Sean Rad
speaker
161 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Sean Rad’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I think there's a lot of other things when you have a lot of freedom, you can kind of get crushed by the paradox of choice and possibilities. When I achieved that freedom, it was also very hard because what do you do when at least financially and to some extent as an entrepreneur, you can kind of do anything.
So it's sort of a harder problem, harder to find meaning when you're living in a world of infinite possibilities.
And I actually think that's why globally there is a little bit of a crisis of meaning because we're at a moment in history where regardless of your wealth, by any means, we are all way wealthier and have access to way more resources than previous generations, which also has expanded the options and possibilities and who we can become.
Yeah, we can get... No, no, I didn't say the standard of living is getting better. I said our access to resources are getting better. The more abundance we have, if we're not careful, can actually impact our quality of life. Because more choice isn't necessarily better. It's like when you show up to the restaurant and you have a book this big of items...
It's not easier to make your choice of what you want to order than if it's just one page of something that's highly curated.
In a world where more than ever, any time in history, you can get on YouTube and learn anything, you can become anything, we're more free than any generation, we have more possibility than any generation, I think it also becomes harder to identify who you are, what you want, and meaning in your life. And I think at a different scale, success sort of created that same challenge.
My whole life was building companies, trying to make money, getting to the point that I wanted to be. And then when I got there, I was kind of like, okay, now what? Who am I? What do I do with my time? And I could do anything with my time. So what is meaningful? And that requires you to look inward and really self-explore.
Or you can look outward and replace it with a bunch of noise and shit that actually distracts you from answering that question of meaning. In a sense, that's why I say, you know, kind of getting what you want can create the next challenge. Life is a journey of challenges. There's never, you're never going to get to the end of the road. Yeah. I think I'll just buy the Bugatti.
You'll buy the Bugatti, you'll enjoy it for two weeks, and then you'll get over.
I've done both. So I have a family office where we've invested in over a hundred different companies and funds. And I enjoy that because it, it allows me to meet other great entrepreneurs and to give back, to mentor, to learn myself. But at heart, I'm a builder. I'm a problem solver. That's what gets me up in the morning.
I don't talk about it because I don't want to, I've started four companies since Tinder, but I just kind of purpose. I think I kind of learned like it's a little easier to build without a lot of attention. Post-success, do you have a lot more leverage? Anyone who has accumulated experience and wealth also accumulates freedom and leverage, no matter at what stage.
So of course, I would say I have more options. I can think bigger.
Yes. I think it's a really rewarding position to be in because I can focus on strategy and trust others to run the business. It doesn't mean that I don't come in and get detailed and help in the areas where maybe I'm the best person to do something, but I've found a lot of meaning in building. So I'm not going to stop building.
Investing is hard and it's a full-time job. Investing requires a lot of discipline. It requires you to really experiment, understand what works for you. you know, at a certain point you have to build an organization. It's like building a company, carries all the challenges of building a company.
You have to have a vision, a thesis, you make mistakes, you learn, you iterate, you become better over time. So, you know, the family office is no different than building a company. We're just in the business of investing.
I had a high level vision, but I was also, I iterated the more I learned. What did you start with and what did it change to? Most of what the family office does is we invest a lot in real estate because I think real estate is an amazing asset class. We invest a lot in venture that's direct or through funds. And we invest a lot in public equities. We invest a lot in credited debt.
There's different things. And then there's a lot of things we don't do. There's a lot of things that we don't do either because I don't feel like we understand it enough. We're not good at it. You know, for me, it's really focusing on the areas where we can add value, where we have an edge. And, you know, who knows? It morphs as new opportunities present itself.
But for the most part, it really is following passion and love and the things that I enjoy working on and I want to work on and I want to spend time on and eliminating distractions as much as possible. What's been the single best investment? Probably SpaceX. Invested a lot in SpaceX very, very early. That'll do it. The thesis there was actually very simple. It was, I admire Elon.
I think he's a once in a lifetime entrepreneur. I was just willing to let him invest my money.
The worst investments were when I chased the idea and not the team. So there were moments where I'm like, fuck, this idea is so good. I'm not really sure about the team. Like, do they have the...
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