Life360 $LIF CEO Chris Hulls

Auren Hoffman (00:00.676) Hello fellow data nerds. guest today is Chris Hulls. Chris is the founder and CEO of Life360, the family safety platform used by over 70 million people worldwide. Life360 trades on NASDAQ under the ticker LIF and has a market cap of over $3.3 billion. Chris, welcome to World of DaaS. Very excited. We've been old friends. Now Life360 started kind of like as a simple kind of location sharing.

Chris Hulls (00:19.465) Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Auren Hoffman (00:28.888) help you kind of manage, understand where your kids are going. Was there an insight that you had early on that this could be like a bigger platform play?

Chris Hulls (00:38.633) Yeah, I don't want to overstate our level of vision, but the story was a little bit different. We actually started to be very safety focused, inspired by Hurricane Katrina, helped families reconnect after big emergencies. It was originally a school idea that was pre-smartphone. So the real insight we have is we built a prototype of the product for the then upcoming Android platform. iPhone was out, but there were no third party apps. So Android was the first phone where you're going to have background location access.

And then the light bulb was like, wow, actually there's something bigger here. We're just seeing where someone is on a phone that's very, very powerful. And we saw that very quickly, like safety sounds good, but out of sight, out of mind, but location was a daily use case. And it was the era of social networks for everything. mean, younger people probably don't even remember this, but like now that I'm in my forties, it was like social networks for people who like golden retrievers who happen to be gay. Like it was like, and

Auren Hoffman (01:35.436) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:37.557) There were so many people that were doing social networks. In our view, was like, if you're going after a segment, families, like there were tons of family social networks, like maybe it's a completely different approach. And was more about utility and safety. And we actually had a, we got founded with a different name and we, we, had no money. was a terrible name. But the idea, once we had that insight, was like, this is actually the way to build the family social network, even though it doesn't look like the family social network.

And go all, and the reason we said Live 360 is we had that platform vision essentially from that one and only pivot we did in our first year of existence. 360 meant everything in your life from people, pets, things. And our view was if we can get someone using a product so regularly and part of their workflow, would open up all sorts of opportunities. And the real secret sauce that we figured out was if you have safety, it's out of sight, out of mind. You just have a social product where you're competing with Facebook and all that, but you have no monetization. So we have...

Auren Hoffman (02:15.662) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (02:34.143) daily engagement plus safety and that's what people pay for. And then we get the very virtuous cycle of now we make money, we can reinvest that in growth and features and then build a good product. It definitely grew much more through word of mouth than I ever expected. Even now it's almost all organic. So we built something people loved and it's really in some ways as simple as that. But I am still.

Auren Hoffman (02:57.186) Now, when I, you were like my landlord, I was like renting space from you back in the day. We had that, we had that office on Bryan street in San Francisco. I was almost 10 years ago in 2015. And, and I really had no, I was like, this is cool. But I no idea. This could be like such a big business. Like what did I not see at the time?

Chris Hulls (03:00.649) Yeah, I do remember that.

Chris Hulls (03:18.267) I think what most people didn't see, I think it ties in with just like echo chambers, is the coastal elite, so to speak. And I'm not trying to get political here, but does seem to have some skew on party lines. Like, it would only be dumb, horrible parents that would use such a thing. And like, my kids are good, so why would I use that? And I'm not cheating on my family. Like, it was very like the hoity-toity elites were like thumbing their nose at us.

Auren Hoffman (03:38.126) Mmm.

Auren Hoffman (03:46.052) or is a very like almost like a privacy mindset. I don't want someone dragging, you know, like that type of thing.

Chris Hulls (03:50.205) It was deeper. was like, you're a horrible parent and person if you use this. This is, we're all about freedom and that worked so much in our favor and all the privacy hysteria also works in our favor because the big guys just did not enter this space. So where we got really good luck, I'm digressing a bit is we were so toxic and evil, so to speak, that we've just had like no competition and now we're trying to get it. We've already gotten so big, which is great. But I think what people didn't realize was

Auren Hoffman (03:53.996) no.

Chris Hulls (04:19.539) This was not about tracking people. mean, quite literally, definitionally, it is. But the idea in my mind, and I was a free range kid, it's just convenient. It's just a convenient product. I remember when cell phones were first coming out mainstream, people were saying, like, if you have a cell phone, you're going to always be reachable. Like, ugh, don't you? Does anyone say that anymore? Does anyone give up a cell phone? No. So that was our insight. This is just useful.

Auren Hoffman (04:23.427) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (04:27.716) It's like peace of mind, right? Isn't it like a kind of a peace of mind? Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (04:40.386) Yeah, yeah, totally.

Chris Hulls (04:49.163) And one of the things I believe is people are lazy and take the path of least resistance. And if you build something useful, people are going to say all these high and mighty things, but they're just going to do whatever is useful. So I was surprised that people did not get that this was just like a very simple, practical use case. My parents, as much as they... No.

Auren Hoffman (05:10.892) And you didn't even have kids at the time. you're you're not even come from experience at the time, right?

Chris Hulls (05:16.017) No, I think one of the things I have been good at is step outside of myself and put myself in someone else's shoes. I'm probably at least mildly autistic. I'm slightly exaggerating, but I'm in my head. So it's very fun for me to really figure out what makes people tick at a very fundamental level, even thinking it through to literally the big bang. What are these different forces that drive people? What is this all about? What are underlying triggers? Some of my favorite...

classes in college were psychology. It's not that professors almost knew much, but I'm really, really, really curious about what drives people. And I think one thing that worked very well for me in this business is that I've always been like a black sheep of black sheep. And I think a lot of founders are black sheep, but I'm even a black sheep from a founder perspective. And so...

I think a lot of younger founders at the time, and probably still today, they built products they would use themselves and do whatever is trendy. I've never been trendy. I was a horrible salesman early on, but I just did whatever popped in my own head and didn't really care what conventional wisdom was.

Auren Hoffman (06:27.662) Now that you are a parent and obviously a lot of your customers, your customers are parents, I'd to get you like diving a couple of like parenting and technology questions. There's this kind of free range child movement now, Jonathan Haidt and others have talked about it. Do you think today because of social media, because of cell phones, because of other types of things, like kids are less independent than previous generations?

Chris Hulls (06:41.427) Yep. Yep.

Chris Hulls (06:56.233) I think yes, but I don't think that's the first order issue. I think the first order issue, and some of this gets into really hot button stuff, but the safety culture and paranoid culture, I think it's more honestly, some of it's like the decline of Western society. What's the whole thing like?

Auren Hoffman (07:17.58) Yeah, yeah, safetyism is everywhere in society. It's not just parenting, right? Everything is, everything's, there's a safetyism. Everything is kind of made of nerf nowadays.

Chris Hulls (07:28.011) Yeah, I'm at my school. I'm so irritated at our school. Like, you can't say strengths or weaknesses. It's strengths and stretches. It's freaking insane. And they won't discipline the kids. It's terrible. My daughter had a...

Auren Hoffman (07:37.386) you

Auren Hoffman (07:46.114) Is this one of those schools where like everyone gets a trophy kind of thing? Like, you know.

Chris Hulls (07:51.032) Yes, everyone gets a trophy and there can't be an MVP on the soccer team. I'm in Mearn County, which is for people who know right north of San Francisco and the most liberal place there is, but also very cloistered where it's like one percenters.

Auren Hoffman (07:57.092) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (08:02.669) You

Chris Hulls (08:08.157) who don't have to like actually, it's a, there are luxury beliefs out there in spades. but yes. So I, I think, I don't think technology is the first order issue around safetyism and all that. I think there's a, this, I think the vector of like addiction and just the skill of hitting dopamine cycles and all that. I think that's different, but related. and I think people rise to whatever challenge face.

Auren Hoffman (08:12.622) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (08:37.839) they have to face and the world is so soft right now and I think we have kind of skewed more to good intentions around love and care and all that but like if not working that muscle of grit it just doesn't happen so

Auren Hoffman (08:52.802) No, parents are much more involved in kids' lives today than they were in the past. Just this idea of helicopter parenting and it's like all your kids are on a travel team, you're constantly moving, you're constantly driving around all these places and stuff like that. Why has that happened? Because that's not a social media thing, that's something deeper.

Chris Hulls (08:58.079) Yep.

Chris Hulls (09:13.387) I think there is a couple of easy answers. Some gets very controversial. Probably even too controversial for me to get into here.

Auren Hoffman (09:24.1) You're a public company, CS, you can only be so controversial.

Chris Hulls (09:28.323) Yeah. But I think the non-controversial piece is, it's kind of Maslow's hierarchy. If you're truly, and I grew up, well, I grew up in Murale backup. This is, swear I'm to make this relevant. I grew up in a town called Point Reyes. This is where I am right now. I'd really love it. But there's 350 people in the town I grew up in. And there were kind of three buckets of people, ranch owners, ranch workers, and a very small sliver of like,

eccentric hippies. My family was in that sliver of eccentric hippies, I grew up with ranchers were relatively wealthy and then my best friends were kids of illegal Mexican immigrants. The reason I bring this up is that what I saw from the Latino culture here, I'm not saying it's all Latinos by any means, but just that the people had to get over the border, which I really admire about that. My mom was actually an illegal immigrant as well, but

illegal immigrant to Hong Kong from China escaped in the bottom of a boat. If that is your life, you're thinking short term about survival. You do not have the ability to think about self actualization and feeling good. so I think that we probably on some meta cycle of like the world has become soft because we've had how many years of prosperity, especially in the Bay Area. I think

Even look at this election. I'm saying this as an arm's length person. I did not vote for either major candidate. I think things have been working really well for the coastal elites, but it hasn't been working well for the middle of the country. think that does directly tie into some of these luxury beliefs and why coastal people really didn't like Light 360 because we were kind of like... I think the real helicopter parents are the ones that are bringing their kids like 17 activities per week and all that. And those are the same people that were like...

rolling their eyes at the evil I-360. So there's some irony there.

Auren Hoffman (11:23.564) Let me give you my theory and you could dissect where you think it's good and where you think it's bad about why we've had so much more like helicopter parenting and parents are spending way more time with their kids. My theory is that just for whatever reason, people care about where you go to college so much more. It's so important. think partially, I think it's like the last thing parents are allowed to brag about.

Like Chris, you could win a Nobel prize, but if my kid goes to Harvard, like I've just trumped you in any type of kind of conversation. And it's like, it's just the last thing we can, we can talk about. and, and then people are just like, so intent on their kid going from like the number X school to the number X, minus 10.

Chris Hulls (11:57.919) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (12:03.136) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (12:15.082) school better, know, 10 spots better than they were before. And so they're like going doing travel, they're doing all this other like, random, they're like, I'm get my kid into fencing or, you know, whatever type of thing. This is my theory. And they're just like, so wrapped up in it.

Chris Hulls (12:17.013) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (12:29.599) Yeah, I think I half agree. I think that's the very wealthy version, but I'm trying to think how that translates to regular Joe middle class. And I think I agree with you overall, but I think there's a less.

Chris Hulls (12:48.157) less, I must go to Harvard version versus more like my identity is my children and they are what, and this is what gives me meaning. And I think for moms in particular, there's like the sacrifice you do for your children is you're allowed to brag about that. Let me just look at the Facebook posts and all that. And it's not always it's Harvard or whatever, like my kids scored the goal or

Auren Hoffman (12:50.23) Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (12:54.476) My identity is my children. Yep. Yeah, exactly.

Auren Hoffman (13:10.072) Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Chris Hulls (13:15.687) I'm trying to get my kids to go to community college for what it's worth. think that's keeping grounded and you can get into better schools that way anyway. But yeah, I don't want my kids to be my resume.

Auren Hoffman (13:26.98) Because you, I mean, I remember you telling me you were like a free range kid. I think you told me you like went to Africa by yourself when you were like 11 or something, which is kind of crazy.

Chris Hulls (13:33.171) Yeah. Yeah. My 12th birthday was in Africa, a thousand acres, whereas the local family was watching me. There no running water or electricity, and it was pooping a hole, and it was pretty cool. So I'm probably the most unexpected person to be running this company, but I think the fundamental misunderstanding is that we're tracking app. Like in theory, and I truly believe this, and so I will use it with my kids when they're old enough. And even with my, I'm an anxious person, is why I these competing personality types, but like...

Auren Hoffman (13:51.821) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (14:02.867) I get anxious when my family members drive. It's not fully rational, although it kind of is. That's the one area where safety is like a real thing with driving, but use LIFE360 to have less anxiety and actually push into those comfort zones. And I think the majority of our customers actually use it that way. It's just convenient to know how far someone away is. And instead of me being paranoid about my kids out there driving at night and not getting home, I have this app and it will keep me informed. And the percentage of parents who go over the top,

Auren Hoffman (14:08.397) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (14:27.747) Yes.

Chris Hulls (14:32.587) I am making this up based on some kind of fuzzy intuition, but I would imagine 90 % of people use Light360 in a very healthy way, 9 % go over the top, but more roll your eyes over the top, and 1 % are truly toxic with their kids. And I actually talked in the free range topic I just saw. was Lenore Schnazzi who, she's part of that free range movement. She's...

Auren Hoffman (14:50.222) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (15:00.139) I don't know if she considers me an enemy or a friend. I consider her a friend because I actually support what she's up to. I think she doesn't believe me that I think tracking apps can be a good thing. there was some parent that let their kids walk to school on their own at 10. 10 is freaking fine. And then they got in trouble and they're being forced to use a tracking app, which is insane to me. And I wonder why. And I would say the absolute last thing any parent should worry about

is their kid being kidnapped. It is so, so, so rare. And so I don't judge really anyone for how, where they want to be on the safety spectrum. But one thing that is weird to me is emotions over data or logic. Like if you want to jump out of planes or whatever, fine. But then if you're also like, just make sure you're stack ranking correctly in your head, the appropriate level of risk. And like,

Auren Hoffman (15:38.648) Mm.

Auren Hoffman (15:53.344) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (15:58.891) Sometimes people outside of my professional, mean personal, if I get judged for being reckless quite a bit, I'm, I'm, I don't want to bring family dynamics too much into it, but I am constantly told how reckless and crazy I am. But I know many people had little kids with like pools without covers on them. And I will guarantee I have never done anything with my kids that is anywhere as close to as dangerous as having an uncovered pool out there, period. So,

Auren Hoffman (16:16.962) Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (16:26.221) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (16:28.075) So the whole idea of social acceptability around risk, it's just human nature that probably hasn't changed. Maybe with social media, it's easier for these trends to go viral and then just jump on the emotional bandwagon. But yeah, do not worry about your kids being kidnapped. I want to team up with like, if you are using Lie360 to prevent your kids from getting kidnapped, you are being an irrational user of a product. I'm happy for you to use it.

Our marketing team now is great, but people told me not to say these sort of things. I'm undermining yourself. Like, no. If you are using Live 360 because you're worried about your kids getting kidnapped, have your priorities wrong.

Auren Hoffman (17:08.856) What are some parenting behaviors that are currently maybe quite and quite weird that you think will be much more normal 10 years from now?

Chris Hulls (17:17.279) Well, location sharing, I think that's our big one. We proved that one right. I don't really know.

Auren Hoffman (17:18.956) Yeah, yeah.

Chris Hulls (17:28.139) A lot of the things I was hoping to change the world and become normal have become normal. a lot of, if you asked me five years ago, contrarian beliefs, I could tell you so many, but I feel very happy and relieved that a lot of them are less controversial now. This is a little bit indirect, but a lot of people say there's going to be a return to the real world and get out of this digital addiction we have. I'm very suspicious of that.

And if anything, think we're going to be uploaded to the hive mind and that's going to be normalized. And my reason for saying that is I don't think you can put toothpaste back in the tube. And if anything, these trends are accelerating. So I wonder, I'm not making this as prediction per se, but

this whole idea of like get back, get off the screens, it might go the complete other way and we're just plugged into the matrix at some point. In fact, I'd go so hard saying I think there will be some sort of like we are all plugged into the matrix moment. And I'm assuming we'll talk about this later, but in terms of data privacy, I think people completely get confused about data privacy, but there, I think there is a real concern like the future is like Westworld or the matrix or something. I think that is a fair debate, but.

Auren Hoffman (18:46.468) In our homes today, we have so many listening devices. Most of us have cameras everywhere. And we're starting to see a world where we might start interacting with them, or you've got these glasses where you might be interacting with, or you may have, I mean, I already sometimes, when I'm doing homework with my son, we'll have a chat GBT listener that chimes in or something while we're doing it.

Chris Hulls (18:58.207) Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (19:13.54) How should we be thinking about this kind of like privacy thing? You know, there's so many benefits yet there's like these scary things we're not sure about. How do you think people are going to, how is that going to evolve over time?

Chris Hulls (19:25.131) Privacy will lose. If you want a firm prediction, it will 100 % lose. I'll take the 10 to 1 bet. It's going to be the same as location sharing. This is so evil. This is so bad. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. But the drive to better convenience, better productivity, they're going to lose. There's going to be the next generation of Luddites. That's how I feel about the privacy advocates. They seem to really get tied in knots around just being completely illogical. I think they're zealots.

Auren Hoffman (19:37.58) Yeah, there's so many benefits.

Auren Hoffman (19:46.637) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (19:55.007) But I don't think these trends are going to reverse at all. And I'm not saying that that is good or it's bad. I think I'm just being very matter of fact that my read on human psychology, which we have been very good, is if something is convenient and better, people are going to go there over time. And location sharing, the cat's out of the bag. It's done. Video cameras everywhere, that trend is done, only going to accelerate.

I'm probably in the vanguard of that, like 30 cameras everywhere. Are people gonna watch me? No, I have a camera right here and sometimes my wife chimes in and like spies on me as a joke. Sometimes it's a little bit weird, but I don't mind. And I think that's just, I think that...

Auren Hoffman (20:30.832) Yeah

Auren Hoffman (20:36.292) But you wouldn't necessarily want me spying in on you, right?

Chris Hulls (20:41.12) I'm way more open than most people know. I don't shoot spying on them I'm working with them. that fear is very misplaced.

Auren Hoffman (20:43.427) Okay.

Auren Hoffman (20:47.438) Cause I could see like your, I could see the earnings thing you're working on or something on your laptop. And I could, I don't know, somehow trade on it or something. Okay.

Chris Hulls (20:53.769) I think that fear is very misplaced. Maybe I'm not like a big deal or anything, but I guess I probably should be a little bit more worried because I have the keys to this castle with all this data. even I don't worry too much. But for the regular person, quantify what is this actually thing you're worried about? Like data sales, had an engineer I really liked and our top engineers.

Auren Hoffman (21:16.024) Yep.

Chris Hulls (21:20.459) I was arguing with him because he was really upset about us being in data. he's like, well, the main thing is you're making money off me without my permission. It's like, well, people give permission. And what are you actually worried about? I don't know. just don't like it. But I should get paid for it. like, OK, you know this. Where would you like me to send your $0.30 a year check? So why did this idea that these companies are making so much money off your data? You have to have huge critical mass, and it has to be.

Auren Hoffman (21:39.553) Right, right.

Auren Hoffman (21:49.764) Yeah, and it usually is like 30 cents a year type of thing. It's kind of in that range.

Chris Hulls (21:52.316) Yeah, it, yes. so the whole mental model people have around data is just so far off. Cause who's, I think there are some concerns. I get worried about TikTok in China. Like that seems fair kind of mass manipulation and disinformation that that seems like a very valid concern, but the idea of these companies doing something nefarious in the short term.

or midterm, I don't get it. I do get the...

Auren Hoffman (22:23.566) I mean, there are a lot of like, there's a lot of like regulators who care about it. Obviously, like the FTC cares about it. There's like different attorneys general that care about it. You know, historically, like certain senators like Ron Wyden and others like have cared about it quite a bit. Like, how do you, you know, there's, and then obviously there's the EU, which may have different kind of

Chris Hulls (22:45.907) Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (22:47.182) takes on it than other ones or even within states, California may have a slightly different take than Kansas. Like, how do you see all these things evolving?

Chris Hulls (22:50.867) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So first I'll give a company answer. We got out of this controversy. It was not worth it for us as a business because once we were marked as evil there, it was just going to be bad. And I have now experienced that the press can label people as bad and they can make your life very miserable and they go to the regulators and the

And the politicians do what people want. So for Life360, we are out of the world of monetizing PII without explicit consent. We are doing stuff I'm very excited about. If you're a good driver, we'll tell you you're a good driver. Or, did you know you're in the top 10 % of drivers? We can literally save you $500 a year. Or we say, or you're in the worst 10 % of drivers if an insurance company ever asks you to share your data, do not do it because you're going to get screwed.

Auren Hoffman (23:35.65) Yeah, that's cool.

Auren Hoffman (23:41.57) Don't do it. Don't do it. You're terrible driver. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (23:44.811) But we're going to tell you, and how anyone can say that's a bad thing is astounding to me. So we're going to do that with.

Auren Hoffman (23:50.958) Do you think you could predict, do you think you have the data to predict if someone's like, you know, going through some like a cognitive decline or something like that?

Chris Hulls (24:00.201) Yes, so my mom's unfortunately getting Alzheimer's now. So I'm sadly living this thing. And so we are going to get into elder care in two years. It's a good business move anyway, but I think I'm a very good product person and I can actually build a product that I need. But yes, I think you can detect so many signals from this data. so going back to the main point about why, I think there's...

Auren Hoffman (24:20.59) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (24:26.609) very rational reasons to be concerned about these big troves of data. just think that advocates get it wrong. It's not about, companies just want to make money and sell you targeted ads and maybe do cool insights. this idea of these nefarious companies wanting to sell your kids' location data is just, it's beyond conspiracy level thinking. It's just, I think, low IQ thinking because it's like you don't have to trace the steps too much. This does not have any rational sense of like how...

corporations operate. They're trying to make money.

Auren Hoffman (24:56.512) Well, I do think there are scenarios where there is hypothetical harm. There may have not been actual harm ever done in any way.

Chris Hulls (25:04.436) Or one in a million, but if there's one in a million harm, then we're not going do anything.

Auren Hoffman (25:08.834) Well, even one in a million, there's at least like, okay, well, at least we could, there could be someone who was harmed and we can talk about that scenario of why they were harmed. Usually it's still, it's not even one in a million. It's like, it's like no one's ever been harmed from this thing ever. you know, but, there's a hypothetical where they could be, and we want to protect against a hypothetical. And again, it's like, it, it, it goes back to that safetyism thing, like

Chris Hulls (25:16.115) Yep. Yep.

Chris Hulls (25:26.379) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (25:34.948) You can make every road perfect so that no one could ever get an accident on the road, or you could maybe wait to see a couple accidents in the middle. Okay, now we're going to make the road safer. It all depends on people's level of risk.

Chris Hulls (25:48.265) Yeah, exactly. there is no right answer there, but I think you can say, are you stack ranking, like that swimming pool thing? If you're worried about someone stealing your data, but you have an open swimming pool when your kids are there, you are making an illogical choice.

Auren Hoffman (25:52.556) Yeah, there's no right answer.

Auren Hoffman (25:58.084) Correct.

Auren Hoffman (26:03.416) Yeah, I do think that is the case today where a lot of these regulators, there are so many more harms. For instance, people being taken advantage of, older people being fished, hackers coming in and actually stealing money and doing nefarious things. Yet, they may be less focused on that and more focused on things that just haven't yet become harm.

Chris Hulls (26:14.624) Yes.

Chris Hulls (26:26.432) Yeah, for sure. And then to take the side of the privacy advocates a little bit, I think this like twinge of like, like all this data, what does this mean for the future of the world? Like, I think that can be scary because we have seen how people can be manipulated and how governments can misuse it. if you fast forward 50 years, and if we do have the AI super hive mind, like

Auren Hoffman (26:38.958) Totally. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (26:55.625) That does get very, very, very scary because it's a brave new world that no one can predict. like the whole, it's what sci-fi is all about. Like what happens when you basically know people's patterns so well that you can kind of like predict what they're going to do in the future.

Auren Hoffman (27:19.224) Yeah, one of things I think in like protecting the hypothetical is important is because like sentiment matters. Like if you think of like, what is the FTC, what is their goal? Their goal is to, is, is to enable more commerce, right? That is actually their goals. And, and people will create commerce if they feel safe and they feel like things are fair, right? If they think they're being taken advantage of all the time, they're going to be less likely to transact. And so they want the, it's not only just important that people are safe.

it's actually potentially even more important that people feel safe for them to transact.

Chris Hulls (27:54.729) Yeah, exactly. then weird thing going back to strange ink and grooties related to that. Somehow data is evil when it passes between third parties. But if Facebook or Google or Apple has it all in a first party system, somehow that's OK.

Auren Hoffman (28:07.79) Correct. Yeah. That is the weirdest thing. That doesn't make any sense. Like that, that clearly makes no sense at all. cause like, cause they're way more powerful because they can join like 50 databases. Whereas everyone else has this only tiny sliver that's out there. So you're right about that one. That one makes absolutely no sense.

Chris Hulls (28:10.655) Yes. But yeah, but if.

Chris Hulls (28:21.075) Yeah, so it's like we've... But if you do trace out what are the things that we should truly be worried about, it's the megacorporation that is like the dystopian future. And I don't think they're evil either, but it just seems like I don't think there's a...

Auren Hoffman (28:29.22) Correct, it's the mega ones, yeah, correct.

Auren Hoffman (28:35.716) Well, there's more potential for their harm at Apple, Google, Amazon. It's just because they're so much bigger, not because they're any more evil or doing in fact, they may be even better run and they may be, they may have better people, but there's just way more potential for harm just because they have so much more access. So they have more ability to do harm if something goes wrong.

Chris Hulls (28:56.415) Yeah. And I would say to be intellectually honest, in the short term, especially when data was new, as you know as well as me, it was Wild West out there. So I think in those early days of data, like, yeah, was fast and it all... Yeah, but it was just new though. And I'll give an example where...

Auren Hoffman (29:03.725) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (29:08.12) There were bad actors. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (29:15.483) We would get in trouble if we did this now, but it was, I'm going to get the year on, but probably 2012, we were brand new. had a very senior person at Disney wanted to meet us and it was Kevin Mayer, was CEO or something. We were excited about that meeting and me and my co-founder, Alex, we just kind of hacked together. We did have a God mode into where everyone was. There was nothing nefarious about this. We never used any wrong way, but we did this data visualization of people in Disneyland and then we traced individually back like, look, here's this thing and here's the exact home they live in.

line, like, look what you could do with all this. It was way before any of these laws came out, but it was nothing nefarious. Like, just look how cool this is. Look at all the, look at all this opportunity. And then things evolved and like, okay, wait a second. I even was like, wait, that was, that probably was a little loose that we could just like log into a laptop and see where millions of people were. But it was like, we probably didn't even have a million people then, but then of course it's Wild West. And then you have scaffolding and all that. there probably were some bad actors.

Auren Hoffman (29:50.285) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (29:58.2) That's a little weird. Yeah, a little creepy. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (30:13.429) There probably were some things that were fast and loose. We always tried to be very above board and have strong restrictions. We always limited sales to governments. Were the governments trying to do weird stuff with it and bypass? What's the fourth amendment? What's the run reasonable search? I get all my amendments mixed up, like, were they trying to bypass that? Probably, I don't know, but like, let's make the rules. Let's stop that from happening. I think we're like.

Auren Hoffman (30:32.622) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (30:42.36) Yeah, I have a subpoena, fine, but yeah.

Chris Hulls (30:42.943) Senator Wynne's like, let's solidify rules. Let's first realize that everything is messy when it's new. It doesn't make people evil. Me and Alex were single 20-somethings when we were doing all this. There was no big master evil plan. No one was evil. Let's solidify rules. Let's look at the big stuff. And why does it get so vilified? And there's probably some meta question around, it seems like there are all these modern day religions.

privacy advocacy is like a modern day religion to me. I don't know if there are always modern day religions we had more established true religions or not true, but like mainstream ones. But it certainly seems like people latch on to issues and they just become.

massively blown out of proportion and illogical.

Auren Hoffman (31:27.492) Yeah. One of the things is like, is companies are like people, like they make mistakes all the time. And sometimes it's not because there's any like design. Sometimes it's just an oversight. Sometimes it's like, they just didn't think it through or whatever. I didn't think through all the pieces. And to me, I like to see like, okay, when the company makes a mistake, like, okay, well, like, do they react to it? Do they admit?

Do they make amends? Do they then fix it so they're less likely to make that mistake in the future? Just like a person, you want people, when you have your toddler, are they learning from these things over time or are they going to continue to do these things over and over again? But nobody gives them, people don't think, a company should never make mistakes. It's like, well, of course a company's going to make mistakes. That's what happens.

Chris Hulls (32:02.217) Yeah. Yeah, and then semi-related. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I bet one thing that people have run companies, especially got to some piece of scale, is that the idea that there's some like hive mind around a company, it just doesn't exist. it's stacking on layer on layer and layer of individual actions. And as you get bigger, people have a narrower and narrower aperture almost by definition. So you get this like emergent behavior that might look like there's some master plan, but it's just like emergent behavior of

Auren Hoffman (32:24.473) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (32:41.801) large masses of people and I think that

Auren Hoffman (32:43.618) Yeah, exactly. Sometimes it's like, Apple decided this. It wasn't actually, it might have not been Apple. was like some person at Apple somewhere in the organization decided something like, I doubt the CEO even knew about it. It's like, they said, the communist China party, like, well, actually some random person decided, it's like, it may have not gone all the way to the top or the US government decided X. it's like, actually, I doubt it went to the president. It's some random person somewhere decided and...

Chris Hulls (33:08.042) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (33:12.652) It's maybe tons of other people in the government disagree, for whatever reason that got decided to do, but they're like, the whole government's policy. No, it's actually like it's Bob's policy or Mary's policy to do it.

Chris Hulls (33:23.485) Yeah. And you've probably, it gets to conspiracy theories, Illuminati and all that. Like I'm not a billionaire, but I've gotten pretty far along. You're further along than me, but I know lots of these billionaires and I'm still waiting to figure out when they open the secret door to where the true masterminds are. the billionaires I know are as confused as I am. Or I just haven't made the cut yet, or I'm just doing a good job of

Auren Hoffman (33:37.252) Totally.

Chris Hulls (33:53.961) lying and deceiving people about the secret cabal that yeah and on the i mean on the conspiracy i'd say

Auren Hoffman (33:55.204) Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're in on the conspiracy. Everyone, everyone on this call knows you're in on the conspiracy. You're just like, that's what someone in on the conspiracy would do. They would deny they're part of it. You know, one of the things that like, and I know you guys do this is like we, you know, all the companies I've been involved with that are like in the data world, they have this kind of thing they call the mom test where they basically take like everyone in the, all the employees of the company and they basically take their collective mom and say, okay, like, what can we do to protect this, this person, you know, and

Chris Hulls (34:03.934) Exactly.

Auren Hoffman (34:24.874) For most people, their moms are not, you know, maybe not the most savvy internet users. They do need protection. They could be taken advantage of by scammers and stuff like that. So we actually have like an obligation to take care of her. then they kind of bake in for almost every girl I know, like that mom is in the room of every product decision. Now, again, they might not always get it right.

Chris Hulls (34:29.523) Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (34:52.142) but she's in the room and they're actually taking that into account, that kind of core person in the account.

Chris Hulls (34:58.271) Yep, exactly.

Auren Hoffman (35:01.246) now what, you know, the, the, guys, which I, what I always thought interesting is like, there was a point where, in your history, where you, just, just based on the dint of your cap table, you had to go public and you kind of had to go public in an interesting way. You went public on the Australian stock market, walk us through that kind of journey.

Chris Hulls (35:21.707) Yeah. So if I back up even a couple underlying things, I grew up very middle-class and my dad was an entrepreneur, never had a big win. And we kind of had some money when I was a kid and then lost it all in high school. And that was a jarring thing. And my mom was almost starved to death as a kid as an immigrant from China, post-communist takeover. So I had some deep seated insecurities about money. I didn't want to be an entrepreneur as a whole longer story about how I fell into this.

It's very close to being a banker. And so when you go public, you clear out your preference stack. And I'm not sure if sophisticated all the listeners are here, but to oversimplify things when you're, okay.

Auren Hoffman (36:04.772) They're in the top one per or are listed as our top 1 % of sophistication.

Chris Hulls (36:09.083) Okay, so everyone knows if you're private, like the investors get paid before you and most founders eventually get fired and very few make it the whole way. so there's so many companies, I think it's happened in 2022 after the market, right? You're like, you could work 10 years and you're out and you get nothing. And I am very security focused. So I like being public to get a little bit wooed. I know a lot of CEOs do the Enneagram, which is kind of like horoscopes for a

Auren Hoffman (36:24.227) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (36:34.923) smart people, but I am a rare one for a CEO. I'm like a six, which is like the loyal skeptics. I'm very self preservation focused. three or eight, three is like a chief or eight is challenger. So I'm an extreme minority. Cause like, I'm anti risk taking, but I'm here, which some parallel to the company overall. So being public was like, okay, I'm going to get a little bit of equity. didn't, I didn't get a few money doing that by any means, but it meant that we would no longer have a situation where

Auren Hoffman (36:40.809) Yeah, most people are like a 3-ish, right?

Auren Hoffman (36:58.051) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (37:02.955) I would get fired or gone or we're out of home running.

Auren Hoffman (37:04.216) And you had a pref stack also where maybe people had like a 2X or 3X time of thing. Okay.

Chris Hulls (37:08.255) We didn't have any of that. It wasn't that messy, but it was getting bigger. mean, you, one thing I think we were smart about was we were a freemium business model, which is a high risk business model, but we were prescient enough to realize that the only way life 360 is sustainable is huge scale. Cause we did very quickly realize that we were onto a very fundamental use case enabled by mobile. And if you tried to put it behind a paywall, which many of our competitors do, you just be killed by the freemium product. That's what we beat out all the carriers who were trying to monetize early on.

Auren Hoffman (37:20.045) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (37:38.417) and we put them all out of business. So that was one, it was just downside protection. For me, the other one is we were not an overnight success. We were probably like literally seven years too early to this trend. And so we just had a messy cap table and it was a good moment to reset. And we were able to get some strategics out and they got to make some money too. So it was not like good nefarious things like time to transition. So that plus some.

Auren Hoffman (38:01.753) And Australia was just a easier place to make it happen as a public company.

Chris Hulls (38:06.091) Our very first angel investor, now very good friend and board member happened to be Australian in Australia and was actually on a vacation there to visit him where we just did a couple meetings and met the folks in the exchange. They were saying, come here instead of do the series D or whatever. And it was a very controversial thing to get through our boards. It was such a weird, weird thing to do. Yeah. But that is part of our success. Like I'm to say I'm a black sheep of black sheep.

Auren Hoffman (38:24.684) Yeah, yeah, because it's not common. Yeah. In fact, in fact, most of other companies I know who went public in Australia, like didn't survive. Like it was it was was almost like a sign that it was a bad sign.

Chris Hulls (38:34.569) Have there been, I've seen a few, yeah, but we, were more like first principles, like who cares? I mean, there, are some problems with it and like we've, we've hedged our bets a lot and ironically we've never needed any of these hedges. Cause when we, when we, well, some we have actually, we took venture debt early on and saved the company and a lot of people say you don't take venture debt. I just want it as a rainy day fund. And so a couple of times my conservatism has paid off, but I think we started the ASX process like 30 or 50 million in revenue and now we're closer to 400.

Auren Hoffman (38:41.613) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (39:04.469) So we've been fine. So I am happy with how it all worked out. If I had the same information, then I would not change that path. If I knew how well we have done, I wouldn't have done it because we wouldn't have needed to. But it worked quite well as that hedge. if you try to say, it didn't work for other companies, but more first principles, it was like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense for us.

Auren Hoffman (39:13.965) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (39:27.768) And eventually you, you listed on NASDAQ is, is, is that really just cause that's where it's just, you're way more respectable. If you're on NASDAQ, it's just like, that's where everyone treats the best companies. And it's just like, okay, we have to go on NASDAQ as well.

Chris Hulls (39:40.297) Yeah, yes and no. It's multiple things all at once, that being part of it. So, some days don't oversimplify. We are a US company in San Francisco. It's always a little bit weird.

Auren Hoffman (39:53.86) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (39:58.283) We have really not tried to do much corporate PR, but we want to attract good people. We want to have better access to capital. We want investors to understand us. Just make sense for us to be on the NASDAQ. We were hopeful that multiples would go up because we're like, we always traded very poorly relative to our peers. Now we're much more in the range and that happened after our listing. And I think it's because

Auren Hoffman (40:06.814) Good long term investors.

Yep.

Auren Hoffman (40:24.866) You're attracting a different class of investor too, right? That is kind of more used to it.

Chris Hulls (40:25.321) We are getting, and I really like our Australian investors. And I think it could be easy, man, some of the questions they ask are so basic, but we went there, we went to them and I try to put myself, she's like, they might've heard a pitch from like a coal mine earlier that day and then they're hearing a tech company and it's just small. if I were to start getting a pitch from a coal mine, I would probably sound quite dumb. So they're not dumb at all, they're just more.

Auren Hoffman (40:43.726) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (40:53.262) They invest in lots of things. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (40:53.355) because it's a smaller market. Yeah, exactly. So it was a natural transition. And then it has been great for us. The share price has done well. All of a sudden, it seems like we're recognized as a larger business. We were so under the radar. That actually worked in our favor because we had no competition, which is also very strange. It's getting much easier to hire. think that's only the ASX, moving to the NASDAQ, but we have a great COO, Lauren, who's just been amazing with senior hires she's done.

We have been one of the companies actually profitable and generating cash. Whereas like so many tech companies, the big valuations were subsizing growth. We have always been very prudent managers. I think everyone said they were doing that, but it took 2022 to kind of let the tide come out and see who actually was. And we never got ahead of our skis in terms of our burn. And so was very easy to navigate that transition. think companies with our profile are.

Auren Hoffman (41:42.318) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (41:51.017) are getting recognized now in a way that they weren't when it was the go-go days.

Auren Hoffman (41:55.012) Now, a few personal questions. you know, you are, we're, we're, we're taping this right now and you're just coming off of like almost a quarter sabbatical that you took off, which is pretty rare for anybody. And it's even more rare for CEO. And it's even more rare for a public company CEO to walk us through just like, how did you even think about it? And how would you recommend that?

Chris Hulls (42:04.873) Yep, it's amazing.

Chris Hulls (42:17.117) Yeah, I've wanted to do it for number of years. And this is my 17th year, so no one's going to accuse me of not putting in the time. We were waiting for the time being right, and I'm really happy with our leadership team now. I am irrelevant day to day. I have no ego attached to my job. If I ever felt someone who do my job better, I would happily give them their aims. I still think I'm needed from a vision and a lot of things, but day to day I'm not, which was awesome.

We got our listing done. We got through the right planning process and it was just, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it now. And I was just getting burned out and I only realized after this sabbatical how burned out I was. And that's very different than being depressed or stressed. actually think I'm quite good at not getting stressed. I very rarely feel stressed about work, but just the feeling of in this hamster wheel, that's, that was very...

I wasn't lying to myself. It turned out that I was in this hamster wheel and I was able to get out of that. So I wonder if like every five years you should do a reset. And it also forced the company to work without me and figure out where the weak points were. And there weren't that many day to day. But it was a good opportunity to step back and I like, I actually can be truly happy again. Not that I was depressed, but again, I was in a hamster wheel.

Auren Hoffman (43:35.236) Now, I think maybe at the beginning of it, I happen to see you in Europe with you and your kids and your wife. But then I assume at some point, like your kids have to go back to school and stuff. like, what did you do during that time?

Chris Hulls (43:39.136) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (43:50.123) I, to get the boring stuff out of the way, I did a trip to Europe, which overlapped with you a little bit in Europe, but that was for the family. I love sitting at home. so I did that. I did a bunch of personal stuff to get affairs in order. mentioned my mom getting Alzheimer's. So I lined up her care and did family planning stuff. And then I had a time where it was more inward and, spending some time to reflect. I'm, I'm into journeys of the mind. So I got deeply into meditation and I've.

Also try all sorts of different substances. And I think that's something, if I have to make predictions, I think this whole psychedelic thing is here to stay. Maybe you'll say a fringe-ish, but so many highly successful and competent people swear by them now. So I continue that journey. And try to.

Auren Hoffman (44:41.604)pp So you think in the future there'll be like more people, significantly more people doing like psychedelics than today?

Chris Hulls (44:48.659) I think so, yeah. I don't know how much it breaks out. Seems like a secret hidden in plain sight and a lot of them are legal now.

Auren Hoffman (44:54.468) Cause it does seem like we've kind of reached like peak marijuana use. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it seems like that's kind of leveling off and maybe even starting to go down a bit in the U S at least. Like there, there's just some sort of peak that it reached, but obviously psychedelics are less, you be less, less, used today. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (45:06.218) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (45:12.767) I think they're so different, they're not fun nor are they always easy. Like they're stretching you often.

Auren Hoffman (45:18.117) It's not a everyday use like some people use for a marijuana or something.

Chris Hulls (45:20.657) No. I mean, some, like ketamine is an extremely powerful and legal one. And some people who have used it recreationally, I've kind of given them the full experience. Like, no, you're kind of missing the points. Like, well, it's not even the same feeling or drug or anything. I don't think we're going to get a world where everyone's addicted on psychedelics. This is not how they work, especially for people who do them. It's often not pleasant.

but good. I think that the trend is here to stay and I would make a prediction that of successful CEOs, will in the not too distant future, the majority will be using them. I bet. Yeah. I'll put that a 10 year prediction.

Auren Hoffman (46:03.104) Majority. wow. A majority are doing things at least once a year type of thing. Is that what you think? Every few years. OK.

Chris Hulls (46:11.673) every few years. Some will go lot more hardcore, but I just think it's such a powerful...

Auren Hoffman (46:16.834) And not just that Burning Man, but that they're doing it for like, for other kind of things. Okay.

Chris Hulls (46:21.993) Yeah, self-personal development ways that will actually help.

Auren Hoffman (46:25.892) Okay, wow, that would be the majority. I would be surprised, but I would be a little I guess I guess we'll find out. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (46:31.231) Well, that's a longer term. Maybe I say a third, but if I'm provocative, at some point it will be the majority. I'm not saying they're going to be doing it all every week and be these gurus or whatever, but I think it will be a very accepted part of the toolkit. Ten years.

Auren Hoffman (46:35.758) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (46:44.226) Yeah, you might be. mean, for Silicon Valley CEOs of just like tech companies, maybe not public tech companies, but of just like, let's say series B and up tech companies, I certainly say it's over 10%. You know, and maybe maybe it's as high as I thought. I don't know.

Chris Hulls (46:56.531) Yeah. Yeah, it's moving up and I bet of the public company. Well, the public company CEOs traditionally are older and are not the founders. So I'm kind of, I think the founders of the crazier break the rule. And so I will limit my prediction to, it's a little different. And they're more open to it, but I think for creative people, think they will hear so many respectable people talking about how powerful it was that they're going to get on the bandwagon.

Auren Hoffman (47:09.698) Yeah, that's right. People who rise to corporate ranks are probably less likely to do those things. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (47:24.085) think even Steve Jobs is talking about acid being such a fundamental thing for him. But it was illegal then. Yeah, but still doing it. I think this stuff sticks with you in terms of breaking you out of a rigid way of thinking.

Auren Hoffman (47:28.972) Yeah, but he was doing it when he was 20.

Auren Hoffman (47:35.076) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (47:39.076) For somebody like me that has never done any of that, like smoke to join or anything, if you had to like try to convince me, what would you say?

Chris Hulls (47:50.1) do you like food?

Auren Hoffman (47:54.69) Kind of, yeah, I mean, I like donuts.

Chris Hulls (47:55.369) Kind of, okay, a lot of people say, I don't need this. I can read about it. I get it. be able to, some people would like, it's almost like someone saying like, I read the recipe for the donut. I know what's in it. It's flour and sugar. Like, I don't need to try it. Look, I got the menu right here. So it's like, you're reading the menu, but not eating the food. Like, first person experience is a whole different ball game.

Auren Hoffman (48:03.618) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (48:10.37) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Chris Hulls (48:24.885) I think people, I think one of the things we are seeing is like there are different waves of science and all that. And I think we started overlooking the whole aspect of phenomenology. It's like everything's objective, third party human experiences, somehow like this thing that is lesser than, and it's more like all this arms length, cause and effect, all mathematical, but like, what if consciousness is the...

is the more fundamental piece and like how certain things are ineffable and can't really be easily put into words or numbers. Maybe everything can be numbers at some point, I don't know, but like words for sure. So I would just say you absolutely can't logic chop your way to say that you know it or understand it. And so I encourage people to look at that. And then it's also extremely safe. The one I think should be used more is ketamine.

Auren Hoffman (49:04.483) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (49:16.366) Yep.

Chris Hulls (49:23.627) And that's because it's first off, it's fully legal. So I can be on here talking about it and maybe some investors thinks I'm weird. Unfortunately, far enough in life. I don't really care about that. I don't want to lose my job or whatever, but someone thinks I'm weird. That doesn't bother me. So any even a public company CEO, you got a prescription. So it's legal. It's also extremely safe. Safe in that it was started as a combat anesthetic and it was

combat anesthetics because it does not decrease your central nervous system. So you will keep breathing. And then if your kid breaks their arm and goes to the ER, they will give them ketamine without your permission. It's going to be a dose that's far higher than the psychedelic dose. So the odds of this thing hurting you is essentially zero. Because again,

Auren Hoffman (50:12.386) Now I know people that I know people, especially in the tech community that take ketamine. but sometimes it's, it's just for like, it's for, to treat a specific thing, like to treat depression or to treat. So, you know, it's not necessarily just like, just to expand your mind or, or something like that, but you think it just has kind of like just general benefits outside of those specific things.

Chris Hulls (50:21.663) Yes.

Chris Hulls (50:32.283) yeah, absolutely. I've got a whole, whole layer of them. As I said, my video is looking blurry. Is that my clear to you? It'll be okay. Just making sure that it's flagged and known. Beyond the ketamine piece, there's a, I used it both therapeutically and to explore the universe, so to speak.

Auren Hoffman (50:40.439) no, it will all work out. Yep. Yep.

Auren Hoffman (50:54.052) Okay. Speaking of exploring the universe, you a few years ago or a year ago or so entered into a pumpkin contest. think for people watching the video can see it behind you. you, so what you grew a pumpkin. I don't even understand. Like, and did you, yeah.

Chris Hulls (51:05.821) That's right. Yeah, those are my two daughters.

Chris Hulls (51:11.275) You know, this was during COVID and it was like everyone got weird and I have a couple acres out in my small hometown and I just bought it then and I decided I would try to win the world record pumpkin.

Auren Hoffman (51:22.414) But how did you get the pumpkin? Like, did you make the pumpkin or did you?

Chris Hulls (51:25.483) Yeah, I grew, I got a seed. There's a whole subculture of pumpkin growers and he's jockeying for in the black market for seeds and it really starts with the seed. if you want to win, have to get like.

Auren Hoffman (51:33.774) So you have to find like, just like I would find like a jeans of a seven foot tall person if I wanted a super tall person.

Chris Hulls (51:40.051) Yeah, they literally trace the lineage like pure breed dogs or whatever. it's like the mother and father, male and female lines and they trace them. So there's a whole subculture of

Auren Hoffman (51:49.23) So when your pumpkin eventually like, you know, went under, like you could sell the seeds and make all this money and stuff or.

Chris Hulls (51:56.843) I unfortunately did not succeed in my goal. I only hit 13th in the Super Bowl of pumpkins, but as a first timer in Half Moon Bay, 13th place, and I had long hair and I just went full on crazy. And it was, I just had a lot of fun. I put it in a trailer and we, was a thousand, I won $200. I think the hotel room, if you stay to the Ritz right next door and I actually.

Auren Hoffman (52:03.374) So you entered the Super Bowl of Pumpkins, you came 13th place.

Auren Hoffman (52:14.404) but you get a thousand pound pumpkin, right?

Nice.

Chris Hulls (52:22.195) I pulled up to the Ritz. My wife is an X7, so next fancy SUV, and we had a big old pumpkin on a trailer in the back. And do you believe they charged me extra $50 to park with the pumpkin there? I was like, this should be fun for you. I like, come on, I'm spending how much to stay there? Yeah. Yeah, stupid hobbies. The seat is the key, but to really win,

Auren Hoffman (52:31.176) with a pumpkin? That's hilarious.

Auren Hoffman (52:39.268) So the seed is the key thing in growing like a, okay. It's just like, if I want to have a seven foot tall kid, it's probably unlikely I'm going to be able to do that given my genes or something. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (52:48.511) Yeah, sorry, man. Yeah, not happening. So it's the seed, and then it's very involved. And one pumpkin plant can reach 2,000 square feet, and you only grow one on a plant. And I'm not exaggerating that number. They grow...

Auren Hoffman (53:00.196) Wait wait wait 2000 square feet

Chris Hulls (53:03.499) Yes. So these things grow geometrically. So you have a main line, they branch out to secondary lines. So it's like, it's an exponential growth. Yes. So you do need a lot of areas. They have special contests for growing in small areas because not everyone has a, you don't actually want them to grow 2000 square feet. There's like people, it's pretty hard core. Like they found the ideal size of leaf to plant ratio.

Auren Hoffman (53:07.758) Holy mackerel. Okay, that's like a house. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (53:24.136) Because then he confines it and it grows up a little bit more and stuff like that.

Chris Hulls (53:26.919) Yeah, so I think you want to use about 1500 square feet because you don't want to put too much of the energy into the leaves. You want it to go into one fruit. So it's very, very involved and you bury each leafaxe. The person who won, she told me she spends five hours a day on her pumpkins in peak growing season. So I have no time for that.

Auren Hoffman (53:43.704) But what? do you do during that? Like are you just constantly like weeding it and stuff or like praying or?

Chris Hulls (53:48.689) So yeah, you're weeding it, putting nutrients, you're doing soil tests, you're pruning it, you're getting rid of diseases and bugs. it's a, so I did not do that. So.

Auren Hoffman (54:00.74) So you just got lucky because you had one, you just have, you have one shot basically. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (54:03.307) Well, I didn't get lucky. Well, I did get lucky in that most people grow like five and usually one dies and you only have one pumpkin per plant because you want all the energy to grow into the one pumpkin. So I got lucky in that mine didn't die. But mine was only a thousand pounds. The world record's like 2400 or something. Maybe 27 now. Every year they're going up. Yeah, so I probably got good at 13th and I kept my $200 check. It's actually on the wall to my right. It's on there.

Auren Hoffman (54:09.176) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (54:15.886) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (54:20.747) wow. That's like the sumo wrestler of pumpkin. OK.

Chris Hulls (54:33.567) Mementos, I'm I'm stupidly competitive the other trophy out there. It was my early employee Andreas gross Maybe listen to this we did a go-kart race We bet $10 and I made us plaques at first place me Chris all's last place Andreas gross So I put this up on my desk just rub in my and I took the $10 you gave me and I put it in that trophy Maybe there is something though. Like don't take life too seriously. Like if you're a hyper competitive person as I am like

Auren Hoffman (54:34.488) That's awesome.

Auren Hoffman (54:53.038) That's hilarious.

Auren Hoffman (54:58.99) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (54:59.679) Just be competitive about stupid stuff because I think there is something like, whatever prize, just going back to deconstructing human behavior, it's very interesting how judgmental people get about different accomplishments. But one thing I think is very funny, everyone knows all the analogy, digging holes in the sand, how stupid that is, right? If someone's wasting time, they're digging a hole in the sand. But look at the Olympics. Go back to first principles. How absurd is it people...

Auren Hoffman (55:01.827) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (55:27.433) dedicate their lives to jumping higher than somebody else. I jumped over a stick. It's so stupid.

Auren Hoffman (55:30.124) Yeah, Yeah, especially nowadays when you could get an airplane or something or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Hulls (55:36.363) I'm not saying that judgmentally. I'm saying that actually very this is the human condition and yes, so I But there is some intrinsic success I have because I started a company went public I can feel inferior because I'm not Elon Musk and I've been there. He'll look to your left You feel poor you looked you're right feel rich but just the absurdity of human competition is just really go first principles like on so many things are human they've like

Auren Hoffman (55:41.846) Yeah, we love it.

Chris Hulls (56:04.691) I don't know why it's the pole vaulting or whatever. I find it the one that's the most absurd, like people getting so excited about jumping higher than somebody else. And I'm not anti-sports at all. actually get it a lot, like discipline and teamwork and like you need competitiveness to drive, just most human behaviors are quite absurd when you unpack.

Auren Hoffman (56:13.892) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (56:26.904) Well, it's just, it's, it's, if you think my, my father-in-law is a poll holder, and I, yeah, no, I mean, but it's like, it's like, it's just, it's the, it's the will to just do something different and be better at other, you know, and compete. And it's just, and, that, course, if people want to watch it, then it's even more exciting because wow, it's like, well, then I'm entertaining people. And so I'm, it's like, it's just like the juggler or the magician that entertains you.

Chris Hulls (56:31.548) shoot, jeez,

Chris Hulls (56:46.591) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (56:51.583) Yeah. And I'd say then when I do see some people, we're coastal leaders, they get very judgmental of small achievements. Like you see on Facebook, especially if you're like someone, I saw a post of their cosmetology license they got and they're so proud of themselves. It's very easy to be judgmental. But it's also like, so many people are playing status games, even if they don't realize it. Somehow your achievement's a real achievement and I'm not being superficial. This is a real achievement. But no, you're all dead in the end and like,

Auren Hoffman (57:13.508) yeah, we all are. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (57:20.969) And like, disdain some of the, some of the elitism stuff now and the fancy dinners and awards and self-congratulatory behavior. It's just, it's as dumb as my pumpkin.

Auren Hoffman (57:34.946) Now, what is the conspiracy theory that you believe?

Chris Hulls (57:39.397) I... You sent me that one ahead of time, I'm not... sure...

Chris Hulls (57:49.323) I have more like an indirect conspiracy theory, which is, I think the whole deep state thing is real, but in a different way than I think Trump or whatever. It's kind of going back to like our behavior of people. Like to me, the deep state is there are these individual actions of thousands of people who have been indoctrinated by different ideologies and they kind of miss the bigger picture, kind of like pole vaulting or growing pumpkins. And we have this machine that is.

Auren Hoffman (57:52.322) Okay.

Auren Hoffman (57:59.863) Okay.

Chris Hulls (58:19.307) growing like a cancer that will kill us. And this is not a Donald Trump pro-statement by any means. I don't like, and I'm not political, but this conspiracy, think that maybe it's deeper than America, that institutions will eventually self-corrupt by sheer size because bureaucracies just grow and running companies. I think most of us seem like, people always hire more people.

Auren Hoffman (58:42.296) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just, all bureaucracies grow and then they take care of themselves and they don't always see the bigger picture. Right. I mean, it's just like, we all do that.

Chris Hulls (58:49.149) Yes, So, yeah, so I'm a believer in the deep state, but without a controlled central planner. And that, that we

Auren Hoffman (58:57.7) Okay. So it's like a Darwinian deep state where it's just the survival of the fittest and just kind of grows and evolves in an organic way, but without like some sort of centralized design.

Chris Hulls (59:09.765) No master plan. Yeah, maybe in some hyperdimensional being there's something. But yes, it's almost like this is just, you could probably trace it down to some neuronal behavior. There's a neuron that's black and this one's white. And then this one wants to be the opposite color of the other one. This weird emergent pattern evolves from these very simple set of rules, almost like a fractal. So I.

feel like maybe that's why all empires eventually seem to self-implode. And maybe why America has done so well is even if capitalism can be cruel and rugged individualism is not the theoretical ideal end state. I think Star Trek had a good theoretical ideal end state, like money is post-scarcity, all that. In this practical, terrible Darwinian world we are now, maybe the reason America is so resilient is that we

celebrate individualism and success because that is a way of breaking down like strict rigid institutional structures that again no master plan but just self-reinforced.

Auren Hoffman (01:00:15.3) Our last question we ask all of our guests, what conventional wisdom or advice do you think is generally bad advice?

Chris Hulls (01:00:20.843) Well, I have one on startups. It's becoming accepted wisdom, but I'm happy because I was going on a limb here thinking that I was alone. So this probably won't be unconventional now, but still there's some last gasps of this. Vision is so much more important than data and the lean startup, one of the most toxic and terrible moves for Silicon Valley. And I think people who

Auren Hoffman (01:00:40.02) okay. Explain more. I think this is still a little controversial. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:00:45.649) Is it really smart people can make themselves very stupid by following frameworks?

Auren Hoffman (01:00:54.574) Yep.

Chris Hulls (01:00:59.408) I think maybe early.

Auren Hoffman (01:00:59.46) Cause it's been like, mean, obviously you have like Eric Reese and Steve Blank and you have all these like very smart people have been writing books about this kind of leaner startup thing.

Chris Hulls (01:01:07.029) But I don't think people even know if they disagree with me. I think it got perverted. It's become a cargo cult where I think if you're a founder, let's just go back to when all those big things came out. I miss the dot com boom, but now I guess I'm all because of the mobile boom. The types of founders, I'm curious if you agree with me on this, but go back 15 years. When people were founders, it was the archetype of people who were ambitious, followed their own paths, probably

Auren Hoffman (01:01:12.673) Okay.

Auren Hoffman (01:01:24.397) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:01:36.875) always certain, often wrong stereotypes applied to VCs. Those were founders. Overconfident. I think the lean startup was a very good say for someone like that. Say, check your assumptions, measure everything. You're going to be wrong a lot. And by the way, this whole tech thing is very immature. you're

Auren Hoffman (01:01:56.382) It's just A B testing everything is kind of the lean startup way, right?

Chris Hulls (01:01:58.793) Yeah. being, yeah, I think that actually makes a lot of sense, but now fast forward to where we are now being the tech ecosystems, probably 10 times bigger than 2008 and a hundred times bigger than after the dot com crash. People starting companies that people are trying to like put a formula around startups. And there's this, I think lean startup, it's called a cargo cult because like, look, we're AB testing. We're pivoting. We're learning. But they're just like.

Auren Hoffman (01:02:25.762) Yeah, yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:02:27.487) the leaf in the wind is blowing around. And so think for someone like me, like I am overly confident, like, yes, check my assumptions, check the data, that makes sense. So I don't think it's bad in theory, but I think it's being misapplied by people who want a playbook and that just doesn't exist. And I think with the founders I know are really top ones. I have not heard a single founder saying that their team don't use data enough.

Auren Hoffman (01:02:35.577) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:02:56.501) But I hear so many founders and CEOs like, why are my teams so narrow minded and missing the bigger picture? And because it's like outcome versus output and running a lot of tests becomes like, I'm running tests. I'm doing my job. Like, no, you're not. Your job is to drive outcomes. And so it's not anti-data. It's just zooming out and like, what is, how do we, how do we fit it into this bigger picture?

Auren Hoffman (01:03:02.361) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (01:03:17.7) Yeah, so many, there are so many companies, think that, you know, they say they're using data, but they're not, they're not actually using it that well. And they would be better off almost using anecdotes and kind of our, or thinking about things or just kind of understand it's like, my mom is going through this issue. therefore, you know, I, know, those types of things, probably, probably, you know, maybe not perfect, but maybe, but maybe better than the way they use data today.

Chris Hulls (01:03:36.874) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. would say vision number one, judgment number two, data number three. And in some ways, judgment is sort of like this Bayesian pattern matching that we've got from our vision and tying it all together. So I think when people talk about intuition or judgment, it's not anti-data per se. I think it's like the synthesis of a vision and the data. And most people don't have that.

Auren Hoffman (01:03:53.986) Yeah, anecdotes. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (01:04:02.946) Yeah.

Yeah, well also a lot, I mean, a lot of times you're wrong on your vision. A lot of people are wrong on their vision. so, you know, the whole idea of Lean Startup is I think it was to make it a little less likely people would be wrong or something like that.

Chris Hulls (01:04:10.997) for sure.

Chris Hulls (01:04:21.321) Yeah. But I think the other thing though is like, what was the ecosystem at that point in time? And a lot of that was applied to like mobile. Yeah. It was a great time to A-B test because there was not, there weren't established incumbents all over the place. yeah. So yeah, you could launch a piece of crap. And if people were searching in the app stores, like, there's demand here, but we're mature and just say, so maybe an AI, is actually a great thing now. Like try a bunch of stuff and to see if anything clicks is no competition. So.

Auren Hoffman (01:04:29.646) Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're doing a little app store things and stuff like that or whatever.

Auren Hoffman (01:04:50.798) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:04:51.273) I think a lot goes back to start with first principles always. It's probably not controversial to you or any founder, but at least know why you're applying this framework when you're not. Just don't blindly apply it. So yeah, so there's something completely green field.

Auren Hoffman (01:05:03.256) The first principles thing is hard though. Even that one is super hard. Like you can't go to first principles on every single thing. I, I don't even like go to first principles on like, like some things you just have to accept conventional wisdom on. like I've never proved to myself that the earth is round. I'm just kind of like accepting the conventional wisdom that, that it is round. or I've never, I don't, I don't know that we didn't fake the moon landing or so. I'm just accepting the conventional wisdom that we went to the moon in 69. Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:05:15.616) Fair.

Chris Hulls (01:05:23.337) Yeah, for-

Chris Hulls (01:05:29.449) I completely agree, but then I think maybe have this tickle when like the conventional wisdom something doesn't feel right, kind of poke at a little bit.

Auren Hoffman (01:05:35.704) That's right. Then dive in. You got to go dive in on something. You just can't dive in on everything.

Chris Hulls (01:05:40.587) I, yeah. And then you probably also want to intentionally be contrarian on one or two things. Cause if you're not, you're probably like copying. So I completely agree. and then we have to trust our experts and at times one thing that I don't know, I'm going here, but like, I think it like the big fights around like climate change and, and like, right. So I always tell people like people are so certain on both sides. And I'm like, look, I, I've, I've 99 % sure you've never gone dug up an ice score. You're having to trust people.

Auren Hoffman (01:05:48.441) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (01:06:09.431) Yeah.

Chris Hulls (01:06:09.683) And so at some point you need to trust people. And part of our problem now is like, we don't have these trusts and institutions and best practices and maybe it's some sort of pendulum. like, think people trusted the lean startup way too much. Cause like it just became like a cult. So what, when do you trust? When do you push? not easy.

Auren Hoffman (01:06:21.688) Yep, that's right.

Auren Hoffman (01:06:25.772) Yeah, yeah, we trust our tribe, but we don't always trust other things outside the tribe, which is maybe... Yeah, it was a tribe.

Chris Hulls (01:06:30.903) Maybe the LeanStarter became a tribe. It's become the thing in and of itself. When do you test? When do you not test? Because I'm not anti-data whatsoever. It's just how do you apply it appropriately and know its limits.

Auren Hoffman (01:06:44.504) This has been amazing. Thank you, Chris Holes, CEO of Life360 for joining us on World of Deaths. I follow you at ChrisHoles on X. I definitely encourage our listeners to engage you there. This has been a ton of fun.

Chris Hulls (01:06:56.553) Cool. Thank you so much, Warren. I appreciate it and good conversation.