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**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay, I didn't know this meme. I love it. |
**Anurag Goel:** People do it. But I think -- there's also traveling; like, you spend all your life traveling. I don't -- I'm a reluctant traveler. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that right? |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah. I don't love traveling. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is it the plane? Is it the people? What is it? |
**Anurag Goel:** You know, I've got a great setup at home. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "I'm comfortable." |
**Anurag Goel:** I'm comfortable. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Alright. |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah, exactly. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "I know where the bed is, and I like it." |
**Anurag Goel:** I like it. I have all my stuff here... I enjoy it, I have my routine. No, so jokes aside, I think there is something about fundamentally who you are and what drives you... And for me, it was important to, again, spend -- I want to look back at the end of my career or my life, and be like "I contributed... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Can you tell me about, if you don't mind, a layer deeper? Your wife - is your wife in technology? I'm not familiar. What's her background? How could she contribute to "Yes, Anurag, you should go back to work and build this platform that will eventually, potentially", and as you said before, "will" I... |
**Anurag Goel:** Oh, she does. She knew what Stripe was. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay. Sure. |
**Anurag Goel:** \[27:57\] She knew how hard we all worked. She had seen all the early people go through everything that we went through... So it was very clear. We knew what we were getting into. And I think it was -- it's just the nature of our relationship where what's really important to the other person is importa... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, wow. Congratulations. |
**Anurag Goel:** Thank you. Yeah. This year. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** You must be doing something right then, because you know, that's a long time. |
**Anurag Goel:** It is, and it also doesn't feel like 18 years. It's just -- wow, you look back and now that's 18 years. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Do you like Bob Seger, by any chance? |
**Anurag Goel:** I don't. I've heard of him, but I -- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** There's just one phrase from one song he has, "20 years now, where'd they go? 20 years, I don't know. I still look at myself sometimes, where they've gone." But essentially, this idea that "Wow, 20 years have gone by so quickly", and you're alluding to a version of that. |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah. I still remember the first time I saw her. I very distinctly have that memory in my head. And she thought I was a snob. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is she listening to this show? She's probably listening to this show now. She's tuning into this chapter at least. |
**Anurag Goel:** She's probably going to listen to it, yeah. So I'm probably going to get some brownie points. But no, I do remember the first time I saw her, and she thought I was a snob when she first saw me. For a variety of reasons. But then I fixed it. |
It was fine. And here we are, 18 years later. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[laughs\] Cool. Well, it's good to be equally yoked in a decision like that. Because I can only imagine that you had a choice, to go back to "work", to climb another mountain... And obviously, once you begin to climb, it would not make sense to even start the climb if you're not going to finish the... |
**Anurag Goel:** Oh yeah, of course. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So why would you go and even start if you're going to quit, or decide to change that decision a year or two into that choice? It just doesn't make any sense. You alluded to the potential of an IPO... So your focus is on IPOing Render? |
**Anurag Goel:** Well, my focus is on continuing to solve our customer problems... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Of course. |
**Anurag Goel:** ...and growing revenue, and doing it in a way that allows me to keep Render an independent entity, and for me to have enough control over what we build and how we build it, and to work with the people I want to work with... And all of that essentially means staying independent over the very long term. ... |
We've raised all this money. In some ways, my life is harder than it was when I wrote the first line of code for Render. And it's harder because I have to constantly reinvent my job every six months. And learn very quickly. And learn a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with engineering, on how to run a company. And t... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Break**: \[30:30\] |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Let's examine that. Can we examine reinventing your job? |
**Anurag Goel:** Sure. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** What you do. Can you describe -- I imagine early on CEO is just simply a label. Obviously, somebody has to hold that title in an organization. Can you walk me through -- I assume now you're far more CEO than you were first line of code, right? Can you walk me through the steps of reinventing the rol... |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah, absolutely. And even learning that that is what you need to do is a journey. So I didn't know when I started the company that I would need to reinvent my job every six months. And I think for the first at least two years - actually longer - the bulk of my time was spent on essentially IC work, wh... |
I think early on in a startup journey, the CEO has three jobs. They have to raise capital, they have to hire, and then they have to build product. And whether they're technical or not, they have to build product. And that changes over time. And so for me, as you hire more people, it becomes clear that -- especially as ... |
So for the longest time, I was the only person responsible for "product" at Render. So the company started in 2018, we launched live on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2019 Battlefield, which we won that year. That was kind of insane. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Do you still have that big check? |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah, it's in here, somewhere in the office. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** You don't have to get it, I'm just curious... I'd love to see a picture. If you can, as sort of post-promotion of this show, I'd love to see a picture of that check on social media as part of this. That'd be awesome. |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah, of course. I'll send it to you. That was kind of crazy. You obviously see this stuff on TV... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Silicon Valley, the TV show, man. I mean, come on. |
**Anurag Goel:** Yeah, it was -- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** You were the Pied Piper... In terms of the winner, not so much the actual application. And maybe the exact thing was happening, but you got the check and you won the Battlefield round. |
**Anurag Goel:** \[37:54\] It was less dramatic. It was just a lot of hard work, I'll say. And you're on stage, and there's all these incredibly accomplished people, and Ashton Kutcher... |
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