“I'm trying to optimize for happiness. I'm not trying to optimize for ego.” – Vivek Sodera

Vivek Sodera (@vsodera) is Co-Founder of Superhuman, the fastest email client in the world. He is also an investor with a portfolio of companies including Framework, UtilizeCore, Rewatch, Bunches, and Playbook. He previously co-founded Airseed and LiveRamp, though he started his career in nuclear engineering.

Chapters

  • What Vivek looks for in founders when investing
  • On strengths and struggles
  • Habits, routines and tools
  • Inspiring people and books
  • On failure and success

Vivek's Favorite Books

Transcript

Daniel Scrivner:

Vivek, I'm super excited to have you back to run through these 10 questions that we ask every guest. Thank you so much for the extra time.

Vivek Sodera:

Thank you.

Daniel Scrivner:

So the first question is a little selfish. I mean, one of my favorite things that I've heard you talk about is some of what you look for in founders and founding teams. And some of that's obviously based on your background, some of that's the kind of lenses that you put on as an investor. Some of the things that you've said in the past is when you're thinking about founders, asking yourself the question is this what this person was meant to do in the world? And looking for founders that are controlling, looking for founder problem fit. So I'd love to hear you just kind of expand from there on other things that you look for as an investor in founders founding teams, and just the approach you take there.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah. So when I talked about control, it was less about controlling, and more about they would not outsource or delegate some of the early work to others that they would own the initial work in the beginning. And make sure that the product, the company, the user experience, whatever it may be is molded in their fashion. Because I think it's very easy recruiting for example to offload recruiting to a third party agency. But, I don't think you would actually build a right team in that effort. It's important that the founding team own that particular approach. So for me, I do look for just from my own experience from being a student of tech, and also now from an investing lens where I'm a pre-seed, seed, and Series A investor. And I have my own small fund on the side, where I look for founders and founding teams that as I mentioned, have a technical background, have product chops, have strong founder market fit. I should get a sense that they were meant to do this better than anyone else on the planet. If Rahul came to me and was like, "I want to build a self-driving car company," I'd be like, "I don't see strong founder market fit there." But if Kyle from Cruise, he has strong founder market fit. He's best suited to do this better than anyone else. So I really look for that.

Vivek Sodera:

I get turned off when I come across founders, especially first time founders, who don't have a mental model and don't understand what it takes to build a company. That then they are just trying to find a problem to solve. They've gone through six different iterations and they're like, "I'm going to try to solve this problem." And it's like no, the problem should be so near and dear to your heart that you're like, "I have to do this. I obsess and I breathe this."

Vivek Sodera:

The other things I look for are does this person have a chip on their shoulder? What really drives them to do this beyond just the idea of starting a company and solving a customer issue? There's something that has to be more there. It might be that they experienced this pain point so deeply in a previous company, or if they're doing a healthcare company and maybe their parents experienced health issues while they were growing up. So something along those lines. I also look for does this person have a particular secret about the world and understand something that I don't know and that a lot of other people don't know?

Vivek Sodera:

So for example, with Superhuman, Rahul had this idea around having this keyboard centric, command light interface experience that didn't have all the Gmail extension bells and whistles that was rooted in speed and search. And I did not agree with that in the beginning. But I was like, "Look, you're owning product and you're driving this." But he was right. He was absolutely right. He understood that the next great productivity companies are going to be the ones that help people get time back, that focus on speed, that reduce people's anxieties and so forth. And I do look for that when I come across founding teams where I'll dig in, and I'll dig in, I'll dig in. And I'll learn something that I didn't realize, or I didn't know before.

Vivek Sodera:

I'm a big believer that a startup at the end of the day is a series of experiments to unlock some type of learning or user psychology. And you kind of have to go through this experience of starting a company, and iterating, and trying to see what works. And then you unlock this. And I've been fortunate enough to see that with some of the recent companies I've invested where I'm like, "Okay, you understand this unique thing that not very many other people understand. That's going to give you a competitive advantage and allow you able to build a moat around that."

Daniel Scrivner:

I love your perspective there. I'd love to now take the lens, kind of focus it on yourself. And there are really two questions that we ask everybody. And the first one, which is going to relate a lot to Superhuman, is what are your superpowers? When you kind of look at yourself, think about yourself, what are some of your biggest strengths?

Vivek Sodera:

I don't think I'm the smartest person in the room. I think I'm pretty hard working. I don't think I'm the strongest or the best looking. But I would say that I pride myself on being able to identify winners and being able to identify people who are special. So when I met Rahul back in 2010, from our first encounter, I knew he was incredibly special, and this was someone I wanted to work with at some point in my career. So I've been fortunate enough to have that experience and to be really refined over time and to identify, like finding Emuye, initially our iOS lead, who's now head of all engineering at Superhuman. I met her within the first five minutes. It was like she's special. We need to bring her on the team. And we moved mountains, even though she had offers on the table and she was going to make a decision in three days. I ran back and I moved mountains for us to kind of super expedite the process. And we came in, and we beat out everyone else. So whether it's teams of companies, whether it's individuals, that's something I do pride myself in.

Vivek Sodera:

Another superpower is I like to predict the future. And I pull in a lot of discreet and non-discreet data. From my own experience, studying a particular industry, look at tangential industries, kind of like what's going on. And then try to map out what the future looks like. So it's really eerie to see Superhuman where we are today.

Vivek Sodera:

Like for example, when we raised our seed round, I had told Rahul, and I don't remember saying this. But I told him specifically, this was prior to actually raising the seed round. We were just starting the process. I told him specifically we need to raise from first round for our seed. And we need to raise from Andreessen Horowitz for either our Series A or series B. And I was very adamant about that. And I was like, "This is what feels right. And this is where I see us going."

Vivek Sodera:

And then first round came in as the last investor in our seed round. And we ended up closing them. And they ultimately led, they put in the line share of our seed. And then fast forward, a16z led our B. And Rahul reminded me of this conversation. He was like, "Do you remember saying that?" I was like, "Vaguely." He's like, "Yeah, it's kind of eerie how you're kind of [inaudible 00:56:55] this out." And a lot of it's just like, there's a certain intuition feeling I have, which I'm still trying to deconstruct and turn into data beyond just feeling an intuition. I'm like, "How can I bubble this up and actually turn this into something that's more tangible beyond just a feeling?"

Vivek Sodera:

And then I would say the third is really around relationship building. I really pride myself on building relationships with people, internally in the company, external to the company, with just people in general. I'm fortunate to be where I'm at professionally, personally. Through all these relationships, many of them turned into friendships. Over the past 15 years, I am very prideful. And I very much value the Rolodex I've built, this network that I've built. I do enjoy people at the end of the day. I think people are the most complex systems and they're the most complex puzzles. Forget trying to debug some code. Trying to really understand people, it's a really interesting exercise. It kind of gets me really excited. What makes this person tick? What are their motivations? What are their wants and needs. And then through that exploration and understanding as I'm building this relationship, I do start to build a connection with that particular individual. And I'm fortunate to have a lot of really close people in my life and an extended network as a result.

Daniel Scrivner:

Love those answers. On the flip side, and we've talked about this a little bit. But what have you struggled with professionally, personally, and how have you gotten better at those things over time?

Vivek Sodera:

My health. It's everything from sleep, to mindfulness, to even the process of losing weight. I'm trying to eat better. I'm trying to work out. It's really challenging to do all these things consistently when you're in a startup environment Monday through Friday, and then you angel invest over the weekends. And it's challenging to have consistency, because there's constantly something that comes up. And you have to derail your plans of getting up at 6:00 AM, and then getting on the Peloton, and then taking a swim, and then meditating. It's like nope, I have to stay up quite late the night before. So I can't do that. So that gets thrown out the window.

Vivek Sodera:

So what's been helpful, honestly having an accountability partner. My wife has probably been the biggest help is she would of just kind of like, "Hey, you shouldn't eat after 9:00." And, "Go to sleep." And last night she was like, "I'm going to make sure you are tucked into bed by 10:00." None of this staying up late etc., because it cascades. You might get a short-term fix, but it has long-term negative effects. And at this point in my life, I'm trying to optimize more for long-term versus just the short-term. And it's just challenging to kind of balance that where short-term needs and not letting my health suffer.

Vivek Sodera:

I see my life as an equilateral triangle where the points represent wealth, health, and social. So I've indexed, ideally, it's a full equilateral triangle that isn't disproportionate in one area or the other. But I've indexed so much on the social and wealth. And by wealth, I mean work, professional aspects. And in social, friendships, and family, and whatnot, that I've let my health suffer. So if I could go back in time, I would absolutely invest in fitness. Justin Kan has the saying fitness is the first step to greatness. I would've absolutely invested in that, and absolutely invested in my mental health and wellness around that. So those are definitely the main things that I struggle with the most.

Daniel Scrivner:

I mean, I can relate. I can't list the number of days where it's like I have plans to go do X or Y, or go work out at the end of the day, or at the beginning of the day. And it's of course the meeting, or the email, or whatever needs to happen. There's always a push and pull there.

Daniel Scrivner:

The next questions that we ask are just around kind of areas of your life. And these may be things that resonate for, and these may not. But I think one of the first ones is just habits and routines. I think the common way people kind of think about that is what is my playbook for the day? And that's certainly one aspect. I think the other aspect would just be I try to do these things, and I try to kind of have this bar for myself most of the time.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah. I also am guilty of having these playbooks for the day. Aspirationally, getting in time to work out, getting in time to meditate in the mornings. And then just sprinting throughout the day, trying to be disciplined around having a hard cutoff. My wife and I, we don't have kids yet. We will soon. And I've talked to peers who are fellow founders who have families. I'm like, "How do you do this? How do you have a baby and you're the founder/CEO of this company. Because a startup is a baby in itself. So you're kind of juggling two babies. How do you do this?" And ruthless prioritization and just say, "No, no, no." So I've had to do that now where I get quite a bit of inbound requests to chat about things from folks I don't know. And I have to say no a lot. I'm like, "Sorry. Nope, nope, nope." Or if it's from an investing standpoint, "I exclusively keep my Mondays and Fridays for Superhuman. If you want to chat, let's chat on Saturday. I have this kind of time block available."

Vivek Sodera:

So that's been helpful just to have those aspects of my life segmented so I can laser focus. I did mention from a routine standpoint, therapy is helpful. My wife and I go through couples therapy as well. So we see a couples therapists every couple weeks. And that's been so immensely valuable. And I mentioned learning these habits around communication in the context of a romantic relationship can also be used in a professional context. Using I feel statements, and not going over the net, and all these things I've learned that I've applied and I've tried to push internally within the Superhuman executive staff group.

Vivek Sodera:

And so we have a cadence around that where we meet with our couples therapists. And I learn something new about myself every session. And I'm just like, "Okay, I need to get better at this." Or, "I didn't know that this was important to me." And I think that makes me a better founder, a better entrepreneur is just having that level of self-awareness. But that needs to be hard coded. It can't just be something you do once, and then maybe you do it again a couple years later. Being intentional about it and putting that on your calendar.

Daniel Scrivner:

Those things have a decay curve. You have to make sure to kind of sequence them.

Vivek Sodera:

That's right. Yeah. So that's definitely part of my routine as well, in addition to the aspirational aspects around improving my health and kind of getting into a particular rhythm.

Daniel Scrivner:

On the tool side, and this can be physical tools, digital tools. It can just be anything from, "I recently bought this thing. I love it." Or, "Here's an app that's not Superhuman," or Superhuman. It's totally okay, you use day in and day out. But any tools you rely on that you just think are incredible.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah. So I rely on, from a physical product standpoint, with respect to my health, I rely on my Fitbit, and I rely on Levels. So it's really interesting just learnings I get from, "Oh wow. When I had two slices of watermelon, my glucose levels kind of spiked. And that contributed to my sleep issues that night." And just kind of drawing this correlation analysis. Levels has been really eyeopening. It's something that I'm a happy paying customer of.

Vivek Sodera:

Fitbit, it's just having something that's just a constantly I can check to see what my activity levels have been. And it's just a reminder to push myself to be better there. With software, for me of course Superhuman. It's number one. I probably live in my inbox at least four or five hours a day. When it comes to note taking, I use a tool called mem.ai. This is a company I wish I invested in. They had raised their seed I think from Andreessen Horowitz. But it's probably the best note taking experience I've come across. If you're not part of the Roam or Obsidian religion or cults there, it's replaced my Evernote and whatnot.

Vivek Sodera:

With project and task management, I use Trello pretty religiously. That's been immensely valuable. I still haven't found a good tool for calendaring. I've explored every single one of them in the market. And I'm still waiting A from the standpoint of a user, and B from the standpoint of investor. And then I started using reader by Readwise, and it's like the Superhuman for Pocket or Superhuman for Instapaper. And I love that product. And full disclosure, I'm an investor in the company. The founder is a former Superhuman engineer. So I just think that's going to be the next billion dollar plus company, just kind of owning all things reading. But that's been a huge boon to my productivity and information consumption is using a product like that.

Daniel Scrivner:

Those are some great ones. Last question kind of in this vein would be around people. And these can be modern or historical figures. But just any person in particular or people in particular that have had an impact on you. And that can be being an inspired by their stories. That can be just people like Justin Kan that you follow today. Anything in that vein?

Vivek Sodera:

Historical figure is MLK. I studied civil rights. MLK, Malcolm X, etc. growing up. And there's a Martin Luther King quote. It's my all time favorite quote. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." I think that's what the quote is. And anytime I experience some discomfort or I experience some challenge or controversy, I think about that quote. And it's just this extra push of okay, I am not going to grow if I'm comfortable. One rarely grows in comfort. One grows in discomfort. Because if you're in a box and the boundary conditions of the box serves as where you're comfortable, you're just going to be confined to that box. But if you want to keep growing and kind of want to grow that box, you have to literally step outside your comfort zone.

Vivek Sodera:

And so it's a reminder that when I'm experiencing something, this is an opportunity for growth. This is an opportunity for me to level up in a particular area. And MLK had to deal with so much of that, part of the civil rights movement. And then from a modern figure standpoint, I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it's someone like Elon Musk. Where I don't know how he does the things that he does, and how he moves mountains the way that he does. And he does this with multiple companies all at the same time. I think he is the greatest entrepreneur of our generation. And I think he's going to have the most impact of any modern figure that I can think of. And it's like someone that I don't put people on pedestals, but this is someone that I absolutely do.

Daniel Scrivner:

To your point earlier, it's special, something special there. Similarly around books, any books that either you find yourself wanting to go back and reread often, you find yourself recommending to others often? And this can be in any vein. It can be whether it's professional or not.

Vivek Sodera:

A few books come to mind. One is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I am naturally introverted. And when I was starting to work on my first company, I realized I had to become more extroverted in order to be successful professionally, but also with respect to the companies that I was doing. So there are a lot of really basic principles and concepts in How to Win Friends and Influence People that I remember reading at the time. And it's like oh yeah, smile, or say someone's name. And just remember their name. And all these different things that's just so trivial when you read it, but it definitely has significant impact. And it's definitely allowed me to become more of a relationship builder over time.

Vivek Sodera:

Another book that I read, if How to Win Friends and Influence People is my favorite book, the book that's probably had the most impact on me is 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Now there are folks who view that as the psychopath's Bible. For me, I read these laws. And they give examples in history. It's actually a really good book to read from a history point of view, because Robert Greene goes in depth in terms of a historical figure like Otto von Bismarck. This is an example of a transgression of this law or the opposite. And things that I've learned, one of the laws is don't outshine the master. And I tried to outshine my co-founder at my first company many times. And I look back at my behavior. I'm like, "What was I doing? That wasn't the right thing." So now with Superhuman, Rahul is the CEO. I'm not going to outshine him. I'm never going to outshine him. I'm going to try to propel him as much as possible.

Vivek Sodera:

And these were things that I've learned as a result of reading this book. But at the same time, I've also have been more acutely aware of the various sharks that swim in the ocean with us. And people who really adhere to these laws, I can identify and see what they're doing.

Daniel Scrivner:

Even if they don't know the laws, but they're using them.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah, exactly. They might not be able to speak to exactly what they're doing from the lens of this particular chapter in this book. But it's an unfortunate reality that there are a lot of psychopathic type people and sociopathic people in tech and in the professional world. And I think it's important to identify who these people are. And I was incredibly naive when I was doing my first company. And I was a guppy swimming in the ocean. And I learned the hard way that there were certain people that did not operate like how I operated. And they were sharks, and I aspired to be a whale using that analogy and that metaphor. So that book has definitely opened up my eyes. So whenever I work with founders who are starting in their career, "Hey, you're going to be interfacing with a lot of investors. You're going to be interfacing with VCs. You're going to interface with these types of people." I recommend just immerse yourself in this, but don't let this become your Bible. Just be aware that this exists.

Vivek Sodera:

And then the third book, which I recommend to every founder is The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. This is sort of a bit of a Bible for Superhuman and how we scale the company. There's a lot of really interesting content, and learnings, and best practices and principles around organizational health, the right leadership team, investing in your core values. In fact, we as a leadership group read the book The Advantage, we referenced The Advantage as well as Patrick Lencioni's other book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team all the time. And there was a particular chapter around core values. And we took that to heart. And we ended up refactoring Superhuman's values. We had a set of six values when we first started the company. Fast forward a couple years later, we read this chapter, we read this book, and we decided to completely refactor. And we came up with these three core values that as the operating conditions for the company. Create delight, be intentional, and remarkable quality. And that came out of the exercise in The Advantage. Highly recommend that book.

Daniel Scrivner:

Love those.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah. Your core values in a company, it's essentially what you would do almost to a fault. What your company does better than 99% of other companies. And it's true to the DNA of the core team. We actually blogged about it. I don't know if this is something that you can link to in the notes.

Daniel Scrivner:

Oh yeah. We can link to that in the show notes. Yep.

Daniel Scrivner:

Hearing you describe the 48 laws of power is such a good example of I know that book. I've never felt compelled to read it. Now I'm actually interested in reading it. So thanks for that tee up in The Advantage. Those are going to be books I'm ordering after this.

Daniel Scrivner:

So we ask every guest the same two closing questions, and I'm really excited to hear your answers for these. The first one is if they're able to share a favorite failure. So something that obviously from the outside looking in, it probably felt like a terrible failure. You don't view that way for whatever reason.

Vivek Sodera:

Yeah. I think we touched upon this a few times. And I would say my favorite failure is the failure of my own startup. I learned so much about myself in such a short amount of time. And it at the time was incredibly painful, but I am where I am today because of that. And I wouldn't trade that for any anything.

Daniel Scrivner:

And then the last question is what is your definition of success? In whatever direction you want to take that question.

Vivek Sodera:

I don't believe success is a function of vanity metrics like how much money you make, or income, or anything financial, for me at least. So success to me is what correlates with your happiness? So there are folks who they are just genuinely happy creating art. And those people are successful using whatever their definition of happiness is, if they are at home or wherever they're at and creating art. And they're creating these art installations pieces, I think that person's successful.

Vivek Sodera:

And then I think about success in the context of impact to the rest of the world. So for myself, I would consider myself successful. If I look back in my life, if I had significant impact, that if I positively impact and change people's lives for the better.

Vivek Sodera:

This is why I love the productivity space and this is why I love what we're doing as Superhuman is it's not just rebuilding email. But we're giving people time back. And we're helping people, whether it's a few hours a week or whatever it may be, spend that time with their family, or catching up on sleep, or doing more work. And time is the most expensive resource. We can't buy time back. But, what we can do is try to save as much time in whatever activities that are important for us. So I look at that as I think I am successful, just purely looking at the number of customers we've had and all the anecdotes and feedback we receive from people where they're like, "I love this product. You saved me so much time. I'm able to do this now. Thank you so much." That's success to me. Not evaluation, not having a particular exit event with Superhuman.

Vivek Sodera:

In fact, Rahul asked me, he's like, "How would you feel?" This is the early days when we were just starting Superhuman. "How would you feel if a Google, or a Microsoft, or a LinkedIn wanted to buy us for let's say 300, 400 million, whatever it may be?" And I was like, "You and I both been there done that. This is a once in a generation type company that we have an opportunity to build. Let's really swing for the fences here. Because I think we can actually impact tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people's lives in what we're trying to do here."

Daniel Scrivner:

And you can do it in a bigger way if you stay independent, or you can do it on your own terms if you stay independent and adhere closely to your values. This has been incredible. Thank you again so much for the time Vivek. This has been one of my favorite interviews in a while.

Vivek Sodera:

Wow. Thank you. Appreciate the kind words.