Bill Clerico

And it was a reference to a lot of the people I've worked with in finance.

You get that first big paycheck, maybe you buy a car or something like that.

And

you know, my advice was keep your burn rate low and your responsibilities low.

And it really frees up the world of opportunities for you to go work on stuff.

And that was something that a decision that Rich and I made, and it was, you know, hugely influential in our life.

Oh, it was almost nothing.

We were, um, we, when we lived in Boston, we shared an apartment with two other people and we were probably spending a total between the two of us of about a thousand dollars a month in rent.

And

you know, we'd buy like frozen burgers from Costco and we'd eat those every night and ramen and, you know, all that.

And then when we moved out to Silicon Valley, we lived in kind of Southeast San Jose and, you know, in a house that we rented for $2,000 a month.

And we had three other roommates and just really kept that burn rate as low as we could.

Um, because we were self-financing in the early days and it just gives you options.

It lets you stay alive for longer.

Yep.

So one of my favorite business books is not actually a business book.

It's called Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz.

And it's about the stories of the Apollo program and kind of his leadership of the space program through this, you know, with this crazy challenge to put a man on the moon and all the difficulties and pressures and team dynamics that come with that.

So it's actually intended more as a biography, but it reads a lot like a business book of how do you manage an organization through a really sort of high potential stressful time.

Oh, a non-mainstream CEO.