Women, Wealth, & Legacy: Purposeful Investing in AI w/ Jack Selby, Thiel Capital

SCS: 

From the Thiel family office, Thiel Capital, and also is running Arizona's largest venture capital fund. And I want to start with, why did you say yes to us? The topic was, as he asked me to clarify, are we talking about women, wealth, and legacy, or AI? 

And I said all of the above, because it, one thing flows to another. Jack, tell us why you're here today. What is Women-Led Innovation to you? 

Jack Selby: 

Well, Claude told me to show up, so that was, that was the main reason.

Joke. So I think coming from Silicon Valley, it's not a state secret that diversity in Silicon Valley is not our strongest suit. So you can define diversity. Very broadly, and I think a lot of people give lip service to how we can potentially solve it or, you know, make improvements, but actually show up at events like this is a good way to actually put action into work, so that's the reason I'm here.

SCS: 

Yeah, and you are a multifaceted individual beyond investments, which we'll talk about. You've also chosen to invest in the arts through your films, and one of the films that you are invested in most recently is with one of my favorite actresses, Jessica Chastain. Because we're here in the context of the power of art, and pushing imagination, pushing boundaries, how has your work in film, in art, in media, influenced your investing?

Jack Selby: 

Yeah, so film is a very difficult business. I got involved, I went to a small liberal arts college, and actually was randomly nominated for the graduate of the college here tonight. And I got involved because another fellow classmate had started a production company called Legendary Pictures that did the Dark Knight franchise and so forth.

And I reconnected with some childhood friends that had been in the film business ever since they graduated from college. So, long story short, we're about to shoot our 21st film starting next month. And so, we're kind of genre agnostic, but what we really try to do are make films that our kids, our grandkids could watch 10, 20 years later.

That tells stories that are relevant, that are meaningful. So as an example of that, we made a film called Free Held, five or six years ago. So it was based off of a short form documentary that won the Oscar. It was about a real life story in New Jersey, this is back in 2004, I believe. Lesbian couple - Julianne Moore plays detective, Ellen Page plays a garage mechanic. Julianne's character gets sick, she's about to pass from cancer, but at the time, the way the laws were written in New Jersey, she wasn't able to pass her pension to her partner, Ellen Page. 

So, in the real life story, she dies, and she's not able to pass it. In our creative license, we adjusted a bit, so we had a more of a happy ending. But, the point being is that, hopefully, then the Supreme Court decision happened about a year and a half later. And so the idea is that hopefully when our kids, our grandkids are wondering about the Supreme Court decision, you know, down the line, they could maybe watch this film and I could make one penny.

But then hopefully it will be a way to have them better understand historical context, what was going on. 

SCS: 

Yeah, so you've recognized the power of your capital in really catalyzing change and moving narratives. In many things that you do, talk to us a little bit about what your view is on purposeful investing, why we're here today and maybe some of your examples of how you've implemented that through your capital.

Jack Selby: 

Yes. I think again, well, I think in Silicon Valley, we've done a very poor job at diversity in general, but I also would say not to make excuses. It's just kind of inertia. And so I think you'd be surprised by how many allies. If you just kind of raise your hand and people will engage.

But again, people are so busy and I don't think there's some sort of agenda that are trying to exclude people of any sort of type. And again, not making excuses, but I think that's unfortunately just how things are. All that being said, you know, we've gone out of our way to try to figure out a way to kind of help push things forward.

So for example, you know, I hired a woman that essentially is now the COO at our largest venture fund, Founders Fund. We've seeded three different funds that are run by women. And so I can't control how many young girls go into STEM training. But what I think you, my opinion is that where you can make the biggest bang for your buck is trying to figure out how you can allocate capital.

to female led managers. And I don't have a magic wand in terms of how to do that, but we've done that now with three managers that manage over a billion dollars. So I think that's at least a good place to start. 

SCS: 

Yeah. And what kind of innovations are you excited by? I mean, bringing in the topic of AI, women in AI, you know, what trends are you looking forward to and how can women play a role in that?

Jack Selby: 

So I think AI is definitely the du jour topic, that everyone loves to talk about. We can debate whether it's overvalued or not. My opinion on AI is that essentially it's a bifurcated world, so you have kind of the superpowers, if you will, so you have the Alibabas and the Googles and so forth, and then you have basically everyone else.

And the superpowers, they're important because I think an overlooked fact with respect to this topic that many people don't maybe fully appreciate is that there's a relative scarcity of the number of world class engineers and computer scientists that can really move the needle with respect to ai.

So coming from America, if you exclude China, unfortunately, that's probably numbers in the low thousands. So it's really, really scarce. Really, there's a dearth of this resource. And so because there's so few of these engineers and computer scientists, they're really, really expensive. And so, for the normal startup, you just can't afford them.

And only Alibabas can afford them. So, these folks are going to move the needle for all of us in terms of AGI and all these other things. And we can debate whether that's good or bad, but that's a topic for another day. But for everyone else what I'm actually surprised, pleasantly surprised by, especially in the context of this conversation, is that AI has become essentially a ubiquitous ingredient in the recipe that almost every startup uses.

And if you told me that was going to be the case five years ago, I would not have, I would have not expected that. So that, that progress, that acceleration is a great thing because it just makes efficiency that much better. And effectively it's a leveling of the playing field. So, you know, we, everyone can use this ingredient to make the process of whatever startup someone's making that much better.

And so I encourage everyone to figure that out. Venture capitalists, when we look at deals, if AI is not part of one of the ingredients in the recipe, that's not a disqualifier. But, it's a moment of pause because the worst case scenario is that you invest in a company that doesn't have AI as part of the recipe, and then a competitor comes along two years later and figures out how to make that part of the recipe.

And that's the worst case scenario. 

SCS: 

Yeah, and talking about democratization, this is of course a kickstarter before we transition over to all of you as the highlight speakers tonight. We're talking a little bit about impact and the catalytic impact of your capital, right? 

And you've been with Peter Thiel for a very long time, managing his family office as well. We have principals in the room that are, some of them they're inheriting, some of them are earning their potential. 

There is a lot that's weighing on a lot of our investors minds today on where can we really channel the most impact and also get both profit and purpose alignment. 

What would you say to the family offices in the room, sort of like parting words of advice as we transition over here?

Jack Selby: 

Yeah, so I, as a, the fiduciary responsibility at the end of the day for all of us, is to make money, right? And so that's, that's uber all of us, so to speak. But if you can figure out a way to kind of help someone up and give them a seat at the table that they might not otherwise have, then that's a charity on top.

And everyone wants to be able to do that. And so that's why going back to one of the earlier points is that I think there are more allies out there that maybe people appreciate and have respect. All you need to do is ask. 

And so, because again, we'd love to help more people, but everyone is busy. And so not to make an excuse, but if you ask, sure. Love to come here and talk. Cause again, I just feel like too many people get less lip service to this topic, but not enough people actually do action. And so if you ask people, you'd be surprised by how many people show up. 

SCS: 

And so we're asking the question here today, and this is why we've taken action actually from meeting in Stockholm.

And very quickly, Lizanne, I'd like to transition over to you, Liz, because we are now taking action and bringing the conversation over to all of you. And the responsibility of investing and taking it forward with all of you. So, Lizanne, over to you.