Jon Keidan Transcript
Clint Betts
Jon, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's an honor to have you. You are the Founder and Managing Partner of Torch Capital. Let's start there; how did you become the Founder and Managing Partner of Torch Capital? I know that's a loaded question, but what was your journey up to where you are right now?
Jon Keidan
Well, it's probably one of the more circuitous routes. At the start of my career, I had never even heard of venture capital or knew what it was. However, I have always been an entrepreneur and have always been really interested in following a path in which I saw a vision or had a yearning or a calling, but that actually started in the music business. So I played drums, and that was the thing I was good at; I loved playing music. In college, I went to Washington St. Louis; I joined the concert committee at the beginning of freshman year, which booked national acts for concerts for universities, and realized there was a music industry that could be a career, and that was it. I was like, "That's what I'm doing. That's going to be my career." So, I spent college going as deep as I could in that industry, interning. I was luckily from New York, so I'm interning at labels in the summer. I worked with Dave Matthews Band really early on and helped book their first show ever in St. Louis in the late '90s.
Clint Betts
Really? That's incredible. That's an incredible story.
Jon Keidan
Yeah, yeah, that's an amazing story. And talk about the opportunities given. Coran Capshaw, their manager, gave me a gig as a very unproven young college kid, and we ended up vastly outselling what the expectations were, and that started a relationship with him and the band. That gave me an inside seat to watch as they exploded and became one of the biggest bands in America.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that is incredible.
Jon Keidan
That was all during college, so that was crazy.
Clint Betts
Yeah, I can't even believe it. So how do you think your diverse background of music, media, technology, how do you think that influenced your approach to leadership and also to your investments?
Jon Keidan
So, I mean, I went through a lot of twists and turns. My first calling was the music business, but then the music business got disrupted by tech, and I realized there was a lot more that where the world was going wasn't going to favor those who were left behind, so I needed to get more educated, so I went to business school, which is something I never wanted to do and was not customary in entertainment, let alone music at the time. I went to Columbia, learned a ton, and realized everything in media and entertainment would get disrupted, so I couldn't go back in, which was very disheartening but also created opportunity. So, I went up to McKinsey because I thought that'd be an interesting place to sit when your industry is being disrupted, and I ended up in their media tech practice for a few years. That took us to the 2010s when the New York tech ecosystem was really launching.
At the time, it was very unstructured; anything was possible, and a lot of really smart people were just trying things. It was very inspiring and creative. So, I wanted to go in that direction, and that was appealing. And again, you just never know what happens. I was introduced to Jack Welch by some entertainment contacts who were working on a TV show with him, and they needed me to run some case studies with him because I was at McKinsey. Hadn't been there, I never would've gotten that intro. And then, he was launching an online education venture and brought me into his right hand. That was my first startup experience, but it was also a tremendous business mentorship experience. I spent two years with him and his wife Susie, and they built this company and sold it to Strayer. And that's how I got into the startup world.
And then it was really on the entrepreneur and operating side. On the side of that, I was starting to do angel investments, and I loved that. My last company was called Inside Hook; we sold the private equity as I was thinking, "What do I want to do next? Do I want to start another company? Do I want to invest?" And I was like, "You can kind of do both if you look at it the right way." I started to see the parallels in my life as a manager to what actually being an early-stage investor looks like. And I was like, "Wait a minute, there are a lot of unusual parallels." And you ask, "What did that background present?" It enabled me to connect dots, I think, in unique ways and use the ability to recognize talent in unique ways. If you see things other people don't and they are the right things, that can create a lot of opportunities, especially as an investor.
Clint Betts
So Jack Welch is a legend, just a legendary businessman who I immediately think of 30 Rock and Jack Donaghy and that whole-
Jon Keidan
He was not like Jack Donaghy.
Clint Betts
Yeah. But Donaghy revered Jack Welch; I think Jack actually made an appearance on the show.
Jon Keidan
He did.
Clint Betts
He did. Yeah, that is hilarious. But he's this legendary businessman who's beloved by everyone. What did you learn from him during those two years? What are some of the things you took away from that?
Jon Keidan
Wow, there's so much. I mean, I think the first thing that's really interesting is that, at the time, he was probably the most famous CEO in the world. Even though he'd stepped down from GE, his ability to connect with people was really unparalleled. It was funny; he hated politics. I mean, he loved supporting Republican politics, which I was a little bit different from that, but he didn't like politics; he didn't like the act of it, but he could connect with everybody. I remember being on the road with him, and he'd want to chat up the driver; it wasn't a cab driver, but his driver at the time, or the bellman or anyone, really it was just an unbelievable intellectual curiosity and a personal curiosity that was unsatiated, and everyone was treated equally that way.
And that was really incredible because I think he got insights into how people think. If you read about his history at GE, he had insights that he disagreed with his senior execs, and he was right because he really was always trying to figure out what the end customer wanted and put himself in those shoes. But it came from a very natural perspective of loving to talk to people and learning about their background and learning about what motivated them. And so it was incredible to watch that and see how he approached the world that way. As big as he was, as he said, he loved to be on the shop floor as much as he loved to be in the C-suite.
Clint Betts
So tell us about your investing. And so you said you started with doing some angel investing and that led to this realization that, "Hey, there's a lot of overlap between what I was doing and what a VC does, and all of this stuff." Give us a sense of what made you jump all the way in on that.
Jon Keidan
I think, look, I knew nothing about investing when I started writing angel checks. I was just working for Jack, getting into the startup world in New York, which is in itself just getting reinvigorated. But I know I recognized something, and it really comes back to talent and seeing a market opportunity, which is where the parallels, I think, to music come in.
The first check I ever wrote was into Zocdoc, into their first round. I met Cyrus, the founder, and his vision; I understood the pain point he was solving: it's very hard to find a doctor, and how do you know if they take your insurance and how do you know if it matches your calendar? As people were moving jobs more and more, leaving university or traveling around, how can you create consistency nationally? A huge vision. He was very passionate about it, and he had a really explicit way of how this could work and how technology could enable this capability for this platform that had never existed before. And so we'd speak, and I'd find out how it was going. And finally, he's like, "You're so interested in this; you have such interesting insights. Why don't you actually write a check?" And that was really scary to write a check. Luckily, I made a little bit of money in music, and so I was like, "Okay, I'll write a check." And that was my first one.
And then Robert Reffkin, who started Compass, was my second check. I'd known him already, and he partnered with Oriolone. It was a really brilliant team of visionary founders, charismatic with an incredible technical background co-founder. And they're like, "Look, there's opportunity how tech can reshape how people buy houses, how agents operate, empowering agents and customers and huge market," and there's just something there that was extra that wasn't there with other folks who I had spoken to. And so it was really being attracted and getting the magnet of talent, and then an interesting pain point was that was all I knew. I wasn't thinking about models and the specifics, but I saw the North Star. And they're both very mission-driven founders. That sort of became the theme. And I did more and more, and I learned as I went, but it really started with direct relationships, understanding a market opportunity, and having the belief that this founder was going to find a way to solve that pain point.
Clint Betts
Have you always invested in the early stage? I mean, that's incredible. And if so, and even if you don't, what are the qualities that you look for when a startup or entrepreneur pitches you an idea or something like that? What are you looking for?
Jon Keidan
To start, yes, I've always invested early, whether it was bands, you find them as a manager, you nurture them, you get them signed, you build their audience. Same thing with entrepreneurs. I like recognizing it early, and I love rolling up my sleeves and really helping shape, build, and guide the best I can with founders. So yes, it's always been early. And I also honestly never really had the chops to be a growth investor. It was much more data, balance sheet looking versus vision looking, and I like to assess visions. What I look for, first of all, is a clear mission that I personally believe in. It is a mission where I say pain point; it's very similar. Acorns, which is one of the companies that I was an early investor in and stayed very close to, Jeff and then Noah's current CEO's mission was how do you enable everyday Americans to grow their wealth? Even if they're not sophisticated in finance, even if they don't know how to play the market, they still should be benefiting from things that people in finance or more sophisticated investors have. And how do you do that without them feeling like they are in their pocketbook? Because if they have to save for a vacation or save for something in the future in a market that's very murky, they're going to save for the vacation. So, how do you get people to create new behavior simply painlessly that will actually benefit them in the long run?
That was very exciting to me, and I saw a huge opportunity for it. And they built a tremendous company that, to this day, is one of the most trusted brands in the financial services space. And I mean, they have 6 million active users on their platform who have saved and grown their wealth through the Acorns platform. So, the mission is huge, having a really clear vision of how technology can shape or accelerate or exponentially change what an outcome can look like.
And then brand, I mean, I think you have to be passionate about your end customer; that has to be in your DNA. It's not a business decision; it's just how you have to be. And that's a lot of what I'm assessing because there are a lot of smart people who can put something on a whiteboard and try to make a successful project or product or a company out of it because there's a space and there's money to be made. That's not interesting to me. What's interesting is people who really understand their end user and every decision they make is going to be how they benefit that end user.
And I've had, I think, seven or eight unicorns at this point from very early stages. Every single one of those founders, whether it's the founder of Row or Sweet Green, stuck to that all the way through their trajectory, even though they were massive companies. You speak to those founders, but they're still obsessed. "How are people liking what I'm doing? How are we innovating, creating a better experience?" And I'd say once you figure out you believe in the pain point and mission, the next most important thing is whether that founder has that DNA.
Clint Betts
Well, what's remarkable is your track record. I mean, to have that many unicorns is unbelievable. That's actually remarkable. So congratulations there. So you're obviously doing something right to get on the early stage of that many unicorns, which is really quite impressive. What did you learn at McKinsey that you've taken to the investment world, and what was your time there like?
Jon Keidan
It was fascinating. I mean, you can't have a more disparate experience from being in the music business late at night in the studio on tour, at industry parties, very social, no data analytics, very little finance all the way to instead being late at night in a basement trying to put a PowerPoint presentation or spreadsheet together. So it was trial by fire. It was an incredible experience. I learned a ton. I really went in there to learn. I think there are a couple of things.
One first of all, it's unlike what I heard banking and other very hard-driving cultures are like; it was very non-hierarchical. You could be very junior there and have enormous responsibility. You are very well-respected, and you'd feel free to call on partners for advice or guidance. And so I thought the culture, especially at that time, that they'd created was A+. They did an incredible job of curating the people there; it was very collaborative. You worked hard. I mean, there's no question very high expectations, but it was very much everyone was in the trenches together, and I learned a lot from that, and I tried to carry that through.
The second thing is, you're there, you're smart, there's a way to figure it out. Part of that responsibility they gave is that they said there's no exact answer yet. It's up to you to have judgment, to understand how to go through data, collect information, and get an understanding, and then start to create hypotheses and test them. And that's a huge thing. I think founders have to do that, and I can empathize with them. If you don't have an answer and you don't even know where to start, you have to start somewhere and build your thesis from that and build your plan from that.
And to give you that confidence and the skill set to try that and if it's not working, how to pivot and be comfortable with that is a very rare environment. It was less about making mistakes than there were other people who'd oversee what you're doing so you're not going to hit a wall or jump off a cliff or something. But they wanted you to explore things because you also connect dots and get insights that no one else had thought of, and they wanted to give you the creative room to do that. So, I learned a ton from that.
And then the hard skills were incredible. I mean, it was, like I said, trial by fire, but learning how to ingest data, think through data, have a thesis, but then back it up, that's still very much how we operate today at Torch, at the venture fund.
Clint Betts
You're also on the Council of Foreign Relations. That's incredible. What an interesting time to actually be on that council, too, by the way, with all the tariffs and everything. What have you learned from that? It also gives us a sense of where we are right now in foreign relations compared to the United States and everybody else.
Jon Keidan
Well, I don't think anyone knows exactly where we are with that. I think the way things are being done is different. Some of it may not work, some of it may work, and some things probably deserve to be shaken up.
I think what I learned there, and it's just been a passion of mine, doesn't directly correlate to my day job, but a lot of interesting macro insights. But what the council provides is really a place where people who would never normally talk to each other get to mix and mingle and discuss topics and learn. So it's people from the private sector, people from the public sector, from the government, from the military, from national security institutions, from economists. And that's what's interesting to get all these different perspectives and people who are top experts in their fields, but in your day-to-day role, you would never get to cross paths with them and to hear their interpretations of things or their insights, that's what I love about it. And it's nonpartisan; it's not about politics there; it's really about policy and where things are going and different perspectives on that. And so I've gained a lot from that. But yeah, we're in new territory with this administration, and I don't think anyone has a clear understanding of where things end up. But yeah, very interesting times.
Clint Betts
Yeah, it's wild. By the way, I'm just realizing as you're talking, I'm like, "I have a red hat on." This is University of Utah, I just want to be clear.
Jon Keidan
Hey, no judgment.
Clint Betts
Red hats stand for all sorts of things these days. What advice would you give to inspiring entrepreneurs about building and leading mission-driven companies? Because it does seem like you have a focus and really a talent for understanding and finding entrepreneurs and startups that are mission-driven. What advice would you have for those who want to start a company like that?
Jon Keidan
The first thing is to make sure your mission is a big enough mission. There are a lot of people who have great ideas. If you want to create a big company, and if it's venture-backable, we generally don't do things unless we think there could be a big outcome and create a big impact; make sure it's a big enough mission, make sure you're thinking big enough. And make sure you're really thinking through multiple layers in the future of where technology's going, where customer behavior is going, where those things meet down the road, and what things could unlock. Generally, you want to launch with one wedge or one very focused element, but you need to have a place that fits into a bigger vision to create a major impactful company.
The second thing is you need to win that wedge. So you need to think big and have a big mission, but you need to start at a very focused point. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs try to do too much too soon, and you've got to win your first step to earn the right to win the second step, and that focus is what always wins. We're an early-stage fund; we focus on the early stage. We keep our fund sizes small. The team knows exactly what we stand for and what makes sense for us, and that's how we become best in class.
And I think founders, it's either early success, and they think they can do it all very quickly, and it's not, you really got to own what you do, or if it's not working, it's not the end of the world, you can pivot. And I think almost every unicorn I've been part of, the first thing they came out of the gate with wasn't the thing that ended up being their main success; it was adjacent to it. They got an insight because what they were doing wasn't working, but the solution to that insight is what the big result was. But the big mission was the same. Like Compass, at first, they thought, "Well, maybe tech should disrupt real estate agents," then they realized people really like their real estate agents. So then they're like, "Okay, maybe tech should enhance real estate agents," and boom, they're a multi-billion dollar public company.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's incredible. I just have to go back to this real quick: given your remarkable success at investing, and it is remarkable, and you just mentioned you try to keep your fund size low. Has that been hard? Because a lot of the seas would be tempted to grab more money because obviously, you're making that 2 and 20 management fee, all that type of stuff, and so the more you have under management, the more you're getting on the fees and things like that, has it been hard for you to keep that fund small?
Jon Keidan
Well, no, it hasn't. So, first of all, yes, you're correct. There are a lot of these, as I keep saying, but just because you could doesn't mean you should. And I watched over the last five years since I got in this industry that happened for a huge part of them. But it hasn't been that hard for us. And I think one of the advantages was the fact that I didn't come from venture; I came as an operator, and so my perspective on how you build a company, back to what I just said on focus, we did the same thing. And I said, look, there's not enough quality companies that you can get enough ownership in to turn a 500 million early stage fund and be true to that stage. And if you become multi-stage, then all of a sudden, you're competing with the most famous, broad-based, resourceful legacy brands out there.
And so, for us, it was clear: this is what we do; this is what we're going to be best at. And so our mission was clear, and that helped, I think, protect us, especially in '21, where funds got way above their skis and started to have mission creep, we really tried to stick to our knitting. And I think our '21 fund right now is a top decile fund; it's our fund two. I think a lot of that's because we slowed down when everyone else was speeding up, and valuations got crazy, and things that we didn't understand were happening, so we pulled back. Once things kind of normalized again, we redeployed. And I think it's important to know what you're good at and to stick to that.
Clint Betts
How do you think about balance in your life? That's a very balanced answer from a professional perspective, but just because you can doesn't mean you should; that's great advice that more people should follow. But how do you balance life overall?
Jon Keidan
Well, as Jack used to say, there's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices. He would talk about that a lot. And just to think that you can balance, you do what's important for you, but there is going to be a price to pay, meaning someone who's not balancing, who's working 24/7, may not be as fulfilled in many other ways but they'll probably have more potential success. But I always think there's a short run on that.
I mean, look, as a founder, you run really hard; all founders do, whether you're a founder of a fund or founder of a company. And for us, and I'm used to this from being a manager, things are always happening. It's just not what you plan; it's also what your company's plan is, and what doesn't go according to plan impacts you. It's not just what Torch is doing; it's what our portfolio companies are doing. And so I'm very much as a manager, it's 360, you're there 24/7 if need be. And I subscribe to that. And I think our success has been being there through good and bad with their founders, but there's a cost to that, and the cost is time. There are many late-night calls, many weekends of working, and many fire drills, and you have to be up for that, I think, to be best in class at this job.
But that said, now that we have a nine-person team and phenomenal investors who I think our culture and the way we do things in our processes has really been spread out with more people who really know what we're doing, there's a little bit more flexibility and control, and here and there I'm able to get a little bit more balance back. But look, to win is really tough; it's a very competitive world, and I think being honest about that is what's important to you. There are ways to balance, but you just have to think very carefully: where and when are you emphasizing what part of your life?
Clint Betts
What does a typical day look like for you?
Jon Keidan
Wow. One of the things I like about ventures and having a portfolio of companies is that no two days are the same; it is never boring. There are all sorts of things happening all at once. I'm not a morning person, so I incredibly admire CEOs and investors who are like, "I get up at 5:00, and I work out, and then I go through all the news, and then I start my calls." I'm not like that. I'm more of a late-night person, maybe coming from my music late-night roots. So I woke up. I know they say you're not supposed to do this, so I don't recommend this, but the second my eyes open, I'm trying to get out my most important emails or what's top of mind after waking up. I try not to schedule meetings too early so I can really push out the things that I need to do.
And then my meetings start, and I'm sort of a little bit of a slave to the calendar, but I really try to assess every day what's important and what's urgent and important, and that can eclipse the calendar. And I'm constantly just trying to prioritize, and my team helps me do that, but that's really critical because you can get sucked under and you can just get doing all the things you're supposed to be doing, but you maybe won't be able to do the things that will actually enable you to break out. And that's something I'm very cognizant of, and I've had to learn to get much better about that.
Clint Betts
What do you read, and what reading recommendations do you have for us?
Jon Keidan
Wow. I read a lot of nonfiction, but I read less about business. I think a lot of the business insights I get are from Twitter and podcasts. But reading has been a lot of nonfiction around history and politics in other areas. But I'm realizing what I miss and what I really need to bend back to creative juices, and inspiring you is regular fiction.
And so the phone is the devil. It makes it so easy if you're a little tired and you don't want to dig into a book, you can just get such quick fixes on, I don't even mean Instagram, but even Twitter; it's interesting, it's substantive, but you lose that ability to ingest long form. And I think that's how you lose yourself in a book, and I'm trying to get back to that. I'm trying to get back to reading fiction, and there are some wonderful authors I like. And I think giving your brain new pathways to reconnect intellectually is important. And today, we're so inundated with information. I don't think we do that enough, and that's something I'm trying to be more disciplined. To say that I'm doing a good job, I'm not, but I'm working on that.
Clint Betts
I totally agree with you; I think fiction is super important. So, give me a sense of what your journey to becoming the leader you are today was surprising. What has really surprised you as you've climbed the ladder of success, let's say? What about that journey surprised you?
Jon Keidan
You never know where opportunities come from. I think one of the best pieces of advice or perspectives I got was from Bob Pitman, who's been an incredible mentor and investor of mine through my last company with Torch. He was the co-founder of MTV, he ran AOL at its height, he had one of the first sort of early-stage New York private equity firms that was focused on digital media and tech, and now he runs iHeartRadio, the largest radio conglomerate. So he's seen many cycles and many types of businesses. And he says, "Look, we're all on a path, and failure or success ultimately isn't the beginning or the end; they're just stepping stones. And you can have your biggest successes out of a failure, and you can create abject failure out of success."
And what I think he means by that is you have all sorts of people who peaked early and then never were able to turn that into anything else and sort of all a downward slope, or people who failed and failed and failed and the insights they got from they failed and the grit they got from that is what enabled them to have a resounding success and be able to get up and do it again and again and again. And so I think you never know where things lead, and you have to be open-minded, and you have to be resilient, but your biggest failure can turn into your biggest success, and I've had plenty on both sides, and none of it's been smooth, and I'd say I learned a lot more from the failures over time than the successes.
Clint Betts
Yeah, isn't that interesting? You kind of forget the successes; it's the failures that you dwell on.
Jon Keidan
Yeah, but you shouldn't. I mean, I think a big lesson is getting used to not dwelling too much. What do you learn? What do you do differently? Keep moving and being able to shrug it off. And I think getting older and having a very circuitous career path, I've learned that in many different ways, in different terrains, in different environments.
Clint Betts
I wonder if you're seeing this, and I'm seeing this a little bit with founders and entrepreneurs that I know is kind of a mental health crisis, particularly coming out of the pandemic. What advice do you have for people to stay grounded and take care of their mental health?
Jon Keidan
Yeah, no, that's true. And I think before social media, in some ways, connected everyone but pulled everybody apart, and then the isolation of COVID; it's a huge, huge epidemic. And the world's more competitive, and everyone is at least showing a face on social media; it's probably not true, but you only see the things, and you're comparing. I think it's a couple of things. I think there's a physical element. For me, it's an exercise that clears my head. If I'm feeling terrible, if I'm depressed, if I'm stressed, I mean, that is, for me, the biggest release, activity, physical activity, ideally with other people, is huge.
And I think on the mental side, resilience, grit, and building up are as bad as you feel. Knowing that the next day can get better and sometimes people meditate and sometimes they do yoga, and sometimes they have a religious practice, but giving yourself space to sort of take a deep breath, get a little perspective, and give yourself the ability to let things roll off and know it won't happen immediately, but tomorrow may be a little better than yesterday, and that one step at a time I think is really important and that will help create that resilience.
Clint Betts
What do you see on the AI front at the early stage? I mean, particularly, are people utilizing it in their product? Are they utilizing it more internally to run their company? How are you thinking about it? I mean, we're probably going to get to a point where every company has to be an AI company, if not already, but give us a sense of what you're seeing.
Jon Keidan
I think there's a real dichotomy in the time we're in right now. On one side, I think ChatGPT is probably, maybe, except for the iPhone, maybe even equal to that, the fastest-growing new behavior ever in history. Everyone's using it more and more, and exponentially more people are using it, and the more people that use it, the more they use it. So it's tremendous. And there are all sorts of other apps now that are gaining traction, and on a consumer, on a business level, on every level, it's impacting everything. That's one side.
The other side is that people forget we are barely scratching the surface of how AI is going to look and what capabilities it is going to provide. It's like thinking about AltaVista, which was an early search engine or web browser back in the late '90s. No one's ever heard of it or talked about it since, but at the time, it was revolutionary. So the capability was there, but what it looks like and how it's going to impact is just beginning. And so, on one side, we've barely begun. On the other side, it feels like it's everywhere and superfluous.
I think we're seeing it in a few ways. One, on a day-to-day level, just having an exponentially more potent information source where it's like a search engine on crack essentially. My mom uses it, my sister uses it, my nephew can use it. It's so simple and so potent and we can customize it the way we need it. So that's huge. And so that's just on a consumer behavior level.
I think with companies, what they're offering outside of the fundamental infrastructure layers, that perplexity, and a lot of the big ones we hear of ElevenLabs or things like that, that's going to keep changing really fast because it's creating new capabilities. But it's very unclear who the winner is or what the winner will look like in that area. But where we're seeing it tremendously is on the back end, how companies are using it to be more efficient, whether it's in marketing, where they can create more content and test more media campaigns, whether it's engineering, where you can take an engineer, and you can get four times the output on testing and coding and rechecking the coding and having the AI running at night and 24/7 so they can constantly be moving and delivering products. So there are a lot of more tactical use cases that are very, very potent right now. But I think strategically, we're still early, and what we're seeing now is not what it's going to look like in two years and definitely not what it's going to look like in five years.
Clint Betts
I think a lot about empathy when I think about leadership, and I wonder if you think about it the same way just in terms of the role it plays in being a great leader and what empathy can bring to the table in the business that you are in, right? Give me a sense for the role you think empathy plays in leadership.
Jon Keidan
I think it's critical, and it's a fine line because, at some point, you have to understand what people are going through; you have to be able to motivate them, but you also have to dictate what you want to be done. At the same time, you have to listen because they can be right. You may know a lot, but, again, back to connecting dots, they may have an insight that you haven't even thought of because their background is different, and they're thinking about things differently.
But I think to motivate anyone, you need to understand what drives them, how they're feeling about things, and what their unique equation of motivation takes, and you can't do that without empathy. Also, if you run people too hard, then they're going to burn out or get resentful, and you're also not going to get the result you want. So it's constantly a balance of showing leadership and leading by example, but also listening, having an understanding, and creating a culture where people feel comfortable putting their best foot forward. And even if there are mistakes made, enable room for those because, again, like I keep saying, you learn from mistakes, and if you have a culture of empathy, you should have a culture of learning. And if you have a culture of learning, you'll have a culture of getting better and improving and collaboration that will end up making what turns into a world-class culture.
Clint Betts
Finally, we end every interview with the same question, and that is at CEO.com we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Jon Keidan
Wow, there's so many. Three off the top of my head correlate to what we're doing. I'd first say the fact that I got to get anywhere near Dave Matthews Band as early as Coran Capshaw, Dave Boyd, and Carter were in the band. Coran took a chance on me. He's one of the most well-known and well-regarded managers and entertainment moguls at this point. I was a freshman in college, and he was like, "I'm going to give that kid a shot." So that launched me on the music side.
Ironically, another person who helped mentor me out of the music business is actually Quincy Jones. And the shot he gave me was, there was about a year as I was thinking about what I wanted to do, and I was introduced to him through another entrepreneur friend who was close to him, and he took a liking and took some time with me to really rethink with the changes in the music business, what I should do about my career, how to view that because I put all my heart and soul into one industry that I saw there's a chance that was all ending, and how do you think about your life that way? And he was unbelievable. He ultimately helped me make the decision to go to business school, as there's a lot of creativity in business and other ways to take that creative engine. Jack Welch, I mean, I can't even begin to express how incredible it was and how he opened up his own life and letting me sit next to him and work with him and learn from him.
And then the last person is Silas Chou, who really helped us get Torch started and believed in us. Silas is an unbelievable businessman who really started out as a consumer. He built Tommy Hilfiger, and then he built Michael Kors; he took it public, and it was the biggest fashion IPO in history, but he also seeded KOTU. He seeded Tiger Global. He looks for talent. I was thinking about starting the fund, and one of his top lieutenants was someone I knew. We looked at deals together and offered to do the intro. He really liked the lens and my background and gave me the confidence to start. He backed us and has just been an incredible mentor. And not just how to invest and how to build a firm but also how to think about macro trends in where the world is going, how technology's impacting it, and a global perspective. And so, I don't think I could have created Torch the way I have with the speed and success without his guidance.
Clint Betts
That's incredible. Man, you've had some incredible mentors, man. Unbelievable.
Jon Keidan
I have. I've been very lucky.
Clint Betts
So cool. Jon, thank you so much for coming on the show. It means a lot.
Jon Keidan
Absolute pleasure. It's been a very fun discussion.
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