Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to the Victory Show.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Hey victors. Welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is the first time you're joining us, I'm Rachel League with Bestseller By Design. Our founder, Travis Cody is the best selling author of 16 books. We've had the privilege of helping hundreds of business consultants, founders and entrepreneurs write and publish their own bestselling books as well. Through that journey, we've discovered a fascinating pattern most businesses really struggle to break past the seven figure revenue mark. On this show, I sit down with some of the world's most successful CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies they used to scale way past that mark so you can do the same. So get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways that you can implement in your life and business. Starting now. Today's guest is Dr. Salman Uzur, an accomplished investor, technologist and educator who's backed over 200 startups and achieved a positive return with his first 12 exits. He's a General Partner at Azimuth Opportunity Fund, a Charter Life member of Open Global, and advisor to several investment firms including Cordis, Moment and Regiment. He also currently serves as an Executive in residence at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he earned his Master's of Science and PhD in Computer Science as a James B. Duke Fellow, Duke's most prestigious Graduate Award, and a Bachelor's of Science in Math and Physics from Wake Forest University as a Carswell Scholar. Dr. Uzer specializes in acquiring pre IPO shares from early investors in high growth unicorns and brings a rare blend of academic rigor, investment expertise and strategic insight to every conversation. Dr. Uzur, welcome to the show.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Thank you. Happy to be here.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, let's take it back and start at the beginning. Let's what drew you into the world of private investing?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: So what happened is that I started kind of investing in early 2000s simply because friends and family were asking me for investments. After a few successful exits in 2007, the financial crisis hit and the valuations plummeted. So I went from being an entrepreneur to an investor because it was a lot better to be on the investing side with the low valuations.
And I have stayed on that side. It's a lot more comfortable side for me. But I still have my entrepreneurial mindset which helps me not only identify good investments but also help the companies be successful.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Makes total sense. Tell us a little bit more about the kinds of companies that you've been investing in and is there a particular industry or stage that you've been drawn to.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: I am industry agnostic as long as there is a tech component and the reason I require the tech component is that that helps us scale without adding proportionately additional costs. So you get a lot of economy of scale, especially when it is a software enabled business.
So these days I am heavily investing in a fintech company that helps determine credit risk, especially in countries where there is not a very good FICO score or credit rating available. And also a human light interface company that tunes the light, the entire spectrum of light, so that it is good for your circadian rhythm. Light happens to be something that like food, water and air can be very unhealthy and it can also be very healthy depending on how you use it.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess we were just talking about blue light and the effects of that late at night and it totally makes sense. So you've had an incredible amount of exposure to different founders and industries and outcomes and you've clearly seen a lot the wins then your misses and everything in between. With that kind of perspective, what do you look for now when you're evaluating a company?
[00:03:47] Speaker A: So there are four aspects that I look at when I'm evaluating a company and the first is the problem space they're in. So problem space can be fintech. It's the general. The problem space is kind of the general area that they are solving problems in. And the second thing I look at is people and their capability, their adaptiveness, their resilience and things like that. The third thing I look at the actual problem they are solving. And the fourth thing I look at is the potion or the solution.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You know, your background is so impressive, from all of your academic achievements to the scale and success of your investments. But honestly, something that really caught my attention was your commitment to supporting this next generation of entrepreneurs.
Really? How do you see your role in shaping this next generation of founders and investors?
[00:04:34] Speaker A: First, a little clarification. I came to Duke to be part of the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative and also was a founding member and then managing director of Duke Angel Network, which was managing the startup investments of Duke alums and students. I am now doing independent investment so that I can make my own decisions and I don't have to deal with all the politics that comes with a large organization. But to answer your question, really, at a certain point in my life, I decided that it is the rest of my life is more about impact rather than making money. And you know, don't get me wrong, making money is nice because money in my pocket is A lot better than Elon Musk's pocket, for example. I'll do a lot more good with it. But it's really about the impact in the next generation and kind of having a legacy that kind of lives on after I'm gone. I'm 58 years old right now. I feel I have 15 to 20 good years left in me. I know that's kind of optimistic according to a lot of people, but then it is really about what the ideas I have can I convey that to others so that they can carry on and benefit from them. And if they benefit from that, they will not only pass it on to others and others may benefit from them, but hopefully they'll help my children if they ever need them. I need help. So I have a little bit of a selfish kind of thing there as well.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: I think that's wonderful. Yes. The people piece of the business, both in, as you mentioned, sort of who you're spending your time with doing work day in and day out, sort of how it affects our own personal, mental and well being, but also in the impact on others. Well being that we're having is so important. And tell me a little bit about, as you've moved through your career, the different kinds of teams that you've worked with and what have you found in terms of size and strategy has worked the best from a people perspective.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah, so I was not a very people person when I was starting out. I was an engineer and engineers kind of have a very rigid view of life. My first experience as a leader was a total disaster because I expected everybody to be like me and to work like me and to think like me and to work at the speed that I work at. But I quickly realized that it's not going to work and I can't really extend my impact beyond being an individual. And if I really want to do that, I need to really understand people and really give them a lot of love and support as part of it. So I went from like being very judgmental about people and like everybody is stupid and everybody is slow and so on so forth and being very complaining about it to really saying what can I find out in terms of their superpower that I can bring out and use. And for example, there were people that could write a lot better than me and for them to kind of write specs for documents or write user manuals was a great kind of thing. There were people that had a lot more attention to detail.
So QA was better for them than it would be for me. So I was able to kind of pivot from being like an individual person who is trying to fit everybody into my role or my kind of mindset as opposed to kind of discovering their mindset. And I was inspired by a quote from Rumi. It said that something like, and I'm paraphrasing this, that I was smart once because I tried to change the world, and now I'm even smarter because I changed myself to adapt to the world.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Is there a particular moment that stands out in your mind as sort of when you had that realization of needing to not try to change others, but find their superpower and pull that out?
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So it was actually the kind of the first hard problem that I was solving, which was routing and scheduling of trucking fleets. And the satellite communication modules had just come out so we could actually now start tracking trucks.
And we wanted to be able to route packages for UPS and FedEx, which were the two first customers that we had. So we were doing what is now done at a package level, at a truckload level. So it was kind of a precursor to that. And what, you know, the mindset that Kai had developed was really, okay, I'm going to. It's a lot faster for me to do something than to explain it to somebody else to do it. And I started running out of time. I wasn't getting enough sleep and I realized, okay, I need to really engage my entire team in order to make, make, make progress. It's not, you know, even sometimes if I'm better than Person A, a better use of my time is really mentoring Person A to develop because then I have a long term resource that can help me get some sleep at night.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: And what does that mentorship look like either in just a general leadership development context or within the investing context?
[00:09:12] Speaker A: So I drive a lot of my philosophy from Sufism, which is about love and giving love. So it is really about giving love to people and making them feel valuable regardless who they are. As opposed to my older self, which was more about judging people and evaluating them and grading them and, you know, having equations run in my mind in terms of how long it's going to take them to do X, Y, z.
Yeah.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: And you mentioned something earlier about how you might find somebody who doesn't think the way that you do. Perhaps they're a really excellent writer. So maybe they're using, you know, the different side of their brain from you. And so how did you think about building out your teams? And tell us also a little bit about what your teams looked like so that you had those different elements, different skill sets that could complement your own.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: So I would like to use a basketball analogy, which is basically what I had in mind, is that a team with five centers or five point guards is not going to be really helpful. So it was about people that have different and complementary skill sets. But one thing that I really like to have is curiosity and willingness to learn. That was really so important, especially because I've been working mostly in startups and it's one person has to do like five different jobs and it becomes very difficult if that person is just, let's say, you know, a front end engineer or a QA person. So people have to be able to do different things and have be willing to learn. And that in general for myself also, it makes it easy for me to kind of adapt to new things like AI and the impact of AI. I'm actually using AI at work, both in my VC work as well as my faculty work at Duke. And there's like this concept of lifelong learning that I really find very useful is that you have to continue to adapt, especially if you're in technology. Technology is always adapting. And then there is another aspect that took me a little bit longer, which is unlearning things that I have learned that do no longer work. So for example, I don't memorize spellings anymore because there is a spell checker. I think spelling bee is a great sport, just like basketball or chess is a great sport. But it doesn't mean that I have to play basketball or I have to learn to spell every word.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Right, Right, Absolutely. So as you are evaluating early stage entrepreneurs and you're looking for this Swiss army knife, how are you in conversations sussing out if someone who you would be potentially investing in would have the right skill set and flexibility that you're talking about? What are you listening for?
[00:11:48] Speaker A: So it's, you know, for founders, it's not so much about their skill set as as much about their characteristics in terms of learning. And for learning it takes a lot of humility. So I kind of do a few things to kind of check on humility that like I would disagree with them about something and something that, you know, it may be that I am wrong on this and there, in fact there's more likelihood that they're right and I'm wrong, but I would still kind of challenge them to it and see if they have the humility to kind of learn what other perspective is. And even if I am wrong, can they take what I am asking them or what I'm saying and turn it into something that improves that idea, their idea even more. Like for example, if they are selling to a particular type of customer, I would ask them, you know, have you thought about this customer? You know, I think maybe there isn't a market here for you for your product in 15 year olds, for example. And they would say, you know, 15 year olds can't understand what we are doing. And I would then say, you know, help me understand why they can't do it. So I would kind of carry on that conversation and see if they are able to kind of like have that humility and maybe sometimes even take an idea that is raw and undeveloped and improve that. And it's not like I'm just deliberately saying things that are wrong. I am kind of venturing out and sometimes I even say this is not my area of expertise. But here's kind of what I'm thinking and kind of see where they take that idea totally.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: And is the strategy with your fund, do you have a huge diversity of different kinds of investments or are you a little bit more concentrated so that you can continue to foster that relationship with your founders as you go on? How involved are you with them past the point of investment?
[00:13:30] Speaker A: So I am very involved with them and I've been involved with them for almost a decade in the people that I'm investing in. And the current fund has a very specific target. The target for this is the secondary market. And what has happened is that the funds that were started before COVID were structured so they are 10 to 12 years in their life. So after 10 to 12 years they have to exit and they have to return money to their LPs or their investors or they have to look for some kind of a continuation vehicle to continue. So both these kind of things involve them trying to find buyers for the shares that they hold already and they are typically willing to give good discounts on them.
So what I look for is companies that I have invested 10, 12 years ago and look for who, who the co investors are and look for funds that are in the 11th and 12th year. And the companies that I really like where with founders I like, I would like to acquire more shares of them and I basically buy some of the shares and then put up an SPV and look for co investors and LPs to invest in those companies. So typically we can get 40 to 50% discounts, which are unbelievable if you don't know what's going on in the second market. But think of this way that you know, basically these funds are in their last or second last year. And they have to liquidate, they have to sell. So it's more like a fire sale. And that is all a result of the logjam that we have in IPOs. So Covid kind of froze the IPOs and it thawed a little bit. And after that inflation hit, which kind of hit the IPOs again. And 2025 was supposed to be a banner year. In fact, I had some companies that I was hoping would go public and I can get some liquidity myself. But then the tariffs hit.
Everybody is kind of like in that uncertainty and that has created, there are probably thousands of companies that are IPO ready, but they are looking for the right conditions. And nobody wants to be the first to jump in the pool. Nobody wants to jump in with five other people that are similar.
So, for example, one of the companies I'm investing in is a fintech company that is in the same class as Klarna. And it would make a lot of sense, and I'm speaking as a natural person myself, I'm not representing the company here, but it would make a lot of sense that they would wait for, you know, not go public at the same time Klarna is going to go public because then there's competition. And it would make a lot of sense for them to see what happens with the Klarna public offering before they decide what to do.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Timing is so important, I think. And you mentioned how the secondaries market is an excellent opportunity. How did you come to find this opportunity? And how do you think about seeking out the next best investment space?
[00:16:16] Speaker A: So one of the funds I'm advising, a GP of that fund called me and said that we have an unsolicited offer on this company and they are offering us 15% below the previous round. Do you suggest we sell or do we hold? And I said, well, at that price, I would be a buyer because that is about 40% of fair market value. And that's basically what started this journey. And they said, well, we didn't think about this because as a fund we are entering our 11th year, so we are looking at either holding or selling. Buying is not an option. So that's basically when I joined hands with another GP who is like 10x my level of experience and knowledge and expertise and network and so on, and started Azimuth.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yes. Okay, so it sounds like the network and the opportunities that you had already established were an important part of creating that flywheel of having people come to you with the opportunities.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: That is correct, yeah. So, I mean that network was kind of being developed over the last 25 years, and. And it just happened to be kind of like something that just came about in a conversation. And it's kind of a way that you can think of this, is that if you are looking for rebounds in basketball, if you hang around the hoop, you will get more rebounds than if you hang around half court without realizing it. I was hanging around the hoop quite a bit, talking to people, and people were calling me and asking me for information and so on. So you probably remember that I did my grad school at Duke and I'm back at Duke, so that. Hence the basketball analogies, because that's kind of the religion here.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. It totally makes sense.
Tell me a little bit about how, you know, as you've gone throughout your career, you've focused a lot on investing, but was that always your area of interest? Or how did you sort of stumble upon investing and were there other things that ever spoke to you and why did you decide to continue to focus on this area?
[00:18:14] Speaker A: So I never thought I would be an investor or end up in investing. A lot of things in my life have happened by serendipity. So the investing only started because of the financial crisis and the low valuations. And then I wasn't really, as they say, mamas don't raise their kids to be cowboys. It's more like they don't raise them to be entrepreneurs either.
And the entrepreneurship also came about kind of by serendipity. When I was finishing my graduate work, I didn't think Microsoft would hire me. I didn't think any of these big companies would hire me. And it was. That's why I kind of like started what Can I Do With Myself? Because. And I was really undervaluing this. And you may kind of relate to this because a lot of times minority and women kind of underestimate their own potential. And in retrospect, I underestimated my own potential and I was very hireable. I just didn't think of applying. And I said, okay, I can make something out of here. And really started with my brother, first with medical devices, then kind of like pivoted more into kind of my area of interest, which is more into data analytics and decision sciences and so on.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And how. How have you combated that imposter syndrome or that feeling of maybe this isn't right for me? And is it just. Has it just been charting your own path the whole time, or have you sort of come and sort of overcome that?
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Over time, I have learned to Live with is kind of like, I have generalized anxiety disorder. I'm very anxious person in general and I've learned to live with it and kind, okay, given that what I have, what can I do with it? So with imposter syndrome, I use it for two things. I use it to kind of improve what I'm doing, always to prove myself, which incidentally raises more anxiety. But just doing like a better or higher quality work and then also trying to, you know, the flip side of the managing anxiety is to stop, you know, before perfection because otherwise, you know, things would never get done. So use the kind of 8020 rule to say, okay, this job is 80% done. It's good enough to release to public.
And you can think of it like, you know, a product that is like you make in isolation without any customer in mind. Without any customer feedback is not really good. So I kind of keep on continually getting feedback from people around me about how something is. Sometimes it also becomes crutch that basically I need that feedback and very candid feedback. It's not like, you know, I, I want a pat on my back is like what needs to be done. Because if, you know, somebody is patting you in the back, you kind of start discounting what their feedback is because they're always going to do that.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Yes, I think that's an important point to have people around you who you can trust to tell you the truth. And that is both in the positive and in the more constructive points as well. I have to say, in looking at your LinkedIn, I think you are so incredibly impressive. But what caught my eye was actually the mention of being a comedian and a chess master of sorts. So tell me a little bit about that.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Well, I'm not. So I wouldn't call myself a chess master. It is more that I'm a chess fan. I play for fun. I cannot pay competitively anymore because it just causes too much anxiety. So I have conditioned myself that, you know, I'm never going to make a grandmaster. I'm, I'm just going to play for fun. The comedian thing actually started with Jay Leno visiting Wake Forest University when I was a grad when I was an undergrad student. And I was so enamored by his show and I think he was probably just starting out. This was like mid-80s or something like that, that, that I wanted to be a comedian. So I actually called my mother up and I said, I, you know, math and physics major is fine, but I want to be a comedian. And she said, is that a joke? It's not a joke. I really want to be a comedian, so. So I kind of always wanted to, to be a comedian. And you know, I view like a lot of my classes that I teach at Duke as more of shows. And that's kind of like one of the reasons I like teaching. But, you know, I'm not a good enough comedian that I can make a living doing a comedian. So it' comedian for just like chess for fun. It's, you know, comedy is for fun as well. And what it does is that just by me putting that on my LinkedIn, it forces me not to take myself so seriously. I just feel that, you know, there are, and I didn't think this when I was kind of in undergrad and even before that in high school that, you know, I thought I was one of the smartest people. But then I have met so many smart people that are smarter than me, harder working than me, that it's important for me to realize that I shouldn't take myself too seriously.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: I think that is such an excellent piece of advice. Particularly when you are in an industry that's so intense and with a lot of really smart people, it's easy to get wrapped up in your head of trying to achieve the next thing or just think about how do I better myself. But also remember that you're just a person too and you have interests outside of your career. And I think it's wonderful that you continue to foster that love of comedy and chess and just things outside of your career. Because we are so much more than just what we do in our 9 to 5, or probably more than 9 to 5 based on your extensive resume. But as you think about the things in life that matter to you. I know we've talked a lot about your career, we've talked a lot about your personal interests, but how do you think about this concept of work life balance? And is that something you believe in or tell me a little bit more what your thoughts are on that.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: So I, I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in work life blend. So for me, the work that I do is so much fun that it doesn't feel like work. So it's really about fulfilling my obligation to my family and to my co workers and other people that are depending on me. That kind of drives me. But I'm as much, you know, having as much fun like, you know, evaluating a company for investment or analyzing financial statement as I would watching a TV show or having a conversation with my family. It's not so much, you know, I Don't work like it's like actually right now, 10pm my time right now. So I'm not really working. Like I would get up at 9 o' clock or get up. Actually I shouldn't say get up at 9 o'. Clock. I actually do get up at 9 o' clock most of the time where most people are already at work. But I wake up whenever I want to wake up unless there's a meeting. And I really kind of work when I want and play when I want. And so it's not a balance as much as a blend. What I want to do now that's beautiful.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: I love this idea of the work life blend because then it's not two distinct pieces of a scale. It's more how do you make a beautifully blended cake of your life that you decorate beautifully and enjoy and share with others?
My analogies tend to go more towards baking than basketball.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: No, they start with B. So that's all good. You know, it's kind of interesting that over period of time I've realized how fortunate I am to be able to have that choice. When I came back to Duke as a faculty member, there was one of the admin assistants, had been here for about 30 years or 25 years or something like that. And I said, oh, I didn't realize you were still here. I thought you would be retired by now and you must love this job. And she said, no, I don't love this job, I hate this job. But I need to pay my bills. And I that kind of stuck in my mind is that, you know, how people who are like myself and like you, who are educated, who have a choice in terms of what we do, how fortunate we are, and that we can wake up and start work at any time, as opposed to have to be work at 8am or something like that. Clock in, clock out. I've heard stories about like Amazon floor workers, for example, you know, not being able to take even a break to go to the bathroom and so on.
So I think it is a very fortunate and privileged thing. And, and I just wish others had that. And even like a lot of professional jobs right now, I think about half the people that I mentor who are not working for themselves hate their job. In fact, you know, I was talking to one of my former students and he was saying that, oh, I hate my job, I need to kind of create and find something else. And I said, right now there are two kinds of people that are thinking about their jobs. One is people who hate their jobs, like you and people who can't find their jobs, find a job who are unemployed right now. So, you know, by all means, look for a job, but don't quit your job because you may regret it. And a couple of my friends have actually regretted it because they thought 10 years ago they would be able to find a job like this.
And current economy is very difficult for a regular job, at least.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah, a couple of important tidbits in there about having gratitude for what you already have and potentially even trying to find joy in the situation that you're in, even if it's not your most ideal, as you've been in different situations. Life is. Is sort of a fluctuating wave of highs and lows. How have you found joy or the ability to continue to see because you seem like an optimistic person, see the lighter side and potentially tougher times.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So after a while I kind of got desensitized to success and failure in a number of ways, you know.
You know, like, I have exited some companies and I have shut down some companies that have been complete disasters. And in the end it was like really the same experience because I was lying in my bed effectively powerless. Either my company was acquired by a bigger company and I was now just a pawn in a bigger, bigger game, or I have to shut down my company and, you know, I have to look at starting all over again. One of the acquisition I had, you know, the. They had a boss from like the main corporate office that was really run, started running the show. And I remember still that this was by, you know, at the time that we used to send Software releases on CDs and stuff. So we had worked very, very hard to send a CD release to FedEx on FedEx, catching the last plane. And then I came in at noon the next day. And as I'm walking in, he looks at his watch, he doesn't even have to say anything. And I know, wow, you know, you guys, you have no idea what we did last night. And, you know, it is a lot better that my team and I were here doing what needed to be done last night. And we are coming, you know, got some sleep that we haven't caught. Caught up on, like for. Well, actually, we still hadn't caught up. We got like, you know, six hours of sleep and we are coming at noon now. And that was kind of my time that, you know, I don't belong in a big company. I belong in a small company and, you know, working for myself or working. Helping other people work for themselves.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Getting away from some of the bureaucracy and trying to find the right solution versus the rules oriented solution of what's appropriate or not. I think that flexibility is so important and a lot of the reason why some people find themselves more drawn to entrepreneurship is wanting that autonomy and ownership over their life. And they have something that they're excited about working on, but they might not fit into the traditional corporate nine to five sort of rules. So I guess as you look back at your career in life to date and I, I think there are still so many more good years than you, you estimated at the start, for the record. But up to now, as you think about what success and victory looks like, has that definition evolved over your career?
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Yes, it has. So victory now looks more like what can I do to maximize my impact at any given time? So a victory rather than being. This may be a cliche, rather than being a destination of selling a company or an exit, which used to be what victory looked like. For me. It is more about maximizing and optimizing my time, my resources to have the maximum impact. Not make maximum money necessarily, but have maximum impact.
Sometimes that impact can come from like, I'm a big supporter of orphanages because I was. My father passed away when I was 2. So I felt I grew up like as an orphan and my mom hadn't been working even she had a master's degree at the time that I was born. She wasn't working at that time, so she had to get a job and so on and so forth. So that's kind of like more than becomes like, what can I do to maximize my impact? Whether it is supporting orphanages or supporting entrepreneurs. They're two very different, different things also, you know, regarding chess, I founded the most prolific chess club in the nation and we have run over 50 national tournaments only. Only one that has run more national tournaments is United States Chess Federation, which is the national organization. And the rest are like, probably have run half as many. Like, it's like not even like close of that. So. And the reason that I did that was because my son started playing chess and I was a parent volunteer and then the person who was running CH tournament decided to retire. And there's not much money in chess, right?
You know, unless you're Magnus Carlsen or like a celebrity or something like that. It's very similar to acting, right? Like there are actors who are either waiting tables or that are making millions of dollars.
So it was all about impact and it was first about my son and kind of keeping the chess scene going for, for him and then he, when he stopped playing, it was, you know, other kids are like people's kids as well. Chess kind of helps them teach a lot of reasoning for thinking and so on.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'm sure the community, too, that you create helps people who maybe are looking for others who are like them or just have that similar interest and that that impact is really important as well. I think having a space to be yourself and do things that you love is so important.
I so enjoyed our conversation today, and I wanted to ask one quick final question. If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Love people more and judge them less. Including myself, by the way, because I used to be very hard on myself as well, that I have to be always the top student in the class. I have to be deuce. And then I ran into the situation where I couldn't be the top person, especially in Silicon Valley. They're just like so many amazing people there. And really, my superpower really became more about loving people, about bringing out the best in them.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Wow, that is beautiful. And I love that you added the clarification that that not only applies to others, but if not most importantly, ourselves, because we can be our own harshest critics. So, Dr. Usman, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I know the Victors are going to love hearing all of your insights. And if you want to find him on LinkedIn, it's Salman Usman. And thank you again so much for joining us, and this was just a fantastic conversation.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: All right, thank you so much. Pleasure being here and thank you for taking the time.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Great. Thank you.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Bye. Bye.
