David Kofoed Wind, Agentwork: Founder at Agentwork

Welcome to another YC wisdom pod. We have uh David Kofo wind with us. He's building something new at agent work.

I think I've heard of agent work by the way before the the pod. Uh previously built and sold edgiflow. Uh David, you're also a partner at uh Pioneer Fund.

She's a client of mine. Love Pioneer. Uh yeah, tell us about yourself and what you've been up to.

>> Yes. So yeah, I'm David. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark.

I I learned to code when I was very small, like eight years old or something. I got a computer and a C++ book from my dad. And then I actually trained my first neural network when I was in seventh grade, I think, like 13 years old.

I met this physicist back then, who was really into like building games, which I liked. And then he knew a lot about neural networks, and he was like, "This is the best thing. I'm going to teach you all about it." And then we built this little ship game and built a neural net to control the ship.

So I got like AI built when I was like 13 and I wrote to the local university and said like this shit's going to happen like neural networks are going to come everything and they're like yeah maybe it's a bit complicated like get back to us when you're a bit older. So I waited. I studied math.

Uh I did a PhD in machine learning. And then during my PhD, I had this very large course. I really like teaching.

And this big course had a ton of grading work, like 150 papers a week. So I decided to not do that and instead build a product where the students could grade each other's work. Um that was the first company I started, Pure Grade.

It spun it out of university. Found two co-founders. One was my high school classmate and the other a designer.

And then we ran that company for four years as pure grade. Then we pivoted to EduFlow which was like a corporate learning management system. Another four years of that.

Uh went through Y Combinator raised the seat round and then we sold the company three years ago to Multiverse this big UK edtech company. um stayed at Multiverse for two three years and did like AI stuff, head of learning science uh product and then back in October I think November me and my old co-founders decided to all leave Multiverse to start something new together which is agent work. So that's a bit of my story and kind of what we've done before.

[clears throat] >> It's crazy. I've never heard uh I mean I've heard various times of kids coding at 8, which is still super impressive because back then I was playing Diablo I >> Nintendo 64 and going on my bike with [laughter] my friends and code was like Yeah, let's let's start with that actually. Can you help me wrap my mind around having a kid code?

like you have a superhuman brain that allows you to get motivated when seeing bits and bites because I was like what the [ __ ] is that? You know, and I I had zero interest in coded. Why why were you so interested in coding?

>> I really like computers and I like playing games. I think that was part of it, right? And then my dad, he always allowed me to break the thing.

So, like I got a computer with DOS on it and he didn't really like tell me not to touch it or not to like delete all the files or something which was kind of nice and then what actually happened was I went to this like after after school club thing and there was a bunch of kids playing computer games there and me too and then one day I walked behind the guy who ran the club and he was he had notepad open on his Windows machine and he was typing this [ __ ] into this notepad and I was like what is this Michael? What's going on here? And he's like, "I'm making a website." And I was like, "What?

What? You're making a website in Notepad? That makes no sense to me." >> Yeah, [laughter] exactly.

But I knew like I've like used the internet, but I didn't really know that you could actually like write a website. So, he taught me like the basics of HTML and then it just started kind of spiraling from there, right? That like, okay, I can actually like make things with text.

And then, I don't know, kids are pretty weird, right? I was I never got a diagnosis, right? But my favorite toy was like a bunch of clocks, paper clocks.

So if I was growing up today, I would have had some sort of diagnosis. Um, but like kids are pretty stubborn and they have so much time on their hands. So they'll just like continue and continue and continue and like today a adults are like busy and our brights, our brains are fried, right?

And we can't concentrate for five seconds anymore. But back then, what else could I do? There's no social media.

There's like nothing to do. So your potential serotonin hit and dopamine hit was create my first website so that I can show Michael that Yeah, I'm capable too and probably show your dad and your parents that you built that. >> It was all about >> being cool.

Exactly. It's all about being cool and like showing off and like building something that they would recognize as awesome and so on. So I went from websites to games because games are fun, right?

That's what we all I think there's also a bit of like if you've played some of the old games like Starcraft and Warcraft and so on, they had this like very advanced map editors and I think for a lot of people back then that was the first venture into building your own game was like modding these games in the map editor. I spent a lot of time doing stuff like that and then just continued and continued down that path uh my whole life basically. >> Were you very good at video games as well?

No, actually not. Like uh when I actually went to high school, then I met a lot of people who were quite good at video games. I realized I was much better at making them than playing them.

Um I found it, it's also funny, right? A lot of people now uh at my age, they still play games. I can't.

Like I simply don't have the attention span for it or like the motivation. Like I now I could play all the games I want, but like I don't I don't care anymore. It's kind of weird.

>> Interesting. Um yeah, let me tell you about like my relationship with games. So uh I was good at chess, right?

I was my school champion. Then I was very good at uh World of Warcraft was probably like the best uh player on my server at 12 years old. I was very good at Call of Duty as well.

And I have this addictive personality, right? Which do you have this addictive personality where you need to constantly Okay. Different brains, >> but not not on your level.

I think it sounds like you're more addicted than me to these kind of things. >> Yes, for sure. So, I had a Switch.

I sold my Switch because I was like, "Yeah, no time for this. Let's go all into business because I also gamified my businesses." I got the PS5 and nowadays with like all the stress of the work, I find myself after supper going to play video games because one, it's a reward and two, it generates cortisol on me because I play uh Call of Duty, right? and after supper you're like heavy and and like not the brain is like not to there at least on my side and >> it could be a problem because it's like yeah I need to play Call of Duty now on a daily basis and I I'm I want to get very good at it because the kids are are so good nowadays.

So yeah video games it's I mean yeah the the serotonin pattern has been established there and I need I need to be careful but I also gified my business. Did you gamify your business? Do you feel you need to gamify them to be obsessed with them or does that just come natural for you?

>> It's a good question. I think like generally I like solving problems but I think there's one part of my business life that I've gified which is just like I have this very very old Google sheet like 10 years old Google sheet called time plan and it's just like this simple to-do list where like on the first column I have like every 30 minute slot from like 6:00 a.m. to midnight and then I put in the tasks in the morning for like what do I want to get it done today and then I have this like way of breaking them down into small enough stuff that I feel motivated to get them done very fast and it's like I trick my brain every morning into completing all these tasks by setting them up in this particular way and I know I'm tricking my brain yet it works every day for some reason my brain isn't smart enough to realize that I'm trying to to like cheat it but it's it's perfect so I I gify at that level but I like on the video games, right?

Like I have um I have small kids and like they three kids and like they don't understand how an adult can have all the possibility of doing anything they want. I could eat all the candy, play all the games and I don't want to do it. And they're like, "Dad, what the fuck?" It's like, why don't you just eat candy all day?

Like I don't want to, man. You can play games. Yeah, I know.

I know, man. But uh that's the >> but like you said when they start something they get like fully absorbed in it right they don't have the sense of responsibility you take care of their >> their finance and you sort of guide them in life because they don't have the the experience yet how are you educating your kids and yeah do you have a plan for them or just like let them fully free roam and and do whatever they please. No, it's a good question and I don't think I have like a great uh plan honestly.

I So, actually my oldest son is very obsessed with chess right now. So, we're playing chess together all the time and I'm like trying to get up my own ranking and so on, going to tournaments weekly basically with him now. Um, so it's just like I'm trying to figure out a way where what worked for me as a kid was getting a lot of free roam roaming, right?

I could like here's a computer, do what you want, play as much as you want. But then there's all this research now saying like that's not very good for kids and I'm like but it worked for me. Like what?

Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong. I don't really >> Well, there wasn't Tik Tok and porn back then. Uh [laughter] >> that's probably true.

Maybe that is the thing, right? That it's just gotten worse and more addictive. Um but I kind of want to give them the ability to obsess and learn, but also like keep >> chess is great though, right?

I really like I've played a lot of Brazilian strategy competition. It has, by the way, I run like founderchess.com. I'll invite you to to one.

It's like a podcast, but we >> we play chess. And I'm not that good, by the way, because I stopped playing. I'm I think I'm like 950.

What are you on chess.com? >> I'm like uh 550 right now. I'm like trying to get up to a,000 this year.

It's my New Year's resolution. Like 50 easy. Like I'm not that smart and good.

I mean, I'm smart at some things, but not at chess, I would say. And it's not like if I tried hard to get my 950. You can do it.

>> Okay, let's go. >> What about the younger ones? Like, okay, so chess, um, what do they practice sport, right?

And and what how will you send them in this market with AI? Do you feel they'll have a shot against agents? I have no clue.

It is it's like what a terrible time to grow up and what a great time to grow up. Like I can't figure out what's going to happen, right? So I just know myself from school, right?

When I went to school to high school, like if there was a way to cheat, if there was a way to not do my homework, I would always take it. I am so lazy >> in in some ways and then I'm not in some other ways, right? I would always skip it.

But it was pretty hard, right? Like you kind of had to do your homework. But like now never, >> dude.

I'd hire my peers. So I was a CEO already back then. I would hire my peers to do it against money or or power.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I had my my co-founder now, our CTO, like he was in my high school class, right?

So like every every day when the deadline was kind of close like, "Ma, can I like can I see your homework? Be really nice to just get a quick glance at it before submission deadline and just steal some good ideas." So like I just worry about if you're very very smart and self-motivated obviously you can use AI to your advantage but if you're not it's going to be impossible to like not cheat all the time and it's going to set you back. So I don't know >> but if we look I mean it's it's scary for sure for normal >> not just for uh the lower classes for the middle class AI and agents are very scary like if you check the lower classes nowadays it's hard for them already in this capitalistic market to >> to make it because of pervasive habits right because they've been raised some way um yeah because of uh their conditions obviously, but the scary thing I feel with uh the agentic age we're about to to face is that the full metal class, right?

Uh just yesterday I was checking 60 minutes episode of robotics, right? And the Atlas Boston dynamic robot, it can already do like the full windshield part that uh some Hyundai factory employees are are doing right now. And I just tried to put myself in the shoes of that person and looking at that [ __ ] robot doing exactly what they do but like faster and without like the the dread and like 247.

I was like [ __ ] >> this this is what's coming at us and now like knowledge workers are at risk which you know historically have been some of the smartest people. Um for your kids for example, what skills are you teaching them that you feel that will uh p uh pursuit or will continue being relevant in the age of a of the AGI and agentic? Is it uh creativity?

Creativity can be replaced by a bot. Is it EQ? Is it uh doubling down?

>> I'm pretty AI, right? I don't see anything lasting honestly. Like there's all these like people trying this old argument about like no we've seen this before.

It's like the industrial revolution whenever we get >> every time I hear that I'm like dude no it's not the same >> it's not the same right because this time you have like a full replacement on every parameter I think >> it's a brain it's not technology it's a brain >> for the medium term or something there'll be jobs left where we want a human because it's a human or we want a human because it's regulated to be a human right it be like I would prefer that a human like is in the daycare and not a robot taking care of my kids because that's nice or like there'll be regulation in the EU or whatever saying like this thing cannot be done by a robot it has to be done by a human everything else will will surely get done by AI so I honestly my bet would be that when my kids are like 25 they don't have to do anything um what that looks like I don't know we have to like but I have to prepare them for the future where that's also not the case like maybe it's not the case then like go to uni take the normal path. If that is the case, go to Yi, do the I think it's like they need to be happy, they need to be self-motivated in some way, like love playing chess or love coming up with ideas. The things that I guess chess is a good parallel, right?

Like we already worse than robots at chess, yet we find find it interesting. So like maybe that'll be the human endeavor in the future. But why not start a business rather than uni?

I mean, you guys have good uni where you are, but why not start a business instead? >> No, I hope they'll start businesses. But I think >> I do I I wasn't the kid with the lemonade stand as as a kid, right?

I I didn't really think about business until I got to like high school or university. Um, but I think if you can build things, >> you will eventually realize that one of the ways you can leverage that is to sell things. But like you can also just build like create art or whatever.

But but if you can make software for example, you realize like this is a great way to like make money or make a business and make impact in some way. So I think I want to teach them to be smart. I want to teach them to come up with ideas and build things and like yeah engage with the world like an interesting way.

But I think it's equally likely that they'll become artists or like uh philosophers or whatever in the future because like that might be as valuable as as anything else. >> If you ask yourself the same question, would one day would you not be doing anything with uh potential commercial value? Like would you just chill and do arts on your side?

>> Yeah, probably. I'll probably like just to my garden and play chess and read books. I enjoy that a lot, man.

I really like I have a very large garden. I love reading books and playing chess. I also like >> But don't you like business and investing and all of that?

>> I do. I do, but probably wouldn't do it like 40 50 hours a week. Then I probably do it like 15 hours a week or something.

If I had like infinite money, like we had a good exit, right? Like it's it's like I made a decent amount of money. I I could probably retire and like live off of it, but I'm not like I don't have [ __ ] you money.

I don't have like a private jet kind of amount of money, right? So, there's still some more motivation in the monetary uh pocket, right? I can still make some more money to like live a slightly sweeter life.

But I also just I think what I had the most fun with building the old company was honestly just like dayto-day with my co-founders. I think that's what I missed the most. It was like that was good.

Like we had eight years where we just worked together. We picked our own problems. It was tough.

Like if I looked at my dayto-day, I only did boring things. It's like send sales emails, like deal with investors, bookkeeping, all the boring stuff. But then when you look back at it, like that's what I we did it with a purpose.

We did it together. Like we had fun. But like I would never apply for the job with that job description, right?

It wasn't that's why not why we did it. [snorts] >> I can relate. And yeah, there's always like some looking back some melancholia when you see the pain, right?

Like my first company was very hard as well with neutropic actually were asking me about the supplements I I took. Well, that's me. That's a Charles Biohacking and my first company and yet we there was a lot of stress but I I look fondly at it.

Um, the exit you're saying, did it change you in any ways or uh did it just like amplify who you were? [snorts] >> I got a depression right after like a mild depression at least. It took me a while to realize why.

But like I was the company in a way like it was my thing like my whole career after university. I went directly and started my company and then like we worked on it for eight years and then we sold it and gave it away and then I was like what now? like why wake up in the morning?

Like so I had things to do, right? I had kids and I had a life and everything but like my day-to-day purpose was kind of gone and it took me a little bit of time actually to get over that. Um and it was also a little bit sad because the way the acquisition worked out was that they needed our product but they didn't need our business basically.

So they shut down the business that we built up and all the customers were were canceled and so on. So, it's kind of hard to like let go of your legacy in a way of like, oh, all these people I sold this product to that hurt a lot. Um, but I think it's it's been really nice to get some more money.

Honestly, it's like it helps a lot dayto day to just know that like financially I'm good. If something happens, doesn't matter. Like dental bill, [ __ ] it.

New car, we'll buy it. Like it's not an issue. I don't like need to buy any expensive stuff.

I don't even drive a car actually. But but like it's nice to be able to know that like we're safe now. We're not going to like fry private jets, but like we don't we can take a taxi when we need to get home and so on.

That that's just like calmed me down a lot. I think overall >> and do you think the YC or VC culture of grind for like five 10 years and have a big exit but each ramen for that full time is healthy rather than just building a business that can provide monthly recurring revenues but is less scalable like an agency or consulting? [snorts] >> It's a good question.

I think it's and probably also a place where Danish Nordic culture clashes a bit with the American dream culture where Denmark has a high bottom like we we we don't you can't really get in trouble in Denmark unless you're like mentally ill or something, right? But like there's a safety net here for anything. So you don't need the American dream.

You don't need to like preserve legacy for your family and financial freedom because you can go to university for free and free healthcare and so on. So I think that generally that's why Danes aren't as productive in the startup seen as Americans probably we don't grind as hard. Um but then once in a while you get these people from from these kind of countries who do it for a different purpose.

They don't do it like just to make money but then it's basically where the researchers meet the like the startup people when you build really interesting deep technology because you think it's really interesting technology and suddenly that turns into the best business. Um, so good things come out of Europe, but they generally don't come up out of the same rate because we're not grinding as hard. I think when you're young, when you don't have any kids, if you enjoy work, I think you take it quite far, right?

I did. I worked a lot because I enjoyed it. Um, I don't I think it gets really unhealthy if it's like it's not fun and it's pure stress and you're grinding all the time and you don't have time to see your friends, but you actually want to see them.

I don't think that's good. But I think there's for most people they're able to find some balance where they can work a lot with great people, have a lot of fun, build some kind of financial wealth over time in some way or maybe a network or maybe a friend for life that they can talk to later when they need a new job or something. It doesn't have to be a big exit the first time to be successful.

So my question for Nordic countries that are more on the social side of things, are they doing things well? Because happiness is pretty high in these countries, but is happiness the full uh spectrum? Isn't like another part like adding value to the world and yet like having your product used by people and finding it these people finding it useful?

Like shouldn't we optimize for this as well? because I'm I'm Canadian by the way. Like I'm most of my inner culture is Silicon Valleyish probably just like yours.

But yeah, I feel sometimes my native Canada is way too much on the on the social side of things and discomfort can actually be good a lot of times. But it depends on your upbringing, right? You need like a stable base.

Yeah, there's something about these happiness indexes that most people don't know which is that like there's different types of questions about happiness and one of the questions is like do you generally feel happy and the other one is like how happy were you yesterday or how happy are you today and Dan are generally not that happy right now like today is kind of a bad day but overall I feel great like overall I'm happy and I think that's comes from the welfare state setup and Denmark has I think like lowest corruption in the highest amount of trust in in our >> which is great. >> Which is great, right? And that's why we're happy overall because like we don't worry about being cheated.

We don't worry about like corrupt politicians. We generally feel like we're never going to get in real trouble. But yesterday sucked because like some [ __ ] boss was late or whatever.

Like so we're not more happy day today. We're kind of pessimistic and like if you ever meet Scandinavians, they're like, "Nah, they'll never work." Um so they're not they don't have this American optimism, for example, but they have this like general well-being. Um so so there's different types of happiness I think >> and generally do you see a renaissance in Europe regarding uh the startup scenes with folks like Peter levels and uh open clock came out of there as well what do you see >> not really honestly I really want it to happen right >> Danish response pessimistic >> pessimistic no but it's kind of it is going better it is going better in some ways we do have like a few companies out of Europe now doing really well like lava able is one of the big ones out right.

>> Um so so there are examples now of like more tech success. I think that is in spite of like how terrible European politicians have been for innovation and in Denmark we have an election right now right and the ruling government they want to put in some like new wealth tax which maybe it's fine like maybe very rich people should pay more taxes. I don't dis dis like I'm okay with that.

I think the problem is it becomes this very like hostile attitude to like oh these [ __ ] rich people and all their champagne and they should be like look at all us poor people >> populist >> it becomes very populist and it's not like no it's not how we look at it like all the rich people are paying a ton of taxes already I pay like 56% >> you go on >> yeah it's just like I don't I don't mind paying my 56% taxes but then don't like don't be a [ __ ] about it and tell people I'm I suck that's not okay That's that's what I don't like about the kind of current Scandinavian European mindset is that like there's a lot of like anti the same in the US and other places, right? Like tax the rich, eat the rich, whatever it is. And like I don't think >> Yeah.

In California, right? Like uh we've already started seeing a bunch of people move. Would that warrant you moving from where you are right now or your roots are too solid and grounded?

>> I would never move. It's too complicated with kids and so on. And I like I live 200 mters from where I grew up.

Like I take my risk elsewhere apparently and not on where I live. Um but it just like I think it will it will stop some sort of innovation and it will just like make people angry at each other. And I don't think it's not even the right decision like economically, right?

If you want more welfare dollars, make companies more successful so you can make more corporate taxes that way, not by like making them less productive. I think it's just a misunderstanding of like how the economy work. The politicians know, but they know that this like word choice works in politics, right?

Which is a bit sad. >> Yeah. It's like votes, right?

And because there's less uh rich people than there are like middle or lowerass people, then of course they'll get more votes. Do do you think like we've seen democracy scaled to a breaking point nowadays? Do you still believe that democracy can make the best decisions?

Generally speaking, [snorts] >> I don't know what else to put in place. I had always had this like boyish dream about like I want some like cool technocracy setup like kind of Switzerland. But >> well, shouldn't you have more votes if you have if you're giving more to the cap table if we [laughter] corporations uh mindset to countries?

>> I don't know. I think like what's kept Scandinavia in a good place is the like combination of democracy and very high trust that like if a politician is corrupt even like tiny bit corrupt they're out right there was politician a few years ago >> so good right >> that's also how business operates right like I mean if we don't have faith in the the CEO then he's [ __ ] out you know like first strike almost >> but that's not how it goes in in America for example I think it's politician a few years ago who like she borrowed a room at the city house for her wedding and she even paid for it I think but like there was something about it they're like oh you're out you're out it's like [ __ ] >> and here you have Donald Trump and others like doing like crazy crypto scams and they're like >> yeah what can we do he's the president like [ __ ] that's a crazy >> which is interesting right like there's there's good and bad about like every single country and of Trump himself as well I think Sure. >> Also has some good stuff that bears highlighting for sure.

Um >> where does where does that take us? Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you with the the traveling um with your kids, right? Because you want to have them to have a safe base.

Do you travel a lot nowadays? Do you find that has lots of cognitive benefits or neuroplasticity for you? >> I actually travel very little.

>> Yeah. And we don't travel. We don't really travel.

My kids are pretty young, right? I have a six-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a one-year-old. So, like, it's mostly like the complexity of the practical challenge of moving kids around with all this baggage we have to move.

I think when they get older, we're going to travel a lot more. Um, so I think it's one of the things that honestly I would like to do it more. I just can't deal with it right now.

So, I'm not doing it that much. >> Right. Right.

And with agent work because we have five minutes remaining. What are you building there? Like what do you think that one's uh is an even greater moonshot than your last one.

>> That's the hope, right? So agent work comes out of this old problem we had where we used Upwork a lot. Like so we would use Upwork to outsource like web scraping problems or lead generation problems and so on.

And there was always this kind of complicated interaction where you had to log in, put the problem up, make screening questions, wait for people to apply, pick the right candidate, wait for them to accept, then give them the problem, and then they say, "I'll start tomorrow. It's midnight in the Philippines." So you end up spending like two or three days basically like giving somebody a problem and then in the meantime, TPT has like changed the world, right? So like you don't want to do three days of of jumping around to get somebody to solve your task.

what you want now is to put the problem into a text box and click go. There's just a lot of things that AI can't do, right? For like weird reasons sometimes, like they don't have the real human taste.

They give up, they hallucinate, they break on like weird problems. So the premise of agent work is like what if instead of hiring a guy in India for example with chatbt through upwork what if you get an agent to try to solve the problem whatever it runs into problems it hires human help basically. So agent work gives you the user experience of an agent product like chatbt but it has a human element into it that means that will always get you the solution.

It'll take more time than JT. it will cost more money, but it's like I want this problem out of my hands and I don't want a wrong solution back. I don't want to manage it.

I don't want to prompt it correctly. It's just like give me a solution and then we internally optimize it as much as we can to get the agents to do as much of the work as possible. But then we have human verification, human guiding and so on.

So that's agent work. It's kind of like how would freelance thinking be thought in the in the AI native world. >> That's pretty cool.

Uh that's different for sure. is the first time I hear it. Isn't it like technically harder to create an agent that will manage a human than to create the agent itself to do the full thing?

>> Well, so there's like different ways the agent can the agent will just try to solve the problem. Basically, we just use state-of-the-art models and and harnesses and so on. And then sometimes it runs into a a real problem like okay I need to go to this website but it doesn't load as I'm stuck just like then it has a new tool which is just like talk to a human and then we have like different built-in things like a QA thing that helps look at everything that happened so far check it up against different standards if it doesn't look right send the agent to the corner and get the human in.

just like practical saying like before you return anything to the client, a human has to approve it. So that's not it doesn't have like the agent doesn't always have to self-reflect about its capabilities. Sometimes we just force it in different in different ways to make sure that the result is is high quality.

>> What's the priority for that one? Is it raising capital the GTM? What's your focus?

>> So right now I'm raising money. I think we got the last commitment for our round uh this yesterday I think. So now we have an over overs subsubscribed preit round which is nice.

So it's just me and my two co-founders so far uh building building the first version of the product for the last couple of months that seems to work quite well. And then next week basically when the funding is like fully fully closed then we go out and and raise or like build built more of a GTM motion around it and start getting customers on. >> How did you choose your co-founders that time?

Uh is it like a fun theory first? Of course, they need to be smart, right? But like, how are they a good fit for you?

>> Yeah. So, Meldd, our CTO, and me, we went to high school class together, right? So, like first day of high school, we like raised our hands and told our name and who we were, and he's like, I'm Mel.

I like basically built websites. So, I was like, you you and me, >> we're gonna do something one day. >> Exactly.

That's like 20 years ago, right? And then, so we've always been like very good friends. And then Simon, we actually just found him on LinkedIn.

kind of lame and you should never do that normally, but like we just wrote to a few people [laughter] and he was like, "Yeah." So, one thing I learned is like if you want this is for investors, right? If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.

So, I was like I wrote to Simon and said like, "Hey, I have this like design problem." And I just can't figure out how to do this really well. And he's like, "Let me do it. Like, I'll do this.

Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out." And then eventually he's like our problem. He's he started talking about it as his thing and we're like, "This guy's in." Like so then we we ended up working together for for 10 years now.

>> But aren't these people like so rare? The people that won't ask for money and are just like want to be with you and or believe in the problem that you're solving like it's one in a 100 it seems. >> Yeah.

That's why I was so lucky. We were so lucky with Simon, right? That was pure luck that we just find the guy two guys at LinkedIn and one of them turns out to be Simon and I was like this is perfect.

Um, but like we talked to him, we were looking at this other guy as well who was a pretty good designer. And then I wrote them both an email saying like, "How much do you want this?" And the other guy was like, "Oh, I really want it." Blah, blah, blah. And Simon, he took it three days to answer.

But then he wrote back like, "I'll quit my job and I'll take a loan in the bank tomorrow." And I was like, "Yes, yes. This is the guy. Don't take the loan.

Don't take the loan, but like but leave your job and come work with us." [laughter] >> I like it. Uh, thanks for being on, dude. Uh, where can people find out more about you?

Yeah, agentwork.so. Uh, check out the product, sign up. There's a free version.

And then, yeah, LinkedIn. Yeah, find me online. My name is my own.

There's no other people with that name. You just search for it. was David and Charles for