do that. See, I can’t even imagine a country doing that, or most cities doing that. So now you take healthcare, where no one would argue that the health care system in the US works perfectly. No one would also argue that the healthcare system does not work at all. So it’s unfortunately, above average, below average, and average in many, many areas. The one area where we exceed, I think, all countries is on innovation, net new creativity, net new ideas, and we’re all, me included, are very scared of doing anything that disrupts the creativity, the development of new pharmaceuticals. I mean, you look at what Pfizer did, what Moderna did, that’s based upon a decade plus of R&D done many, many years ago, that we’re now seeing the benefit of, which we may get, you know, access to a vaccine maybe as soon as the end of the year. That’s because of investments made 10 to 20 years ago. So one can argue that the healthcare system in the US has not created the motivation for development of net new, so we’re scared of losing that and rightfully so. So how do you restructure many parts of the system that we deem below average or average, without hurting that part very hard. Very few people be willing to put their neck out for that. And it’s not an easy problem to solve. Whereas you take a company like a country like India. And I say company, even though it’s a country, because in many ways, they have to operate like one to make some decisions. They have less worries about the legacy infrastructure. Of course, there’s legacy infrastructure legacy value chain, but it’s much earlier, there’s probably a lot more appetite and political popularity for Modi, for the various states, federal government to make change and positive change. And they also don’t have to necessarily worry about developing the technology, they can just take it from the US. And US companies will thrive off of selling that to countries, to companies in India as an example. So now you’ve got a situation where it’s a cleaner slate, less apple carts that you worry about to disrupt, they’re going to accelerate a lot quicker at scale, and do it probably in a more cost-efficient way. Because I think it’s politically popular to do that. It’s not politically popular in the US to do mass disruption of healthcare, it’s certainly politically popular to talk about it. And it’s politically popular to make it a campaign topic. But you know, no one’s willing to stake their career to say, “this is my plan and if we do this plan, it will fix healthcare.” And you can put me, if you’re a politician put their name there. And in, you know, in the annals of history, as standing behind it, it’s just very crazy. And I get it, you know, it’s almost arrogant to say what one person thinks they could do that. And also, it’s hard to actually come up with that plan. So I think there’s just kind of political realities and infrastructure realities that exist.

Abhishek
Shifting gears, Vivek. There is a lot of buzz and curiosity around the whole topic of SPAC. And, you know, as the CEO of a company that is in the process of going public via SPAC. Can you unpack for us how did you decide the SPAC route over traditional IPO?

Vivek
Yeah, we’ve gotten that question a tonne. We and I, you know, at the beginning of this year, did not know much at all about anything around SPACs, you know, cursory knowledge at best. And when we went down our IPO process, because that was the path we were on this year, and as we go through the S1 drafting and so forth. What really I think attracted me was not initially the SPAC route, but was actually having a lead sponsor who was willing to put up. One, a lead sponsor, in this case Chamath and Social Capital, that one had a real track record in thinking about and investing in companies that have really driven disruption in sectors and in industries. And, understanding that from the inside of, you know, his own experiences within companies, he’s been at. I think, two, it was really important to us, for us to be able to pick our investor base, you can’t actually do that in a traditional IPO process, because there’s a lot of control the banks have in terms of selecting who comes into your cap-table, who doesn’t. But in SPAC, what doesn’t get talked about a lot, there is a marketing process around a PIPE, which is a private investment in a public entity. And that’s where you can actually bring on your investor base. We brought on great investors from Fidelity, to Jennison, to Perceptive, Casdin, Senator and other great long-only funds and hedge funds. You just can’t do that in a traditional IPO at the same level of effectiveness. Three, you get to really describe your future. So you have all the same requirements around diligence and disclosure as a traditional IPO. Now you can actually talk about the future. And then, from a positioning standpoint, having a sponsor who actually understands not just the technology side, but how data and technology and a platform is really driving differentiated value is extremely valuable in terms of, at least as we think about short, medium- and long-term strategy. So all those aspects were really, really key. If we had not partnered with Chamath, I don’t think we would have gone down the SPAC route. Because the most important thing is who are you partnering with? You know, very low odds that we would not have gone down the IPO route, if we had not partnered with Chamath at Social Capital.

Abhishek
Vivek, my final question. What advice would you like to share with entrepreneurs watching this? Or in other words, what advice would Vivek like to give to his younger self?

Vivek
I would say being an entrepreneur in many ways is a very lonely, very challenging experience. I think keeping optimism high is good. Embrace problems that come about because it’s all about problem solving, it’s all about figuring out how to navigate challenges and hurdles. Get all advice, get all perspectives on anything but always form your own independent thought, independent thinking. You as the founder, CEO, senior leader at a company you’re generally going to have that vision in your head most clearly and utilize all that information to help continue to iterate. And challenge your own assumptions, challenge your own ideas. Don’t be afraid to pivot, shift whatever. And always be wary when everyone is telling you you’re right because you’re probably not then. Get excited if everyone is telling you that you’re wrong or if there is skepticism, that should excite you because it means maybe there’s something there, but it also means maybe you’re very wrong. Don’t drink the kool-aid either but at the same time that’s how opportunities arise where folks have a visceral reaction against your approach, your strategy. Folks think you’re taking an unintelligent approach or are skeptical, that’s where I think opportunities lie. I think the more contrarian approach you’re taking, the higher the probability of success is if you’re right, the higher the probability of a spectacular failure as well if you’re wrong. That’s where test your assumptions, keep bringing in advice. Advice from all sides are great to embrace. Negative and positive feedback is really around forming an independent view and just stay focused — always go back to what is the problem you’re trying to solve, what is the mission that you are after. That will get you through a lot of challenges / hurdles. And I think first and foremost is do whatever you can to keep inviting good luck because luck I think is the single most important ingredient in an entrepreneur’s success and the one that gets least talked-about but I think the most vital one. I’ve never met a successful entrepreneur who was also was not lucky because that’s just life at the end of the day. You can create your own luck and I believe in that but there’s also just luck that has to happen so I wouldn’t be shy around just knowing that’s how life works.

Abhishek
Very insightful, Vivek. Thank you so much for making time for this conversation. It’s always a pleasure hearing from you. Happy Thanksgiving.

***

Vivek
Thanks, Abhishek. Happy Thanksgiving.

You can watch the full recording of the conversation here.

— Nexus Venture Partners

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