“My life has only been improved by taking myself out of the decision-making process, because I am the hindrance.”
— Cyan Banister
Cyan Banister (@cyantist) is a general partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on early and new investments.Cyan was an early investor in Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, and Affirm and has invested in more than 100 companies.Prior to that, she was at Founders Fund, a top-tier fund in San Francisco.Subscribe to Cyan’s Substack at uglyduckling.substack.com.
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Want to hear another podcast episode with a world-class investor? Have a listen to my most recent conversation with Oaktree Capital Management’s co-founder Howard Marks, in which we discussed navigating unprecedented uncertainties, crowded versus uncrowded opportunities, the state of the American economy, finding higher-signal sources of information, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know [in the comments](#respond).
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
– Connect with Cyan Banister:
The Ugly Duckling by Cyan Banister | SubstackEarly Stage Investing for the Long-Term | Long Journey VenturesWhat Happened to the Future? | Founders FundCyan: The Enlightenment of an Iconoclast | Cloud ValleyNavajo Nation | Visit ArizonaFlagstaff | Visit ArizonaScience and Technology on a Mission | Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryI Swear to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.So Help Me God.| The Ugly DucklingHappy Tastes Good | Dairy QueenWhat is a Ward of the State in Arizona? | JacksonWhite LawJoyriding with the Gutter Punks | The Ugly DucklingBest Food for When You’re Homeless and Can’t Cook? | r/MealprepSearching for Family and Home with Cuddles | The Ugly DucklingCommune Life | The Ugly DucklingHitchhiking with Jesus | The Ugly DucklingThe War of Intentions and Beliefs | Spencer ChangCash for Fashion | Buffalo ExchangeThe Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac | AmazonCrass | Rough Trade PublishingEastside Records: An Oral History of Tempe’s Legendary Record Store | Phoenix New TimesInternet Relay Chat (IRC) | WikipediaThe UNIX System | UNIX.orgCases | Harvard Business Publishing EducationThe Story of Uber | InvestopediaTake a Look at Uber’s First Pitch Deck from 2008 | VoxNew York’s Yellow Taxi Medallion Crisis, Explained | DocumentedThe Career of Uber’s First Employee and CEO Was Launched by One Tweet | Business InsiderAbout | The Lobby ConferenceRed Swoosh | WikipediaOpen Angel Forum | WikipediaA Short History of Napster | LifewireBehind the 12-Year-Old Wii Sports Hoax That Briefly Fooled the Internet | Ars TechnicaPokémon GO | Niantic, Inc.A Worldwide Territory Control AR Game | IngressPokéStop | Pokémon GO WikiBuild, Lead, Invest | AngelListWater with True Fruit Flavor | Hint WaterAi-First Service.Catered To Humans.
| ZendeskSafety for Every Situation | Flock SafetyGameCrush | WikipediaInteractive Livestreaming | TwitchMySpace — What Went Wrong: ‘The Site Was a Massive Spaghetti-Ball Mess’ | The GuardianActivist Investor: Definition, Role, Biggest Players | InvestopediaIcahn: The Restless Billionaire | Prime VideoThis Game Show App Was an Overnight Sensation, and Crashed Just as Fast | CNN BusinessGame of Thrones | HBOGame of Thrones: Do Lannisters Always Pay Their Debts? | Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack ExchangePromoting Solutions for Future Generations | Greenpeace InternationalBe Not Afraid | HereticonTransforming Defense Capabilities with Advanced Technology | Anduril“Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from Magic.” | CCCB LABChatham House Rule | Chatham House International Affairs Think TankWhy Did OnlyFans Work When Zivity Did Not? A Thread.| Cyan Banister, TwitterGeneral Magic | WikipediaGeneral Magic (Documentary) | Prime VideoTony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity | The Tim Ferriss Show #403Collectable Vintage Playboys | Elizabeth’s BookshopSuicideGirls | WikipediaCyan Banister: Adults Only Startups Deserve Respect Too | ForbesI Did It, with a Boy.| The Ugly DucklingThe Taj Mahal Story | Taj MahalThe Magic Glasses by Frank Harris | AmazonMy Life & Loves by Frank Harris | AmazonDifferent Types of Plaid: A Guide to Plaid Pattern Names | Hello SewingWhen Polka Dots Signal Both Optimism and Disquiet | The New York TimesA Dice Experiment | Cyan Banister, TwitterDecision Fatigue | The Decision LabOpen to the Public 365 Days a Year! | PioneertownThe World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game | Dungeons & DragonsPenn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness | The Tim Ferriss Show #405Random by Penn Jillette | AmazonThe Illusion of Free Will | Sam Harris7-in-1 Spinner DND Dice Set | AmazonThe Cult of Crowley | Tidal MagazineWhat is Magic? Aleister Crowley Explains | FaenaMagick in Theory and Practice by Aleister Crowley | AmazonLeaves of Grass by Walt Whitman | AmazonStrange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D.Ouspensky | AmazonGroundhog Day | Prime VideoCaddyshack | Prime VideoWhat About Bob? | Prime VideoThe Man Who Knew Too Little | Prime VideoBroken Flowers | Prime VideoThe Razor’s Edge | Prime VideoThe Razor’s Edge by W.
Somerset Maugham | AmazonGhostbusters II | Prime VideoThe Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man | Prime VideoThe Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man | Gravitas VenturesIt Just Doesn’t Matter (Clip) | The Bill Murray StoriesWhat Exactly Is a Kundalini Awakening? | Yoga JournalAmerican Beauty | Prime VideoWhat Is Dural Venous Sinus Thrombosis (DVST)? | HealthlineRichard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts | The Tim Ferriss Show #492Tibetan Monks Throat-Singing | Wilderness Films IndiaTelluride Bluegrass Festival | Planet BluegrassMeditation, Mindset, and Mastery | The Tim Ferriss Show #201Parable of the Horse, Carriage, and Driver | The Church of Conscious HarmonyEternal Recurrence: What Did Nietzsche Really Mean? | Philosophy BreakThe Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera | AmazonBeelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G.I.Gurdjieff | AmazonFrosted Toasted Oat Cereal & Marshmallows | Lucky CharmsBoston Celtics | NBAGolden State Warriors | NBAIn The Air Tonight (Official Music Video) | Phil CollinsBoston’s Best Sightseeing Tour | Boston Duck ToursThe Most Ribbetting Architecture in Boston | Universal Hub
SHOW NOTES
– [00:06:16] Early life and education as a white minority on a Navajo reservation.
– [00:11:18] Strained family dynamics and a cycle of neglect.
– [00:18:20] The intervention of Officer Pratt and becoming a ward of the state at 15.
– [00:22:46] Crusty punk survival strategies and life on the streets.
– [00:32:02] The positive influence of Cyan’s “second” mother.
– [00:34:17] Crass, Chris Collins, and computers.
– [00:38:03] An unorthodox path to angel investment beginning with Uber.
– [00:48:13] Niantic/Pokemon GO.
– [00:56:27] How stalking Garrett Langley led to a Flock Security investment.
– [01:00:07] GameCrush, activist investors, and lessons learned.
– [01:07:00] Sales lessons from the street.
– [01:10:08] A mindful approach to questioning narratives.
– [01:15:35] The pre-OnlyFans story of Zivity.
– [01:24:44] Views on sex and relationships.
– [01:28:47] Magic glasses, esoteric rabbit holes, and rolling the dice.
– [01:44:02] How Aleister Crowley and Bill Murray paved a path to ex-atheism.
– [02:02:21] Cyan’s billboard.
– [02:04:41] Enduring a stroke and its aftermath.
– [02:08:31] Meditation, throat-singing, and philosophy.
– [02:17:50] The Boston spiritual experience and duck boat baptism.
– [02:40:53] A book in the works, the Ugly Duckling Substack, and parting thoughts.
MORE CYAN BANISTER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“I’ve always felt like an outsider no matter where I am, and I think that’s been wonderful and incredible for my career.You can certainly look at that and have kind of a victim mindset about it, but I took the opposite path, which was this is what makes me special, that I don’t fit in wherever I am.”
— Cyan Banister
“Once you’re homeless, you can never be un-homeless.
It’s really strange.Every time I walk around at a conference or anything, I see all the waste.I see, if I were a homeless person, I could come and I could have this, no matter where I’m at.”
— Cyan Banister
“You have to face something very ugly, which is yourself.You have to look inside and see who and what you really are, and then you have to love yourself even when you don’t like what you see.”
— Cyan Banister
“When people used to say practice self-love, I thought it meant go eat bonbons and go see a good movie and smoke a joint.That was self-love.
But it wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I was like, ‘This whole self-love thing is jive.It’s just not working out.’ But I didn’t realize that self-love is learning how to give yourself unconditional love.
And the best way I’ve learned how to give yourself unconditional love is imagine yourself as a ball of light and then take that ball of light and visualize it outside of your body and cradle it like it’s a baby.Now, when you look at that baby, would you hurt that baby?”
— Cyan Banister
“We apply a lot of our own perception to everything that everyone says around us.We make up stories that are fiction, and a lot of what people suffer with today are these stories, these narratives that we tell ourselves and one another.”
— Cyan Banister
“My purpose is very simple, which is to spread joy, to lift other people up around me, and to do my best in my own way to end poverty.
Now, I’m not responsible for ending poverty.I think we’re all responsible.”
— Cyan Banister
“When you start realizing Oh, I’m in a school, and all of these hard knocks in life are just lessons, you think about them very differently.”
— Cyan Banister
“We’re just a hair away from being crazy, every one of us.”
— Cyan Banister
“We apply a lot of our own perception to everything that everyone says around us.We make up stories that are fiction, and a lot of what people suffer with today are these stories, these narratives that we tell ourselves and one another, and I’ve just always felt like that something that someone said right now, it’s not a hard no.
You know when you hear a hard no.I know the difference between an objection and I just have a rebuttal for it versus a hard no.And until it’s a hard no, there’s wiggle room to get something done.And so I’ve just always felt this, and it’s interesting that you ho[m]ed in on it, but it’s definitely been a guiding principle in my life, which is don’t give up.Just try different approaches.Maybe you didn’t ask the right way, or maybe you didn’t give the right incentives, or maybe it was Monday and they’re in a bad mood.”
— Cyan Banister
“My life has only been improved by taking myself out of the decision-making process, because I am the hindrance.”
— Cyan Banister
“We’re all in Earth school, and we inhabit human bodies, but we’re nothing but an energy force inside of them.
And that life force does not dissipate, and it doesn’t go nowhere.It goes somewhere.”
— Cyan Banister
“You’re just sleepwalking through life.
And the moment you take the reins and you become the narrator of your own story, and sometimes the captain, then that’s when it’s a transformational change.”
— Cyan Banister
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Tim DraperMike PrattJack KerouacChris CollinsRyan Graves)Travis KalanickJason CalacanisScott BanisterJohn HankeLucas NealanKeith RaboisGarrett LangleyJohn LuttigCarl IcahnBrian SingermanPalmer LuckeyMike SolanaTony FadellHugh HefnerAleister CrowleyFrank HarrisSteve JobsMark ZuckerbergGeorge GurdjieffPenn JilletteRichard M.NixonTimothy LearySam HarrisJesusWalt WhitmanHarry PotterP.D.OuspenskyBill MurrayW.Somerset MaughamSpongeBob SquarePants)Kevin SpaceyFriedrich NietzscheMilan KunderaBeelzebubPhil CollinsGabby GiffordsLinus TorvaldsAlbert Einstein
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