1_13 Mary Lin: Immigrant Grit, Community as Capital, and Trusting Your Own Path

Today my guest is Mary Lin. Mary is the cofounder of Odin, a startup that builds powerful tools allowing people to invest together in anything. Long term, Odin’s vision is to drive systemic change, by creating better ways for people to connect, collaborate and create value.

You can follow Mary at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-yizhi-lin.

Transcript

[00:00:28] RS: Mary, welcome. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.

[00:00:30] So we were just laughing before we got started during the troubleshoot, and I was like looking for your bio on LinkedIn. Obviously you've done it quite a bit in your life. And we'll talk a little bit what those things are, but you made a reference to how bios are really difficult to write, especially for somebody who's very experimental, who's done a lot of stuff.

[00:00:48] So let's start there. I think that's an interesting contentious point because I also find it very difficult to write bios having an experimenter all my life. So let's start there. What is your bio now and what was it a year ago?

[00:01:01] ML: Like on LinkedIn it was literally, the worst ones. I hate it when people write this and it's if you send an invite, please include a message. Oh, that was it. And then I tried to write a proper kind of LinkedIn about section and it ended up, like way too long.

[00:01:18] It was at least, probably 20, 30 lines. And at the bottom it was like, this is a work in progress. And then, cause I have a million tabs open, I clearly closed the tab and then lost lost everything I wrote. So now it's literally just talking about Odin. It's building a better way to invest together our product, blah, blah, blah.

[00:01:37] And then it's founders, feel free to drop me a message if you're interested in keeping your cap table clean. So it's not really not really a bio. Yeah. Still don't have a good. Bio written. But normally I end up starting with something like, I was born in China, moved to the UK when I was four, and then I go into ah these are my parents stories.

[00:02:00] And they had, here's their bios, that's my bio. No, so we ended up moving here when I was four. I was into the uk. And then really just goes into how, like my life changed over the last 20 to 30 years. And man, my bio litty is like always 10 minutes long, which is really bad.

[00:02:19] RS: I wonder why do you feel it's much more comfortable for you to sketch it out that way? Talk about your high, where you started and not go all the way back. Why is that a better?

[00:02:32] ML: I think probably because the times when I'm giving a bio, it's usually something to do with work, right? And if they wanna understand why we're doing what we're doing at Odin, which I always think is super super important, right? To understand why someone's building something and why this is personal to them.

[00:02:50] It's not always important to many investors. You realize that. But I find it really important and it helps, I think, explain how we're different from maybe other companies that seem like they're doing something similar. But really if you hear the story kind of, I think makes it a lot clearer why this is clearly very different.

[00:03:08] And yeah, like why the vision, how that ties to mine and Patty's personal stories rather than just being like, oh yeah, this is just a really big ambitious thing we wanna do because I don't know because it has the potential to make you load of money or something like that. Personal stories, it's like very clear that isn't the reason. 

[00:03:27] RS: that surprises me a little bit. I found like angel investors and early stage VCs generally do care about where somebody comes from. But I think to your point, and I'm, maybe I'm projecting here, but I find with minorities and people came here as immigrants and so on, that is such a huge part of how we're motivated.

[00:03:44] ML: Or at least, when someone asks the why it the answer they're looking for, it feels like people are quite satisfied with a very kinda shallow explanation. Oh, of course you are in this. You worked in startups before , so therefore this makes sense. And I'm like that's not really why . 

[00:04:00] RS: Yeah. Or you worked in the capital market, so now you're doing startup stuff. Okay. Oh, great. Okay. Which is maybe for Summit, it's, but this 

[00:04:07] ML: Oh, you were a consultant. Oh, of course. That makes sense. You're a vc. 

[00:04:11] RS: Oh, you McKinsey, okay. And now have a fund. Okay, good.

[00:04:15] So that's really funny. Okay, so let's dive your upbringing. Cause I think it's interesting and I'm gonna touch a lot of on your episode on Rational VCs podcast. And as I was saying before we started that's really how I discovered both you and Paddy. I had heard of Odin, but to hear your story of your parents and how they came to the UK and how you grew up... maybe not mysterious to a lot of immigrants who had a similar trajectory but it's still remarkable nonetheless. Every time you hear it resonates with me cuz my father and parents have a similar story. I think that was similar story, but every time you hear it's still pretty amazing. Anyway I would love to hear a little bit about how your parents came to the uk. What were they doing before that? What was life like once they moved here to the UK when you were born? 

[00:04:57] ML: So my my mum and my dad came from really extremely different backgrounds. And people are always like, how on earth did they even meet? They actually met at a train station in the queue and my mom approached my dad and started making conversation.

[00:05:09] She's a very kind of independent, strong woman who makes sense that she made the first move. So my dad grew up in rural China and it was way before all of this development was happening. So now there'll be loads of like high rises, but back in those days, everyone just worked on the land.

[00:05:24] Not very many people would've graduated like primary school. He was one of nine, he was the second youngest. And the day-to-day would've been like carrying a basket of eggs to the market to try and sell them for one pence each. And then maybe being able to buy a pen if if they made enough money.

[00:05:41] So they were super poor to the point where two of his siblings, the two brothers that were directly above him in terms of age, both died of hunger. So there was quite a large difference between him and the closest older sibling. And everyone was very you should work on the farm. Don't be selfish. Like why are you trying to go to high school? Nevermind university, right? You should just help the family out and do the hard manual labor on the farm. And he was very I don't wanna, he did one day I think of work on the, I was like, I never wanna do this again. Cause it was super tough, right? And. He ended up, studying really hard. There wasn't like electricity or anything, so he would go to a bathroom, put a chair in the bathroom, and I stand there with a book like holding up to the light to try and learn. And took him, I think two or three tries to then get into like middle school.

[00:06:32] So there was like a bunch of different tests and ended up going to one of the best unis in China, which is great, everyone else at the university would've come from such a different background that he didn't really have like friends there. And also as someone who was super, super poor, he basically wouldn't really be able to afford even like lunch or, can't even really afford food.

[00:06:54] And the professors would give him these lunch tokens cuz they knew about his situation. And then he'd be sitting there like with this eggshell with some salt in it. And then he'd be eating his rice, stabbing his chopsticks, the eggshell eating the salt to make it look like he could afford an egg, which is obviously like super sad.

[00:07:10] And then he actually got sent over to the uk and went to Imperial College, a visiting scholar which was one of the reasons I also decided to go, cause I oh, wouldn't it be nice if we went to the same meeting? He didn't care. . 

[00:07:21] RS: What was he studying at that time that he got sent to Imperial?

[00:07:23] ML: So he studied computer science. Yeah. So when we were at home, when I was younger, we, that we had, it's so many stories, right? It's like tech Entrepreneur had, oh, I had a computer at home from a really young age, flapping around. was doing some stuff and found it fun, which wasn't very exciting, and like getting rid of viruses on the computer oh, this is really fun. And then the, like a tiny bit of coding when I was quite young, but then didn't really go down that path. 

[00:07:48] And then my mum's side, her granddad's family used to own quite a lot of land in what used to be the capital city in China until the communist party took, obviously took everything. I don't think that happened in her upbringing. She just knew that it had happened. So she didn't grow up with money or anything. But obviously you're still aware that, oh, there was some injustice that was done and yeah, I dunno if that would've been the thing that affected why she's like super independent, it was like class president through, the kid that's just like a massive overachiever and has always been like that. And then when we came to the UK together, As a family when I was four, we, lived in one of those houses where quite a few immigrant families.

[00:08:32] RS: So your mom and dad were already together. You were born in China then? 

[00:08:35] ML: Yeah. So I was born in China and then we came over when I was four-ish. My dad came like a year early to figure things out and then brought us over and then he would be at the university during the day and then he would be out he would work his way I was gonna say waitressing job, but obviously that's ridiculous. He was a waitress in the evenings and then would wake us up at 11:00 PM with, and we'd all eat like the leftovers from the restaurant. Yeah, so we came when I was four, we didn't have any money. 

[00:09:01] I think if the parents really value like education, but it's always like the first the best way to make sure the kids gonna be okay.

[00:09:08] Especially if you end up going to, like a world leading top tier university probably things are gonna be fine. So anyway, arrived with no money and then dad was a software engineer. So again, all right, pay and very kind of middle class. And then the first school I went to was a state school on the outskirts of Bristol which is a really nice city. I went to the state primary school which was really fun, honestly. I did really well there. I think, and I think I tend to do better in.

[00:09:36] Environments where like you are the best and then all the teachers also focus on you, right? Which doesn't, I think if you go to a private school, that's less likely to happen, right? Because if everyone's paying the same amount, I think parents would probably complain if one student was getting all the attention.

[00:09:53] Whereas at the primary school, like no one really cared. And then went to a private high school. Like a lot of Asian parents, there was a lot of sacrifice. Like no one spent money on themselves. It was all being saved up to put into mind and my brother's education.

[00:10:07] But in the first, yeah, so first high school I went to two different ones. First high school I had two scholarships. Which meant that we could afford it. There were other schools that were better but at the time we couldn't afford to go to any of those. And then moved to Oxford.

[00:10:22] So the first private school was like an average normal private school. And the second one was a lot more kind of academically. Yeah, they like really cared about, like Oxbridge acceptance rates. And a lot of people kinda had like parents who, maybe knew someone or someone was the dean of admissions.

[00:10:39] And it was the first glimpse I had into a world where, things didn't work exactly. Like my parents said, you just work hard and it's fine. And that that was the first kind of eye-opening experience where I was like, ah, and also across the different schools, like everyone was getting wealthier and wealthier. And then when I came to uni in London again, that's like another step, right?

[00:10:58] Oh, international students oh my God, there's people with like serious cash here. And some friends on my course we would go and work in a project together and it would be like someone whose parents would've have just bought their kids, the two sisters, like a four floor terrace, there's like really fancy, quite yeah buildings in South Kensington. Yeah. And that was just bought for the two kids and there were a bunch of maids as well living there. And I was like, holy crap. 

[00:11:27] RS: Is that Imperial? Imperial College? 

[00:11:28] ML: Yeah, Imperial. Yeah. Yeah. So that was interesting. And then yeah, so that was up to uni. 

[00:11:33] RS: I wanna touch on that comment you made about the first time you realized, okay, things don't really work the way that my parents told me, which is like a straightforward, linear path. Work hard, you get what you deserve, you work hard some more, you get what you deserve. What was that observation based on, you said that there's a lot of like close networks of people referrals and people knowing each other, which is not necessarily a bad thing, 

[00:11:54] ML: yeah. Agreed. Yeah. So it was basically when we were doing university applications and there were people who, should not have gotten in, didn't make the grades or whatever, and then, , it would be like, oh, I didn't get into this college, but their Godfather or whatever, worked at a different college and brought them in and gave them Theoral scholarship.

[00:12:11] And I was like, okay. And then, other students, it would be like, oh, they obviously it's not just grade based, right? But it was like, oh, I thought these were like solid rules, that if you don't make the grades, like you don't get in and whatever. And then also where some parents, the kid didn't get in and then the parent calls up the college and somehow the kid is now in and I'm like, Ugh.

[00:12:34] That's definitely not what my mum would've even, I don't think she probably was even aware that would've been what was happening. In the colleges either even though she then went to work at the college. 

[00:12:44] RS: I'm curious by the time you went to Imperial, you've already gone through a number of years where coming from the modest upbringing that you are used to ever since you first gone into the uk and then you mentioned the older you grew, there was more and more, privilege and more private schools.

[00:12:59] What was that like? Were you just used to, because you were really smart and you were already gifted, didn't really matter that much. You mentioned that your father had no money, right? He'd had salt and eggs basically and , he was very self-aware about how much of a privilege he does not have. Knowing that you had that legacy, what was that like being in those privileged spaces. 

[00:13:22] ML: It didn't really feel like anything weird. I think just the fact that going from even China to the UK was like such a different, oh, my parents have very different values, so the people here, , like the difference between the home environment was already so different to, outside the home that I think when your brain already adapts to that, like nothing really shocks me, no experiences.

[00:13:47] When they're new, I'm not like, oh wow, this is new. It's just another experience, it's just another yeah. So whether it's being around people who come from an extremely different background it's not like a, doesn't really feel it would be like just going from playing tennis to then doing some yoga, oh, it's just, this is different.

[00:14:10] RS: So is it because some sort of really strong sense of self-worth? Or is it more okay, I've seen so many different ways of being so many different kinds of people that I've been tempered. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't strike me something weird. 

[00:14:23] ML: So I think yeah, the first experience that would've done that is just going from, China to England and adapting already to it kind of being like, oh, this is different. Going to school when I was four, I would talk to people with brown hair in Chinese and oh, these people aren't Chinese. And then, yeah, and I think just because the jump from each of the schools, they were maybe smaller differences, so none of those experiences were actually as shocking as, going from

[00:14:51] Yeah, actually probably none of the experiences were that shocking if you took them in going on to the next experience. So that it's that over, over let's say 25 years, there's been quite a few, differences. Yeah. But if it was like, going from my four year old self to suddenly seeing what the 25 year old self seeing, oh, all these people who have oh, old money or whatever, that probably would've been a bit more what the hell?

[00:15:16] Oh, don't even have jobs because there's so much money. Like generational wealth . 

[00:15:20] RS: How did your mom and dad take it? 

[00:15:22] ML: So they came and then they just worked hard in their jobs. They're not that embedded into like English culture. , like my mom and my stepdad kind of just hang around at home and they'll do some gardening and watch some tv. Whereas I've gone out a bit more to try and meet lots of different people, I also don't think they... yeah. I feel I dunno if it's the older generations, but there's less. I think even if something is different, there's less expressing oh my God, this is so crazy and weird. It's just yeah and cool. It's just a different thing. Who cares? People are different. People have different lives.

[00:15:52] RS: There's also that part where you're, I guess in survival mode, you're just like, okay, let's deal with it. There's no time to contemplate deeply and think about it. Yeah, shit's hard. All right, keep going. I'm assuming, what is that? 

[00:16:03] ML: Or at least I think, so my mom's quite different to me, so I dunno if she would think this way, but it feels like, I think when she sees someone else maybe having just like a much better life, she normally just observes it and it's okay, what do I need to do to provide my family with this? And then she just goes and does it. 

[00:16:19] RS: what's your relationship with your parents now? 

[00:16:23] ML: So actually my mom and I weren't very close when I was growing up, but now we're really close. And my parents had me quite young, like a lot of, I think parents back in the day, or at least Asian parents.

[00:16:33] . And then my dad and I used to be a lot closer when I was growing up. It's like a daddy's girl and whatever. . And he was the one who would let me do whatever I wanted and my mom would be like, no, she can't play, she can't go out and play with her friends. She has to stay at home. And I'm like why do I have to stay at home?

[00:16:47] All I'm doing is like pretending to work whilst actually playing the Sims . And then after my parents broke up, so they broke up when I was like 13 ish. Me and my dad the relationship started just deteriorating. And I think cuz they didn't have a very good relationship paddle at home. I think that's one of the things that contributed to, I think the way my brain works, which is very much like just, you just have to figure things out yourself because , no one seems to agree on anything anywhere.

[00:17:14] RS: And once you've got to Imperial College, what was that like? I hear about so much about Imperial College, not because I've been there, but because there is this connection between Imperial College, your experience and how I came to know Imperial College is because of psychedelics.

[00:17:26] Okay. It was the first Center of excellence in the world. One of the first two, there's Johns Hopkins University and there's Imperial College in the uk where Robin Carhart Harris was one of the first pioneers in psychedelic research and looking at the connection between psilocybin and mushrooms okay and depression. So it's been a core center of excellence for quite some time. A lot of the early, early pioneering work in the last, I would say 15 years came out of that university. So there's this connection. So it's funny that, you went there and now we're here talk about psychedelics. So that's how I found out about it. But my impression is still the same. It's a very elite. Lots of smart people from around the world go there. What was that like? 

[00:18:05] ML: So I didn't really choose the right subject. So my, my experience at uni was definitely very different to most people's partly because I I skipped a year, and so if you're choosing your degree at 16, it's a bit like, do you really know about what you wanna do in the future? And I wanted to do a gap year. With Asian parents, they were like, no, if you take a gap year, then you're gonna be the same age as everyone else. 

[00:18:28] But because it was the wrong subject for me and I think those, there was a, like a lot of issues. That was basically when I started having like real mental health issues. I was basically like, I'm at this thing. I don't wanna be here.

[00:18:41] My parents are making me stay and instead of just dropping out, I still had that internal pressure of oh, I'm not gonna completely rebel to that point, so I stayed four years doing something I really didn't wanna do. And that was really tough. And so I try and turn things into a positive, so , what I did was go I'm in London, so I will just party harder than anyone has ever partied, and that will make it worth it. And that meant a lot of drugs, like lot of drugs. And it wasn't like doing acid and then being like, oh, this is transformative. Even though that, that happened once, it was more just, oh, let's just take like everything and be quite, it was quite unhealthy. Like at some point it was like six days a week, just pretty hard. And then Sunday would be the one night I my day at first.

[00:19:26] And this wasn't for four years. I don't think I, I'm gonna be dead. I think if I did that for four years, . But it was probably like, let's say in first year doing a lot of that. And that did mean I got quite, I was exposed to, pretty much everything apart from like heroin and crack cocaine.

[00:19:41] And some of, yeah, like some mixtures of different drugs would have different effects, right? And some days it'd be like, oh wow, I can't believe, like that was such a magical experience. It never happens again because clearly the mixture was like a special mix and you don't know what this kind of stuff you're buying, the cheap stuff you're buying as a student, you have no idea what that's cut with and you only know it's bad after you've taken it.

[00:20:07] Right. taken it, yeah. Classic. But there was one experience that was really amazing where I think it was the first time I tried added and it was. I had also taken a bunch of other stuff. So all of my future experiences with massive were nothing like this. But it was really, the, it's like at this house party where people were painting faces, and I watched the sunrise over this church with this guy who was studying astrophysics, and he was like, teaching me all about cosmology and all this stuff.

[00:20:36] I'm in love with you. This guy's. Yeah. And it was suddenly like, oh, I have figured out the purpose of life. , and I also happen to read the egg in this moment. The egg, the short story. No, what's that? Such a good thing to read when you've taken acid. So basically I say it's about reincarnation, the story, and it's oh, this father and his family are in a car accident.

[00:21:01] And then he wakes up and he's dead and then he wakes up and he's talking to this figure. He's oh, who are you? Are you God? He's asking how his family are, and then this kind of figure, this other man, it's oh, that's really good that you are, the first thing you ask is about your family.

[00:21:15] And then all this stuff happens. And basically he's cool, now I'm sending you back. But as a different person on earth. And he's oh, cool. So reincarnation is real and the God or whatever is yes. So every time you've done harm towards anyone, you were just harming yourself.

[00:21:30] And every time you've ever done good to anyone else you've also been doing it to yourself because you are gonna go through every single living being on earth. And then that's where you develop and become like another God like me. And then he goes back to earth and I was like,

[00:21:47] I was just like shocked, mind blown. And then for about three months after I was running around university, being like, guys, I done found the reason for life. Lemme tell you, but I've completely forgotten what the breakthrough I had in my, mind was. But yeah, I like had that feeling of just 

[00:22:01] RS: that's quite common, right? And sometimes we joke in the psychedelic world that, just because a lot of the time I think we hang onto the sensation of insight rather than an insight itself. Don't get me wrong, these are very powerful substances and it can be very therapeutic but in a lot of ways, we joke about the Instagram gurus and the Instagram shamans who are selling courses and stuff like that. Okay, do this and, point your butt hole at the sun or something and something like that. But a lot of a time is, it's about the sensation. So you forget what it was actually, and, but maybe sometimes it's not even important that, that there is no intellectualization.

[00:22:35] It's just about oh, I felt and I felt, yeah, I remember who I was at that point in time and can I walk through that door without the substance or wanna understand how my mind works or what is the mind, this is magical thing that these projections and these hallucinations we get right now. Which ultimately makes me think what is the power of belief? Am I not seeing the world in the right way? Or what's my vantage point? 

[00:22:56] So why was that particular like memory that, that time on said, why did that become seminal moment for. 

[00:23:03] ML: I wouldn't necessarily say it was just like one, it was probably the only experience that they've actually had on on any sort of psychedelics where it really, had a lasting impact where I was like, oh, wow.

[00:23:17] Whereas, other times when I've taken stuff, it might have just been like, oh, that was a really fun afternoon. Oh, I got high going to the Penguin Zoo. Oh, that was so funny and fun, but nothing that remember best to, to that one in that one experience. Even though I've met so many people who have had, all these other kind of more transformative experiences.

[00:23:36] And I think for me, actually, so when I took this late gap year when I was, I dunno, 27 ish, and yeah, it was very much oh, I'm gonna go do yoga in India. I'm gonna do the pattern there and then I'm gonna go to South America and do ayahuasca. and none of those experiences had any effect on me, apart from shifting my mindset from thinking, oh, there's something wrong with me.

[00:23:57] I just need to figure out what, oh, why do I keep wanting to do all these different jobs? Because I haven't found something that I love what's wrong with me? And then that six months I basically come, maybe it was, actually those experiences, the hippie dippy stuff was probably only two months.

[00:24:11] And I just came out of it being like, I don't think there's anything wrong with me. I think it's just there's something wrong with the system and so let's just go fix that . 

[00:24:18] RS: Interesting. What do you think was wrong with you before that? 

[00:24:21] ML: Yeah, so I was just like, I was like, clearly there's something wrong with me because everyone's treating me like I'm super weird for not, for doing so many random different things like , why just find something and just stick with it?

[00:24:32] And I was like, maybe there is something wrong. Like, why can't I just stick to doing, something for years that I don't particularly enjoy when everyone else seems to be okay. 

[00:24:40] RS: What guided you? Was it I gotta find this thing because my parents worked really hard and so I gotta find this thing or was like I like this and I like this I find so many things interesting or nothing really interests me. 

[00:24:50] ML: It was, so I think a lot of my, just to caveat this, I don't think it's super healthy to I think it's good to understand how your mind works, but I don't think it's very healthy to identify too much with the negative things, right? So for example, I've had depression before. I have adhd, some people were like, oh, you are clearly autistic. And I'm like, cool. And the times where I've felt the worst and felt the most hopeless have always been the times where I also, like identified with that, and that was like, oh, I am a depressed person, or, oh, I have adhd.

[00:25:25] Whereas just being like, yeah, cool, this can explain some of the behaviors. Let's move on from that. Hopefully this is the, this is a temporary thing. The power of just I guess like kind of positive psychology, but actually, no one wants to hear it. I was really angry when I talked to people about my depression and people would be like, oh, it's really bad to like, identify with that word.

[00:25:47] And I'm like, you don't understand. It's really tough. But now if I feel myself, slipping down that path, I just go, oh, I'm PMSing, and it really does help. It's yeah, it's not that obviously , it's, there are some times where it's okay, if it, if it is getting super difficult, it's more about okay, how do we figure a way to fix this, and start... I find it way more useful to just be like, okay, this is feeling really tough.

[00:26:13] The best thing to do is maybe like book a call with the doctor and consider medications or whatever it is. And that's still helps a bit more than being like, oh, shit is hopeless and it's gonna be really hard to get out and there's no solution, then it just makes me feel way worse.

[00:26:28] RS: No, you're totally right. Healthy detachment from whatever state of mind you're in at that point. think like ultimately, perhaps Eastern philosophies and sort of ways of being, and ancient ideas, I mean like the modern contemporary bit is all fucked up no matter where you go.

[00:26:42] To be honest, I don't wanna glamorize a romanticize a particular part of the world anymore given that we've exported this idea of development and progress everywhere else. But I think in certain ways there was a lot more recognition for the fact that every human being is a symphony of many different people, many different selves, right?

[00:26:59] So you have your angry self, you have your happy self, have whatever else, and you could flip flop between any states of mind. And depending on the context you are in, that part of yourself would be amplified or alternative suppressed. And I think this lack of being able to detach yourself or being stuck going in a spiral is what's really harmful.

[00:27:19] And sometimes you need an intervention from medication or doctors or community or friends or sometimes medicines, so on. I think. , to your point, being able to just see yourself and go okay, I am feeling this thing, but I am not this thing, does not encompass my entire.

[00:27:36] It's really important. You took a break when you said you were 27, right? your parents didn't allow you to take a crap year before. What happened at 27?

[00:27:43] ML: So I pushed my parents quite hard in terms of, doing a lot of stuff they did not want me doing right.

[00:27:48] And over the years they've become a lot more relaxed and they're just like, we don't care what you do, as long as you're happy and don't kill yourself. And I'm like, cool. Sick. Awesome. Yeah. Nice. So around 27 it was okay, I've done and the biology degree that was with management, so that's two things.

[00:28:06] And then I took a year to try and build this like publishing company. And then went back to study computer science and then was a software engineer for a bit, and then did product management after I to my parents, oh, I'm gonna be a software engineer for at least 10 years. And then literally two years after they paid for my master's degree I was like, I am, I don't think I'm gonna do this anymore.

[00:28:25] And in between had also done like a bit of head hunting, worked just like at least had 16 jobs before I was 25. Around this 27 around that point when I was going through a kind of more serious career change cause I really thought I was like, software engineering is gonna be the thing that I spend a lot of time on now.

[00:28:44] That was, cause I didn't wanna be changing careers every two years either, so it was like, I haven't really taken the time to just think. And I personally, I'm one of those people where if I don't enjoy work. , I'll just quit immediately because I can't do the whole, I'm gonna work here and I'm gonna spend three months whilst working at this place to look for other jobs.

[00:29:03] I'm okay, if I already know this is something I wanna be doing, I'll hand in my notice now, work the notice for a month and then I'll look for jobs when I've already basically stopped working at the other place. And again, obviously this comes with like some people don't have the pr privilege of being able to do that, but it's okay, the worst thing that's gonna happen to me is I have to move back home with my parents. They'll feed me or whatever. I don't really need to like earn money. But yeah, at that point it was like, okay, I'm gonna take some time. I have a feeling I'll go do something maybe in product.

[00:29:31] But also, I wasn't like a hundred percent sure. I was just like, oh, let's just think about some stuff. And also if there is something, wrong with me, quote unquote wrong with me, then it'd be good to spend some time like working on myself as well. Maybe, maybe what happens is I identify this problem and I fix it.

[00:29:49] RS: I've had friends who've been Rhode Scholars at Oxford and stuff, and also a similar sort of like modest background immigrants.

[00:29:57] And I see some of the weight that they sometimes carry being like Rhode Scholars. and being confused, and not knowing what to do and how it eats away at them. And even for me, I didn't go to Oxford or Imperial or Harvard. My sister and brother are very done really well from themselves, but I'm the eldest.

[00:30:14] I was also this other rebellious black sheep who went and, did all the drugs and listened to music and tour and all this stuff while being a cancer researcher and all this stuff. But, for years beating up myself because because I didn't say, I said, fuck the SATs, I'm not gonna take it.

[00:30:30] I don't want somebody to tell me how smart I am. Obviously a lot of it was dumb. No regrets, but, no sometimes I'm thinking, had I taken a more traditional path, maybe that would. Again, mistake. Maybe. Definitely not a regret. I don't regret any of it, but I'm only saying this because I wonder how much of that pressure came from the fact that you did go to Imperial College and I was surrounded by all these sort of like very well known elite super achievers, whether themselves or from their family.

[00:30:54] How much of it was that versus an internal? 

[00:30:56] ML: So one of the reasons I felt like the education system was, or like the conventional paths didn't really make that much sense is because, I was at this supposedly elite institution and most of the people around me, I was very unimpressed by it, right?

[00:31:10] It was like, if this is what it means to be elite, then something's wrong. And that's always been the case throughout school as well, right? It was like, oh, these are all supposed to be really impressive people, but most of these people don't even know how to think for themselves. Cause I didn't really go to any classes for high school or university, and I did very well. So it was very much like a how can I do this well in this system when I'm doing fucking nothing

[00:31:37] So it was like fascinating shit. Clearly needs to change if even I'm doing well. 

[00:31:41] RS: So you feel like most people were stuck in a box and they had their path laid out for them for the rest of their lives and just like passively blindly following through? Or what was 

[00:31:50] ML: Yeah, it was like, yeah, it was like, oh, everyone's kinda on this conventional path.

[00:31:54] Nothing was very inspiring, and I mean there was just so much that could be different, right? If even some really small things had changed. It was like what would school have been like if we were all made to study like philosophy and psychology, like even a tiny change like that, clearly this would, improve a lot of things, but that's not even happening.

[00:32:13] Like studying economics or whatever. And then at university again, it was like, oh, everyone just chooses a subject. Some people as young as, 16 for me, like why are we, kids are so stupid? Like none of them know anything. Why are we forcing people down this path so early.

[00:32:29] RS: I'm resonating so much with your experience and outlook on the world, because it was very similar for me. Like my parents, we didn't have much growing up, so constantly quareling over money. And my parents, I love them to death, they did their best and they're still the most loving people on the planet, but were they perfect to themselves, to each other.

[00:32:45] Could have been better. Yeah. And I, . Wish I had an authoritarian parents or I exactly know what I'm supposed to do, but instead I have go fucking figure it out myself. Cause to your point, I didn't get any sense of direction from there. 

[00:32:56] ML: But and my parents were very strict, by the way, they were very strict.

[00:32:59] Okay. Authoritarian. Yeah. Yeah. So you can go either way, right? That's the, that's my parenting is so hard. You can do everything right And then still get it wrong. You can get a little shithead like me. Like you tried to run away twice. . 

[00:33:09] RS: Things worked out. Cause here you are building a company called Odin and I'm a big supporter and we're gonna get to that point.

[00:33:16] The key thing that I took from what you shared is that I think ultimately it's about, becoming a person who has true agency over themselves. 

[00:33:23] Are you making the mistakes you want or are you drifting off and letting life take you over don't get me wrong there are moments where you have to learn to let go. I think that's also part of having agency over your life. 

[00:33:32] You touched on taking psychedelics and you spent some time traveling. You have done ayahuasca, and you said what it showed you the most is that who you are is okay. It's not because something's wrong with you.

[00:33:43] Yep. It's something wrong with the world and the systems you've been in yep. I would love to learn a little bit about what that experience was like and why you ended up feeling that way. 

[00:33:51] ML: Why I ended up feeling like there was nothing wrong with me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was, it was basically seeing all these other people who were on the same, either doing the same ayahuasca thing or doing the person with me and almost everyone else was like, this is a life changing experience.

[00:34:08] And I was like, why? Am I just the only person doing it wrong? Like, why am I the only person who's not? And I was really trying to figure out, was like doing Ayahuasca, was I molested? And I tried to block it out, and was like, no, I don't think any of this happened.

[00:34:22] And again, one of the reasons why I went on these things was like, oh, like why do I feel depressed if I have to do a job that I don't find fulfilling or inspiring? And why does no one else seem to be this affected or depressed around this. So I was just like, oh, maybe my brain chemicals were just fucked from all the drugs that I took or something.

[00:34:38] But again, that's not like a very healthy thing to cause it's if that was, if that were the reason, then I would've been like, oh, I guess there's nothing I can do about it now. Whereas I was okay, I've also met other people who, they've all had very different life experiences and I've seen how their upbringing has affected them.

[00:34:57] What are their insecurities and how this affects how they now treat other people and how they empathize with other people. And you see all of this and it's okay, it does make sense that this is the way that people are gonna react if they've gone through those experiences.

[00:35:12] And what is the thing that everyone has in common, right? Who, all of these people who have different kinds of pain painful experiences in life. We all live under the same system. Sorry I've gone off on a tangent, but , but yeah, basically it's okay, it makes sense that so many people are feeling, depressed or or any kind of negative way, right? Like people may be feeling like things aren't fair, it's really easy to see why they say some people have voted for Brexit.

[00:35:39] It's not oh, these people are just stupid. It's that's the least useful term, really , it just, that just shows you can't empathize it with the person. And yeah, it was just it makes sense to not feel good when you see all the pain in the world, right? It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if you look around and see all these homeless people who, you know, where the system has basically made it impossible for them to get jobs.

[00:36:01] It's why wouldn't I be sad? . 

[00:36:02] RS: The thing with psychedelics, at least for my perspective, is that it releases you from your own projections and your own sort of like simulations that you've created for yourself. Ultimately we're all, we all pick and choose what we want to believe in and what communities wanna belong to, what ideas we wanna like harbor.

[00:36:19] Ultimately, is it really your choice as the question, how much of it is the sort of social programming and the upbringing and systems, and how much of it is just generally your experiences, some of what have to escape trauma, traumatic events, and like PTSD or narrative loops that we we have to escape from and other times it's just knowing that, hey, maybe I'll never figure it out. Maybe there is always gonna be this uncertainty and ambiguity and how do I become okay with that? Life is not a single thread. It's a multi-threaded existence, right? 

[00:36:49] I think there's a lot of parallels between that kind of empowerment and the kind of work that I think Odin is doing now. I think investing can be a powerful philosophy as well to go okay, it's not about being wealthy and making lots of money. It's about, putting my money where my mouth is and really helping, particularly for startups, I think in a very, very early stage investing is very empowering. 

[00:37:10] ML: Just feels a little bit like activism through Yeah, exactly. 

[00:37:13] RS: Exactly. So I wanna talk a little bit about what Odin does.

[00:37:17] I saw that under Odin, you pinned the Bessemer Ventures article about consumering the private markets. 

[00:37:22] ML: That's only because, okay. this is how stupid this is. I pinned this because we're mentioned in this piece, but we did not create a logo that. it's just the eight bit.

[00:37:34] Yeah. But it doesn't have the word Odin next to it. So no one who sees this asshole is gonna know who this company is.

[00:37:45] RS: yeah. That's what I was surprised by cuz I, I read that article all the time. Cuz Bessemer, I'm a big fan of Bessemer and I like that report actually quite a lot. 

[00:37:53] ML: We're the only company whose logo is not including the word. So don't . 

[00:37:58] RS: So let's come back to this point. Cause I talk a lot about this area where technology, culture, and capital is converging in a big way and it's gonna affect a lot of things.

[00:38:08] But one of the things that's gonna affect is that realm of investing particularly in early stage companies, right? And I'm trying to do this in psychedelics. But it's gonna affect everything. I think, being able to mobilize capital and community and being able to invest in things is gonna affect a lot of things.

[00:38:23] Tell me a little bit about what Odin is, as a co-founder, what are you building, and then why does it matter? 

[00:38:32] ML: Okay. You know, When I was like even doing my own bios really hard, you can imagine how hard it was to come up with a way to describe Odin... cuz there's like the long term, like 30 year vision and then there's, what kind of makes more sense to talk to people about, which is maybe like three to five year thing is what a lot of people wanna hear. So our current version is... Other investment platforms, let you transact but Odin lets you connect, collaborate, and participate in building the future. So it's trying to imply that this is a group, collaborative, community driven thing.

[00:39:06] And you're not investing for the sake of, Hey, I wanna make money and that's why I'm investing. It's really about building the future and shaping, shaping the world around you, right? 

[00:39:14] RS: And given, and I'm asking this very deliberately because I wanna connect it back to your experiences that imperial and like being in private, I don't say rooms, but private spaces, right? privileged private spaces, locked networks, locked networks of people. Again, it's not a bad thing. But in the areas of early stage investing, we've gone from protecting people from mistakes to now what it feels like preserving the wealth among the wealthy. because most of the wealth nowadays is made in the private markets. It's investing in startups and stuff like that. And of course it's more risky, don't get me wrong. It's very risky, but there is a way to invest proportional to your appetite for risk. But really what I'm trying to get at here is, what parallels do you see between how private markets and these, this world of investing, how it works today, and what you've seen early on growing up how networks work? 

[00:40:03] ML: Yeah, so I think what you said about, things being, maybe people doing things through their personal networks or whatever, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[00:40:11] So when we first started out with doing Odin, we were a bit like, oh, maybe, maybe we wanna get rid of that. You quick, the some people will carry on. That's the hill they wanna die on, which is ah, yeah, this is bad. That people do things through their personal networks.

[00:40:24] And for us it's more about, okay, how do humans actually behave because you are not gonna, in 10 years change how humans fundamentally work, right? And like hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. In private markets investing, right, just as if you are looking to hire someone, the reason why a lot of people go on referrals is because generally there's been some filtering going on where the person recommending the other person has a better sense than Something that's completely unfiltered and there's a higher chance that the thing is more relevant to you.

[00:40:56] But it also means if you do just rely on referrals, there are other ways of using technology so that the referrals coming in through, let's say a platform like Odin could actually be better than a personal referral from someone, and it's just, if someone doesn't make it really easy for you to, I don't know, let's say hire someone from the hundreds of thousands of potential candidates out there, you don't have that time.

[00:41:21] People only have the same 24 hours in a day. So would you, so actually, when we do the hiring I only do outbound. And some people would be like, oh, but that's not giving people the chance when it's whatever during inbound. And it's look, I've only got let's say I, so I work 12 hours a day, right?

[00:41:38] And there's a bunch of other stuff to do. And if I know that when I'm doing the outbound, they've already gone through my filter, right? The chances of me bringing in someone really good through doing that is a, it's much higher than if I actually spend that same amount of time sifting through inbound where, we're an early stage company, most people dunno who we are.

[00:41:58] And I think it's a similar kind of situation with, let's say investing, right? If you are just relying on let's say, like cold inbound through LinkedIn and you're not using any sort of technology to like, help you with doing the filtering, maybe you don't even have an air table form where you are asking the questions that for I dunno, whatever it is, the metrics that you care about that's probably not a very good use of your time.

[00:42:18] Whereas imagine you built like a community for founders who are working in the space that you happen to be interested in, and then you get a bunch of referrals through that. The is just gonna be way higher if you identifying investment opportunities that you actually wanna invest in, right?

[00:42:33] RS: Yeah technology's really good at amplifying the wisdom of the network, right? So whereas you can imagine that if you know somebody in your network that has marketing, somebody who does lot of who does hard science or biotech and so on, but now because of tech, you now have a global network of people. Now you can actually leverage more wisdom of the crowd and do more deals and actually maybe build better relationships. The issue I think, with private networks, and particularly in the realm of early stage investing in private markets, is that they remained closed. And if you look at the very history of venture capital, how it operated, the first sort of like in the sixties with Fairchild semiconductors and intel and so on, not a bad thing, people with certain appetites for risk and who wanted to change the game, they work together, they built well together, which is great, but ultimately, if it's the same echo chamber of people and your buddies who get all the opportunities, who have all the cash, where does it leave everybody else? And if it's really about innovation and values and ideas, then the networks have to evolve to incorporate others, especially if there's money involved. Because when you add money, if you're excluding others, that al that also amplifies. Yeah. In VC, less than 2% of women get VC funding. 

[00:43:51] ML: So I probably wouldn't say that they're excluding cuz that makes it sound like it's proactive. So it's like they're just, people are just being humans and Right going through people they know and people who they trust. And if everyone happens to be a white dude, like this doesn't take a lot of effort for it to continue being a bunch of white dudes. It doesn't necessarily have to be because people are like trying to actively exclude other people.

[00:44:12] Which is one of the reasons why we think the best way to not fix the issues but play a part in improving things is just, Hey, do you know what's a lot easier than trying to get a bunch of white dudes to invest in? Women just have a lot more female investors. And the thing is the platforms out there were by their very nature of the pricing meant that. A lot of female investors or minority investors wouldn't have been able to invest because, if you're spending like $10,000 on a on the legals per deal, especially if you're just getting started and you're not a group that's traditionally or historically had access to loads of capital, then when you're getting started, maybe you wanna write one, 1K checks, right?

[00:44:49] Or two K, not suddenly 10K. And if you are trying to run a syndicate and you don't have access to loads of people who have money and your first deal, you manage to pull together like 30K, which is not insignificant right. At all. For you to be like I've pulled together 30K but I'm gonna have to spend 10K on legal.

[00:45:06] Of course this isn't really gonna happen. And so that's why for us, the first step was like, actually make sure the infrastructure is there and affordable so that more people can do the deals, 

[00:45:15] RS: Yeah, totally. And ultimately coming back to even talking about psychedelics.

[00:45:18] Ultimately they're just tools. And so how do you make sure more people have access to the tools and the education, so can leverage the tools the right way? I completely agree with you. There's in my mind, there's three ways to change the world, right? First is you can blow the whole system up. Some people will say that is the right way and the only way. There's also then the second way, which is changes from the inside. I'm not sure that also works, but for me, the most effective way is the third way, which is just build an off ramp to an alternative. Let people gather and with the right tools, with the education and the knowhow, how to build that alternative and then let it take hold. And those are people who have choice. What reality do you wanna live in? 

[00:45:57] ML: Yeah. So I obviously agree with you but with, The whole, oh, let's blow everything up and start from scratch. I think that's like a, I think that's one of the first things that comes into a lot of people's minds, right? And I get why someone might say that. You have people who are also like very educated who think that's the right thing to do, right?

[00:46:15] But for me it's just, there's a reason why history has gone through cycles. And when people go down this path, what's really happening is you are going, oh, this time it's gonna be different. And you're basically ignoring all of the reasons why we got here in the first place, right?

[00:46:30] And being like, oh, we just got here randomly. Not because there's shit loads of people where if you completely blew it up and started again, there's gonna be another group of people who think that, the system's crapping, it doesn't work for them. And then the same thing happens again, right?

[00:46:41] Yeah. 

[00:46:43] RS: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I started thinking like, decolonization happens, so that's why most of the world speaks English. Now, do we decolonize by stopping speaking the same language? it's that probably won't help, right? There is strength in me and you being able to communicate despite our different heritage and different upbringings and stuff like that.

[00:47:00] One last question as we come to the tail end of the interview is... 

[00:47:04] ML: can I also make a point about the exclusionary thing? Because, so I had this where someone shared a deal and it was a really good deal, great tier one investors, blah, blah, blah.

[00:47:13] I didn't end up investing because I was like, this doesn't resonate with me at all. Cuz it was like the numbers were amazing. Everything ticked all the boxes if you were trying to make money. But as a female investor, this was addressing a very it was such a male kind of niche thing, and it's I'm not investing cause I'm being sexist. It's just, it also makes sense if you've got all these male investors and then they're like, I'm not gonna invest in, I don't know, some like breast milk pumping device. And it's yeah, that's not someone being sexist.

[00:47:42] They just don't fucking understand this at all. And most women also would not be investing in don't know, erectile dysfunction startups. 

[00:47:48] RS: The whole point of diversity to me is it's just diversity of opinion. Can I act on my thoughts or not. Giving any community the true agency to do what it is they want and giving them the dignity of choice really. It's not to say you are a woman, you should be this way. You're, you're a person of color should be this way. That's not the whole fucking point. If you stick to those sort of very boxed in ideas of what diversity is supposed to be.

[00:48:10] I think we just cage ourself all over again. I don't do that at all. Ultimately just be the way you wanna be and hopefully, you have the ability to do that and without shame, without harassment, without violence, all that stuff. , that's the whole point. I think I'm gonna come back to this trifecta of technology, community, and capital and how I think that is going to really change how people build the future, like you said, really?

[00:48:34] Cause that's what it's about, right? What ideas come to reality. And we know that money is a really big accelerator of that. What is your thought around how financial security, investing, or building generational wealth, what that means for minorities moving forward and why is it important for us to participate? And again, when I say minorities, I mean anybody on the margins. 

[00:48:58] ML: So I'm a firm believer in like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?

[00:49:01] If you are like worrying about where your next meal is gonna come from, you do not have the head space to be sitting around being like what should I invest in? Or how do I help, I dunno, bring value to the world if you literally don't know if you are gonna , how you're gonna survive.

[00:49:16] So once you have a level of, and I've seen this through my own upbringing as well, right? When I was younger and we didn't necessarily have financial security, my parents would've been like, you should go work in a job that, it makes a different amount of money. And then later on when we did have more financial security, it was like, oh, you can think about what makes you happy.

[00:49:36] Cuz that's fine. You're not gonna die if you suddenly decide to take on a job that, doesn't pay that well. So I think a big part of the security part is really to just give you the head space of, thinking about things a bit more, right? And not just being like, oh, I have to do this one thing, and Yeah.

[00:49:49] Giving you choice, right? The choice might be to not care about investing, which is fine. But I think really the more. The more financially secure you are, the more likely you are as a human to be thinking like, oh, how can I also contribute value? I think inherently, peop I think most people are just like good people and they like feeling like they've contributed to something and, they're good at doing something and they're doing something they love and that fulfills them.

[00:50:13] And that can be anything, right? But it's like that thing where if you go to an organic supermarket or you talk to people who are really passionate about the climate, it's not usually, it's not gonna be like working class people who can't afford stuff, right? They're not gonna be like, oh, I have to buy organic because so that's gonna help the planet.

[00:50:31] And with investing, if you don't have that financial security, you're definitely not gonna be thinking about Euro allowing 10,000 a year when there's almost like a 0% chance of getting that money back. So there's. Getting the security in order to think about some of these things.

[00:50:47] And then in terms of building generational wealth I feel like the benefits of that is probably, you can end up having a philosophical debate right? Over whether this is a good thing and whether actually, people should be able to pass down wealth through generations. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a whole other. 

[00:51:04] RS: It's been a loaded question.

[00:51:05] I I recognize that and I asked about generational wealth because it is just a word that gets thrown around a lot nowadays. I think, to your point, angel investing is an end in itself, because you gotta have that money and the mindset first foremost to recognize what it is, I think the most powerful thing about angel investing. In the model that you guys are allowing is it's just being an active participant, right? Saying, okay, exactly. Put 500 bucks in, put a hundred dollars in it doesn't matter the sum. does this amount make you feel like you can participate and actually become an active agent in that?

[00:51:41] Yeah. Can you learn exactly. Are you invested in it? That's Yeah. The thing that struck me the most which is the most powerful technology and community for 

[00:51:48] ML: Yeah. So with the community stuff and being able to invest, for us, a really, a big part of it is it's the kind of if you are, so I think when people start angel investing, I can only speak for my own experience from my own experiences, right? But just the shift in mindset that it brings, I think is super powerful, right? In terms of . . I'm so much more proactive now about meeting interesting people.

[00:52:08] And I'm not reaching out to them cause I'm like, oh, , maybe we could open on a call and see if I can invest in your company. It's just changed the way that I behave in general around people and not just like founders or people in the space, but then it affects other aspects of your life as well.

[00:52:22] And how you maybe treat the random person that you've met in a shop. Because now I'm like, oh, since I'm just reaching out to all these random people all the time anyway. And I used to consider myself like quite introverted now it's what if I go into a shop? There's another chance to try to just try and make conversation and see what kind of connection you can build with this person.

[00:52:39] What kind of interesting things can you talk about? So I think it really, yeah. Changes how you go about, I guess playing this game of life and you get to learn and meet so many more people. You end up feeling like your. Playing an active part in shaping, potentially shaping how the future looks.

[00:53:00] And then also I'm having a mind blank. I had a point, but I've completely forgotten it. Yeah, the community aspect I think is really important to give people a sense of hope, right? Because how you are investing on a transactional platform, it's actually quite easy to be like cool, I'm investing, but really you don't you might end up investing in things where you don't even really want the thing to exist, but you're like, oh, if I'm thinking about making money, then it's a no-brainer.

[00:53:24] I obviously should invest in this thing that's gonna be pumped through the vc like Ponzi scheme. And I should invest in this because it's gonna get hyped up and then, I'm gonna make money. Whereas when you're doing it in a community of people with shared values, it's a lot more it's a lot more fulfilling, but I think it really gives people.

[00:53:39] A greater sense of hope that, you're all in this together. 

[00:53:42] RS: So well said. I think both psychedelics and capital are, they represent alchemy of the mind, so I really appreciate that comment. Mary. Thank you so much for spending this hour with me. 

[00:53:55] Again, like I said, I've resonated so much with your live journey so far. Super excited for what Odin's gonna do. Already a fan. Me too. I'm pretty excited for what you and Patty are and the team are gonna build. Thanks again. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. 

[00:54:06] ML: Yeah, likewise. Thanks Raad.