EIR Live

Of a Rorschach test of like, Okay, we're both looking at the same thing. Yeah, we both see like you see a bunny and I see something else. I see a duck. And I think that's pretty unique. And I think, yeah, to answer your question, it is true.

One of the unique things I would say too is your background and context matters a lot in some of this and so does your incentive. And so that's another thing I would say is actually really important, jumping at to when you're an EIR. It's like you have to understand why are folks making the decisions they are? And what do they get if X outcome happens or Y does? And so, yeah, it's definitely true.

I think one of the challenges I would say though for a lot of those folks is if you don't do your homework as an individual in that position to understand that the context of where people are coming from, you're going to question why people are making those things, making those decisions. And so you really have to be willing to do not just a surface level work, go deep.

Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the lives and lessons of entrepreneurs and residents. I'm Ilya Tabakh, together with my cohost, Terrance Orr, ready to bring you closer to the heartbeat of the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. Every episode, we explore the real stories behind the ideas, successes, setbacks, and everything in between. For everyone from aspiring EIRs to seasoned pros, EIR Live is your gateway to the depth of the entrepreneurial journey and bringing innovative insights into the broader world. Check out the full details in the episode description, subscribe to stay updated, and join us as we uncover what it takes to transform visions into ventures.

Welcome aboard. Let's grow together. Alright. And we are back for another amazing episode of EIR Live. What's exciting about today's episode is Victor Machiri, who was actually EIR at Barton Mallow, was one of the only other active EIR's that I could find in my long search when I was a EIR at Black and Veatch over in the AEC space.

I got really curious. I'm like, I can't be the only one. Right? But then it wasn't so easy. Apparently, we've now identified that there may have been sort of programs and they kind of come and go.

But it was really cool because Victor was one of the actually the only person I could find that was an active EIR in AEC. And so, I feel, you know, sort of a connection and that we were sort of kindred spirits in some way. And so, it's exciting for me personally to have Victor finally join us here on EIR Live. But, without further ado, I'd love to jump in, Victor, and just talk about where it all started and get to know you a little bit as we dive into the episode.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Ilya. Where did it all start? Well, first of all, I'm glad we got a chance to connect. Yeah, you're right. There's not that many EIRs in the construction or AEC space, so very thankful for that one.

But my journey begins a long time ago in Kenya. So I was born originally in Nairobi, Kenya, which I think is pretty unique in that born there, grew up in South Africa in the late '90s, which is a tumultuous time to say the least to be Black in Cape Town, South Africa. That led to my family eventually immigrating to The US. We won't go into all the details there, but again, black family in South Africa, that prompted the move. So that led us to moving to The US in November 1998.

We actually moved to The US on Thanksgiving weekend. So pretty special time for me to remember Thanksgiving for that reason. Eventually, again, I grew up in Ohio in a small rural community, which I think again is a pretty unique dynamic. So growing up in a rural community while also maintaining my Kenyan roots in that community as well, That led me to eventually graduating high school, went to college at Ohio State, go Bucks, got my degree in construction management. But the interesting thing there is I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I went to school thinking I wanted to become a doctor, wanted biochem, changed my major about five different times, maybe 11, but who's counting? And then eventually ended up in construction management and graduated with that degree. Ever since then, I've been in and around the industry. Even on the career side, I think part of it is really less so about having a defined path and more so leaning into my curiosity. That's how I went from really interested in this, really interested in that, but eventually, you got to put your foot down and make a decision to go forward.

That's where I've been to date. It's a little bit of context in the background, but yeah, hopefully that's helpful.

No, it is. And actually, before we jump too far, it's funny because it kind of mirrors my I was born in Moscow and I moved to Kansas City when I was seven. Right? And so I moved from a pretty large global city to a less large, less global city. We'll put it that way.

And not to make fun of Kansas City. Love Kansas City. But that experience and showing up, especially with my whole family, right? Because we all immigrated together and knowing that there's multiple perspectives, multiple sort of cultural lenses, you know, and really getting curious about for me, I'm like, What is this small place? You know, at the time, actually, Kansas City historically built their airport north of the river because they thought that was sort of where the city was going to grow.

And then the city did not grow that way. And so when you flew into Kansas City, you're flying into There wasn't really much around at the time in 1990. And so I got really curious on like, how did this place work? And as you said, sort of leaning into that curiosity was actually a really good differentiator because everybody else around me was like, Well, this is how it always is. And, you know, my family is from here and I know everything's usual, right?

It's like there's there's nothing uncommon. We'll pull on this thread later, but I just thought that that kind of skill set and the ability to sort of look at the situation from a couple different perspectives, right? Because I sort of had one foot in each world, you know, pretty early on. By the time I was eight or nine, I was speaking and I was sort of doing all that stuff, but I could also kind of understand a different context. So I think it's important to sort of think about, you know, what that enables.

So I just wanted to kind of highlight that before we move on. Alright, so you started kind of construction, didn't know what you wanted to do. You know, that's like a pretty interesting foundation. Where does the story go from there?

Yeah, no pun intended on the foundation, but I think, you know, I started my career doing this type of work and quickly realized So my first job out of college, I was working on a stadium renovation at Ohio State. And they were adding a whole bunch of stuff, doing some stadium upgrades during the off season, classic stuff. And then I was like, Well, this is good. But at the time I was working for a company that was about 2 ish billion a year in top line revenue. And then I want to go work at Turner Construction, which for folks that don't know, Turner is the number one general contractor.

It's like, Let me see what's happening over on that side of the team. So I did that. I went to Turner and it is very, very different. At the time, Turner was doing about $15,000,000,000 which is a material increase from two or three, depending on the calculations. And so I went through a couple of different jobs there.

Most notably, went to work at a data center for a large hyperscaler. And it is, my God, I think at that point it was really cemented. It's like, I love this industry, but I'm not going to be that guy. I'm not going be that superintendent that's up super early in the morning that goes out and knows all the subs, knows all the procedures and workflows. That just did not come natural to me.

And so at that point, was like, Okay, I know I like this industry. I know I like numbers. I know I like some of the other stuff that makes a little bit more sense in my head. So the question was, how do I eventually parlay that into something else? So that led me to my next job at Turner still, which was an owner's rep job, which again, at that point, for those that don't know, Turner is representing a client through a construction process.

So my job was to help manage the owner's books and do some other stuff, represent them well in some of these meetings. Well, this is really interesting. So now I'm more client facing, dealing with the numbers, Okay, we're getting closer and closer to what I want to do, but still not quite hitting the mark. And then at that point, a role opened up for Turner's headquarters position out of New York. I applied for it and my boss recommended me and was like, I think you do really well at this.

Because it was not a construction role, but still within a construction company. I I was like, all right, now we're starting to get closer and closer. And again, even through all these experiences, I think part of it is like, where do I feel energy? Where do I feel energized? What am I leaning into?

Where are my curiosities taking me? And I think, again, you got to be a little bit introspective to understand your strengths and weaknesses. And me to be able to have an honest enough conversation with my manager at the time, who's a great guy, by the way, about like, Hey, this is where I'm at right now. This is where I want to be. Obviously, I work for you.

You see what I'm good at, what I'm not good at. So having his support was really monumental for me to take on that next role. And so I did. Supposed to be a two year rotational position, did that for about one year. And then at that point you started planning your transition back to the business unit.

But as I said, I'm not a construction guy at heart. Again, for those who know superintendents and project managers, they're covered from a different cloth and that just wasn't It didn't feel authentic. And so thankfully enough, I had a great relationship with my manager there and I was talking through. I was like, Okay, what makes the most sense for you? Is it going back to the business?

Is it leaving? Is it going into a different role? Etcetera, etcetera. And so a position opened up at a startup. And at that point I was at an analyst level.

Then at the startup, the opportunity was so they were series D startup, company was called Upstart. Was like, could I go into a startup and actually make it? Could I go prove it? They'd never hired someone in my role before. So again, take a bet on myself.

Do you really believe that you as a young analyst have the capacity and skills and wherewithal to go build this thing? I thought so, but maybe that's just young hubris. We talked to my manager and then eventually, yet again, I applied for the job and I got it. And then that takes us to COVID. So that's 2020.

And my first day at this new job was the day everyone got sent home. So I was like, Oh man, I have no idea what's going to happen. Turmoil is out in the streets, truly, truly unknowns. And Again, a lot of things happen from there on in the work world, but I think for me it was, again, this reoccurring theme of I really know what I'm good at, or rather I'm learning throughout my journey, so in my career of what I'm getting good at and am I willing continually to take a bet on myself? And Ilya, you made a comment earlier about coming from a different culture.

I think part of that is the motivation behind that is like, Okay, I've got a shot here because of something my parents did. And so again, there's a little bit of fire in me because of that. And you see that in through some of the risks I'm willing to take versus now versus some folks. And I think, again, throughout that progression of my time at Upstart, we built a product, we did all the right stuff, got everything built up. So yeah, there's a lot of things we can pull on from after that and even through that experience, but I think that takes us to a pretty monumental pivoting point of COVID whereby massive, massive leap of faith into a completely new different industry.

Again, going from construction in the confines of a really large corporate company, you've got Safeen out there, into a brand new startup. You have no idea during COVID, right? This is fintech, so you have no idea what's actually going to happen. Is it going to pass? Is it going to fail?

Eventually they IPO ed later that year, so everything was fine, but I didn't know that at the time. It was a wild experience. Was a wild experience.

Before we take that monumental leap of faith, I just want to kind of double click on even the construction continuum. You just sort of mentioned the difference between a $2,000,000,000 and $15,000,000,000, you know, kind of organization and maybe how they think about the world. You know, construction is sort of everybody says construction and it's sort of this monolithic thing, right? But construction could be somebody's stick building your fence to somebody building your strip mall or multifamily kind of unit in your neighborhood, to somebody building a refinery, right? Which is ultimately like an industrial, very complicated process oriented type facility or a power facility.

And then as you said, kind of representing the owner or a contractor, different parties hold risk. So it's, you know, in some ways it's pretty cool that by education and then by your first, few professional touch points, you know, you got some pretty good, insights from kind of different levels in that stack too.

I think I want to double down on this, Ilya, and I want to use the word adaptability when I double down on this because there's something unique. I'm American. Right? You guys immigrated to The United States and there's something about the immigrant story and being adaptable in different situations. And I think that lends itself well to, you know, becoming an entrepreneur, trying different things, like running towards things that you don't really know what's on the other side, but you notice one thing, you only get one shot to get it right.

And and I think it's something about that that lights a fire under most of my friends. I'm the only American in my friend group. Right? And that we have this this fire, right, to where you wanna do something new. And I think that adaptability is showing itself in in Victor's story.

Right? But not only that, Victor graduated from Ohio State in Ohio. He moved to New York for this rotation thing that happened, from what I understand. And then he went back to Ohio. Okay?

And then he made the big leap of faith, which we'll get into in a second, in Indiana. Walk us through that, Victor.

Yeah. I mean, I think the leap of faith is real because again, my college degree is an X and then I went to go do Y. That's hard. That's hard. And not only that, quite frankly, I took a massive pay cut to go do that.

I truly was taken abetted to whereby if this did not work out, what am I going to do next? Because at this point, a couple of years have passed, was I going to go back basically to be multiple years junior to my peers? It's like in the fullness of time, nothing really matters. Anyway, so at that point, yeah, one caveat I would say is I was working remote out of New York. So, I was traveling to and from New York quite a bit, which was remote.

That's actually one of reasons why I wanted to go work at Upstart because it had a local office and I want to go work in person. Then again, COVID happened, that didn't happen. Yeah, I think that was fundamental. And then you mentioned High Alpha and Indy. One of the reasons I really liked that firm is fundamentally what they were doing on the innovation side was exploring how can you create advantaged startups on behalf of corporates and universities.

And so that to me really screamed, okay, if I want to learn more about entrepreneurship, if want to learn more about venture and true innovation in this capacity, is probably one of best firms to do it. Interestingly enough, I actually pitched High Alpha Capital, a startup idea that I had. And then through multiple conversations, up at High Alpha Innovation. I was like, Well, why not just come work here instead? So that's how that relationship happened.

But funnily enough, a construction tech idea. Again, love the industry, but again, still not a superintendent. One thing led to another. I ended up going to High Alpha Inno. The funny thing there is when I got on that job, the first product I helped support was a company called Plot, which is actually a construction tech company.

So that was great. And then the next project I worked on was actually UNC Healthcare. So that was a pretty unique shift too. Mentally, think about the curiosity where I said earlier, I want to go to school to become a doctor. Obviously, that didn't happen, but they still did this curiosity in the back of my head as related to this stuff.

And so as I'm working on these projects, somehow, someway, these things keep coming back and it's always full circle as to you're interested in this, not doing it full time, but still comes up and flares up. So that's a pretty unique experience. But again, I think the big thing there is, okay, you leave construction to go do this. Startup to You work at go learn more about innovation. You learn more about innovation to go apply that in somewhere else.

And I think that's, again, the evolution of these themes is really what I you mentioned adaptability, but I think the evolution and being adaptable to the scenarios about what am I learning here? What are the skills? And I think about it as a Lego set, you have different pieces that you need to learn and assemble, and then eventually you get to the end result.

I think that's fascinating because the first venture that I ever built as an EIR was in construction. And, and, we're folk we're talking to PMs and superintendents and tool room managers as well, and that's who we actually end up building the venture for. So actually for two room managers and as you know, Victor and and Ilya, on every construction site, there's a gang box. And those game boxes have tools in it that you need to complete a job essentially. And we were we came up with the idea of what if a game box could talk.

Right? And and what if people could track their tools throughout construction site and beyond, if you will? And it goes a little bit beyond that, but it's kinda weird that the first thing I've ever done as an EIR was build a a venture in construction. And now it's sort of full circle. I'm interviewing you on the podcast along with Ilya, and you're the only EIR that he could find in the industry at that time.

So very interesting. And then you went to high alpha, right, focused on, you know, venture creation, new venture creation for corporations. That's a direct sort of, you know, I would say a partner or a competitor to where I was at as a firm, as a partner at Mock forty nine essentially. Also trying to create new ventures for corporations. Let me double down on the connectivity here.

I also sit on the board of UNCF Digital Health Initiative, right, which was the health thing that you worked on, which eventually turned into Goldie, you know, which is a company called Goldie today. You know? So I don't know if that's the same company or a different one, but I think there's a lot of connectivity between what you've done at High Alpha, the health care thing you started to work on, which was the first company that ever failed for me before I became an EIR. So there's there's a lot of interesting connectivity here. But you went back to Upstart.

You went back to the startup. Tell us why.

It was a fascinating time in the financial markets 2021 was in 2022. And by fascinating, mean, literally unprecedented. We've never seen this kind of thing happen in a very long time. And so, again, it was a bit of a cheat code having been in the startup at first and having seen things happen. Again, I went through the IPO process and that was December 2020.

And then at that point, you can see a couple of things happening in the market. So why did I go back? I think number one, FinTech then, and even still to this day is an extremely, in my opinion, underappreciated aspect of the innovation world. There's a lot of interesting technologies there that I think the general masses don't necessarily appreciate. And so for me, was going back to what is it that I could learn?

What is it that I could provide value back to the company too? But both of those are important. It's not just a one way street. And so I would say the curiosity of that. And so my role at Upstart at the time was project manager, but really focusing in strategy and operations for automotive lending.

So what I did was for folks that don't know, Upstart is a triple sided marketplace. So you have consumers on one end that apply for and get the loans. You have lenders, so credit unions, banks, and financial institutions that originate the loans, the capital. And then through the back end, have capital markets buyers. Think about hedge funds, institutional buyers, etcetera, that actually purchase the loan pools.

My job within the organization within Upstart was to sit at the middle and understand what's happening to the product and then the business implication of that. Meaning if we make marketing changes to a sign up flow and that affects our conversion rate, what does that mean to the loan performance of that portfolio for different risk rates? So little things like that. So, okay, you keep mentioning adaptability. I think this is a good example of that.

It's like, okay, there's a consumer side that you have to get really curious about to understand how do different product changes affect the consumer. There's a lending side of how do banks think about risk and what does that actually translate to origination volume and or the actual prices that consumers see when they get a loan. And then lastly, explaining all these things to a large, large hedge fund or capital markets buyer is a fascinating place. Even though one transaction is happening, you have multiple parties that see things very differently and you have to be adaptable to actually contour the message to each of those and make sure that it fits the narrative of what makes sense. And again, I think that's largely You asked why I go back?

I think the curiosity aspect. And when you think about that role, it is so dynamic. And again, against the backdrop of interest rates were near free. And then each quarter they kept escalating. And so, okay, this is a hard job.

This is really, really challenging. But if you're a curious person, you're willing to put in the hours at the time, I think that's actually a really unique place for you to go. And again, I think when you think about taking a bet on myself, did not come up to the finance world. I never worked in investment banking. I didn't do any of that stuff.

And then you go talk to a bank of folks that have been grinding at this for years or decades. I think it was a good test of, What am I actually capable of? There's a lot of really smart folks at these really top startups. And for me, I went to Ohio State, not to poo poo on Ohio State, but it's not the same as an Ivy League. And so I think it was a good test of, What am I capable of mentally?

Do I have that horsepower to go execute against this? And I would say it was a fairly successful outcome. I would give myself a B plus in that role. I think there's things to be learned, but you got to be honest with yourself. And I think that the big reason why it was exciting, and I would do it again in a heartbeat, is the curiosity aspect.

You learn so much because it's just so dynamic. And against a backdrop of time, time compression is real in a startup. You have to move fast because everything else is just so much faster around you and everyone else is too.

Just to actually jump into that, I've been lucky a few times in my professional career to sit at the interface of different disciplines and see how they're looking at the same information with a different sort of background and a different set of tools and interpreting the world in a completely different way. I can only imagine that in the role that you just described over at Upstart that you were sitting at sort of the fissure between two or three or four different disciplines. And even thinking about how do people make sense of things, kind of what's their due diligence, how do they do sort of their homework, how does sort of upstart understand consumer behavior. That's a whole, you know, probably book, if not series of episodes. So we won't dive too much into that.

But I think for me, you know, being at the table when two super sophisticated folks but from very different backgrounds and perspectives look at the world, look at the same set of information and make completely different conclusions was like a really good formative moment. I'm curious on, does that ring true, A, and two, if you could talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, it does ring true. It's a bit of a Rorschach test of like, Okay, we're both looking at the same thing, yeah, we both see, you see a bunny and I see something else. I see a duck. And I think that's pretty unique. And I think, yeah, to answer your question, it is true.

One of the unique things I would say too is your background and context matters a lot in some of this and so does your incentive. And so that's another thing I would say is actually really important, jumping ahead to when you're in the IR. You have to understand why are folks making the decisions they are? And what do they get if X outcome happens or Y does? And so, yeah, it's definitely true.

I think one of the challenges I would say though, for a lot of those folks is if you don't do your homework as an individual in that position to understand that the context of where people are coming from, you're going to question why people are making those things, making those decisions. And so you really have to be willing to do not just a surface level work, but go deep, understand the context, understand the background, what do they get, what do they not get, etcetera, etcetera. But yes, to answer your question directly, 100%.

Yeah. And just that that's a theme. People ask what's a superpower that an EIR can bring to a residence, right? Many entrepreneurs that I know and folks that ultimately roll into EIR roles don't think that that's a special thing, Right? The fact that they have operating experience, that they have sort of muscle memory to see when once they really understand and can quantify and parameterize incentives and actions, they start to see how the world be able to tell the future a little bit.

That skill set is like super underappreciated in organizations that don't necessarily have that kind of skill set or background. So, just wanted to kind of specifically call that out because there's so many things that you can bring to the table from this diverse operational skill set that's useful in a place where that skill set may not be plentiful. And I think, you know, we just talked through one of my favorites is, you know, sort of empathetic design and then the ability to sort of parameterize and understand, disparate and different types of actors in an ecosystem. And

I think that actually applies really well to the construction industry. That's a lot of the context that I'm bringing to the table. This is an industry that's fairly large. These are large companies, and they're filled with really smart people. But the context of how they're trained and the way that they problem solve is very different than other industries.

And so if you can bring some of those lessons from outside in, it's actually really, really powerful. Of course, you'll get some pushback because we've done this for the last hundred years. What are you talking about? I think that's true to some degree, but being empathetic to say, I've seen this work before, this is why it worked. How does that translate into this world?

I think that's what the superpower is, less so about this worked over here and let's just rip and replace it. That's not the winning formula.

No, 100%. And you mentioned the word translation, which we use a lot on this podcast, on having EIR's become translators. You decided to translate all of your experience, Victor, from construction, then you went to fintech in the startup world. But you made another transition, you know, that most people want to make in in in this world of startups, you know, once you've done pretty well for yourself. And the the job of this person that you became in the role that you got next was to sort of look into the future just a little bit and work backwards to figure out what startups you should fund.

And this time you did it in the world of insurance. The quote that I heard when I first got my job in venture capital was it's easier to become a professional basketball player or any athletic sport than it is to become a venture capitalist. Okay? And you were able to do it with a transition despite not having a finance background, despite not having an NBA, despite not going to the Ivy League. Tell us about the transition, my friend, to becoming a VC.

Yeah. It's hard. It's a different world. It's just a different world. I think part of it is it's a different culture, different subculture, different sub languages.

I think it's just a different way of operating in the world. Think quite frankly for me coming out of Upstart into that role, it was really focused on understanding deeply about financial services as part one. You have to be able to understand that world. And then particularly on the InsurTech side, so I worked at Nationwide Insurance at a CBC. So half the business is insurance, half the business is financial services.

And so being able to talk the language, even if you are within an organization that you can talk to some of those folks, that's part one. I think part two, as far as the VC goes, part of your job as a VC is to see the future, quote unquote. You have to be able to see the dots and then be able to connect them in a way that other people don't. Hopefully you get there first. Not only do you have to be right, but you have to be early.

So that's part one. And then the second thing too is when you work at a startup, you see what works and what doesn't work. Now, I didn't work from the start from day zero to fruition, but I think you still get a glimpse of from private to public. That's a pretty unique aspect that quite frankly, lot of folks don't get to see. I think that combination was pretty unique for a lot of folks despite not having.

But I think the other thing too is a deep, deep curiosity. I cannot overstate how curious you have to be in order to learn because a lot of this stuff, they don't teach you. There's not a lot of textbooks out there that teach you how to become a good VC. People write about it, but it's not the same. It's not the same.

And so you have to be curious to go talk to folks. You have to be curious to go do the homework. And so in order to get these jobs, you have to go do a case study. It's like, okay, well, go find me a company and write up a memo on this before. And again, I'd never done this world before.

Didn't come from investment banking. So you got to do a lot of research. And again, there's nice weekends. There's a quote out there, You should find work that feels fun. And for me, that felt like fun.

So when I could find myself doing these things after hours and I enjoy them and it doesn't feel like a strain, and I'm writing about these things and doing the memos and all that stuff, that to me was a pretty good exercise that showed, Hey, maybe there's something there. So doing that and then demonstrating that to the team at Nationwide to say, Hey, this is what I'm capable of. I know I don't have XYZ on my pedigree, but this is what I can still do without that. So imagine me under the tutelage, under whatever it may be. That's kind of how I parlayed certain experiences in my career into that role.

And just by the way, it's amazing how successful you can be when you're focusing on how you can help whoever you're working with win. Right? You just sort of took one of my favorite short plays out of the the playbook is a lot of folks are able to talk about the things that they're good at, but a lot of folks are not able to contextualize the things that are strengths for theirs, how it can help sort of whoever they're working with win. And so that's kind of what I heard you talking about a little bit. It's not just, you know, what are your capabilities, but sort of that awareness of what A, what is winning for that organization even look like?

Then, what role do you play in that game is really an important and often, unfortunately, overlooked thing to do. So kudos on that because a lot of folks say, Hey, I'm good at really this and I'm good at that. But they don't think about what does winning for everybody look like? Then how can I translate the capabilities that I have to be able to actually contribute?

One thing I'll say there is a sports analogy. You play a certain position, maybe you can flex into one or two others. Sometimes a team doesn't need five centers. They need two centers. Maybe you're just a really good shooting guard.

Okay, well, go be a good shooting guard somewhere else that needs a shooting guard. That's what you need to do. Go find out.

Absolutely. I want to sort of clarify something for the audience because you use the word CVC, VC. Oftentimes I get notes on LinkedIn about, hey, I've learned a ton from the podcast. Can you guys define some of these words for us? You know?

So Victor, can you tell people the difference very quickly between a CVC and a VC?

Yeah. So traditional venture capital and CVC, corporate venture capital, are a little bit different. They play a similar sport, but they're a little bit different. Traditional VC will have a limited number of limited partners or investors that put money into the fund. And then those investors then go deploy that capital.

It's usually pretty financially driven. At a CVC, you have a blend. You have a dual mandate of financial returns, but also strategic to the core organization or corporation. So if you were to invest on behalf of the organization, you're targeting things that could be a strategic add on to the business through any number of ways in addition to trying to get a good financial return on that capital. So that's the difference between the CVCs dual mandate versus single mandate.

And that actual sort of dual versus single, especially for startups, can be super confusing because in many cases, you know, the startup wants to have a successful financial outcome and then has to be really careful about thinking on who's on their cap table, what are their motivations. Because ultimately, I think the we'll call it the cardinal sin for lack of a better term of a startup is misalignment between an investor and the entrepreneur. And it's pretty easy when there's sort of different motivations in your capital cap table. And so, yeah, we won't dive too much into that, but it's that especially in like construction tech and sort of energy transition startups, there's a lot of strategic investors, a lot of really good strategic investors. But there's all kinds of choices being made all the time about, hey, do we take a strategic investor from a large concrete company?

You know, because then we'll be seen as sort of one of their commercial partners and they may have sort of some input into our commercial go to market. And so it's an important and careful thing to consider. Anyway, that's an aside probably for a different podcast, but we got into it. Here we are.

Yeah. I will say that does come into play, particularly as an EIR. If you're thinking about different companies, different firms call EIR different things and there's different mandates there. But if you are thinking about spinning out a company or product or whatever, who is providing the financial backing for that provides a lot of context as to how you need to think about doing so. So yeah, should you take on strategic capital versus traditional versus go to a bank and get debt?

I don't know, it depends on the startup, but that's a huge, huge filter that a lot of people don't necessarily spend enough time thinking about.

No, 100%. And you bought it up just now, so you've teed it up nicely for me. So walk our audience through how you landed your first entrepreneur in residence gig. Where was it at? What did you do?

Just walk us through your day to day.

So you've heard me say time and time again, construction is my background. It is something very near and dear to my heart. I don't know why, but it truly does feel like a calling to me. I think part of it is, you know, it's pretty cliche in the industry, but there's a lot of folks that will say, there's something about driving by a building and you get to see things progress, that that's real. And then over time you get to look at the skyline of the city and say, Oh, I worked on that job on that job.

So for me, being able to go back into the real world was something that I really desired. And so I had spent some time after college working at a company called Barton Mallow. So I interned there during school, worked there through my senior year and worked there as a project engineer right out of school. I knew some of the folks there, thankfully had done decent enough work at the beginning to make those good relationships. And wanting to get back into the real world, quote unquote, I reached out to the fine folks over at Barton Mello and said, Hey, I would love to come back, but realistically, I would want it to be in a more entrepreneurial capacity.

This is what I want to do. Again, going back to the memo, for some reason memos are my thing. And so I wrote out, this is what I'm thinking about. This is how I would add value. This is where I think I could slot into some of this stuff.

And again, some of that is doing homework on my own of tracking them over time and seeing, okay, it seems like they're making a lot of investments in this area. How can I fit into that? And again, you tailor the memo and the outreach to that. Over a period of few months, meeting with various folks from different executives, different directors within the organization, and going through the conversations to really firm up like, Hey, there's something really here. That's what really led me to my EIR role.

I think it was me recognizing I love the construction industry, I really do. But I think the avenue of which or the role that I play here has to be a little bit different. And sometimes, quite frankly, you have to make that up. You have to make up a new role. The EIR role was not a job I applied to.

And quite frankly, usually they're not. You kind of have to be crafted. And so again, I think being really honest with yourself and saying, this is where, not only to Ilya's point, this is what I'm good at, but this is where I can add value back to you. I think that level of transparency and being straight up with folks, that's how you get from point A to point B. I think if you were to come in and say, Oh, can do X, Y, Z.

I can do it all. I don't know that people really resonate with that as much anymore. I think you really got to be able to say, I've done X in my career to date. I have this foundational background. This is where I could slot in.

I think that resonated quite frankly a little bit more than the opposite approach.

I really like this and I want to double down for our audience of what you said. EIR roles, you really can't apply for them. It's very few. I can count on one hand how many EIR roles I see on a quarterly basis. Right?

They are really creative and it's usually when somebody's gonna raise their hand to have the role created or to go to bat for something that should be entrepreneurial inside of an organization. And almost every EIR role that I see people in, it was created for the most part. So for all the folks who who reach out to me on LinkedIn talking about how do you land your first EIR gig, Like, where do I find them? You don't. They find you.

They find you or you go pitch the opportunity to become an EIR potentially like our good friend Victor did or like others on our show have done, like Dan and others have pitched their first EIR role. It was not in the organization. Frankly, a lot of these orgs don't even know what that is and they're not even thinking about it. You need somebody entrepreneurial like a Victor who has had life experience in a startup, in a big company, as a VC that came back was like, hey, I've seen these things and I believe I can bring that to bear to help you and to add value here. You know, I think that is a very big point.

I just don't want that to get lost in what you just said, Victor.

Yeah, the thing maybe I'll add there is there's definitely a lot of universities and places that will say, hey, we need an EIR program. But a lot of the time when there is sort of a either a ceremonial role or something that you can apply for, there's not normally sort of the skill set or background at the table to be like really intentional about how do you pair somebody that's got sort of the right archetype to be an EIR with sort of a successful outcome for the residents. And so I think, you know, and we've talked about this for many episodes. It comes up all the time. It's sort of the in order to really be an effective entrepreneur in residence, it's kind of what's your secret sauce?

Can you communicate it? Has the residents actually done their sort of homework and are they really intentional and have they aligned their strategy and all that stuff? And obviously, nobody's perfect, right? It's hard to sort of do that once and then move on. But if they have, it's normally a better outcome.

Then sort of that third reskilling piece, right, that most entrepreneurial personalities are not necessarily good spiritual leaders and sort of organizational influencers. And the whole point is not for you to single handedly bail water with a bucket, but teach people about fluid mechanics, right? So that's a weird analogy, but we're going with it. So that spiritual leader role is pretty important as well. But yeah, anyway, I agree with Terrance though, generally.

Yeah. One other thing I'll say too, Ilya, you mentioned is the skill set that I think a lot of good EIRs are required to have. It's not like a resume of like, check the box, you go do this. I think the skill set is actually pretty unique, but that actually sometimes is counter to what makes a traditional good employee at some of these companies. And there's a bit of a leap of faith yet again of like, Okay, which path do I really want to go down towards?

Is it going to be a really good corporate employee? You stay here for X amount of years. You know what happens between today and the day you retire. Or am I willing to really lean into these strengths that I have and then jump into the deep end quote unquote and try it out.

Yeah. Let's pull on that a little bit more. I mean, to me, when my kind of EIR role, I saw my job was to sort of be at the interface of the outside world and the organization. Right? And even like how do you structure it?

Do become an employee or you're a contractor? That kind of thing. I spent a little bit of time kind of thinking about those two things but I essentially like in my own head wrote my you know, kind of mental resignation letter and I'm like if I'm not you know being provocative and sort of telling them how it is from my perspective, then I'm really not doing my job. And I got to say, once you're dead, you're not afraid of anything, right? And it's like, it's an amazing superpower, right?

If you're already if you're a dead man walking, right? There's nothing that can slow you down. And it's like, you know, I think maybe an extension of what you were saying, but I think that that's a way that you can kind of mobilize that perspective and also maybe explain that, Hey, I'm coming at this from this perspective, but let me walk back and say, Here's, you know, sort of other places in the world that this is successful and let's try to help connect the dots for you. And then also, you know, it's okay to tell somebody they're wrong. They don't hear that very often in larger organizations because that's just not how the organization normally is designed.

And so, yeah, anyway, it rhymes with my experience as well.

Yeah, a couple of things there I want to touch on. I think the last piece is really relevant for the construction industry or the built world, right? Particularly in the AEC space because yes, we have a lot of innovation teams, we have a lot of disruption happening. This is a bit of an antiquated industry. I think a lot of people see that.

It's not to say it's a laggard, it's not. There's a lot of really smart things happening and really cool things happening. But the idea that we've been successful today doing XYZ, I think we really, as an industry, have to refocus that and try to say, If we've been this successful, what else could we do? And start framing it as a more positive effect as opposed to a negative. I think that's part of the job.

I actually would advocate for more folks, more organizations to have EIRs regardless of the firm, but I think you should just do it. I think the idea of challenging the status quo should be an industry norm that we really should be having across the board. I think to your point, the job is to understand what is the current landscape, how can we challenge that, and where can we grow? That's what should be happening and I'm a huge proponent of that.

Now let's double down on this a little bit, Victor, because you keep teeing me up nicely. So what advice would you give leaders, right? You're advising the CEO or the board of a company who's thinking about bringing or starting an EIR program or bringing on their first EIR. What advice would you give them to make sure that that person feels welcome in that residence and that they're ready for somebody like a Victor to come in to actually show them the way to build out new capabilities?

I think there's a lot to unpack there. I think number one is culturally, what kind of culture do you have in the organization? Are you one that embraces change or is pretty resistant? I think that's part one. Part two is going to be, even if you do set up this organization or this function and you hire in the right person, will they have the right resources to actually go execute their job?

That's another thing you have to really commit to. And then the third thing is, okay, against what timeframe? Are you thinking three months, six months, three years? What are you actually going to do? I think those are the really three key questions I would advise on.

You need to get pretty crystal clear as to what are you going to do? Are you going to support the news? What does that look like? But then even beyond that, I would also say there's so much that needs to happen behind the scenes. Organization alignment between other executives, if someone does come up with this and they have the CEO's backing, will the business still shut it down?

Will they starve it over resources or will they actually be a proponent of it? When you go to market, what happens there? Can you actually co brand something? Are you going to say on behalf of X, are you creating a new product or your own? Where do you actually get the support from the organization if it does exist?

There's so much that happens behind the scenes beyond just, Hey, I think you should do this. Because then the other thing is, okay, AI is the new hot buzz. It has been, it's not really new, but has been for a little bit. And then the question to the organization is, what are we doing with AI? Are we fighting an existential crisis here?

What's our future look like? I think this is actually a really good opportunity for someone dedicated to looking at other things outside of the core business to question some of those things. So if you bring in an EIR or some other function of someone that's really dedicated to doing this, this is actually the best time to do it. Again, come from the construction industry, but if I say we've been doing estimating or scheduling or pre construction or any of these pre construction services, what does that look like in the future in this new paradigm? To me, that's hard for the core business to answer because they've been doing this for X, Y, Z years, and they've gotten to this current steady state.

But hiring an EIR, bringing them on board to question this, and that should something If the answer is, we should change, what does that change look like? Is that a new product? Is that a new service? Is that a new company? And then we go back to where we began.

It's like, okay, should we spin it out? Do they have the company resources that they're behind? Etcetera, etcetera. So I would say, if I'm advising a new CEO writ large, I wouldn't just say, Do it, just simply because that's a cliche answer. But yeah, do it.

I think you should spend some time thinking about what that actually looks like if you were to do it. I don't think you should do it unless you're willing to back up the truck and actually give resources. I don't just mean financial, I mean the company resources behind that position.

I really like your answer on this, Victor, and I want you to double down on the census because you just hit the three main things that I hear often about this and you started to touch on that last thing that really puts the nail in the coffin which is the alignment of incentives for the EIR to do the work that they're used to doing. Usually those people are motivated by equity or you know, growing the company to the largest outcome that they can get it to, right? But usually when you're inside the walls of a big bigger organization, they, you can't make more money than the CEO is what they will say, right? So you have to be open if you're going to bring into somebody entrepreneurial that if they build a thing and they can build it as big as they possibly can, you need to incentivize them to do so. And that's not to just be a base salary.

Yeah. Yeah. This is, I could not agree more. I could not agree more. But that's hard.

That's sticky. That's sticky. It takes a lot of confidence as an executive to say like, yes, this is the right thing for the organization, even if that person makes more money than me. And you see it all the time with sales folks who are like, Sales guys are crushing it. Let's increase our quota.

The sales guys are crushing it again. It's counterintuitive. If you're bringing in business, you're bringing in revenue, you're revolutionizing the business, it's value add to everyone in the organization. That's where I mean, at the beginning, you have to have culture in order to facilitate that. And so, yeah, I think incentives do matter.

And this is kind of the, I don't know, was a dirty secret. This is why you see a lot of folks at CVCs going back to the VC example. It doesn't always pan out because in a traditional venture, you get carry. So what is carry? Investors give you money, you return the money.

And then if you return more than what they gave you, you get a percent of that. But if you go to a CVC, you get same benefits. You don't have the same incentives. Don't know. All that to say, a similar thing happens in an AIR role.

Yes, we all have a base salary. We need to pay the bills. But what's on top of that? What is my motivation? Is it I'm just that passionate?

Is it goodwill? Am I looking for a financial outcome here? Am I going be a partner someday? What is that? I think folks need to get pretty crystal clear as to what they're offering to a potential EIR and vice versa.

What is the EIR walking into? They need to both have alignment and agreement as to what that agreement is before one side could really feel confident, in my opinion, moving forward.

And the flip side of that, just to jump in real quickly, is as an operator outside of a parent, you also have a lot more degrees of freedom. And we're way closer to the true north of market traction and sort of sitting next to your client and customer and things like that. And so in many organizations, it's very tough to cannibalize, in many cases, still successful businesses to build the next generation of something, right? Because in many cases, you're eating into your margin in order to get higher volume. You know, you're sort of reconfiguring things that most of the organization has stood.

And so, it's not just alignment of incentives, but it's alignment of incentives at multiple levels, right? Because you may be acting against the personal incentives of a part of the organization for the betterment of the bigger organization, right? And then from the EIR side, if you haven't been in residence before, there's a lot of like organizational management stuff that most operators are just not trained on. This is not their background, right? And so, you know, and I guess the third piece to this is there's a lot of things that are culturally there because it's a different risk environment, right?

So in construction and especially in the physical world, like you have to manage safety risk and things like that because, you know, people have to go back to their families. And so I've said this before in other discussions, you know, moving fast and breaking things when there is I beams flying around is not acceptable. It's just not, you know, like your decision and lack of control for risk should not end up, you know, killing somebody. And so there are some of these things that are the way that they are for a reason and sort of making sense of that and being eyes wide open is part of the challenge and opportunity. But, you know, I didn't want it to sort of make it a one-sided bashing of, Listen, residents, everything is broken.

And, you know, it's more complicated. And I'm not saying that's what you guys are saying, but like, that's where I think the real magic has just its translation, but it's got to be in sort of the appropriate organizational and cultural context because some things are the way that they are for a reason. I didn't mean to stop the thing, but I just like I where it's it's pretty easy to sort of poke at the bear. But every once in a while, the bear is big and the bear is strong for a reason.

It's true. I think that's fair. It's like, yeah, it's classic innovation dilemma. What are going to do? You're reinvent yourself as a new organization?

But again, they've been successful and not just burnout, but any company that has an EIO. They've been successful to date in order to even facilitate that sort of position. And so there's a little bit of a push and pull. I think you nailed it on the head about a lot of the early work has to be change management. You have to manage expectations, you have to manage relationships, you have to get alignment.

Because if you don't, what are you going to do when you get a flashy new toy? No one in the business is going to adopt it. You're going to have a hard time selling it. That is part of the job too. And you mentioned a lot of innovators or founders or EIRs coming out from the startup world.

Like, no, we'll just move fast. We'll break things. We'll create The business is the technology. It's actually sometimes the opposite. You got to fit the other way around in order to make it work, and that requires the backing of the company by doing some of the softer things like getting consensus, getting alignment, etcetera, etcetera.

One sort of surprising example, actually, now that we're talking about it comes to mind that I see is that technology innovators come from a technology culture, right? They're used to sort of deploying new things and using maybe science, maybe process, whatever to do things differently. Operators are all about performance and, you know, managing risk. And so there's like actually a very large culture clash on, Hey, I have this new thing. It's shiny.

Shiny means scary, right? So like when you in in climate tech and energy transition, have this sort of concept of first of a kind, right? When you say first of a kind to a financier that just like all the risk alarms go off, right? The insurance folks are like, how many hours of operations? Ten thousand hours.

We need at least fifty thousand hours. Right? And then the financing folks are like, first of a kind, we'd like to do like fourth of a kind. Right? Here's why.

Here's like sort of the and so it's just like one word that is exciting and motivating to one group is scary and like red flag to the other group. And so, you know, I've seen that kind of play out in in that context, which I think is kind of applicable here actually, that that you're brave and strong could mean scary and dangerous to another group of people that are really important for you to work with.

There's that translation. That's the job. You got to be able to do that. You got to be able to talk both languages. You got to sit in the middle and be able to translate.

Fundamentally, the guy that created the wheel, you know what I mean? Going back to AnytimeFear, the guy that created the wheel, that's scary for folks. Well, no, we've already got a process in place. This guy has a job, he does this. You got sleds.

I know. Make Yeah. Any example. That is part of the job. That is innovation at its core.

Yeah. I I'd love to dig in a little bit. So you went from the EIR role to a strategy role. And we were talking a little bit before we kicked off the recording here on how having the EIR role gives you maybe a little bit of a different perspective in sort of other functions of the organization. I would love to have you dig into that for a little while.

Yeah, strategy is interesting. Going back to the EIR role, it's like, okay, if your mandate is to go figure out where we can create additional value for a corporation through invention or innovation of new products, services or companies, that's a pretty cool mandate. So when you think about the translation of strategy, it's similar, but different. It's similar in that you're still thinking about the long term horizon of an organization or a function, depending on strategy role. But then the question is, can you make it more grounded?

Can you make it more applicable to the organization? So for me, in my role, I was really focused on operation strategy. So supporting the business, not just the enterprise thinking about, here are the goals for the next three to five years, but what makes sense for the organization, for business, for people that grew up in the industry, in the business to go execute on that. So that could be any number of priorities. I won't share too much there, but I think it's, can you be embedded in the business to understand the long term trends, the long term opportunities, and how do you steer a massive behemoth of a ship into that direction?

I'm only one person, only one man, but I think the job of a strategist is to see what's going to be coming down the pipeline and hopefully make sense of heads or tails in order to steer the boat in that direction. And I would say one of the challenging aspects of that there's a couple, but one of them that I think really does play into the IR role specifically is that if my job was to see what was possible, what is capable of happening, translating that back into the organization now in a different capacity is actually really unique. Because I mentioned earlier, part of the job of being an EIR within a corporation is to do the consensus building, do the relationship building. And so now in the strategy role, lot of those foundations are already there. You already have relationships with folks that are running business units, that are directors, etcetera, etcetera.

And so when you go talk to them about, Hey, I think I'm looking at doing a competitive analysis of XYZ company. This is what the industry is doing. Where are we positioned within that? What does the future look like? And how do we chart the path between here and there?

It's easier for you to have that dialogue with them because you've already done the front work upfront to prove yourself that one, you're capable. Two, you're actually bringing them along for the journey and not dictating because you said in some office or something. But it's hard. I think it's hard to do that work because the time horizons may be a little bit different between the EIR, but I think functionally, they're actually similar in the fact that you have to be aware of what's happening today. You need to be able to see what's happening in the future.

And then I think specifically for the strategy role, it's more so internally, how do we do that together as a team? Less so, how do I do that on Island just in benefit of the organization?

Incredible. And Victor, I want make sure we get you out of here on time, man. I know we're approaching up the clock, but I want to know that beyond the EIR role, what can you share with our audience on what are you doing outside of work? What are the things that Victor is working on that you're passionate about outside of work?

Yeah, there's a couple of things there. One, I enjoy walking. It sounds silly, but I enjoy walking. I enjoy putting on my headphones and vibing out to some EDM. I think that's fun.

I play some soccer every once in a while to stay active a little bit. I enjoy being outdoors. That's all on the fun stuff. I also help run an orphanage in Kenya. I mentioned earlier in the call that I'm originally from there, so I help run an orphanage there.

The number grows all the time, but somewhere around 45 kids in our care. We're actually in the process of trying to build a school for them so that we could have a private school for folks that are in our care, as well as a community to come and join and get a pretty good education. It's a rural Kenya, so we're doing a lot of good work. The stories these kids have are really challenging, to say the least. And so I think we're doing some pretty good work there that adds a lot of value to me.

And then personally, long term career wise, I think going back to the IR role, I eventually want to start something. That's just the reality. And I think having seen and spent a lot of time in industry and see again, still within the construction space, I think part of my goal is to understand if you were to take a look at any given project and the trends of the types of projects that are happening across America, where are the bottlenecks that I can add value ASAP? We all have a part to play in the benefit of this organization and the benefit of this industry. So for me, that's where I see my future.

What's a good way for folks to get in touch or follow your work? The follow-up question is going to be how can the network help you? But ultimately, if they can't get in touch, that's kind of the first step. So what's a good way that folks can kind of continue to stay connected and see what you're up to?

Well, number one, professionally LinkedIn. Feel free to hit me up on there, send me a DM. Similar to Twitter, it's my real name out there. So feel free to look me up and find me there. LinkedIn or Twitter, those are the two best things.

I guess it's X now, but you know what I mean. Reach out to me on those platforms.

Awesome. And then what can the network do to support what you're working on?

It's a really good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I think the big thing, would flip it to them, is how could I help the network? I think now having done this podcast, the listeners will have heard a little bit about my background. Again, get in contact, you can share more.

But I think for me, I'm at a point where I just want to give back to folks. A lot of folks have taken a chance on me. This is my opportunity to pay for it. And so network the could help me, I'm sure, in some way, but I'm trying to make sure I could help the network as well.

Oh my goodness. I'm desperate for a part two, but we'll leave it there. We'll leave it there for now. Victor, thank you so much. It's been an honor and privilege to have you on the podcast, my friend.

Yeah. Thanks for the time. Guys. Really, really appreciate this.

Great discussion. Man, love that discussion. I always really like talking with speaking with Victor. I've known Victor for a couple of years now, and I always find him to be kind of an insightful and genuine guy. And it was a great opportunity to actually spend a little bit of time with him, you know, learn about some of his things that he's excited about off the balance sheet.

And it's really just a pleasure in connecting with good people, folks that are very thoughtful and intentional. And I think this episode just kinda captured Victor's spirit a little bit. And so I'm excited to to see kind of where, you know, his next leap takes him and sort of what he ends up doing professionally, whether it's in kind of the context of a large contractor or something in the entrepreneurial world. But but in any case, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of Victor soon. What'd you think of the conversation, Terrance?

Man, massive plus one. Just a such an insightful guy. Somebody who will inspire you to to wanna do something more. Right? He will inspire you to want to take the leap, and inspire people who who are less adaptable today, who wanna get that level of adaptability that Victor has shown in his life and his career, I think it's just gonna be a treat, for our audience.

And, I feel like I've known this guy for a couple of years now. You've actually known him for a few years, but his ability to connect with people and to tell his story around the things that he that he's accomplished and that he's done and that he's going to do next, is pretty inspiring. So I'm looking forward to our audience listening to this episode. Thanks for joining us on Live. We hope today's episode offered you valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey.

Remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes and check out the description for more details. Do you have questions or suggestions? Please reach out to us. Connect with us on social media. We really value your input.

Catch us next time for more inspiring stories and strategies. Keep pushing boundaries and making your mark on the world. I'm Terrance Orr with my co-host, Ilya Tabakh, signing off. Let's keep building.