Entrepreneurs for Impact (EFI) Podcast: Transcripts
#202:
Jason Segal, Managing Partner at Javelin Capital — Gigawatts of Renewable Energy Deals. The Choice Between Investment and Merchant Banking. Building a Life Beyond a Career.
Podcast Introduction
Chris Wedding:
My guest today is Jason Segal, Managing Partner at Javelin Capital. Javelin Capital is an investment and merchant banking firm focused on mergers, acquisitions and capital raising in the renewable energy, energy storage, and green chemistry sectors. Jason brings 15 years of experience in clean tech finance and entrepreneurship plus prior executive roles at Goldman Sachs and Citi.
In this episode you will learn four important takeaways. Number one, how they serve green electron and green molecule companies with financial transactions ranging from $30 million to $750 million. Number two, what merchant banking means in addition to their investment banking work and why they provide it. Number three, the importance of not trying to be all things to all people and why this is good business advice. And number four, the difference between designing a life and building a career.
Chris Wedding:
Please give Jason, Javelin Capital, a shout out on LinkedIn, Slack or X, by sharing this podcast with your people. All right, before we hop in, I've got a challenge and I guess an invitation for you all. First, the background. My goal is to empower 250,000 entrepreneurs, investors and university students to tackle climate change through startups, finance and personal growth. Is that enough? I Don't know. It's a lot. Maybe it'll grow.
Anyway, the podcast is one way to do that. To that end, the sector needs more inspiration, tools and tips from CEOs and investors in this space. Conveniently, as you may guess, these folks are precisely my guest on this podcast. So here is the challenge.
Chris Wedding:
If you and five of your friends rate, review and follow this podcast on Apple and Spotify and share your efforts with me on LinkedIn or in response to my newsletter on Substack, I'll hop on Zoom and brainstorm a climate tech business or investment challenge or opportunity with you. Now, is that a reward? Is that punishment? I don't know. There it is. This is the best way for new folks to learn from the CEOs and investors on this podcast.
If the process is unclear, as it was to me, in the show notes, you will find a link explaining how to do this. I read every single review. So please tell me and all of us which guest insights you like the most. Thanks so much. Hope you enjoy it.
Podcast Interview
Chris Wedding:
Jason Segal, Managing Partner at Javelin Capital. Welcome to the podcast.
Jason Segal:
Hey Chris, how are you? Great to be here.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, cool cool. It's nice to reconnect after hanging out in your old offices during Climate weekend and pretty soon it's your all's off site in Nashville coming up shortly, so good times. I want to start where I've never started a podcast before, but we have another similar interest which is Japan, living in Japan. Maybe before we get into the goodness of how you all underwrite companies and projects to raise capital for to invest in. Jason, why do you love Japan? Well, give us two or three, I don't know, experiences, you know, quirks, et cetera that made you love it for a long time living there.
Jason Segal:
Absolutely. So I spent an earlier part of my career from 2004 to 2007 as a managing director at a joint venture between Citigroup and Nikko Shoken, which is at the time the second largest investment bank in Japan. So it was a very unique professional experience in that were the only investment banking firm that really had a western as well as a Japanese culture as opposed to the other players there. So I got the amazing opportunity to learn how to manage and lead in a, frankly a unique cultural environment for at least, you know, the investment banking, finance industry.
So I think from a professional perspective it was really hard when I started, and once I started to learn and thanks a lot to some great coaching from some of my colleagues as well as from my Japanese teacher because learning Japanese was really Important for this as well. Even though I didn't do business in Japanese often, but it definitely commanded a lot more respect from my team and other colleagues. Once you understood the Japanese style of doing business and how leadership works best in Japan, which is just different, it's not better or not worse than what we find in the US, it is more consensus driven.
But once you're able to establish good leadership, then you have incredible talent, you have amazing teamwork and you have a professional drive unlike I've seen in any other part of the world I've worked in before, and loyalty. So I think once you get aligned with your team, you can really run through walls for your clients or for whoever you're trying to accomplish things for. So that was a real pleasure. It was a big, steep learning curve as a westerner, but that's one of the things I loved about being in Japan professionally.
I'd say the second thing, which is more specific to what we do now, and I will caveat that Javelin is not actively working in Japan. We have in the past, but we still watch the market closely and many of our clients are quite active in it.
When it comes to the build out of renewable energy and the associated value chains. You have a liquid power markets, but you have much more alignment between the grid operators, the regulators and the development community, as well as capital. And so getting things done in terms of getting megawatts on the grid is in many ways easier and in a refreshing way than it is in other parts of the world that we've worked on. I think part of it is just the fact that they have never had significant fossil resources there and have had to figure things out. But it really is a pleasure and it's wonderful every time I go to Japan, just seeing more and more utility scale as well as DG and innovative technologies around clean energy being implemented.
And I think, you know, the last thing, and certainly not the least, you know, maybe it's because I come from New York, but you know, Tokyo is an incredible metropolis. It's clean, the people are wonderful, the culture is rich and it's absolutely fascinating to a westerner, particularly once you start to learn a language and appreciate the history. The weather is amazing, the topography, the natural beauty is amazing. You have a lot of incredible outdoor activities which I personally happen to love.
And I don't think the last one's controversial, but the food is the best in the world.
Chris Wedding:
Yes, I think we have lots of agreement on the last one. And I know both of us enjoyed time back in Japan this summer. Well, we could tell many stories about life in Japan, but let's hop into the business of Javelin Capital. So give us the skinny. What does Javelin Capital do?
Jason Segal:
Yeah, absolutely. So we are a high touch, full service, small boutique investment bank that focuses exclusively on the low carbon economy. We have two core practice areas. One is green electrons and the other is green molecules and materials. The majority of our business is on the electron side, but we feel that having a healthy balance between the two is good for all of our clients as well as for the diversification of our business.
So we also, in addition to being an advisory business, have some flexibility to do some limited amounts of merchant banking, which we can get back to in terms of our business model in a minute, which has its place certainly not in the majority of our transactions, but in some of them it does.
So, you know, the business model I'd say falls into a traditional advisory model, capital raising, and M and A in the private markets. Both for private and public companies. Our client base generally falls into three categories. One are developers or IPPs. And again, this would apply both to the electrons as well as the molecules and materials side of the business.
So these are, you know, elite and experienced teams that are trying to get more clean megawatts on the grid or on the molecule side, you know, cleaner materials, better uses of waste, renewable fuels. Production is predominantly what we help them with. We help them with all parts of capital efficiency. It can be raising development capital. It could be helping them raise credit facilities that are needed. It could be helping them sell their projects thoughtfully into the market.
It could be creating other kinds of capital partnerships or growth capital. So I'd say the largest portion of our client base falls into that category. The second category of our clients are growth stage companies that are in the same ecosystem. So think about service Companies, software companies, OEMs that are all in business to service the energy transition and some of the related parts of the ecosystem.
For these companies that aren't necessarily producing green electrons or green molecules, again, they're servicing them. And where we find our sweet spot is helping companies that have that established management, that have a business model that is successful. And we understand why it's successful because there's a really good overlap with the other types of clients that we work with. So we see the market pull through.
But these are businesses that need capital to grow and often need some additional guidance that can come along with that. So I'd say growth stage companies that we represent, we either raise growth capital for them of some the appropriate shape and form or in some cases we make, we come to the point with management that it's time for control transaction, whether it's to a financial investor or a strategic investor.
The last group of clients that we work with is what we would call strategic buy side clients. So in those cases we would be representing an investor. Most of what we do is working with foreign investors. They're either financial sponsors or they are corporates or foreign IPPs that are looking to either enter the US market or more often grow in the US market.
And so for this group of clients, we can help them with their market entry or market expansion plans. But given that we're not a consultant, we are asked and compensated based on getting transactions done well. So we'll help them with strategy formation and then also with finding the right investments or platforms, executing on them and sometimes also helping them with some of their financing needs, particularly around areas like tax equity, which is ubiquitous in the US but unique to the United States.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, it's a great summary. Before we dig into maybe each of those buckets in a little more detail, I think some founders, some CEOs listening may think, oh well, you know, I don't need an investment banker. I don't need to kind of give up that transaction fee. I got this, I can do this on my own. Either how would you respond to that and, or at the same time perhaps it's, I mean part of the answer is describing the stage of company that you help and how material, perhaps the offers you get through a process like this. So anyway, you get the gist, Jason.
Jason Segal:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think investment bankers often get a bad rap and frankly it's probably largely deserved based on what we hear from clients in the market. There's certainly a lot of good advisors and there's others that don't add a tremendous amount of value. And it's not that there's just good or bad advisors, but I think more importantly, advisors have to be the right ones for the type of objective function we're looking to solve for.
Javelin in no way purports to be all things to all people. In fact, we're quite the opposite. There's certain areas of the market and certain types of transactions I think we really excel in. And that's, you know, by choice we've decided to become a thesis driven, very focused advisor on the areas we really understand capital flows, understand market trends and comps.
And so I think, you know, when you're making a decision to hire an advisor, number one, is, you know, the right advisor. And when it comes to the general reasons to hire an advisor, there's a lot of them. At the end of the day, we're professionals at what we do, and the CEOs and boards that we represent are professionals at what they do. And they're very different jobs.
Our job is to structure and raise capital and think about the next transaction and the impacts of this transaction on the overall enterprise value creation beyond that. So the things that we bring, at least on the surface, is understanding markets, understanding their competitors, having very deep investor networks throughout the capital markets, whether they're credit or equity or something even in between.
We're also here to help shape the story, be a safe sounding board, and also, very importantly, make sure that they can do their day job. Many of the companies that we work on are relatively small companies, and frankly, even big companies that we represent within Fortune 50 companies, everyone's still very busy. So we like to think of ourselves as a force multiplier to our clients.
We, we sometimes use this catchphrase that every hour you spend with us is you get 20 hours of production out of it. And that's probably about the ratio. That's right. So I think at the end of the day, advisors are needed in many cases, not in all, but in many. And there is, like any other service business, there is a value proposition.
And certainly companies and our clients need to get more out of the relationship than they pay for. And that's why you hire an advisor. But I don't think it's categorically that different than, you know, why you wouldn't, you know, if you're going to be in a court, why do you have a lawyer? Because that's good for a living. Or if you're, you know, if you're a taxpayer, why you'd have an accountant.
You know, in order to effectively understand and get the best out of the transaction and what you're trying to solve for, you need an advisor that actually is properly positioned to do so.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, having done some of this work in the past as well, I think some of the other arguments are like, hey, the odds of actually getting a deal done as attractive go up when you have more advisors helping you. And then the odds of getting a deal done at the right amount, net amount. Right net, of any fees you pay is likely higher. That dollar amount is likely higher than doing it one's own.
And I think to your point too, of everyone's busy, right. What's the opportunity cost in growing your business, creating enterprise value, thinking that everyone can do this as well as their day job. Let's go to the comment you made that look, you all are not for everyone.
So maybe it's by bucket, Perhaps the two sell side roles, the one buy side role, I don't know, kind of guardrails, size of transaction, size of capital to raise, size of control transaction you're after, let's say. What are those again, guardrails that help companies know, oh well a group like Javelin is the right fit or they're not the right fit, let's say.
Jason Segal:
Yes. So and you also alluded to this before and you said stage a company, it really is for us much more of the value that we can create for our client than the actual deal transaction size. Now of course, you know, we need to make a living like everyone else. So you know there needs to, it needs to make sense for us as well as of course it needs to make sense for our client.
So you know, those are sort of the caveats to the numbers which I will give you that we find are kind of our sweet spots.
I think when generally we find that when we're working with the development community, again IPPs or developers and we're helping them raise platform level equity or we're helping them say sell a portfolio of renewable energy projects or fuels plants, generally the range of capital could be anywhere from 100 million to 500 million is I would say generally our sweet spot.
We've certainly done things smaller than that and we've also done things larger than that. And that again that would be equity, structured equity, junior capital.
When it comes to financing transactions, which could include senior debt, other forms of credit, which you know at some point does start to overlap with the bucket I mentioned before which is structured equity, tax equity as well in this bucket or to do a financing generally I would say 150 to 750 is kind of the range that it makes sense to work with a firm like Javelin.
Below that the transaction costs just start to eat too much into the deal. It kind of can't support it. And above that you're usually looking for solutions or often looking for solutions that might tap the public markets, which is not an area that we unfortunately provide advice.
And I'd say for the, in the growth capital side, when we're actually raising money for operating companies, say generally between 30 and $100 million that we're raising now, if we're talking about an M&A transaction or you know, and control transaction, then we think more about it in the terms of enterprise value. But generally when we go into the market, it's those ranges that we're looking for.
Likewise, anything below $30 million gets to a point where the transaction can't support the amount of work we need to do a good job for what Javelin is good at. And likewise, on the upper end of it, we start to get into a part of the ecosystem where likewise, we probably often be looking at clients that might be looking for public market solutions in parallel.
I mean, just on that last point, there are times when we partner with other advisors, particularly in some of the examples I just alluded to where it may be worth looking at an IPO or it may be worth looking at a public bond offering. And we can certainly partner with other advisors to fill out those gaps if we feel that it's the best thing for our client.
Chris Wedding:
You mentioned earlier that as you all pick growth stage companies to raise, call it 30 to $100 million, that established management is a key criteria. How do you define established management?
Jason Segal:
And you can phrase the question like how do we assess the management? Or how do we find the piece?
Chris Wedding:
No, no. I think I can imagine like any entrepreneur listening right now is going to say to themselves, well, I've got, you know, these directors and these C suite, they've been here for six plus months. It is therefore established management. And I don't think that's what you're actually meaning by the phrase established management.
Jason Segal:
Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah, I got it now. So the words can, you know, can be confusing but, or mixed up, but you know, I'm referring to kind of growth capital. So we're talking about businesses that have been operating and operating well but you know, perhaps are subscale or perhaps would benefit from a strategic capital partner.
So what we're looking for in management is, you know, is the existing team that's in place, them working together in a healthy way and for long enough that it is enough of a leading indicator that they will continue to be successful after they have raised growth capital and/or strategic capital.
I know it's a very kind of simple answer, but you know, we do need to look at the past and you know, good management and good successes as well as understanding where the failures and shortcomings have been and how they've course corrected are all signs of, for lack of a better word, adult management, which, you know, we need to see to be comfortable representing a company.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, super helpful. That's what I was fishing for, very poorly. The wrong bait fishing for. Let's go to the other model that you will have, which is I think pretty unique, the merchant banking that you have done. First of all, what does it mean for listeners and then how do you all choose to use that to kind of align with your clients?
Jason Segal:
Great. So what merchant banking means, or at least means to us is having some of our own capital at risk alongside our clients. And that can come in different forms. We could put cash into, around, let's say that we're raising for a company. We could take our fees and instead of taking those in cash, take them in some type of aligned security or the exact security that we're raising. Or we could have some other type of longer term economics that are tied to the value that we've added through the capital formation we've done.
Sorry if that's a bit of a tongue twister there, but the key word here is alignment. We're not looking to be a private equity fund, we're not looking to raise a vehicle on the side. We love doing advisory work and that's what it's about for us.
Even though some of us come from investment backgrounds, come from operational backgrounds, come from development backgrounds as well. And we understand finance, of course. So what it ultimately means is that after a transaction has been consummated, there is still ongoing alignment, economic alignment between us and our clients.
But it also is in certainly a non controlling, non, typically a non voting position. And it's just an economic alignment where we're incentivized to continue to help them as well as incentivized to make sure that when we do the transactional work it is not, you know, with a short term transactional only lens.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, great, super helpful. Let's rise above just shoveling capital for a second. So you've been in, you know, what we both know what's called clean tech and other iterations or versions of the sector if you will, for a very long time, right. Many roles, investor, operator, etc.
Given all that and then seeing what's happening right this very second with you know, look, frozen IPO markets look in general, but certainly that applies to our sector as well. Far less capital flowing on the venture side for sure. Growth capital really. I mean some pe, a little frozen, calcified as well. We're seeing what we're seeing and then we're also hearing beyond the headlines of more companies failing.
How do you put the last, whatever, six months of these kind of trends in perspective to kind of 20 years or so in this space.
Is this bubble popping? Is this right sizing? Should we be worried? Should we be, you know, calm in the storm here? What do you see here, Jason?
Jason Segal:
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And I'm going to speak specifically about certainly about OECD markets, but particularly the US market, which you know, is I guess you could say the home of venture capital and you know, some IP creation as well as clean tech in, you know, a good portion of global clean tech investment in certain parts of the value chain. Obviously not as much in the upstream manufacturing, even though of course that's in transition as well.
So I think that, you know, in the 15 or 16 years that I've been doing this is clearly the most complex market environment that we've ever been in. We have a lot of really exciting tailwinds in the market from the IRA and other legislative support, as well as the US being seen as a comparative safe haven for where to invest and intellectual property rights.
So we have some really strong tailwinds for the space. We also have consumers driving corporates to decarbonize, which is a different model and approach than, let's just say the classic European model, which is a bit more compliance driven. And that's a huge generalization and shouldn't be taken as anything more than that.
So we have some really interesting tailwinds. The other things we have is a massive amount, an absolutely unprecedented amount of capital formation that is pointed towards clean tech, ESG investing, even though again I'm talking about private markets here, energy transition and throughout the different risk spectrums and credit as well. So we have plenty of capital in the private markets.
In fact, I think I would make the argument probably have an over capitalized market. And so also that should be good times for companies looking to raise capital.
On the flip side though, we have, as you mentioned before, a still largely shut down equity capital markets in most of the world, but certainly in the US. So that gives less flexibility to companies looking to raise capital as well as shadier prospects on the ability to IPO in a near amount of time until those markets open up again.
And you also have probably the most scary world that any of us have been living in at least a generation. So you have reticence from the investment community to deploy capital, but you also have incentives to deploy capital.
So I actually think how this all shakes out today with the policy uncertainty, but with these tailwinds and headwinds, I think we're actually in a pretty healthy state.
And that might sound ironic given what I just said, but we're actually in a pretty healthy state in the capital markets around energy transition and low carbon infrastructure. Now there's enough capital, there's enough equity, there's enough credit, and there are a huge amount of investment opportunities.
But we are in a market that really is changing very quickly. And so we will continue, in my view, continue to see cautious footsteps when it comes to this deployment of capital, but we will continue to see a lot going forward. So it's a tricky environment and it's generally what I would consider a risk off environment, but that's relative. And we are in a mega trend in energy transition and I think that's pretty, pretty ubiquitous view on the market.
Chris Wedding:
And so as we record this, it's, you know, mid October, there's some, you know, tiny little election happening in our country in a few weeks. Is your sense that a considerable percentage of additional capital will be kind of thawing out, freed up to deploy post election, regardless of who is elected? Or is that not going to move the meter too much in your eyes for the kinds of companies that you.
Jason Segal:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think in, you know, no one knows for sure, particularly in an election like this one. That being said, you know, my view is that there will be less disruption than may be expected from this election when it comes to capital flows into our space.
I think that the areas that depending on how certainly both Congress as well as the White House goes and obviously state elections are also massively important regardless of the way it goes. The areas that have had hesitation because of real policy concerns where capital has not been flowing, for example, into areas like green hydrogen, into EV infrastructure. Some areas people talk about a lot of some of those areas which are dramatically important to the energy transition.
We may see new capital going in or we may continue to see capital not going into those areas. And it's certainly not just limited to those two areas. Those are just examples. But in terms of core renewables, the move towards industrial decarbonization, lower carbon transportation fuels, and just the overall, you know, the overall impact of climate change on the way we invest, I do not see that changing in any way, shape, or form in terms of the macro trend as a result of this election.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I would just kind of second that we have in this ESG investing course I teach at Duke, we have all sorts of industry kind of guest speakers there. The one question I ask most of them is, hey, look, a ton of negative headlines out There around the ESG, impact investing kind of going by the wayside. It's like, you know, what's the reality, right? Headlines versus reality with your capital, your clients and they said look huge gap between headlines and reality.
To your point right now the fundamentals are so strong to earning, you know, market rate, risk adjusted returns, you know, and in your case, infrastructure, clean energy infrastructure, so strong, not much change. In fact the opposite, huge tailwinds supporting this.
Let's switch as we do Jason, from the business year of what you do to the personal side of the podcast, which folks really like. So the first part here is what are two or three pieces of advice you would give to emerging professionals or career switchers coming into climate tech, clean tech, clean energy infrastructure.
Jason Segal:
Absolutely. So if we're talking about emerging professionals, which I think we mean is people coming out of school or earlier in their careers, you know, I don't think this advice is specific to the, you know, to the sectors that we focus on. But it's learn as much as you can from the most talented people you can and also from people that you see making mistakes. You know, exposure is really important and you know, intellectual drive coming from where your interests lie is going to get you a long way because, you know, you're a part of your career, you want to learn a lot.
I think more broadly things that I've learned, it is really critical to be, as you advance in your career, to be honest with yourself on the confluence of what you like to do and what you're good at and you really need both. We're thrilled to see the amount of talent that is already moved into environmental and low carbon infrastructure and the ecosystem and continues to bang down our doors and others as from all sides of the spectrum to get into the space. So that alone is a great sign of talent coming to the space.
So again, I think it is really important as you're navigating your way in to still understand, even if you don't have as much context for the industry, the type of work that you like to do and that you're good at and don't try to be something that you're not. I'd say the other thing, and this maybe applies to anything in financial services is we all work too much. We just do. And maybe this applies more to the US focus, maybe to the Japanese focus as well, from my personal experience there.
So it really is important that whatever your next steps in your career are in this space that it does fit into your broader life goals. I'm passionate about my work. I think, fortunately, everyone at Javelin, I think, shares that as well as many people throughout our industry. But, you know, if you don't have it in harmony with the other things that are important in your life, it will hurt you professionally.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. One thing I talk with some of our peers at Duke about is that we train our students to go get wonderful jobs, but we don't talk to them about what the lifestyle around those jobs looks like. And that's a factor, for sure. The first part of what you said, there's some wonderful quote which I'm not going to remember, but it says something like, look, it's great to learn from your mistakes. It's even better to learn from other people's mistakes. Which is one reason that reading, I think, biographies is so good.
The other, tying it back to the first part of our conversation, the like to do versus what you're good at. You know, some folks have heard of ikigai, right? This, this Japanese kind of framework for. I think you just gave two of those four filters for this wonderful Venn diagram.
So I'm not going to explain it because I, I forgot half of it. But for folks interested in exploring what Jason, what you just said, I think ikigai, I K I G A I, would be a good research to look at as well. Let's go to the next one. Tell us two or three habits that keep you healthy, sane and focused doing the work that you do.
Jason Segal:
Absolutely. So, you know, I think, you know, staying focused on spending your professional time doing what you're best at or, you know, where you can create the most value, whether it's for your clients, your colleagues, your firm, your investors, you know, doing the things that you're best positioned to do. And this is something I try to do every single day. I don't always succeed at it, but I certainly try, is an important part of the recipe to staying focused, healthy and sane.
Along those lines, you know, creating operating leverage as a business leader, in my case and in some of my peers, again, to make sure that you have, you know, the right people around you who can learn and can do work that keeps getting them up the curve is really critical because, you know, it really is a team effort in what we do, and it's critical that we grow our team professionally.
So, you know, learning how to focus, creating operating leverage. And then I'd say these might sound a little bit more on the personal side, but I think of them as professional goals just as well. Is you know, sort of the trifecta of getting exercise and whatever that means to you, sleeping well and eating well are all critical.
Managing your stress and never losing touch of the things that really motivate you and make you happy. Because this is a very hard business to be in. It's full of a lot of failures and challenges. And so, you know, recognizing and celebrating those wins are critically important as well.
Chris Wedding:
What we're saying is our mothers were correct, right, that sleeping well, eating well, exercise, they are actually good for us. On the first part of what you said, it reminds me of a book called Who Not How, that we all should not do everything and we're also not good at everything. But luckily, if we find the right people, they do love things and they are good at those things.
Anyway, it's an excellent, quick read and audible. On the focus part of what you just said, another great book that I have loved a lot and many of our CEOs at EFI love is called Deep Work by Cal Newport, which we, I've just, I was going to say brainwashed, but enticed my 19 year old son to read.
He loved the book and now he's seeing the difference between his study habits and some of his peers in the first year of college. Success, I hope. Success. Last one here, Jason. Before we put a pin to this one, any recommendations for books or podcasts or quotes, etc, that folks should pick up?
Jason Segal:
Yeah, well, I'm going to end on a low note here, Chris, because I find with my, despite everything I've just said about my work life balance, I do not have enough time to read what I want to read. And you know, outside of the day to day, keeping up with the market, both at the macroeconomic level down to the deal by deal level that we need to follow here.
So this is an area that I'm trying to improve myself. But that being said, taking some time off, reading some good books, whether they're about professional development or just about things you're interested in, I find, you know, there's nothing like reading an amazing book and having it take you somewhere. So I wish I had better recommendations for you on that. We can talk.
I don't think it's really for the scope of this podcast about some of the professional journals that I think are important to read, but it is always important to read other points of view. And maybe the way I would end this is one thing I've tried to do more of in the last few years is really read both from news sources and other types of publications. Backgrounds that come from very different than mine. And I don't just mean cultural backgrounds, I mean political backgrounds, economic views.
So in other words, reading, let's say books written from the other side of the political aisle that I might personally be in so I can better understand where people are coming from has actually been very helpful for me.
Chris Wedding:
Well, that is great advice in my head. I'm joking, thinking, oh well, I did this already by growing up in Kentucky, conservative, small town Kentucky. This, this obviously not conservative small town person. Although I guess I am still small town enjoying Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Anyway, look, I think your non answer on books is also a great answer, right? Is we don't have to be reading all the time. That is some people's, you know, choice. You happen to be in a profession where you are constantly learning as well, right? The kind of, the kinds of data points you can't get from headlines, from books. They're real time, they're confidential, which you know that constantly learning as well. So we'll give you a pass, Jason.
All right, we're gonna wrap it here. Hey, Jason, great stuff. Thanks for your time.
Jason Segal:
Great. Just thank you very much.
Chris Wedding:
Okay, thanks for listening. And if you're not sick of hanging out with me just yet, then please join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors and innovators who get our 3 minute newsletter about changing the world through startups, finance, humor and wisdom. Or at least four attempts at the last two. You can subscribe on Substack or at our website, entrepreneursforimpact.com.
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Okay, that's all y' all make it a great week because it's usually a choice. And P.S. If you're curious, that is not my kids favorite thing I say to them most mornings before going to school, but it's still true. All right, take care.