#3: From $700 to Silicon Valley’s #1 Seed Investor – Pejman Nozad’s Unbelievable Journey
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I came to America in 1992 with no plan. I didn't know why I came. I just, when I heard like it's land of opportunity, that's the only thing I knew. So I came here, didn't speak any English.

And I had only $700 cash. So that's the beginning of my journey in America. Welcome to Divot, a community for people trying to make their mark on the world. Where each week I'm interviewing the best minds in business, tech, sports, and entertainment to learn how they made their mark. Go to divot.org to see all of our episodes, suggest a speaker or product that we should check out. You can also watch episodes on X, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. Divot.

Today I'm in Menlo Park, California. I'm interviewing Pejman Nozad. For the past two years, Pejman has been recognized by Forbes as the number one seed investor in the world. His extraordinary path to success from leaving Iran to becoming a rug salesman to one of Silicon Valley's top investors is one of America's most inspiring stories.

In 2014, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the United States. He is a founding managing partner at Pair VC, where he oversees an early-stage fund investing in startups. He made some of the first investments in companies like Dropbox, Lending Club, and DoorDash. Under his leadership, Pair has grown significantly, managing now over $430 million.

Hope you enjoy it. Talk to me about where you grew up. Tell me about, I'd love to hear about your, you know, who were your grandparents, your parents. I was born in Iran, in Tehran. It's actually east part of Tehran, which actually Americans came many years ago, built that part of Tehran. It was very well known.

My grandfather from my mother's side used to work for the Social Security Department of Iran and he retired. My other grandfather from my father's side, he actually worked for the executive office of the first Shah of Iran. So he was like a next to chief of staff. I never met him because he died before I was born. Yeah, I grew up in Tehran and with the middle class family, my father had multiple small businesses and grew it in Tehran.

I played soccer all my life. I started when I was four or five years old playing soccer on the street of Tehran, like any other kids in Iran. - Should we be calling it soccer? Should we be calling it football? - Football, I think. I'm just telling it soccer for your audience, but it's real football. - When did you start to realize that you had this talent

Was it immediately? Were you always better than others? For my age group, I was really, really good. Even when I was six, seven years old playing on the street, I knew I'm better than anybody else. But I think when I was 12, 13 years old and I started to play for the clubs my age and then I was 14 years old.

So it's really early on. But you know, in Iran, you learn playing football, soccer on the streets. So I had no coaches. You just come home, you do homework and you go play soccer. And I think that was the only thing we had over there, especially as, you know, when I was born,

When I was 10 years old, the revolution happened, Iran's revolution happened, and two years after, the war happened. So my, the Iran and Iraq were for eight years. So our teenager life, me and my friends were like surviving a war for eight years, and you know, football was the only way to go play out, and

you know later on michael jackson came in and break dance was the way of connecting to the world and you know in iran at that time music was prohibited so it was like underground listening to michael jackson learning to to just some move and playing football so it was it was a different role than than teenagers have here yeah has played an integral part in the civilization for a few thousand years

from Cyrus the Great all the way here. So, and if you look at it, Iran is a beautiful country with different climates, different music, different languages, different food, but one united country. So if you go travel from north next to Caspian Sea, which is very close to Colorado, and then you go down, look like desert when you go to Persian Gulf. So I think it's a beautiful country.

Science and math has a big root in Iranian culture. There's a university around called Sharif University, for 23 years has produced the most acceptance of PhD students at Stanford. Actually, my partner, Mara Hershenson, always joked when she got her PhD at Stanford,

Half of my class was Iranian, came from Iran. They never studied, but all get A+. They were playing backgammon, playing poker and buying stocks. And I didn't know I was studying so hard for these people. So I think there is something, and education is very important in Iran. So Iran is very different than what you hear in the media. When I was...

And I was fourth grade, actually fifth grade. Our teacher came to our school and he said, "There's a German school in Iran, "and every year they pick 15 boys, 15 girls from entire Iran." They selected me and my friend, and then we went and participated. It was an IQ test and math test.

And it was a way for Germany to select top students at that age and in Taiwan, pay for their education, and then you can go to Germany, continue to study over there. It changed my life because the school was amazing. We had indoor swimming pool, we had indoor soccer court. It was like

phenomenal place. So we went over there, I went over there with my friend Hamid, who is actually my friend for over 50 years. And then after two years, the revolution happened, they shut down international schools. So then I went to a normal school in Iran, I played soccer, and then I was playing for Iran's, one of the Iran's biggest clubs, youth team.

and the owner of the club started a sports magazine and he knew I speak German and he came and said, "Pagemon, we have German magazines, come and translate." So I started to translate from German magazine to Farsi, but I became really good at understanding how to write these articles because I was reading German magazine. So I started to write my own articles and people loved it. So at the age of

17, 18 years old, I became very popular among the Iranian soccer community. And then they gave me one of the sports radio talk show, which was phenomenal. Imagine you're 18 years old and LeBron James of your country come and sits in front of you. So it was like, I was amazing over there. And then I became a member of International Sports Press Association, which is

the highest organization in terms of the sports writers in the world. So that's how I started the football change. I got accepted to a top university in Iran and after that, after two years, I decided to leave Iran.

But during that time, I asked my parents to leave Iran because my brother left Iran when he was 15. So when I dropped university, I went to serve in the army. And then my parents left Iran already. So I served in the army. Luckily, after six months training, the army team was playing in the Premier League. So I played the entire two years in the Premier League in Iran. This led to you all, your families in Germany, you go to meet them in Germany. You're playing football in Germany. You're...

Your show is... Yeah, so okay. So I served in the army. I played football. I finished my service in the army. Everybody should do it. I got a passport and that's it. It was difficult to get passport. It was maybe a different show. I should talk about it. But I went to Germany to play football and go to university. I was about to just make that happen four or five weeks into it.

I never played football in Germany, but I was offered to play. And my brother pushed me to go to U.S. Embassy and he had this American dream. And I think the guard at the U.S. Embassy knew him because he was always showing up for visa and he was always denied. And the counselor asked me to share

share my life story. And at the end, I remember exactly the woman said, I don't know why, but I want you to see my country. Give me your passport. So, and come back tomorrow to pick it up. So, my brother and I, we went home and, you know, my father had a lot of friends and who were surgeons, lawyers, they couldn't get visa to America. So, everybody had a view of, no, she's tricking you. They're not going to give you a visa. So, even next day, I had a visa. So, I came to America in 1992 with the

- With no plan, I didn't know why I came. I just went, I heard like it's land of opportunity. That's the only thing I knew. So I came here, didn't speak any English.

And I had only $700 cash. So that's the beginning of my journey in America. In what? You land here in San Francisco? My uncle lived here. I came here. He picked me up from the airport. I had no plan. I didn't know what to do. I think the hard part for me was it like I could have taken a flight back to Germany or even Iran, go to my show. Everybody knew me in Iran. But, you know, I kept going. I...

I knew I had to find a job that doesn't require the English language. So I called former Iran's national team head coach. I knew he lives in San Jose and he said, I have a job for you. So this is like right after you, like days or weeks or... Like...

two, three weeks into it. I bought a 1973 Chevrolet for five payments of 150 bucks. I actually found an Iranian dealer to make sure I can negotiate because it was going to, you know, American dealership. I didn't know what to say. And the guy trusted me because I had nothing. So anyway, I drove every day for hour, hour 15 minutes to San Jose and I washed cars. So my first job in America was washing cars for him. And

He was an amazing guy because we talked football all the time, but I was an amazing car washer. Nobody washed cars like me. Tell me what makes an amazing car washer. Spotless. And put so much love. I really believe in anything you do. I want to be the best at it. I want to be the best in the world. I was playing soccer. I wanted to be the best soccer player. And I was writing for sports magazines. And I was washing cars.

I think I have that belief that you want to be the excellent at anything you do. And if you do that, something magical will happen. You can make a mark no matter what it is, if it is washing cars or if it's helping someone or if it's doing something big, like it's still... I really believe if you are cleaning windows and if you're the best...

window cleaners in the world, one day you have a company that you're going to, you know, clean Empire State's entire building. Why is that? Because dedication to be excellent will take you places that you never know. Coming to the States and not really, you know, knowing two or three people or, and not knowing the language, I mean, it seems like, I mean, it's probably very lonely, difficult. It was. And your family and...

Everyone is overseas and like, why not give up? Why not just go do what seemed like an easier path? Yeah, it was tough because emotionally it was tough. I think like washing cars, you don't die, but emotionally it was very hard. But I felt that...

I mean, I can survive, I survived this. This country can give me a lot of opportunities. I started to, one of my, my dad had a very good friend in Iran who was a captain of the volleyball team, national volleyball team. His kids were here and one of them was playing football. So I went immediately play football with them. So I built a real close community around me.

And playing for that team was very important because it let me really think through that I have friends here who can support me. So that football team was really excellent. And listen, I remember I had only $7 for food every day. So I had to manage how do you survive with $7. And in Redwood City, there was this All-You-Can-Eat places. I forgot the name of it. It wasn't Sizzler or something else.

So I figure out at six o'clock when they close, they get rid of many muffins and so on. So I managed to be there at 5:30 and then end up taking that. So surviving with limited resources, but even when you had $7 for food,

I lived my life to the fullest. I played soccer, I made sure that I watched TV, good movies, hang out with my friends over there. So that never let me forget about what's important in life. - I think I've read somewhere that you slept above a yogurt shop or something. - Yeah, the story is, so my English improved at the yogurt shop, the car wash, so because I was taking English classes at night and I landed a job at the yogurt shop in Redwood City.

And it's a very developed part of a town now. And that town was like a terrible part of a town. And so I ran out of money. I slept in my car. I slept on the street. And I begged the owner of the yogurt shop to let me sleep in an attic. So I lived in an attic for a few months. Literally an attic. So waking up every morning at 5 a.m., running the yogurt shop till 5 p.m., go to college to study, take a shower in college because I didn't have a shower, come home.

to the yogurt shop and you know i remember because there was no air and oxygen you know a couple of nights i went out to take him just to breathe breathe and then police caught me the police thought that i'm i was breaking in and it was with short

I took him upstairs. I said, come officer, see it. And we became friends and he was coming, having yogurt. Of course, of course you became friends. And so that's, but I tell you, I think, you know, I felt if I survive this, there are many things I can do. And, you know, when I look back,

again the emotional part was very hard going back to my parents going back to Iran I think surviving those post-revolution and war you don't know it but it gives you a lot of strength that you know if you can survive

things that you cannot imagine in life. And, you know, living in an attic was hard, but it was not harder than surviving missiles and rocket jets bombing your city. As a kid, if you're, you know, these things are happening around you, you don't probably really understand fully what's going on. Did it become, did it become sort of normal? Did it become... It became normal. I think at the beginning it was hard, but then it became normal. That's part of our lives and you had no other choice.

what choices you had. That is not only that, I think, you know, it was so tough because of even sanction in Iran in that time that we had to live on coupons the entire country. So we had coupons for rice and beans and oil and it was just tough, but it became part of our life. So it wasn't, we were nagging about it, but we didn't have any other choices. So therefore your friends and football, soccer was so important because that was a way to escape.

Yeah. You know, I think sometimes really hard things happen to us and happen to people. And it's, it sort of becomes almost like a debilitating experience where you, I have to work at the car wash. Like I have to go back to this. I was here and now I'm here or all these terrible things are happening around me and it's not my fault at all. It's just almost like bad luck.

And I think it can really make people understandably very negative and, you know, and sometimes sort of put you in a spiral that is very hard to get out of. But you, it seems like you kept, you're getting, you're sort of in this situation and yet you're finding a really positive way to look at it. And then you're finding a really positive way to get out of it. How did you, how do you cultivate that? Is that your parents? Is that something, sort of a mindset or? No, I don't think it's.

I don't think it's things that I train myself. It's just in me, I never rest to become better at whatever I do. And I always have the hope that if you put enough effort and work really hard, be good to others, things could happen. Even if you're sitting in this office, this firm is doing great. I still think we are day zero.

And we can do a lot more than what you see around here, what we have done with this firm. Same thing when I was washing cars or yogurt shop and I thought, okay, I can do a lot better than what I'm doing today. So maybe...

Maybe this insane amount of hope for the future. Did you have any communication with people back home? Did you, were you writing letters or it was all pre-internet? No, no, I was like writing a lot of letters at that time to the girl that I really loved. Actually, the story was the $700 that I mentioned was gone in a few weeks. That's why I bought the...

the car with payments because I didn't have money. So I was in love with a girl in Iran. And when I came here, I thought I'm going to lose her. So I better call her from payphone. And this is 1992. There was no internet phone. There was no WhatsApp. So I had this bag of quarter every day going to pay one in downtown San Carlos. The money was gone. So, and I was writing a lot of letters to her. She still has. This is your wife? Yeah. She's my wife now for 32 years.

How did you meet? We grew up in the same neighborhood. Yeah. So we actually, my uncle moved to a brand new apartment, very beautiful. It was like eight or 12 units in one of the units she lived there. And then there's a lot of kids in the department. So we started playing together when I was 10, 11 years old. Yeah. Did you know immediately this is the person I need to marry? Yes. You did? Yes. Actually? Yes. I didn't know where I loved her from when I was 12 years old. Wow.

Wow. And you said, I'm going to marry this person someday. Yes. Did she believe that or did she kind of, did she see? No, she didn't believe me at the beginning. No, you were telling her. I didn't tell her I was 12 years old that we got married. I mean, how did you eventually get married?

her over here or did you go back or like yeah i mean i was um at the yogurt shop yeah i actually uh went to iran and i got married here and you went back yeah i went back i actually had a visa that i could go back and forth uh it was actually a journalism visa

It was like amazing. I didn't know. I figured out later on that I can go back and forth. And really, you know, I have a lot of admiration for my wife, Mania, because she left a great life in Iran, came here knowing I had nothing. And we started life together from zero and a very unknown life for her. I just came here because we loved each other.

Was your family able to come to the wedding? Yeah, I tell you. So it was a big ceremony in Tehran and we rented this amazing garden in the north part of Iran. We invited around 120 and my mother came from Germany. This was a time in Iran, it's very different now, but men and women could not celebrate under one roof. And then you had to go bribe local police and so on. My brother-in-law did it.

And it was the middle of the party ceremony right before dinner that my brother-in-law came to me in a rush and he was in like red and he said, police is at the door and they brought buses to take everybody. He said, you either shut down the wedding or we take everybody to jail. And we had no choice to let the...

let the guests go home and i remember we took the cake and then 20 of our closest friends and family went to my sister's home and we we did that over there but listen i was just so happy i didn't care like how did it end up i married their life the love of my life but it was tough i think if you imagine today in america or my son is getting married and then police come and shut it down he's like you can't even put that in movies yeah you can't imagine it and again like

I've never heard you talk about that. It's not something you're like overly dwelling on. You're not, you know, you didn't find those people and I assume and, you know, make their lives hard 20 years later or something. It's kind of like, you kind of, it's like part of the experience. Acceptance. I think accepting like, uh, it was experience. I reached my goal. I mean, it was not the exact way we wanted to do that ceremony, but at the end of it, the result matter. Tell me how you, uh,

got connected with medallion rugs. Yeah, so magical things happened one of those nights in that

attic I saw and I saw an advertising in the Persian TV about a rug store it was I saw that's hiring rug salesmen so I looked at the video it was like beautiful rug place and I look at my place and I said maybe and then Iranian they everybody thinks they know something about rugs like every American has a view of football and baseball but

I didn't know anything about it. So I called and the owner interviewed me right on the phone and he asked me, have you sold rugs? I said, no. Have you sold furniture? I said, no. Have you sold cars? I said, no. And the guy said, well, why did you call? But you're not qualified. So before he hung up, I said, Sarah, how can you say no to somebody you haven't met? And it was a pause.

And then he said, come the next day. So I put a suit and tie the next day. I went over there and then he hired me on the spot. And this is Mr. Amidi who passed away. But he actually started business when he was 13 years old in Bazar in Tehran and built really an empire. He built one of the biggest industrial families in Iran, a variety of different businesses, very successful. When the 1978 revolution happened,

the government nationalized his asset. So he came here, started the rug business and the real estate business. That's how the Amidi family started it. But I tell you, if he was born here, we would have been Bill Gates time too. He's like smart man, didn't speak really well English. And the very first day he asked me,

So Medallion Rug is on University Avenue, which it goes straight to Stanford University. He said, come out, I want to show you something. He said, do you know what is at the end of the street? I said, yes, Mr. Amiri, it's at Stanford University. He said, you can go over there and get a PhD in business, but the real PhD in business is with me here. So whatever I'll tell you, say yes, I'll do it. I said, yes, I'll do it. So...

So use those words, yes, I'll do it. Yes. And the next day I showed up with suit and tie to sell rugs. And I said, no, you're not selling rugs. I said, so what do I do? He said, you flip rugs and you bring tea. I said, okay, I'll do it. Because he told me the day before, whatever I tell you, you should do it. I tell you a funny story because he didn't give me the rug. He didn't give me...

client customers for long and i was like really frustrated because i was seeing the other rock salesmen how they interact but i felt that nobody's building a real relationship we had this concept that you call um your previous clients and you go pick up their carpets for wash so i was calling it's like derek i know you bought a home in powalto you bought this persian tabriks rug 9x12 five years ago it's time to wash your carpet and um

And by the way, it's 50% off when free pickup and delivery. 100% people say, yeah, come and pick it up. So by studying what rug he bought, I was taking a few more rugs to your home and say, this takes two weeks. Why did I leave this rug for you? I said, it's for free? He said, yeah, for two weeks for free. So when I was bringing your rug back and you were saying, the new rug, not nicer. He would have said, well, I like this rug more than mine. He said, yeah, but you have to pay $5,000 more. So...

Every time I was going to bring a wash for $200, $300, it became $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000. He really liked it. And one day I walked in and said, you take customers from today. So I proved myself. So this was, you were not a salesman. You just kind of hustled your way into doing that. Yeah. I bet everybody started doing that. Yeah, it's a big, big operation now. So if people call you for wash, think about it. There's something behind it. Who?

I mean, whose homes did you go into? Well, many homes. I actually think, you know, and then what happens was personal rugs, when you sell rugs, people come to your store and then you go to their home. So basically, you spend a couple of hours with them. Around six, seven years into selling rugs, I realized all of my customers are top venture capitalists,

founders of big tech companies. These are not typical people that you can meet in tech. One of them, for example, was Lou Montulli. Lou Montulli was the founding engineer of Netscape. He's the guy who invented cookies. He actually called for washing his rugs. I went over there and I saw he was playing games and I said, what do you do? I said, yeah, I started this company Netscape. Netscape was like amazing at that time. 85% of traffic was using. So we became really good friends and I started to...

Those washes became a transaction, became really good friends. So I started to go over there. The most fascinating thing was one Friday afternoon, a very well-dressed man came and he said, I'm looking for rugs for my living room and I'm looking for 12 feet 2 inches by 24 feet 3 inches. That was Doug Leone. I said, listen, there might be 24, 1 inches. No, it's a 24 feet 3 inches I want.

The next day I took a lot of rugs to his home. The first 10-15 minutes was very obvious you can't sell this guy anything. He's a better salesman than you. I mean he's an Italian charming guy. So we spent like two three hours over there. No sales. He didn't like any of the rugs and then at the end of the day I said okay this was at the time that

I partnered with the owner of the rug shop to invest in startups as an angel investor. - This is what year, roughly? - This is... - Late '90s or something? - Late '90s, '99, that time, 2000. So I was actively looking at how I can get myself into this community. And I said, "Doug, by the way, I can help Sequoia Capital invest in the best entrepreneurs, Iranian PhDs from Stanford." He paused and he said,

I come to your office Monday, 7:00 AM. And you know, I made sure my life

I made sure that I'm there at seven o'clock. The tea is ready. I was serving an amazing tea, nothing like tea bag in hot water. It was like a tray, like you have gone to a palace with dried fruit. It was like broomed tea with saffron in it and rose water. It was like amazing. He came and I said, how do you want to do it? I said, listen, why don't you bring the entire senior partners here and the beautiful rug store? And I bring Persian founders here. And he said, yeah, I will do it. So a few weeks down the road, he came with Mike Moritz,

I think few other people were there. - Top investors. - Top investors in the world. It was like on top of the world. And I make sure that I have Iranian families. So what I did, I didn't have like a hundred Iranian families around me at Stanford. So I went to Stanford directory, any name was Iranian. I said, okay, you wanna come, you have an idea. If you have the right idea, just show up free food, Persian food, and then Sequoia capital come. And then everybody says yes. And people said, well, we'd love to come, but we are Pakistani. Is that okay with come? I said, yeah, but don't say you're a Pakistani.

just come up. So, and I think Doug and I, I think we have maybe a same DNA, like this insane amount of desire to win and do something really extraordinary. So we really connected and Doug's trust in me coming that day, putting this together, although I haven't done anything, it gave me some confidence that I can be part of this community, but I knew my strength is the network I have. I couldn't comment on products and strategy.

And my network started to build up. So venture capitalists realized I have access to amazing entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs realized that I have access not only to venture capitalists, to people like Lou Montoli who built companies before. So we started to make investment. We made like- Start connecting the dots between all of those different people.

We made investment. We made like terrible investments. And we didn't know what the heck we were doing. Can I just back up a second? Like the leap from rug salesman to investor is it's a pretty big jump. I mean, where did you...

And you're like a really great rug seller. Like how much and say- - Yeah, I remember like one year I sold over $2 million worth of rug, which I joke that most of our companies will die before they get the $2 million revenue, so. - So like, you're really good at this job and yet you somehow see this other opportunity. You're going into these homes, you're looking around, you're kind of like, I think a lot of people have had this experience where they arrive in Silicon Valley

Like, I mean, mine was the same. I just kind of like got here as an intern. And then I realized, oh, I'm in Silicon Valley. It's like, there's something so much bigger here than just working for this company. Yeah, I was really amazed when I heard what they're doing. I was like really amazed because I thought businesses, you build this and sell it. I didn't know that you can create massive companies, create jobs, create wealth based on knowledge. And

But immediately I realized the network I built, it's very valuable. And I started to leverage that rather than acting that I'm a good investor. I understand tech and go just say nonsense in meetings. I match people very carefully and that started to build up. And then there's really a willingness to learn the business and ask a lot of questions. And then just being lucky also, I ended up, you know,

meaning some exceptional entrepreneurs early on, including my partner's husband started a company, Danger, with Andy Rubin. So I met Andy Rubin when he came by Ruggs for $5,000. And I asked him, what do you do? And he said, if you started Danger. Danger was the first company

smartphone, the very first smartphone T-Mobile was selling it and Matt Hutchinson's husband was the co-founder of it. So we went with the boss, the drugstore boss, we went to their office, we made an investment over there but meeting Andy and Matt and Joel Bridget. And he was the creator of Android. Yes, and later on became Android. Changed my mind about the quality of the founders. So I became very lucky and we invested first investor in Dropbox and a few others. So

So that was then. But listen, it was hard. And the reason is not hard. It was like very strange. Like imagine, you know, instead of Silicon Valley, I was in Hollywood. And you go to Steven Spielberg's home. You start to sell carpets. And at the end he said, Mr. Spielberg, I can help you make movies. It's like, what? And I think, I actually think I was, that's, and it still is the...

the magic of Silicon Valley that anything is possible. And really the community opened their arms to me. They didn't judge me. Doug Lembert judged me. He saw something in me, like I have access. And later on when I met Drew and Arash at the YC demo day, and I felt these entrepreneurs are amazing, the very first person I called was Doug Leone.

And, you know, I took them to Sequoia Capital. And, you know, later on, Sequoia became the biggest investors in Dropbox history. Let's talk about that. So the Dropbox is two people at the time. It's the two co-founders. You see them pitch. And did you immediately say, I've got to invest in this? No, I think I was at that time, I think it was 2005 or 2007. So I was doing this for like seven, eight years. So I had some...

pulse yeah and i felt these guys are like really special and i went to arash who's iranian and i started saying iranian name said yes and he barely spoke farsi so then i invited to the rock store and i don't know drew the ceo tells this great story that when they came i didn't know i didn't tell him you have to come to rock store and they thought they're late and look around and say this is a rock store and they came in and i said sorry we're looking for page one but this is this

353 University and you know the person over there said yeah let me walk you back and we had an amazing boardroom with carpets on the wall at this point you're not selling rugs anymore no I was doing it no listen we're still doing rugs listen I was not making money in the investment over there I was like selling rugs this is like 10 years almost yeah yeah a lot and actually one of the things happened at the

beginning when we did this partnership I said I mean he said you have to put I put two million dollars you put two hundred thousand of your money so I said I mean I don't even have twenty thousand this is when you first decided you're going to start and so on yeah and I said I don't even have twenty thousand he said okay I'll deduct from your commission every month so I sell more rugs I mean credit to him he made more money

Made more money. I made more money because I had to pay for my life and then put that $200,000. Anyway, so I met them over there. I knew they were special. They came and then I took them to Sequoia. I was there in that meeting. Yeah, I read about that, that you went with them on their first pitch. Yeah, second pitch also. Why did you do that?

Because that's pretty unconventional for an investor. Yeah, and actually credit to Doug, they allowed me to sit in the room at Sequoia Capital. I didn't, I want to be part of a deal because I wasn't an investor. I didn't want to, I want to be part of it. You weren't, you weren't helping them sell. You were just, you were just like kind of fly on the wall and just setting, like making sure the connection. But this happened very quickly. I think I called Doug

Wednesday or Thursday and then we met at Sequoia on Friday. I think Samuel Gandhi was there and then they were supposed to come back Monday to pitch but we learned that Mike Morris is not there on Monday. He was like the main partner at the time. He was the main partner but we knew no decision will be made so I took Mike Morris to their apartment on Saturday morning. There's a photo of me, me, four of us over there and

And then when they went over there, Samir Gandhi called me or either Doug called me and said, "Peshma, be on standby because we might need you." So we went for dinner Monday night in this restaurant in San Francisco, took like two hours. These guys want to raise $250,000. Sequoia wanted to put at least a million. And I wanted to be part of a deal, just making sure I'm there. - You're not forgotten.

So I was there. So it was a $1.2 million raise, $1.25 at $3.75 million valuation. It's like post-money valuation of Dropbox was $5 million. Wow. One of the things I love about your connection with Dropbox is at the IPO...

you know, the company goes public and they're right on the stage. You know, it's, this is like, this is the dream moment for entrepreneurs. You know, you build something, you come with this idea, you take it all the way and it's now listed on NASDAQ and they're standing right next to the founders is you and you as, you know, maybe the people that aren't as familiar with it, like to have your, one of your first investors still be close enough to you to,

In that moment to be there with you on stage, I find to be very

very rare and abnormal. And it just is, I mean, a credit to you for the relationship you built with them that they, of the very few people they're allowed to have there, like they wanted to have a spot, you know, with you there as well. Thank you for saying that. I think I, you know, when I believe in the people, I believe all the way. I actually think there is, this is something I haven't told anyone many, I mean, it's just not a public information, but I have never owned a stock, public stock,

of any company that I have not backed the founder. Wow. Why is that?

You know, I felt that I funded these founders and believed in them and they're in the garage. And then now they're running a public company. I've been at their weddings. I've been seeing their children were born. I've been at their home. I know their parents. I know how they think. So why should I buy a company that I don't know the CEO? Honestly, I don't have any public stock other than the companies. And this is not a big group of people, a group of companies like DoorDash and Dropbox and Garden Health and AppLoving and Southend, Viage, a few other companies. That's it.

And actually I haven't sold many shares in, like I haven't sold even one single shares of DoorDash. Since you got it. Since I wrote the first check and I entire, and I invested more. So I think the company has a long run to go. But if you look at my portfolio, even my advisors, oh, why didn't you buy NVIDIA? I was like, I don't know Jensen. I haven't never had a coffee with him. Why should I buy a company that I don't know the sales? So we'll buy it. So

I'm not showing my way of doing it is the right way to do it, but it shows you that how much I believe in these people when I invest. So therefore, I think they feel the same thing when they go public on IPO. I mean, it's an honor to be there. I mean, I'm so grateful they allow me to stand next to them. How did you meet the DoorDash founders? When did you invest in that? How did that happen? We met them at the...

I see them a day, it took me two minutes. It was like chit-chat with Tony and I came back tomorrow. My partner said, "I think we have found the right partner." And Mark said, "What do they do?" I said, "They're food delivery." He said, "Well, that's not a business." I said, "Well, we should meet them." So we met at their house. They have a, on Stanford Avenue. So we spent a lot of time with Tony and the rest of the team was very clear that he's an amazing founder and CEO and then we partnered with them in the earliest days.

One of the things that's most interesting to me about you is how you start investing in the late 90s. Now in 2023, 2024, you're listed as the number one seed investor in the world.

But in the beginning, you know, you and you said this yourself, like there were lots of bad investments. There was lots of learning. You're still selling rugs for another 10 years after you start investing. It's I think at one point I read somewhere you met the Facebook founders very early. They were down in university. I wonder like these experiences, like the failure or the mistakes. You know, there's so many times I could see you just saying, like, I'm not doing this anymore. Like it's not working. You know, it's taking too long. And then, you know, 10 years in, you get Dropbox and it's like,

that sort of everything changes and other, other amazing companies you invested in, but like just the perseverance to not, you know, give up if it's not working right away. Yeah. First of all, I've been very lucky. I've been in the right places, right people around me. Um, but you learn, I actually learned from the Facebook mistake we made. Uh,

One day I got a call from a guy called Sean Parker, and he said, we are a company, the Facebook at that time. And Peter Thiel, who is our investor, asked me to call you because you guys have been building on University Avenue, 165 University Avenue. There's a lot of karma. And this is the reason Peter did it because

PayPal started there and Google started there. So it was like real karma. And before that Logitech was in that building. And the family owned the building? Yeah, the family owned the building. So it was in my building, 165 University Avenue. And then he came. You're the startup guy. Yeah. And he came to me and I said, okay, let's meet. We met at Facebook, had a small place and it was a terrible scene. Pizza all over the place. And I saw Zock over there. I didn't know exactly who the guy is.

And then Sean Parkey gave me this pitch of the future I've never heard. Like unbelievable. This guy was like, you're going to connect the world around, people around the world. And he said, yeah, we want this building. I said, yeah, Sean, we can give it to you. But this building is only for the startups that we can invest. And he said, that's impossible. We are closing the round. I think Greylock was leading the round. It was a series B building.

And I said, okay, we can't do it. We had Persian tea, he came to my office. And then two days after he called, he said, "Oh, Peshmal, I figured out that you guys can put $50,000." I said, "Okay, fine." So the lawyer sent the email and actually I published those emails because some people say I have access and I could have invest. This is like wiring. It was like $49,998.23 to the cent.

And attached to that was a lease for five years and then extending for another five years. So the real estate department didn't agree on the lease part of it. And we didn't do it. I think, yeah, this would have been, what is it, like...

almost, is it $2 trillion today and one trillion? So you can imagine like few thousand X on that. That $50,000 would not be like $500 million or more today. But listen, I learned. I learned one that I had, I made a mistake. I should have take Sean Parker to the real estate guy and say, listen, can you tell me, tell them what you told me? I mean, because I pitched Facebook and said, okay, a bunch of students want to do...

hang out with girls and so on, but I didn't do justice to what Facebook was. And then that you don't overanalyze much in the beginning when you see outliers. That led to really understand Dropbox guy, DoorDash guys, app loving. Like app loving when I partnered with...

With Adam in early days, nobody gave him money. He actually had to generate cash in order to survive. And then it's $120 billion company today. It's like unbelievable. You met him when? Or invested in him when?

Very early. It's like before. I mean, like really, really early. And it pivoted a few times. But, you know, you learn by mistakes and you learn from your mistakes. But I always keep going. I think I, you know, even I maybe made mistakes or losing Facebook. That didn't mean to me that I cannot do the job. Yeah, you don't dwell on it. No. I mean, and two, like you saw something with Sean that was like this amazing pitch and you...

you start to sort of pattern recognition, right? Like you see Andy Rubin with Danger, you see Sean, now you see the Dropbox guys, you speak with them and you just feel and kind of see something different. And you also, the reaction of the market around them with other investors and their excitement and things too. Yes, but interesting that

pattern recognition, but these founders are very different. I think it's, you know, for many years, I put the best founders I want to work with in one bucket, but I learned that they can be different backgrounds, different mentality, different characters, few things in common though. If you were starting investing today, what do you think you would do?

What strategy would you have to kind of... Would you do the same things you already did? I open a coffee shop in front of OpenAI and I put a sign over there, if you're starting a company, come and talk to me. Free coffee. It would be tea. It'd have to be Persian tea, right? It could be a Persian tea. That's a good strategy. That's a strategy. Yeah. You think AI is having that kind of impact that it's... Yeah, it's just enormous.

I think the rate of the innovation we see in company creation, not all of them making it, but it's just, I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. What's different from the other waves that you've seen? The power of building a product so quickly, it's just unprecedented. Yeah.

And an impact in industry, for example, one of the companies we invested is a 19-year-old kid out of Stanford that he studied kind of the landscape industry. And now he has a company that allow big landscape architect and designer design in a matter of minutes, things that has taken so long. So,

that impact is just mind-boggling, that how much you can build with AI. And then in legal tech, in accounting, the problem for us is for any one of these things, there are a hundred other companies doing the same thing. How do you pick the best team?

How do you do that? Spending a lot of time to get to know them. Why you? Why now? What makes you different? What is the differentiation technology? How much understanding you have on the customer and the pain point? So the market

knowledge is very, very important for us. How has company formation or just sort of the makeup of company changed in the last 30 years or 25 years? Are they similar to where they've been? When I started to do angel investing, companies needed $5 million to just

by networking infrastructure. Now it's actually free. So basically if you have a laptop and you have enough food, you can start a company. That's given. When you look at the portfolio of Pear, our founders are undergrad students all the way to exactly from Cisco. So it's a wide range of people. So you could be recent grad, you could be 20 years in the business, you can be second time founders all across over there.

I think the capital you need to start the company is almost zero to start. So anybody can start the company. I think the valuation has gone up, obviously, because there's so much capital out there. At the same time, there's so much noise. One of the things we do at Pair, we build so many programs to get the real founders before even they start the company. So there's a lot of relationship building with them to understand that

who they are, why they are the best people that we should back up. And it gives us a leverage over other firms. Well, you used to host these events at the Rug Gallery and you do that now too, right? Same thing. We actually hosted right here. Vinod Khosla was here. Doug Leone was here. Jeffrey Katzenberg, former CEO of Disney, DreamWorks was here. We hosted Dara, the CEO of Uber, and then

the CEO of DoorDash and Applovin CEO at the other studio. Same thing. I think we really believe in building a community, have access to them. They can get to know us and we give before we get. Like one of the best programs we have is for female founder engineers that every year we select top 100 female engineers in the country. Twice a year there's a

10 weeks program for free. We match you with mentor. We have speaker for you. We have workshop for you. And you can go raise money from anyone. Like some of them ended up going to Sequoia and this and Horvitz didn't raise money from us, but we ended up investing in 25 of them. So this mentality of give before we get in, you know, both Mara and I, we are

Immigrants, we came here with nothing. And I think we've built our life around the tech community. So it's part of us is just giving back. How do you think about the types of ideas you fund? Well, this is a for-profit business. At the end of the day, you're funding companies and you want to maximize the value of the shareholders. And I think it can be a combination of both. And when you have impact of society...

Like when you create jobs and many people, like think about Uber, but how many people are Uber driver who have means now because of that to pay for education or healthcare? So I think that has a huge impact on society. We avoid investing in anything that is non-ethical. Like we don't invest in...

You don't never invest in Juul, for example. So those things we avoid. We have a huge practice in biotech and healthcare because we really believe that's where innovation needed and there will be great companies being built. But at the same time, I think we invest in consumer companies and a variety of different ones. I actually think when startups...

start to work and you create jobs and you create wealth for everybody there, you have impacted society. We actually, one of the things Mara and I, we did from the beginning, more than 80% of our LPs are nonprofit organization. These are university endowments, foundation, pension funds, including Los Angeles firefighters endowments. So their money is with us. So we take a lot of responsibility, but

Once we distribute DoorDash, the profit goes to hand of great causes. I give an example, one of our investors, and this is public information, is Kamehameha, is the endowment state of Hawaii that send underserved children to school. Because of our DoorDash distribution, they send 4,500 kids to school and preserve 23,000 acres of land. I don't think even DoorDash founders know that.

You're at the top. You've done it and you've done it again and again and again. You continue to invest in these companies. Like why? Why keep going on it? What keeps you motivated at this point when you've already achieved so much? You know, if you look at the entire globe, like 8 billion people, how many people have this opportunity and platform to, you know, help entrepreneurs build companies?

build products that customers want, create jobs, change societies. There are few. And I think we, after 12 years, we built the platform. There's so much to do. There's so much to build. You know, I wake up every morning. I think this is the day I see Google and it's the same day that we can go out of business. So my days are filled with dream and paranoia. You started small.

And then you've gone on to raise a, I think it's like a $432 million fund. Is that a very specific number? Is there any? No, it just happened. Is that like your street address or something? I thought about it also, but no, I think. My favorite number. No, I wish it was. Why go big? Why raise a bigger fund and start a new one?

Yeah, I think it's a good question. So our fund one was $50 million, very successful. It was like top 5% performing fund in the last 20 years. So Mara and I had this decision to be made a few years ago, like,

Let's raise three, four funds and go home or build a long lasting firm. And we decided the latter. We actually inspired by Sequoia and Great Lux of the World to build a long lasting company, which is hard. Then you have to hire, you have to build the generational firm. You have to make sure the performance of the next generation is as good as you. But that's the challenge we took and we are on that path.

I don't know where we are, but I think we want to build the firm that exists 50 years from today. Yeah. You won this Ellis Island Award as a recipient of one of the... It's only given to a very small amount of people every year of immigrants who have this huge impact on the United States. Like when you think about, I mean, this is now your home. Like, you know, the impact that you've now had on America is...

and your story and how you did it. Like, what do you think about that sort of lasting impact or what it, you know, how it can inspire others? Or do you think about that or?

First of all, I'm honored to receive that award, which is like really grateful. For many years, I didn't talk about my life. And then I felt that it's actually my responsibility to maybe inspire one more person who is sleeping in his car or her car that things can be possible. So I hope so. I hope by telling my story and by being an example, I can make changes even small.

You've been married for, I think, almost 33 years, if I'm right. Something like 32, 33 years. Yeah, two.

How did you do that? That's almost harder than maybe doing a series. Well, being a really good friend, sacrifice, understanding each other, have the same goal. We are very different, two different people, but we very compliment each other. And yeah, I think it's just, and you have to put work into it. It just doesn't happen on its own. And I've heard you talk in other places about your relationship and even the way you talk about relationships

you know the quarters in the pay phones and like you know having you know trying to convince this person i mean there's something um i didn't realize that you had met her when you were you know as a as a really young child but there's something there's something very unique about that and it's it's uh i don't know i like knowing how hard you work i assume you work just as hard

in that area as well or does it just is it easier or well it's 32 years now is actually it's going on its own now so but but but i think yeah but you can say i've been very lucky what activities bring you the most joy in your life now well obviously spending time with

My family, my friends, we have two beautiful children, well-educated. My son actually has a startup who raised money from our competition. He didn't pitch to us. And we're trying to get back maybe into his Series A. We were talking about it yesterday with Maher. Our daughter works for a fashion designer. I think it's obviously family and friends. And, you know, Perry is my life work. I think what we do here and then making sure we do the right thing, making sure we...

build the right team at Pair and helping entrepreneurs is very important for us. And I think we're just the beginning. Outside of family, who's the human being you most admire and why? Well, it should be a football player for sure. Yeah. I think I admire both Cristiano Ronaldo for his work ethic and Leo Messi for the magician he is. If you could implant an idea into everyone in the world that you understand and have learned, what do you think that would be? I think you create your own opportunities.

I think most of the people think opportunities will knock at the door and FedEx will send you a box of opportunities. But if you look at it, you can create your own opportunities. Of all these things you've gone through, what do you think is the hardest thing you've accomplished? Surviving those nights in the attic.

It's not physically, but emotionally it was very, very hard because I think I could have taken the flight next day and go to Germany, be with my parents playing football and go to university or even go back to Iran. Very different life if you'd done that. Yeah, and it was my own. If my wife was here, it would have been different. On your own solo was hard. Your best advice for overcoming hard things? Keep trying.

Yeah. What point do you know when to give up on something or to just persevere and keep going? You don't have an answer for that. I don't know. It depends on the situation that what it is. So sometimes you need to give up because even our companies, sometimes they should give up. Sometimes our companies give up too early. Sometimes they give up too late. So I think it depends on the situation. Of all the things you've accomplished, which one stands out to you that you're most proud of? My family and air. And, and,

How will you measure your life? I don't measure it. I just live every day. I actually never planned life in the future, even when I was here. When I came here, there was no plan. Just take it day by day and make sure you get the best out of it. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Give it.

on next week's episode. Just appreciate other people, appreciate other people's talents and let them fly, right? Because no company, no organization was ever built by one person doing it all, right? So I think the more you can learn how to let people shine and give them the power to be great, I think...

will let your business scale.