Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
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Small Lake City
Vault Episode 9: Pelion Ventures - Blake Modersitzki
A farm kid who learned to “leave the field only when the work is done” found his way into venture capital, helped power Utah’s tech ascent, and said “ok” to a family decision that would change lives at Primary Children’s Hospital. Join us as we sit down with Peleon Venture Partners’ managing partner, Blake Modersitzki, to unpack how unlikely turns—security guard shifts at WordPerfect, a move to New York, mentorship from Eric Schmidt at Novell—shaped a durable investing lens focused on bold founders and real fundamentals.
We dive into the DNA of Silicon Slopes, from ARPANET roots and University of Utah breakthroughs to WordPerfect, Novell, Omniture, Divi, and beyond. Blake lays out five waves of growth and explains what truly differentiates Utah: fierce competition paired with a reflex to help. That community advantage lets founders build global companies without uprooting teams to the Bay. We examine why cycles matter, why 2024–2025 could be prime building years, and how discipline—profitability, cash efficiency, clean unit economics—returns once the “tourists” leave. Blake also shares why Peleon hires like a championship team, bringing in seasoned operators to coach, scout, and scale.
Then we go personal. Blake and his wife Sandy recently made a $10 million gift to Primary Children’s, a commitment rooted in a niece lost to cancer and a family legacy nearly erased by war in Poland. With wise nudges from Gail Miller, they chose to give publicly to spark more giving. It’s a conversation about impact, not optics; about building companies that dent the world and communities that lift the next generation.
If you care about Utah’s startup ecosystem, venture capital, founder traits that endure, and the power of public generosity, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s building, and leave a review with the insight that challenged you most.
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Now through January 2nd, buy or lease a new Subaru at Mark Miller Subaru and they’ll donate up to $500 to local Utah charities like USARA and Girls on the Run. Drive a new Subaru and give back to the community at the same time.
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What is up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Nielsen, and this week we have another fall episode coming back for you. This one is going back to the conversation with Blake Motorzitsky. Now, Blake Motorzitski is the managing partner for Peleon Venture Partners. Now, Peleon is an early stage venture capital firm that's been investing and growing Silicon Slopes since the mid to late 90s. Now, Blake's story in it all, he's invested in some of the most influential companies, not just in Utah and Salt Lake, but around the world. He has a great perspective in what has grown the economy down there to what it is and what the future looks like. Not only that, but we have some fun small lake city moments that I think you all are going to enjoy. Also, when we recorded this episode, was when he was about to make a huge donation to Primary Children's Hospital. So it's fun to see how that donation has now been made and the impact is being felt in our community. But this is going to be one you all are going to enjoy. Let's jump into it and hear more about Blake and his journey at Peleon.
SPEAKER_06:Well, no, I'm so excited today, Blake. Um and I actually want to start with something kind of funny that you might laugh at. And it's like a Salt Lake Small Lake City moment in itself. So I've had this 6 a.m. alarm clock on my phone for the past five plus years, and it says, call with Blake, Peleon Ventures. And I looked it up because I knew that this in this uh intro that we had years ago happened, and I tried to look at the exact date, and it was actually uh November 20th, 2018.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_06:And so the context of it was I was living in Seattle at the time, was doing investment banking, absolutely hated my life, wanted to come back to Salt Lake, wanted to figure out a way to do it, super naive in my career and everything going on. And I was just kind of like putting out, I mean messaging people on LinkedIn, trying to figure out some connections, and reached out to a wife of a friend. I guess she's a friend now, uh, Erica Morgan.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06:And she's like, hey, if you're looking for a job, I know a guy who knows a lot about jobs in Salt Lake Valley, Utah Valley. I'm like, cool, who is it? She's like, his name's Blake, he runs this venture capital fund, and let me reach out to him, see how it's gonna go. And sure, I mean, you being the generous, always willing to help someone out, you're like, sure. The only thing is, the only time I have is when I'm on this train, I think it was in Switzerland at 6:30 in the morning, your time. If you can make that work, we can chat. And I'm like, aye aye, Captain, let's let's do this, let's make it happen. And and it was like when I look back on it, it's definitely cringy from my point of view, because it was one of those like, hey, Blake, like I I want to move back to Utah, I want a job. Like, what do you think? And I could tell, like, in hindsight, you're probably page being like, Yeah, you know, there's some good companies, there's some good things going on. Good for you. Probably a little bit more searching to be done, but good luck. Uh, and I I think the last email I had was like, Yeah, go look at Weave, go look at Divi and and have a good one. And so it's so funny that almost literally five years on the dot, here we are sitting in the Pellin offices chatting again. Very different reasons, but all good nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that it is certainly a small world because uh, like as you were telling that story, like I remember the conversation being on the train in Switzerland. Like that was the triggering point for me. So, wow, five years ago.
SPEAKER_06:Five years ago.
SPEAKER_00:That's amazing. Well, I'm glad it's still on your phone and we got together.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, it's it's never left. Like it is my six o'clock alarm clock. So it probably, I mean, in the summer when I'm golfing and getting up earlier, it's three to four days a week. I see that now a little bit less with the the light, but uh definitely, definitely glad to be here, definitely, definitely excited to talk to you about you today. And and I mean, just to kind of get things started and kicked off. Like I know you're not from Utah originally, but from our neighbors to the north, not Canada, but Idaho. So I just kind of want to talk through, I mean, setting the stage for you getting here and getting I mean, Pellion started, but how was it like growing up in Idaho? I feel like when I talk to anybody from Idaho, it's either, oh, I'm from outside of Boise or I grew up on a farm. And what sounds like you're the latter of the two.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely the latter. I grew up in southeastern Idaho, little town called Bancroft, um, very small community. You know, I joke with my kids that I graduated in the top 10 of my class in high school. Now, my kids will quickly then point out there were only 21 students. So graduating in the top 10 was pretty easy, but it was in the top 10. So I'm going with that. But yeah, super small town, farming, farming background, the whole works.
SPEAKER_06:It's okay. I had a similar moment recently with being in like uh I got third place in a half marathon. It was the emigration, you go up the back of emigration and down. Uh, lo and behold, there's three entrants for my uh age group. So I see that metal. I'm like, you know, third place. I did it. Go with it. Go. Hey, nobody nobody needs to know the details. Um, but so like farming, I mean, what kind of uh like what were you farming on the farm? Was this a long family business?
SPEAKER_00:Was it adventure from your dad? Yeah, so my my dad's well, my dad became a farmer when I was a little kid. He decided that he was he was tired of working at one of the local uh plants. It was Monsanto, and uh he bought some land and we just kind of grew from there. So by the time I left, we had several thousand acres. Uh part of it was pasture ground, so we raised beef cows, and then the other part we we raised barley and hay and wheat, and I moved a lot of sprinkler pipe, picked a lot of rock, and fixed a lot of fence. And my dad used to tell me, hey, you know what? When you grow up, if you go off to college, you don't have to move pipe or pick rock anymore. So I went to college.
SPEAKER_06:Eyes on the prize.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I mean, it's so I serve part of my mission in eastern Washington in a place called Ellensburg, where I mean they one of the largest exporters in the US for, I mean, hey Alfalfa, the gall goes mainly to Korea and Japan. But it was a it was a world I didn't know I was ever gonna learn so much about. And I spent a lot of time there moving sprinklers, picking out rocks. I remember writing in for the first cut one year. I was like, well, this is kind of interesting. You did it three times, and and oh, all right, very new. I'm from downtown Salt Lake City where I did zero of this. But I'm sure it was like, I mean, set the stage for a lot of your, I mean, hard work, dedication. I mean, there's a schedule that always has to be done. The farm isn't going to farm itself. So I'm sure that helps set a lot of that stage for you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it really does. And even what I do today, you know, uh the the mantra my dad has was, you know, you never leave the field until the work's done. Well, lo and behold, the work is just never done. So you have to kind of figure out, you always have to be on, you always have to be creative. And there's a component of it where you have to be entrepreneurial because you just have to figure stuff out. You know, no one's gonna show up and move the pipe and water the grain and all that kind of stuff, and who's gonna harvest it? You gotta just kind of keep keep trudging forward. So, as strange as it might sound, what I learned growing up, uh I look back now, it was very much setting the table, the bedrock for what I do today as a venture capitalist. Um, so probably not a lot of venture capitalist farming tied together, but I I look back and think that's that's really kind of how I started in this business.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. I think you see a lot of trends in that with, I mean, let's call it the hardworking rural upbringing that kind of set that stage for that. Because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think like Todd Peterson, he's the one that comes to mind because I think he's from Idaho too, came from a farming family, and now, I mean, everybody in Utah knows the knows Vivent, even though his their name was taken off to go back to the Delta Center.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a little little small connection there. Yeah, absolutely. Todd's older sister, uh, they're from Idaho Falls. Todd's older sister, Lynette, and my wife were best friends growing up. And so she remembers Todd as a junior high person and things like that. And so it's been fun for for us and for her to to kind of watch you know what Todd has has done here locally. He's he's he's amazing, he's been very generous and has built a great company. But yeah, super interesting connection from southeastern Idaho.
SPEAKER_06:Interesting. It's like a small lake city, small Idaho world. But it's funny how that all comes together. And it's so funny too when like I so I'm like in my early 30s, and so I'm to the point where all my friends who went to like dental school, medical school, law school, MBA, whatever, they're now doing what they wanted to do. And but it's funny because so many of these people I've known since I mean elementary school, middle school, high school, and I'm like, I can't let go of this perception I have of you, but now you're a surgeon and trusting people with their lives. But good to know people can change and do responsible things. Totally.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I when I was in high school, it was funny. I I was uh one of the teachers said to me, you know, you you have the most potential, but you'll do the least with it because you're kind of a screw off. And I look back now, it's like that was kind of a motivating factor to kind of figure stuff out. But yeah, sometimes I wonder, you know, the journey people take is a pretty wild one.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, and I was it's funny you say that because I was the same person. I in in hindsight, I realized I had like undiagnosed ADHD. So I was really just, I mean, I was kind of above average in intelligence, but got bored really quick and would just act out, be the class clown. And the amount of teachers that would come to be like, Eric, as a person, I really like you. As a student, I can't stand you. Yep. Totally. But lo and behold, like I think the I mean, early education system compared to what actually dictates success in doing it, it's kind of very disparate. And so I see now I'm like, oh, like a lot of these things that like quote used to get me in trouble are now I mean boons to help me succeed. So it's funny how that all kind of comes together and grows from there. And cool. So you grow up in Idaho working on a farm, your dad says, if you go to college, you don't have to do this. So I'm imagine there's this instant trigger, like college sounds like a great experience, even if that's the only thing I know about it.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_06:So you go down south to BYU. Uh-huh. Correct. Yep. I was there a mission in between the farm in Idaho.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So I I served a mission for the LDS Church in New York City. Okay. And uh that's actually how I ended up in uh down at BYU. Is one of my really good friends who was a missionary as well, asked me, What are you gonna do after we're this is over with? I'm like, I don't know. I'll probably figure it out. He goes, I'm going to BYU. You want to go with me and we'll be roommates? And that's how I ended up in Prevo. Kind of wild. There you go. Good friend, he's from Northern California, actually lives in New Jersey now, and we ended up in in uh uh down at Prevo, and I went to school at BYU.
SPEAKER_06:Awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:What was your experience? I mean, pretty typical experience at BYU. Did you what did you say? I think I saw is it was a history? No, I was I was an economics major.
SPEAKER_00:No, it was I it was great. I loved it, and uh wasn't really sure what I was gonna do, and I I liked economics and I ended up getting a degree in that.
SPEAKER_06:So I mean that's that is the goal, and you did it. Yeah, totally. I remember my mission president in like my last interview, exiting back and what it's called. But he was like, Eric, just you know, college is a hurdle. Get over it and move on. And I didn't really understand it then. I have like this philosophy of professional development is like a pendulum swing where you just kind of constantly get narrower and narrower until you find exactly what's right. Totally. And you can't really explore that most until you get into like the open ocean of the post-school world.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it was it was kind of wild. I I originally was going to go get a finance degree, and I'd taken all the prerequisites, and then my dad ended up having open heart surgery. And so I thought, well, somebody's got to go home run the farm. I have a brother in graduate school, I have another brother living in in uh South Africa. So I was like, okay, I'll go home. So I quit school, got engaged, quit school, moved home, ran the farm until springtime when my dad recovered and got married, came back, and tried to sign up for classes in the finance program at BYU. And was quickly informed that I needed to apply to the finance program. That's how naive I was. I'm like, okay, how do you do that? And they're like, Well, it's gonna have to be next year. And I'm like, and then I had a friend like, hey, uh, come and take a couple of econ classes with me. Quickly had the professors inform me that, you know, uh people who get finance degrees are the those who flunk out of economics or out of the econ program at BYU, which is kind of funny in many many instances. But I I loved econ and ended up staying and not going back into the finance program, which by the way is a great program at BYU. But for me, econ was where it was. But it was all because my dad had open heart surgery.
SPEAKER_06:Interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Funny how that one little thing sent kind of everything different, but I feel like it's also one of those um experiences where everyone's always like, well, if this didn't happen, I'm so glad it would be here. But reality, like most paths would end up that way anyway. Totally. But it's fun that it sent that context because I I mean I'm a huge fan of economics in like general. Like didn't I study finance at the U actually, but I love reading economics. I love thinking about economics, it's kind of like a good framework for my head. And so I think as I mean, where you are now, I feel like it was part of that good foundation and framework to get to where you are today, where you can think about all these economic levers and their impacts on everything in correlation to I mean, make decisions in where you're allocating portfolio.
SPEAKER_00:Very much so. You know, when when I was living in New York City, uh interacted with a lot of people that worked on Wall Street and quickly like the the global economy and what that draw does to the financial markets are so fascinating for me. And supply and demand and et cetera, et cetera. And like I I don't think I fully understood what an econ degree would do, uh, but watching real live firsthand how people were interacting with the global economy working on Wall Street was a really fascinating thing for me.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, especially when you go from rural Idaho farming, then get shipped across the country to New York, which is, I mean, assume you were in like Manhattan, like downtown New York, which is as polar opposite you could experience, but then also gives you this experience of like, oh, like center of financial markets, capital markets, people doing this. What does this mean? What does capital mean? And because like that's always one thing I envied of uh so my mission, I was Spanish speaking, uh-huh, and some of like my leadership roles were in English Wards, but always had English missionaries around me, and they got this kind of fun experience like you did, where it's like, hey, uh members, like, what do you do for work? What do you like about this? And like kind of get this kind of preemptive start to what they wanted to study, what they wanted to do. And like one of my companions by the end of our time together, he was like, I know I'm gonna be an accountant, I know exactly what I want to do. I'm like, Yeah, good luck.
SPEAKER_00:And in hindsight, also still good luck. Yeah, no, so I mean, I fell in love with New York City. I just thought it was fascinating. By the way, I'd never been on a commercial plane until I flew to New York. And in my first apartment building that I lived in, there were more people in that apartment building than in my entire town that I grew up in. A little perspective for you. Yeah, and so I I like I was I was such a fish out of water, and so I didn't know what, but there was just something special about New York. And I mean, even today, uh, you know, my wife, my kids, we all love to go to New York, and you know, there's nothing more special than New York, especially at Christmas time.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, totally. The energy is completely different.
SPEAKER_00:It's amazing.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's like one of those things. I was talking to someone recently, and they're it just kind of came up randomly like, would you want to live in New York? And I thought for a sec, I was like, at one point in my life, the answer was yes. Now it'd be a little much, right? Uh just because, like, I mean, where I am at quality of life, the thought of just being like, okay, so subway every day, everything's gonna take you 30, 45 minutes to get to. I'm like, maybe if I was a little bit more comfy than it would be, but to that point, I still have so many friends that live there, love visiting them, love that energy. There's something so special about it. Um, and I mean, I think I go back, I mean, at least personally once a year, sometimes for work, end up there for other random odds and ends.
SPEAKER_00:It it's a great city, it's a great city. Yeah. So you met your wife at BYU, I assume. Yeah, she was she was actually working in Provo. I was going to school, and my roommate and her roommate were dating. Classic. And that's how we met. And then, of course, uh, you know, I I will tell the story that I, you know, she chased me, but the fact of the matter is I chased her for a long time, and 18 months later we ended up getting married. Hey, that's and you know, in in in Utah speak, 18 months is a long time.
SPEAKER_06:Oh. Yeah, I was interviewing um his name, Lauren Warner. He's the founder of Honest Eatery. And I mean, he had a similar story. Went to BIU, met a girl. Well, actually, no, then he he met a girl in Guadalajara, and I assumed, I mean, just assuming LDS standards pretty quick. He's like, no, we dated long distance for like five years while I was doing this like oil and gas consulting. And I was like, that is like an eternity in LES years, but totally. So that's that's awesome. And I know that so you guys go up to Idaho, your dad has surgery, take care of that, come back down, get let down to finance, start econ, and graduate from there. And I mean, where was your head at at this point? Were you pretty focused on um, I mean, where does VC lie in in this? I mean, where was your career aspirations at this point in your life? You know, I had no idea what VC was.
SPEAKER_00:So, what how how I got into this was uh got married, I needed a little part-time job. My wife was working for a company called WordPerfect. Now, WordPerfect for everybody out there was they controlled probably 80, 90% of the word processing market when we lived in a DOS world. Yes. So I just dated myself and I got a little part-time job. I was a security guard while I was going to school for WordPerfect. Uh, ended up doing a summer internship form living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in their sales organization. Wow. Amazing. I mean, I Nova Scotia is an amazing place. So what a big what a what a terrible place to have an internship. I know I get that. We spent the summer living in Halifax, my wife and I. We'd only been married about a year, so it was great. Came back, finished up school, and WordPerfect offered me a full-time job to go back to New York City. So I was so fun. I was it was amazing. So we went back to New York. Uh the company was growing so fast that they moved us to Seattle, which you know, I was sad to leave New York. Seattle was amazing, but then I had another opportunity to to move back to Utah, and I ran uh a piece of the international business for Word Perfect. Amazing in journey, had no idea what venture capital was still at this point in time. Uh ended up uh getting in and doing some corporate development, some MA work for them. Novell acquires Word Perfect. So Novell leading networking software company. So I'm working in their corporate development group, and a guy named Eric Schmidt shows up to be our CEO. FYI, for you out there, Eric Schmidt after Novell went on to be the CEO of Google. So yeah, that at the time it was a little tiny startup company. But so I got to know Eric. And Eric uh had started, he one of his visions was to start a corporate venture font. And so I'd gotten to know him through that process. I was given the opportunity to run Novell's corporate venture fund, still had no idea what venture capital was. He's like, yes. I said, sure. I like Eric's one of the smartest guys on the planet. Of course, you're gonna say yes if that guy asks you to do something. And so I get that opportunity. I I uh actually drive to Barnes and Noble because at the time Amazon was a bookseller, not a web hoster. So I drive to to Barnes and Noble because the internet didn't exist, and I buy the only two books on venture capital I can find, and I start to read. And that's how I got into the business. And then I ended up running Novell's corporate venture fund from 96 to 2002. It was an amazing run. Uh Eric goes off to Google to be their CEO. Probably should have gone with him when he left. Uh, but I think it worked out okay. Um, and I I actually met uh uh Jim Dreyfus, who's the founder of our firm. This firm was started in 1986 through the founder of Excel Partners named Jim Schwartz. And kind of through that process, I ended up leaving and joining uh what is now Peleon today in 2002, and it's just been an amazing ride. So kind of a kind of a strange way to get here, but it's it's like it's an amazing opportunity.
SPEAKER_06:And it's like I always love those processes where because I have so many friends who are so rigid in their career paths where they're like, listen, I'm gonna go to the UN study accounting, I'm gonna get my master's in accounting, I'm gonna be a CPA, I'm gonna go do audit at a big four, and then I'm gonna go work at a company, and then I'm gonna be their controller, hopefully maybe be the like there's just such like a process, and accounting is probably a bad example because it is so entrenched in that process. But I think there's also such an important part of it to be flexible in everything that's going on around you. Like, so for example, like my day job is in RevOps. As you know, RevOps is a pretty new thing. If I would have graduated from college and say I'm not gonna do RevOps because it doesn't exist, then I would never have understood that. Where now I'm like, like RevOps do it, but at the same time, like maybe something else is gonna come out in three or four years. I'm like, hey, that's great too, and have that flexibility, and but also like understand that a lot of the tracks are being laid in front of you as you go.
SPEAKER_00:Ah, it's so true. I mean, my first job was as a security guard, then I got into sales, then marketing, then product management, then corporate development, and then venture capital. And like each one of those were amazing and and part of the buildup to where, you know, uh as a venture capitalist, like I look back and I rely on some of those skills that I developed in all of those. So and like with the flexibility, you know, when I first when I first got into uh sales, like venture capital was such a there's cottage industry and then how small that thing was. And so yeah, it it I I think it's just being nimble and flexible, and then I like open, and then I also had some amazing people that took chances on me, like Eric Schmidt and a guy named Carl Ledbetter and Jim Schwartz. I could go down this laundry list of people where they took a chance on me, and you know, then it's it was it was up to to me to kind of perform, but you know, without those chances, uh, you know, I just super grateful for those guys.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. It sounds like they gave you a spot on stage, it was up to you to dance, and yeah, I mean it all worked out well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, in hindsight, from I mean, obviously you had such a great experience of learning alongside with Eric and everything that I mean he was doing at that point to get him ready for the CEO role at Google. I mean, what lessons did you learn from him then that still I mean govern what you do today?
SPEAKER_00:You know, one one of the things that I watched him do so well was he he could he could connect with people. Like now he was a very bright guy, but he could connect with people in a way where it was genuine. And you know, he wasn't expecting anything in return. He was he was just connecting with somebody because he was interested in who they were. So taking an interest in the other person, like you really kind of start to start a foundational thing. That was like one of the great skills that that or lessons that I learned from him, because in this world, you know, we're constantly having to connect with entrepreneurs and co-investors and what what have you. And but you need to figure out how to do it in a genuine way, not in a way where you know you're sitting across the table going, okay, well, if I can do this, then I need this, this, and this in return.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, like no sort of tit for tat.
SPEAKER_00:It's all just how can I help? It's just a genuine thing. And that that was like kind of one of the and then the other thing is like the the risk, you know, when I was running Novell's corporate venture fund, Eric used to um call me or his assistant would call me and say, Hey, Eric needs to talk to you. And I'd go down, and usually what that meant is he'd met with an entrepreneur and he saw something and he made a commitment, and then I needed to figure it out. Which which some of the times I'd go, I'd have to go into him and said, What did you see? And like he would pull back the onion a little bit and he'd say, Okay, here's what here's what you need to understand about that entrepreneur. And and that technology, if it works, it'll do this. And I like so there were like some of those foundational things where I was like, All right, I get it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And I love how all the experiences you had, like you're saying, it started off, I mean, except for probably the security guard, but that's important in the story nonetheless. It allowed me to do my homework while I was while I was sitting at a at a desk. Exactly. We all had those jobs during college that we were very grateful for. Right. Mine was at GNC. There you go. Um, but it's so funny how you have, I mean, the sales experiences, marketing experiences, product experience, corp dev experience, which I mean, if you could piece together a resume for VC, I mean, that's great.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But the only thing I didn't do was write code. And you know, and I I took some classes on how to write code, but uh you don't want me writing code. But yeah, it was, it was I it was super foundational to what I do.
SPEAKER_06:And especially like thinking about because it sounds like Eric had, I mean, obviously a good head on his shoulders, understood what he was looking for, and can kind of identify these niche things, whether it be with the product itself, with the uh entrepreneur themselves, that I mean, I feel like educate a lot of what you do today. And when I was listening to your most recent podcast you did with Silicon Slopes, you were talking about the Cloudflare business and like that investment. And it's so interesting how um, oh my gosh, I can't think of his the the founder's name, but uh Matthew Prince. Yes, Matthew Prince. Yeah, Matthew and Michelle. Yeah. And how they're talking about they came in, I think it was like a board meeting or something, but they're like, where you're like, Oh yeah, cool, you're gonna do this for the internet. Like, no, we're gonna power the internet, we will be the internet. Yeah, and so it's fun to have those moments and see it come to fruition. And I mean, obviously, all boats rise with high tide in your position, but yeah, I mean look look, great visionary entrepreneurs that are gonna change the world.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we're sitting in a in actually, we didn't even invested in in Cloudflare, and Matthew's comment was, I'm gonna power the internet. And Michelle Zatlin, who's his co-founder, kind of looking at him going, wow, that's pretty amazing. I mean, the two of them were just graduating from Harvard. You know, one other company we invested into was uh Jerry Kennell at and Steve McCann at a company called Riverbed. And their comment was, we're gonna speed data up faster than the speed of light. And like these big audacious claims, and you're just like, wow, all right, if they if that's right, you want to be partners with those people. And so that that's kind of one of these big audacious and and entrepreneurs, they're just such rock stars. And uh, you know, that that that's the people who are gonna create these great big companies.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. And I mean, you see that in the world today where tech is what is I mean, driving the world. I mean, all of our problems are slowly becoming solved by tech solutions, and it it's so interesting to see how I guess taking a step back, humans are one of the only animals that we can visualize something, conceptualize something, and then make it a reality. Yeah. And there's been few things we haven't actually done. I mean, we've done like the internet, like the thought of just like data can be stored on like some uh I mean wafer and then all of a sudden it can get transferred over our heads here is wild.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:But we can make these things come to reality and it's technology, and technology only grows, I mean, exponentially, if not faster than that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, a company right here in Utah called Fusion I.O. And I mean, David Flynn and Rick White, it was uh it it's it was a some people would say it's a storage company, but what they invented like changed the way solid state storage interacts with the internet. It's it's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. Yeah. And so I love that you had these experiences with Eric where he's like, well, I think you're thinking about it maybe a little bit, maybe myopically or whatever, but here's how I'm thinking about this and how I see this going through. Right. I mean, if you could go back to your, I mean, early VC days and how the way you thought about things or the frameworks you had, I mean, what would you tell them then?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, first of all, I'd start off by saying, uh, you know, risk is a good thing and failure is a good thing. I I used to get a lot of anxiety over failure, but in in VC, you have that you have failure every day. And so like I'd go back and say, you know what, you're gonna be okay. So failure, and then like continue to look for those, you know, the the the Matthew Prince, the Jerry Canelli, the David Flynn's, the list goes on of these these great entrepreneurs that have these audacious visions because that's who are gonna change the world. They're you know, we can go down the list of of people here in Utah that you know could range from uh Blake Murray um at uh at Divi or Brandon Rodman or um uh Ryan Smith or you know Aaron Sconner, Josh James, the list goes on of all these guys and what they've done. I think so if I'm in the younger, I'm just like look for those characteristics because there there is a difference. There definitely is a difference.
SPEAKER_06:And is there any identifiable characteristics that you look for in people like that?
SPEAKER_00:You know, the their their vision is so big that um, you know, I I had somebody call it, you know, they dent the world. And you know, when I say dent the world, they're gonna make a difference. And they're gonna make a difference in people's lives, in the technology, they're gonna advance something. Um and look, they're all uh I'll I'll use the term very uh they're all a little crazy. Yes. And when I say crazy, they have to be. When you think about what they built, there's a crazy notion to them because they're they're pushing all in on one thing, yeah, and it's that company. And they're gonna win. And you just like you love that sort of thing. I I remember like conversations with Blake Murray about Divi. You know, for those of you out there, Divi was a an expense management platform. That doesn't sound very exciting, but when you look at what he built in the fintech space, you know, and then he brought amazing people in alongside him, I it was pretty amazing to go from something so what I'll call boring as you know, uh financial uh expense reporting to building a company that sold for two and a half billion dollars three years later.
SPEAKER_06:So that doesn't sound very boring to me at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00:No, no. And and by the way, though for those of you who haven't met Blake Murray, he's pretty amazing. You should get to know him. He's he's a pretty good guy.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah but it's like so funny too because you look at a lot of the I mean Hallmark, Utah startups that I mean have a massive exits, the Qualtrics, the Divi, I mean, M, I mean, just the typical names that you always hear, MX Divi, I mean, etc. At face value, a lot of them seem very boring. Like your Qualtrics are like, oh, surveys. Yeah, great. But obviously, it's a huge, massive business that continues to grow. And I mean, so many companies need it for a plethora of reasons. And so I think it's so fun how we've had these Utah entrepreneurs find these niches, relentlessly go after it, chase after it, and make it a reality. And it's so fun that we've been able to do it in our backyard without having to, I mean, go to Silicon Valley, go to New York, go to all these different places and really create this unique place. Like I was reading um this book called, oh, I can't remember the name. I'll probably edit it in after. But it's uh this guy who used to work in VC, but then I mean, essentially just looked at all this data to find these trends in um entrepreneurs. Um he kind of goes through, he's like, oh yeah, if someone's had a um business before, even if it's succeeded or failed, that's better. But then they go in, and there's almost like half a chapter dedicated on um Salt Lake and Lehigh. In Silicon Slopes, and it kind of talks about Qualtrics where it's like there's this emerging place in Salt Lake where I mean places like Qualtrics and Divi are growing and it's becoming a bigger and bigger dot on the map with I mean venture capital and just I mean business in general, especially in tech. And so it's so fun to have. I'm I mean, I'm curious from your perspective, where you are now, did you ever expect to see this much growth or see I mean the valley and especially Lehigh become what it is?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I'd love to sit here and say yeah. I I saw that it was all part of the plan. But but I'll tell you, so the founder of our firm, Jim Dreyfus, his vision back in 1986 is there's something special about Utah. You can build great companies here. Now he was probably just 20 years too early, but he was right. So if you roll forward to today, on one hand it's very surprising, but on the other hand, it's not. And one of the things that I like I get this comment from all of my friends in the VC business who say there's something magical about Utah. Those entrepreneurs help each other. They compete for talent, they compete for customers, they compete for you know brand identity, but at the end of the day, they help each other. And I think that's super unique to this marketplace. And I think that's why you've had. I mean, look, I I we mentioned Todd and Ryan and Josh and Aaron Scott, all those guys. Like, like I watched those guys help each other as they were building their businesses and they'd get together, and then you know, that next generation, you know, Brandon Rodman and Blake Murray are actually cousins. Oh, wow. You know, Brandon built Weave and Blake built uh Blake Murray built Divi. Those guys are cousins. So all these guys are helping each other, and I think that's pretty special and is unique to Utah.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, totally. I mean, that's like almost the definition of like Desert itself. Totally and this beehive of we're all part of this same economy ecosystem, society, we're all, I mean, synergy, we're all better together, helping each other, even if at the end of the day we may or may not be like semi-competing, even if it is for resources, right? That we still have this priority of working together and I mean to see what it's grown after all of that is is inspiring in the least. Oh, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Just absolutely amazing.
SPEAKER_06:So, I mean, in in your hindsight perspective that you have, I mean, have you ever put thought into what those key things are that make I mean Utah Salt Lake great to make it the foundation there was to grow today? Or do you feel like it's just still so much more nuanced and small than that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I think there is a great uh large amount of nuance to it. I mean, first of all, you have great universities here, and so there's there's that component of it. But I I I think that one is, and it could be just, you know, people here are willing to take the kind of risk that they that they take. So you so you have a bunch of people that are risk takers, and then you have people that cheer each other people, each other on. And and I think I think you know, you can line up there's great companies, there's big companies, there's great universities, there's great entrepreneurs, but that, and we talk about it all the time in turning and and we call it the magic of Utah, is how these entrepreneurs care that their friend, their colleagues, or what have you are going to have success. And they cheer them on. Very competitive, no question about that. But they are interested in their friends succeeding as well. And I think that's that's through all of that, the nuanced component is that. And and you can't bottle that up. It just has to be organic and natural. And and then, you know, my my friends from out of state that are trying to figure out how to place bets in here and how to how to invest, they talk about like they see it firsthand when they come to town. And I think I think those of us who live here, it's a great reminder because I think sometimes we'll go, oh, it's just what the way it is. But then you have the outsider go, no, there's something special about what's going on here.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. And like that's one thing I learned. So I moved to Seattle for four years after school to go uh work up there. And like I'd taken Utah for granted so much. Because I mean, most people who are from Salt Lake or Utah are like, I want to get out of here as soon as I graduate, I'm getting out. And then sure enough, like you see this like boomerang come back, and you're like, I remember when I was younger, I was like, What are you doing? You got out. Like, why why why did you come back? Yeah. Lo and behold, I was one of those people because I mean, Salt Lake in itself, I mean, even from like uh I mean, going back to economics, economic perspective is so special. Yeah. Because you have, I mean, just to um start with like a conservative state, liberal cities, which provides us great checks and balances, um, better than a lot of other checks and balances that we have. Then we also have uh a younger population, which I mean trends everywhere else isn't the same. We so all of that gumption, that drive, you have let's call it traditional values, which provides a ton of why power to all of these people, entrepreneurs, I mean, down to the 80s, product support, CSMs, of getting it all done. And that also provides a great culture of prioritization. Like, I mean, when I was in Seattle, you know, work was work for a lot of people and they didn't really have a lot of things out of it. So they just leaned into it, which is fine. Like, I'm never gonna tell someone don't grind on what you want to do and prioritize your time wherever. But here it's like, hey, like I need to go home to my family.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I need to go home, I need to, I want to go and explore the mountains. I want to get out and be here. And so I feel like that creates a good uh sense of community amongst all these people, and it drives people from, I mean, how many people have moved here just to work here because of the growth?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, we we we just funded a company where the founder, long time Silicon Valley, moved here, built is and wants to build his next company in Utah because of all the things you just described. And like it is fun to watch, and it's fun to have been part of it. You know, I've been in the venture industry since '96, always in Salt Lake. Now, I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley just by the nature of what we do. But you know, just like each we call it, you know, we we we group it into different waves, and we think we're in about wave five right now of what's going on here. And the other thing is is you don't have to move your company anymore. Like when I graduated from college, the I the the direction was okay, you got to move away to get a job. You gotta move away. And that was kind of the mantra. Today, that's not the case, and it hasn't been for several years. Like you can you can graduate and you can build a a pretty massive career just staying here locally, yeah, and you can build a massive company without having to move it anymore. There was a time when 10, 15 years ago, you'd have to move to Silicon Valley. That's not the case anymore.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that experience was so niche to there, and then now, I mean, you can have that same experience here and not have to uproot everything and still have that quality of life that we we have. Right. And I mean, to pair that with I mean remote work and everything else, like why not, why not? Why not? Because that's right. Because I was the same way. I mean, I didn't necessarily want to leave Utah at the beginning, but then people were like, Hey, if you want to create value here for yourself, you have to go get experience somewhere else. And I think I was one of those last kind of people that had that thought process behind it because now I just see people like, yeah, we might as well stay here. There's so much going on. Why would I go anywhere else? Totally. And it's so fun to you because uh uh you probably don't know this, but last year I spent six months traveling in a van around the country working remote. And like I always had this like idea that I would find this perfect place that I've never been to, and like this is gonna be my new home. And there were a couple that like tickled my fancy, but at the end of the day, like didn't work out for very core reasons. But at the end of that six months, I was like, oh, actually, Salt Lake is pretty great. Utah is pretty great. Yeah, and like because you'd go to these places. I mean, even like upstate New York and like Pennsylvania, where these old factories, economy's not doing well, people aren't doing too well, or other places where like, oh, this is really boring, and like not m many people, not enough exciting activities like we have here, and like all of a sudden we have this dot in like almost the middle of the US that has all of these great things happening. And I was like, Yeah, like that's that's actually where I want to be.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally. I mean, and like like what what Clint Betts and those guys have done with Silicon Slopes to create a community, like everybody just wants to be involved. And it's just you go to events and the the energy is just it's amazing. Totally absolutely amazing.
SPEAKER_06:It's like every time I go to Silicon Slopes, I always like I always go through this process of like dragging my feet. I'm like, do I really want to go? It's a lot of people. Am I gonna get something? But every time I walk out, I'm like, this is cool. Like there's something happening here, and it's finally to the point where we recognize it and can like value it and kind of out of this, I mean, validation hypothesis phase to be like, well, actually, like things are going well. Right. But I want to come back to your point that you had. So you're you say that we're in this fifth wave here. I mean, high level, what are these first four waves and what did those look like? And what does it look like after this fifth wave?
SPEAKER_00:Well, look, the first four waves were like kind of that building phase. You know, you can go all the way back to the ARPANET. University of Utah was the fourth note on the ARPANET, which was the precursor to the internet. So you kind of had that wave. And then you had like John Warnock from Adobe and Ed Catmill from Pixar, you had all that technology that actually came out of the University of Utah. Then you had, you know, the the Alan Ash and Bruce Bashion were perfect, the Drew Major and his guys, the superset guys that did Novell. Then you had Omniture and Altiris and Landesk, and then you just kind of keep rolling forward, and you can see gradually those companies continue to get bigger. The number of companies continue to get uh uh larger. And so, you know, today we have this well-established um you know, you can build a great big company, and there's lots of them here. We have companies, be it Facebook or Oracle or Symantic or Adobe. You can go down the list of companies that have big offices here. I mean, Goldman Sachs is might be their second largest office is here in Salt Lake City. And so I think the next wave is this, you know, if I can it feels like that we're we're kind of going from that adolescence to junior high. We're kind of, you know, elementary school to junior high. There's still so much more to do. We haven't even broached high school or college, if I can use that metaphor. So I think the next wave is this continuation of building great big companies. And then with that, we're as a state, we got to figure out a lot of other things, you know, the infrastructure, uh, travel, like like all of those sorts of things here locally. And I think, look, I think the state government is doing a good job kind of keeping their eye on the ball there. But probably the next phase is going to be that, you know, adolescence, kind of that growing phase is and what happens to us from an infrastructure standpoint, because the companies are here and they're continuing to be built.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. And it's it's always interesting because I've thought about this a lot recently about just call it US history in general. Like going back to your example of New York, like New York didn't used to be this Mecca of finance. It used to be this little island, I mean, in the early 1900s, late 1800s, but then grew into this huge primary global city. You can say the same thing about LA, I mean San Francisco. So yeah, like there's always this huge reason that things grew so much. And then now things are starting to change, where you're seeing these tertiary cities become these secondary cities, secondary cities become these primary cities, and a lot of it has to do, I mean, with tech growth. And going back to my example of like liberal cities and conservative states, where you see this not just in Salt Lake, but you see Austin, you see Nashville, you see Charlotte, you see Charleston, you see Miami, all of these same sort of like economic like petri dishes. Right. And they're all growing very, very well. And especially with I mean, Utah's always been very pro-business. Uh, I mean, the example I always like to use is even back in the Disney Channel days when they wanted to film a movie, it was always here.
SPEAKER_00:Always in Utah.
SPEAKER_06:And it's so fun to see kind of that investment, that priority, free capital, kind of what it's shaped its way into and only continues to grow. And it's almost like the thought I was going through my head when you were talking about um what's kind of shown up here, especially these bigger companies that aren't from here moving here. It's almost like this um like tractor beam or gravity pull that we keep becoming like almost a bigger planet or moon, and it just sucks everything in and you can't ignore it anymore. Like, and you think Goldman's a great example. These have the small office out on Chepita Way, kind of is like this hypothesis, and then they have one-one one, then they build 222. Yeah, and it's like, oh, like, yeah, obviously, someone sees something there in here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it's it's so true. I mean, I I just think it's gonna continue to just expand and grow, and and you know, that that's gonna come with a lot of headaches, but man, they're great headaches to have because we can figure them out.
SPEAKER_06:And like it's totally, and it's always gonna be, I mean, ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, and yeah, I mean, especially in tech in Utah, I mean, everywhere right now, it's it's definitely a little bit of a valley. There's a lot of I mean, excitement with I mean, all the buzz of AI and everything going on from there, but at the same time, capital markets are interesting. And so I I guess at the current state of the economy, I mean, what's what's your general philosophy right now? Are you I mean, placing big bets? Are you kind of biding your time to see how things go? What's your what's your thoughts on the current landscape?
SPEAKER_00:You know, we're we're super bullish, and part of that is driven by pattern recognition. So, you know, I lived through the internet bubble bursting, and after that happened, great companies got built. I lived through the financial crisis meltdown of like 07, 08. Great companies got built out out of that. Some of the best vintage years for building companies came on the heels of that. You know, the last few years it's been, you know, you have a pandemic, you have raise rising interest rates, like it's been chaos from a bull market to a bear market. I'm very bullish that 24, 25 are going to be great uh markets. They're gonna be great times to build companies. I think you also will have um, you know, I I I learned this from some of the early founders, some of the early guys in VC from these great firms like a Sequoia and Excel, where they would talk about okay, the Taurus have all have all left. And I always thought I I never really had an appreciation for what they were saying, but building a company is hard. Yep. And so, you know, I I think you're gonna get back to a lot of maybe some of the fundamentals, you know, profitability, cash, growth, metrics in the business, all of those sorts of things matter. And that's the same thing that happened in 02, 03, 07, 08. And I think we're gonna have it again. So we're very bullish on what's coming.
SPEAKER_06:Awesome. Yeah. I mean, it never hurts to go back to the the the roots and the core, looking at LTB to CAC, looking at growth rates, looking at yeah. And I I think there's definitely especially like the different podcasts and people that I follow in in tech, it's it's interesting to see how it used to be this like, oh, they they got a term shoe. So we'll we'll take one too, and just kind of rolling it forward where everyone's like uh let's get a data room going. I need to look at this a little bit more, which is great. Like the last thing you want to, I mean, I don't pay willy-nilly for anything without looking at it first or shopping around. So totally makes sense. Yeah. And I also love kind of coming back to a previous-ish point. It's it's so fun to see the growth in Utah driven by the growth in Utah. Because I'm sure when you join Jim Dreyfus and we're getting this off the ground, there's probably a lot of people curious, a lot of people dubious. And but you had this vision of what it was going to become and invested in itself. And there's, I mean, a couple of those other, I mean, Hallmark firm like you, and it's so fun to see how that's been like the foundation of here. It hasn't been like this sequoids or these huge mega funds coming in and be like, eh, we'll we'll give you some money, we'll see how it goes. It's nothing to us, but it really has been, to your point, like everybody coming together and supporting each other.
SPEAKER_00:It is so true. You know, when when this firm first got started in 1986, there were firms like Venrock and Morganthaler and NEA and Excel and all those firms that kind of came together and were the vision behind uh you know this firm here. Yeah, we actually used to be called Utah Ventures. So same firm, just different name. And and it was it was that that view that like there's something, something amazing that's gonna happen here. And you know, I remember when I joined Jim, I had a number of people call me on the phone and go, You've lost your mind. What are you doing? And you know, I I remember talking to a couple, like the founders of Battery, and I called them on the phone and I was chatting with them and the founders of Excel, and they just said, Look, you can build something amazing there. And by the way, if it doesn't work, you're young enough, you can go get another job. Yeah, and I was like, All right, that kind of makes sense. But I think you yeah, I I don't know rather be and and so I first the first week I'm um I'm at the firm, it was hard. And uh I remember calling my wife, you know, whipped out my flip phone, Motorola, brick phone, and called my wife on the drive home and said, honey, I think I'm gonna have to get my resume polished up. And we had a good laugh about that. But it was yeah, it was like you could you could build something pretty amazing here. And so we just kind of started, you know, and Jim was great. And uh he's like, Look, how how are we gonna like remake this firm? Because we companies constantly innovate themselves. And if you don't, you go out of business. Innovate or die. Yep. And so Jim was all about, and that was part of Jim Schwartz's vision with with you know getting Dreyfus to bring me on board was we got to innovate who we are. And so we're constantly as an organization continuing to innovate and making sure that we're staying current on what's going on. I think that's been part of the part of the the success has been you got to innovate, as you said, innovate or die.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And it's like it's funny because you always hear them like the tech world, but it's also I mean it's applicable to everything, right?
SPEAKER_00:Like oh, I absolutely I mean I worked for a great company called Work Perfect, and you know, they controlled the when the operating system world was DOS, but they didn't innovate in or around Windows. And so when the world moved from a DOS world to a Windows world, like that was kind of the the the notion of this, you know, you gotta constantly be innovating and constantly paying attention to the trends that are happening.
SPEAKER_06:Were there any moments in whether in the beginning years or the middle years, whichever one of the part of the waves we were at that you're like, this is like something is happening, like you finally were like, oh, this is it. Like there is no more apprehension, there is no nervousness, like we found something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, I I think it had there was not one single moment. It was probably a number of moments. It was, you know, we've already talked about these great entrepreneurs that we've invested into. And you know, and they were super impactful for the success. And look, they made our investors a lot of money. And so with that, you just kind of success builds on success, builds on success. And so I wouldn't say there was one single event, it was probably a number of these things where uh, you know, and and we knew we had people in our corner cheering us on, and that that was always helpful. And then there's this notion of responsibility. I mean, we we manage money for pension funds. And if you think of who the pensioners are, they're school teachers and police officers, and so all of a sudden you're like, oh wait, at the time it was my kids, today it's my grandkids. You know, their school teachers are investors. You got a real responsibility, you know, you can't lose the money. And so, like all of those sorts of things just were additive to the notion of and and coming back to a farm, we just didn't have a choice. Like, if things didn't work out on the farm, there was no safety net. You just had to m march forward and figure it out. Yep. And in venture, there's not really a safety net. You just got to keep marching forward and figuring it out.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and I mean, especially when so many of these companies are things that have never been done before, right? You're gonna run into those situations a lot more than anything else. It's not like, I mean, farming where not to downplay farming to means, because that's in my opinion, one of like the hardest things anyone can ever do. But people have done it before. We've done it for millennia. And so it's like, oh, well, if I don't know this, I can go to my neighbor, he's done this forever. But if you're trying to build and I mean the most innovative, groundbreaking product, you're gonna run into some headaches that no one has ever run into before, but you still have to figure them out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, uh when I first got into this business, I'd hear this word, all the companies pivot. That's a bad idea. What I will tell you is pivoting is a great idea because if you're not pivoting, you're not you're not paying attention to the trends because building a company is hard. And I I have so much respect for the entrepreneurs that do it, but I have even more respect for the entrepreneurs uh wife, husband, partner, spouse, whatever, because that those individuals are just as key to the success because they're having to, they're like right there in the trenches of the entrepreneurs building these businesses. Totally.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. I mean, they're even if they're focused on it, they're the ones taking care of everything in the scenes, they're the one probably being the coach on the bad day of their like, listen, yeah, things are going bad. I don't know what to do. Like, no, you're you're gonna be okay. We'll get through this instead of like you're right, pull the plug, we're done. You know, so true. And I'm sure your wife was the same role when you're getting this all done. There's days she probably thought you're crazy, but she was along ride or dive through. She was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like like I I will have to say, I have an amazing wife and three unbelievable daughters that that went on this ride with me through this journey. And I I remember them being my biggest cheerleaders, and sometimes I'd go, You realize it's really hard. And they knew it was hard, but it's like cheering me on. So, you know, I that's like that's key and core to the success. And if I look at all of our great all of our companies we've backed, the the wife, the husband, the partner, like whatever, they have been so important to the success of these businesses. Totally. Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, but your daughter works at Peleon now too, correct? She does. So she was she graduated from a finance with a finance degree from BYU and did a little internship internship.
SPEAKER_06:So she got her application in on time.
SPEAKER_00:Got her application in on time. Yeah, she was she was the smart one. And uh then we have a two-year analyst program, and so she's one of our two-year analysts, and and it's great. Like it what was great for me is it was my partner's ideas. Like, you know, look, she's my daughter, and so I always want to be mindful and thoughtful about that. And it was my partner's like, look, she's really good at what she does, and we'd like to have her join the firm. I'm like, that's fantastic. So that's right.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, how is it because I have friends that spend a lot of time working with fam? Like, one of my friends, I mean, works in real estate with his dad and grandpa. One of my friends is a dentist working with his dad. And like for me, I'm like, that's a lot of time with family. And sometimes family, like, you need you need some boundaries. Yeah. And so, how has that relationship changed working with her? And how do you make sure that like there's let's call it like a familiar relationship and a professional relationship, and those don't cross for good or bad reasons.
SPEAKER_00:You know, we we we set we set ground rules right at the very beginning, and I just look, I'm I when when we're working, this is my role, this is your role, and so that that was helpful. And then you know, I have great people like you know, Susanna Duke and Daylor Youngblood. I have so many great young uh teammates, and that's who she interacts with a lot. And then my partners, you know, she interacts with them probably more than she does me in terms of kind of great mentors and those things like that. So uh, you know, it's been great, and it hasn't been weird or awkward or anything anything like that, but I think it's because we we set those ground rules and those boundaries like from day one. Good.
SPEAKER_06:Because and and I think as someone who's been kind of watching from the sidelines, I feel like you've treated uh Peleon as almost like this professional sports team. Because I feel like everyone that you've brought on, I mean, most recently, correct me following it's not most recently, but like Sterling Snow, for example. Like he was someone I was following, because I mean, obviously, Exec in RevOps, so someone I followed, all of his team Utah, everything. And I feel like he's been someone who has been good about creating kind of a community amongst almost like the Silicon Slopes community. So I'm just curious about your like philosophy on bringing people on board, filling those seats, needs being filled, or maybe it's less intentional than I think.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's very intentional. If you think about, and I'll just continue on the sports analogy, championships are won by great teams, not by a single person. And uh let's just take the New England Patriots. I don't know. Tom Brady has what, six, six Super Bowls, seven Super Bowls? I'd have to go back and look. I'm guessing like Tom is a great quarterback, but we can go down the list of his teammates. Had they not been there, Tom would be seen as a great quarterback and probably not have as many Super Bowls or maybe no Super Bowls. So, you know, in our view, championships are won by great teams, and you need to have uh you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll mix metaphors here. I'll I'll shift away from from uh from football, but you gotta have a power forward and a point guard. Like I'm guessing the Utah Jazz did not want Carl Malone playing point guard. That makes sense. But they needed John Stockton, and they didn't want John Stockton playing power forward, so everybody has to have their role on these championships teams. I mean, look, maybe Michael Jordan can play whatever he wants. He might be the only person on the planet in the in the history of the world that could have done that, but he had great teammates, he had a he had a great center, a great running mate, like John, John Paxton, Steve Kerr, spot up. Like who would have thought that how important that role is? And so when you think about a team, and that's the way we view it, so be it Sterling Snow or Tyler Hogue or the list goes on, these guys are great and they bring so much greatness to the organization because they they just bring something that when you pour it in, it just gets better.
SPEAKER_06:And I'm and I'm sure it's nice to be in your situation of it all where you get to go, I mean, meet with these investors, go to these board meetings and kind of see these people over a while, be like, Oh, hey, I've been watching you, Sterling. Like, yeah, have you ever thought about this? And he's like, Have I? Yeah, where do I sign?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that like both both Tyler and Sterling, that was you know, we'd we'd seen them at Divi. They'd built a great company alongside Blake Murray at at Divi. And so as we were talking about it, and we said, Hey, have you ever thought about this? And both of them are like, Yeah, we have actually. You know, they've been both great angel investors, and you know, and and and so like all of that stuff just is additive to I don't know what I what I believe is if if you're if you're so focused on a single person, you know, then I don't know how like you'll have probably a great few games, but I'm not sure you'll win a championship.
SPEAKER_06:Totally.
SPEAKER_00:You gotta have all the all the ingredients to win a championship.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. No, I like that that perspective. If it can't just be one person, like it can't just be you just dishing out tasks to everybody and hopefully they do it. You need to have people that think for themselves, have proven track records, who move on the fly, adapt, innovate, totally, and continue to move forward. And you have to like even more meta than that, you have to innovate on how you innovate.
SPEAKER_00:And a lot of it's getting the right pieces in the right place because having people you trust is and and we think about it holistically as an entire organization, meaning, you know, finding great companies, interacting with great entrepreneurs, and it doesn't matter what your role here is inside of our you you may be an investor on the finance team, on the operations team, investor relations. It just doesn't matter. Everybody has the the responsibility to find great companies because you know somebody somebody may be, you know, their their sister-in-law is building a great company, and we want to know about that. And so we turn everybody loose and it it like it really works.
SPEAKER_02:It really works.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's so fun that everyone's on the same page and continues to move forward. And I know that um I I love like kind of going back to a previous thing we talked about, like the authenticity of things. And I mean, we talked about it in context of entrepreneurs because I mean you'll run into the people who's like, I want to be an entrepreneur because I want to be rich. Yeah. And if that's not that usually doesn't work well, but if someone's like, hey, listen, I found this problem, I'm very motivated to solve this problem and I'm determined enough that I won't stop until it gets done, those are the people that change the world are most successful because they're motivated by the change or the vision that they have, not necessarily by how many zeros are currently in their bank account.
SPEAKER_00:It's so true. So the the zeros in your bank account are a byproduct of doing something special. Yes. Like that will happen, but if that's your motivation, it won't happen. If your motivation is you're gonna make the world better, you're gonna change something, like like all the the dent in the world, like if you're doing that, this this stuff in your bank account just happens naturally. Um, but this is where a lot of a lot of great satisfaction happens over here. And then when you think about you know, looking at just your employees and how you're gonna change their lives. And part of it is changing their life where they're part of something pretty special, and then you know, once again, the byproduct, the number zero is in their bank account, and then what they do with that from a giving and a helping perspective, like that's the other thing that I think people should be always thinking about is somebody gave me a chance, how can I also give back?
SPEAKER_06:Totally. And then and I've always tried to have that as much as I can. I'm not in like a position like you to give back as much. But if I mean a student from the year reaches out and says, Hey, I want to get into this, how do I do it? Like, let's chat. Or if some I mean, I I try to do as much as I can, but can't to the necessarily the same skill scale as you. And I think to your point, like that is so much of the authenticity because if you're doing it for money, you're not gonna give anything back. No. But if you're in it because you wanted to and you're grateful for everything that's been done, then naturally you're like, hey, I'm I'm good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I see something that isn't, and I want to like lift where I stand. And I think it's a perfect segue into talking about uh your recent donation uh to primary children's. I mean, just for context, like that's a place that is near and dear to my heart. So my mom, my mom's a pediatrician, my stepdad's a pediatrician. Uh, she used to always do uh newborn ICU rounds there, and I loved going with her. So I would overnight we'd be stuck in this little tiny room with like a bed and we'd roll in a cot for me. But I knew two things would always happen. One, uh, I got to have access to a TV with cable. Never had that before, stoked out of my mind. And number two, I knew we got to wake up, go to the cafeteria in the morning, and get a chocolate chocolate donut and chocolate milk on the way out. So me and as an eight-year-old kid, it's like best day of my life. And I'm like, wait, didn't you just spend the night at a hospital? I'm like, details don't matter. I got a donut, okay. Yeah. But would love to hear about, I mean, kind of how you got to this decision and I mean why primary children's uh just your thought process behind it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, it I I want to pull on a thread there for just a second. You know, it's time, talent, and resources, and really in that order. So as you think about giving, you know, there's a there's an aspect associated with dollars, but time and talents, like I am a big big Beneficiary of people who gave me time and shared their talents with me. So when you think about giving, there's that. You know, the primary children's hospital uh journey for my wife and I started 30 years ago. And um uh my night when my wife and I were dating and we were first married, she had a niece who was diagnosed with a brain with a brain cancer, brain tumor, and she was treated at primary children's hospital. And so we spent a lot of time there with her niece, and you know, she ultimately it spread to her spine, and she didn't, you know, she passed away. I think she was diagnosed when she was four, and she passed away when she was seven. And, you know, my wife and I were so young, like we didn't have two nickels to rub together. And my wife said, made herself a commitment if I'm ever in a place where I can give more than you know, pennies by the inch or what have you, we're gonna do that to primary children's. So that's kind of how it started for us. I had a grandmother who at age 50 uh went back to become a nurse because she wanted to give back. She wanted to serve people who couldn't, you know, who were sick. Uh, and so all of that started to come together. And so when we were in a position, and now the the the story on how we ended up at the amount was kind of a funny one.
SPEAKER_06:I do love this story.
SPEAKER_00:So I'll I'll share with everybody. So um uh Gail Miller, who many of you I'm sure know Gail, Gail's amazing, and we got invited to a luncheon at Gail's house, and it we knew what it was about. She was gonna talk about primary children's hospital. And, you know, look, Gail is just this icon that when Gail is doing something, you pay attention. Yes. And so I was out of town, my wife goes to this uh this luncheon with our middle daughter Allie and comes back, and she was just so moved. And this, you know, we talked about her niece, we talked about my grandma, all that kind of stuff. And my wife said, I want to do something. So great. So we started having this conversation on how much. What I remember is we agreed on a million dollars. And that was going to be a big number for us. Totally. Like that would have been our biggest donation in our entire lives, and we're in a place where we can do that. Well, roll forward. Uh, I'm out of town again. So you probably have heard this. Note to self, don't go out of town so much. And my wife goes to uh David Flood and Rebecca and a few of these other people, and they they have them present the primary children's hospital idea to our other two daughters, Claire and McCall. Because all of our giving, we want our kids involved. Yep. And I'm at a meeting, my phone keeps blowing up, and I have a couple of my uh colleagues who say to me, Hey, Sandy needs to get a hold of you. And I'm like, Oh, well, I'm kind of busy. And they go, It's an emergency. Read your text. So I start looking at my text, and there's like five or six, maybe seven text messages from her. And the first three or four are like pretty mundane, like, hey, uh, I put them in the categories, like, we're out of milk. Can you pick some up from when you on your way home? Like that kind of stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'm just gonna have to read these later. So I type the word okay, like not even okay, just okay, send it back to her, put my phone down, walk away. Well, a couple hours later, I'm reading my text. The very last text from her is hey, I'm sitting here with David Flood, we're talking about primary children's. The girls and I want to donate$10 million. And yes, the blood did rush out of my body. I had to go in the bathroom and throw up. I'm like, what did we just do? How can I unwind this thing? And so that's what's going through my head. I I don't even know how to like call my wife. I I'm just like, what just happened? Are you sure she didn't mean a million? I thought that's what we decided on. But then I looked at something else. So there was a bunch of texts. So we have a family text thread, and it was my daughter's, my son-in-law's, and I started to read their conversations. And I started to think about my niece, Kristen. I thought I started thinking about my grandma. And uh I'm still kind of sick to my stomach because at that point I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I got to liquidate a whole bunch of stuff, taxes, all this kind of stuff. My my business partner, Chris Cooper, who was there, who was with me, he's kind of looked at me and said, You know what, you're gonna be fine. One of my other colleagues, Latia, uh, she said, Blake, you got this, you can do this. So I listened to a voicemail from my wife, and the voicemail is like, hey, I've already talked to our family office person, this guy named Darren Henderson from Corient, and we're fine. I'm thinking to myself, well, how come is everybody fine and I'm not?
SPEAKER_04:Like, listen, I want to pause here. Like, I just said the most uh highly impactful two-word text of my life. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And so, so anyway, so I I finally kind of like sift it through, but it was that text conversation why and I didn't I wasn't participating, but it was this conversation with my kids. I'm like, this is gonna be amazing. And then I remember my wife and her her niece, Krista, 30 years ago. I remember my grandma, and I'm like, you know what, we're gonna do this. That's awesome. And so I called David Flood on the phone. I said, All right, uh I originally was gonna call and try to back this thing up. We're all in, we're good to go. And then we kind of just left it at that. And this has been a while ago. And then they talked to us about you know, naming something after us at the hospital, and I wasn't real sure about like kind of doing some of this stuff anonymous. And you know, Gail had given us some advice. She said, you know, Larry and I in our early days, we wanted to be anonymous. And then somebody said to me, We donated because we heard you guys were gonna donate. And I said to Gail, the only reason we're donating is because we knew you were donating. And she said, somebody else might donate because they see your name. So we're like, that was such great advice from Gail. So we're like, all right, here we go. And then uh we kind of went through this whole thing, and this is like kind of the last component to the story is so my family, the Moderzisky family, we come from Poland, and we've done a bunch of research. For centuries, we're in we're in northern Poland on the Baltic Sea. For centuries, the Moderzisky family had been a prominent family in this area. The fishing yard, the boat building, streets named after them. World War II breaks out, uh the Moderziskys become war refugees. Everything is wiped out. Like basically the whole what's left of the town my grandfather grew up in is basically a concentration camp. And so I roll for it. I was like, okay, so two generations later, we went from a prominent family to war refugees to fleeing to get out of of eastern Germany. Some of them didn't make it. We don't know what happened to part of the family. I can restore, so this is not about the Blake and Sandy Moderzisky. This is about the Moderzitski heritage of my great great great ancestors that lived in that part of the world where you know their name gets to be up on a building again the way it was prior to the war. So, like, there's so many great experiences that have come out of this thing, and we just couldn't be happier um to be involved with primary children. So that's our why. You know, we've always wanted to be, you know, education, healthcare, helping others. That's kind of our why, and this fits right in the heart of it. But yeah, the the journey to get there was a little rough for not for my why, for my kids, but for me, it was a little rough.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, understandable. If someone were to say, oh, hey, we agreed on this, and then all of a sudden, hey, we're just gonna 10x it. I just need your okay. And then, oh, there it is. We're doing and I can totally understand like your mental battle. You're like, how am I gonna back out of this?
SPEAKER_00:Totally, totally. But but you know, when you kind of start putting all this stuff into perspective, what I realized was my insecurities around it just didn't matter because there's there's such a greater purpose that's behind why we did it that I'm like, you know what? We're gonna do this and we're gonna have a fun time doing it, and we're uh we're gonna follow Gail Miller's advice, and uh, you know, we're gonna tell people why we did it. And if somebody out there hears the story and gets a chuckle out of it, and by the way, you know what? Uh$10 is meaningful.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's super meaningful.
SPEAKER_06:So I also love how so much of that is like the history of your grandma, the history of your niece, um, and all of this, but then also with today, doing this with your daughters is so impactful because then it sets this springboard for them and showing this is how we give back, this is what it's all about. So they take that with them and carry it forward as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Like I think we should always be thoughtful about looking forward. You know, I I benefit from benefited from people ahead of me on the trail. Now I'm probably part of that ahead of the trail. So, how can we give that next generation and generations to come the same sort of I'll call uh you know, mentality or vision or views where somebody's gonna have to pick up the baton. Uh, you know, we're picking it up for some people, people are gonna have to pick it up from us.
SPEAKER_06:Totally. And I think the Millers are such a good example of, I mean, they've led and put so much of the foundation of, I mean, the Salt Lake, Utah economy on its back.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, and you see about how much it's grown, not just from like, I mean, Larry H. Miller dealerships, but I mean, it's it's huge now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And but they're also the nicest people ever. So growing up, I so I grew up in the avenues, and I think it was one or two years I played little league baseball at Lindsay Gardens, and so Zayn Miller was on my team, and the coaches were Larry and my dad.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And so lo and behold, I get really close to Zayn hang out all the time over his house, yada yada yada. But he uh I can't remember what happened. I think he was homeschooled for a while. Anyway, yada yada yada, we kind of fell apart as happens in childhood. But then one time we kind of got connected in high school, and I think it was before either us had driver's licenses, and I think we were actually seeing a movie at Gateway, and he's like, Oh, let me call my uh grandpa and see if he can come get us. And I'm like, uh, okay, like, sure. And so, yada yada yada, they come pick us up, get in the car, and Larry's like, Eric, how are you? Haven't seen you in a while. And Gail's like, Yeah, I used to come over all the time and hang out with Zayn at home. Like, the fact that you two alone remember me is one of the nicest things ever. And then also, like, I think it was eight-ish years ago now. We uh me and some of my friends from college were in a situation where we needed a place to sleep uh 50 people, and one of them is um Gail's grandson, and he's like, Can I can we call my grandma? And all of a sudden she's like, Yeah, of course. If you need a place to get, we got space. And lo and behold, there's 50 of us staying in our house, and she's just beaming from ear to ear because she just loves providing and helping and carrying on this legacy of the Miller family. So I'm so glad that it's almost like this to your point, passing in the baton.
SPEAKER_00:It's so true. Like, if you think about Salt Lake, you know, the Millers, the Eccles, the Huntsmans, the Sornsons, there's all these great families that continue to be super generous. You know, Todd Peterson and I and Alex Dunn, we had this conversation. It's like, okay, those are great families. How can we be additive to? You know, are we the next wave of these great families to follow in what, you know, I rattled off those four, but I'm sure there's a lot more of these, you know, amazing people that that put Salt Lake City on their backs. Yeah. You know, how many, how many Eccles things do we have going on? Or Huntsman and the Cancer Institute, like all those sorts of things. And so I you know that was part of as as my wife and I looked at is like we also have a responsibility um to follow in such a great legacy of what what the what those families have plowed for what's going on here.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and I think like the most iconic and um probably metaphorical things is when Ryan Smith took over the jazz. Like that, like the jazz itself is Salt Lake City's baby. It's the one thing that BYU fans and Utah fans can agree on. Mormon, ex-Mormon, non-Mormon, they all agree with and rally around that. So for Ryan to be like, hey, you know what, we'll take it, we're gonna build it. But then also we're gonna try to get a couple other things in here too to really drive this city more than it needs to, or not more than it needs to, but to towards this next phase that we're going towards. And it's so fun just to see it continue on this up and up.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's so amazing. Like, if you think about the way uh the Miller family set up the jazz, I mean, they put them into a trust. And the fact that Gail did what she did and it was Ryan, and and I'm gonna say, you know, there's probably as much, if not more, influence on Ryan Smith buying that team from Ryan's wife, Ashley.
SPEAKER_04:She's like quarterback the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, she's amazing. And the fact that that you know, the connection between the Smith family and the Miller family, like, oh, I just think that that's just amazing. And it's gonna, it's gonna just keep building this thing going on a go-forward basis because you know what Ryan and Ashley are doing with not only jazz but the other stuff here, it's just it's amazing. And and I think it's just like that's when I come back to one of my earlier statements, the magic of Utah. Like the Millers and the Smiths, two different, completely different generations, and they made it happen. Like, that's what's just so special about this place. Totally.
SPEAKER_06:And I love even going back to another point of successful entrepreneurs and the like their support group, their wives behind them. I mean, great example. Ashley's like, hey, listen, I kind of this idea for the Jazz, you're like, well, let's do this. And she was so such an important part of that. And I think she doesn't get enough credit for it, but totally does that. Yeah. Um, so I guess outside of, I mean, Salt Lake economy, venture capital, I mean, what what keeps you here? I mean, what are some of the activities that you do in your free time to that that you connect you with Utah?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, Utah has become home for us. We've we've lived here for 30 years, our families have been raised here. You know, like all the stuff we've talked about, but you know what? It's it's therapeutic to go into the mountains. Um, I love putting on a pair of shoes and going for a run outside. You know, I my my five-year-old grandson is a hardcore skier, so my wife and I are committed to start skiing again. We skied when we were younger. We've kind of kind of backed off that. So we're we're we're gonna be we're pushing all in on the on because I think I can probably only ski with him this year, and then I won't be able to keep up. So, you know, got to hang out with the five-year-old grandson. So all of those things are like, and then I say the last thing is the people. Like the people that are here just I just and it doesn't matter. Mormon, non-Mormon, uh what whatever denomination, whatever race, color, it just doesn't matter. It's such a special place here, and and that's what keeps us here.
SPEAKER_06:No, it's and I was actually thinking about that when I was driving home from the gym this morning is because like there's a lot of people who feel, I mean, the world's very negative right now, a lot of bad things going on. And one thing I've realized, I mean, partially because of the podcast, but just kind of my nature in general, and it's kind of against a lot of intuition we were talking growing up, is go talk to a stranger. Yeah, just anybody. It could be the person next to you on the train, bus, whatever, movie theater, just talk to them. Yeah, like you'll be so surprised how nice and outgoing and charismatic and willing to help everybody is. But if you don't talk to anybody, then you'll never understand it. Because we do have a lot of really great people here, totally a lot of good intentions, and yeah, just a great place to be. And part of why we think we're still here, you invested so much into here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And I think it's so fun because like actually, one question quick. Have you ever thought about quantifying your like economic impact of Peleon in Utah? Like by jobs, income, salary, capital? Like I was thinking about on the way here, and it's it's crazy to think about how much you probably created.
SPEAKER_00:You know, um, I well, we we I would say at a very high level, we have to we have to do some reporting. We we partner with the small business administration on a few things, and so we do we do report some job creation, and you know, it's 50,000 jobs sort of sort of scenario that that have been created by and when I say created, we're a small piece. It's our it's these companies, right? These companies that are they're building great big companies here, and and then it just it expands from there, you know. We were as an early investor in in Divi, you know, Bill.com now has a big presence here and it's only growing. Yeah, all of those sorts of things. Um so I I don't know if I can actually quantify it. I probably have some theories than some guesses around it. Um, but what I'd say is it's probably less about Pellana, more about amazing entrepreneurs that have built companies here, and we just are fortunate enough to be able to be investors in them.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's so fun to be partnered with them and yeah, on the rocket ship seeing how it all grows.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Cool, Blake. Well, I want to end with uh two questions I always ask people at the end. Uh, number one being if you could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear their story, who would you want to hear?
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that's a great question. And uh honestly, and maybe we've talked about her, I'd love to have Gail Miller. I'd love to hear that story. Like she's I'm sure people know it, but it's pretty amazing. And then this other guy named Jim Schwartz, who is the founder of Excel Partners, like he lives in Park City. He's been, I think, as much instrumental, especially around the Olympics of 2002. So those are a couple people that I just throw out there.
SPEAKER_06:I mean great people with great stories.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And then lastly, if people want more information about Peleon, about you, uh I mean investment portfolio investment theories, where's the best way to find information on that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just Peleonvp.com, hit me up on LinkedIn, and uh, you know, we tr we try to be as open door as we can because uh there's a there's so many great people out there. It's it's part of this, you know, meeting new people and and making new friends. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_06:Well, thanks so much, Blake, for the time. Uh thanks for having me at the office. Excited for the new office coming down at Point of the Mountain and excited for this next next wave of of growth here.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun for me. Awesome. Thanks like
