Jeremy Tan: Cambridge Engineer & Harvard MBA, Founding Tin Men Capital & Fatherhood Insights - E456

Jeremy Tan, Managing Partner and Cofounder of Tin Men Capital, and Jeremy Au talked about three main points:

1. Cambridge Engineer & Harvard MBA: Jeremy Tan shared his journey from a playful student to getting into a life-changing education at Cambridge. His early life goal of becoming a refinery chemical engineer shifted after a pivotal internship, which propelled him into finance with Morgan Stanley investment banking and later private equity. Getting an MBA at Harvard Business School opened up many doors for him, especially in building a global alumni network that later allowed him to secure essential early LP funding for his VC fund.

2. Founding Tin Men Capital: Jeremy shared what catalyzed his inspiration to finally make a leap of faith and launch a VC fund focused on B2B technology startups in Southeast Asia. Raising the first fund in a nascent VC market was challenging, and he shared his perspective on how to be successful as an emerging manager. He also shared the importance of understanding local industries and maintaining a tight, selective portfolio.

3. Fatherhood Insights: Jeremy reflected on how becoming a parent influenced how he now manages partnerships in business. He noted the importance of communication and empathy, and advocates for a balance between personal and professional aspirations. Just as it did in his own personal transformation journey and relationship with his children, directive approaches often fail when collaborating with founders.

They also discussed his initial challenges of settling in at Cambridge, the influence of childhood experiences on leadership styles, and his personal coping mechanisms for stress.

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(01:36) Jeremy Au:

Hey Jeremy, really excited to have you on the show.

(01:38) Jeremy Tan:

Hi Jeremy thanks for having me on. Great to be on.

(01:40) Jeremy Au:

What I've realized is that over the years, many people have confused me for you, because we both have the Jeremy, we're both in VC. We both went to Harvard for business school. So I've definitely run into a few of those mistaken identities.

(01:51) Jeremy Tan:

Oh my god. I mean, I guess it's flattering for me then given that I'm much older than you. so.

(01:58) Jeremy Au:

Could you share a little bit by yourself?

(02:00) Jeremy Tan:

So like I said, my name is Jeremy. I am the cofounder and managing partner at Tin Men Capital. Tin men Capital for those who who don't know us, we focus on exclusively on B2B tech. We invest as pre-Series A, Series A companies they are targeting legacy industries as customers. We invest in very capital efficient business and are not reliant on Unicorn to return the fund. We run a focused portfolio, so some ask us a PE approach to VC. The idea is keep the portfolio tight, very selective. Work with the founders because it's a tight portfolio. We can afford to do that after time and resources. Everything is crucial for a fragmented market like Southeast Asia. Personally, married still married, which is good news. I got two young kids and I'm originally from Singapore.

(02:45) Jeremy Au:

You and I, before, the podcast started with swapping parenting notes and you know, heard that you have one kid, is going through the whole PSLE thing. So I got to ask you, Jeremy, what were you like in secondary school and primary school, around the time of your PSLE?

(02:57) Jeremy Tan:

I would say that my teachers didn't think too much of me. I don't think they thought that I would make it too far academically at least. Truth be told, I was playful. I played football. I was very active in school. I think I really got serious about studying when I had a stern warning from my father at primary three. He was, I mean, kids these days don't play marbles, right? I was playing marbles and I was caught playing and then he gave me a stern warning and that's when I decided, okay, I should focus a little bit. I mean, thankfully, I got passed, a decent PSLE score and got to school of my choice end up in Victoria School, but I guess I didn't learn my lesson then. I continued playing. I played and I played. I was very active in school. I had a great time. Secondary 4, mid year, I had 24 points. That was the basic subject. So my teacher put me aside and said, look, you can't go to JC with that score. So I was like, okay so I think I hunkered down and started working.

Thankfully shaved that by half at the prelims, the 12th, and with affiliation, scraped through to VJC and then thankfully got nine points and allowed me to stay on, and that was actually really scraping through because I had two humanities, one is history and geography. I guess I didn't have time to study the whole textbook, so I gambled and took a risk to spot the questions that might come out.Got it t completely wrong for History, which was my best subject, got a C for that. And thankfully, my weakest subject Geography, turned out to be an A. I gotta thank my lucky stars. So there you go.

(04:20) Jeremy Au:

And, you know, you share this, you know, I resonate a lot of that, I had wanted to go to Victoria Junior College as well back in the day but you kind of like turn things around, right? Because you eventually went to university. You also went to Cambridge eventually as well. So how did that happen?

(04:33) Jeremy Tan:

I think in JC, more of the same continue, I still wanted to be active. I was a student's counselor. I pushed for the setup of the first football team, right? A sport that I still play today at 48 years old, despite two surgeries, but we'll get to that later. But I did not like the experience in secondary school where I had to cram at the last minute.

So I said, I need to do some regular work. So I did enough to not have to be caught up with the principal, but at that point in time, I also realized that I wanted to get out of Singapore and I think it's a function of, I felt a little bit like a misfit, given the experience I had in school and so on. And let's just put it this way. I'm not a typical student who will sit there and just listen to instruction. So, did some research, obviously grades matter, even applied to good overseas university. Studied, I got decent grades. I was a star student. I didn't get S papers and so on, so the two and a half years in the army, I spent a lot of time trying to research, apply to universities and so on. And it's really by chance that I got into Cambridge. I say that because it was my last year in the army and someone that I didn't know walked up in the army camps canteen and say hey, the deadline is due in a couple of days. Why don't you apply? I'm like, okay sure, you know, kind of like happy go lucky and applied, scrambled got the recommendations in, got called for the entrance exam and mind you, when I walked into the, it was held at Huaqiang Junior College, when I walked into the hall, it was all these students at the peak of their preparation for A levels. I spent the last two years in camouflage running up and down the hill. I completely forgot all my physics and math concepts. So I did what I could do, took out my notes from JC, again tried to spot questions, and thankfully did well enough to get through, the Warren interview, in the interview I could hear, it was held at a basketball court, and one of my peers who was quite prominent, I shall not name him, was on the other side of the basketball court.

He was getting asked, how does a space shuttle maneuver in space, I quickly tried to maneuver the conversation with the interviewer to my army days, and thankfully he took the bait and was more interested in my army experience and to ask me about anything about chemical engineering, which is what I was applying for. So long story short, I got in but then there was a second question, which is that, can we afford it? My parents didn't come, I didn't come from means and at that point, pound was very strong, right? So without a scholarship, I couldn't have gotten in. So I scrambled, I applied, obviously I didn't get any luck with the Singapore scholarship except for one army scholarship, but thankfully, the UK government gave me a partial scholarship which paid for a good chunk of the fees and my dad stepped up and with that, I had the privilege to attend Cambridge and I would say that changed my life.

(06:59) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. How did Cambridge change your life?

(07:01) Jeremy Tan:

I think in so many ways. First of all, the first time I traveled on the plane was actually on the plane in the army to Brunei and the first time living overseas properly was actually going to Cambridge. It's a bit of a culture shock, to be honest. I remember walking, finding my way to London and from London, to Cambridge and then finding my college and walking in, then try to ask for directions from the admissions office and so on.

There was a nice English lady there. And she said to me, young man, young man, slow down. I do not understand what you're saying. I didn't, it dawned on me over many times that, we Singaporeans generally speak very quickly and do not enunciate our words. That in itself is a culture shock to me. And the weather, I mean, coming out at 4pm and it's dark. It's just not, as a boy who grew up in sunny Singapore, I was just depressed, right? Those simple things like the food, the vegetables, generally overcooked, yellow instead of green, right? So I was missing home a lot and with the cold weather setting it, I was missing home a lot. And it didn't help when I made the decision as well, there's a big population of Singaporeans and Malaysians in Cambridge. I have made the decision that I came all the way there. I'm not just gonna hang out with them. What's the point? So I initially had difficulty settling in to find, to integrate myself.

And then the second part as well, it's then the academics, right? I remember my first exam, I looked, I stared at the paper for 45 minutes because growing up in Singapore, by the time you take a major exam, you're done 10 year series, right? Question 5, what's going to come up, right? The way they set the Cambridge papers, those questions, they don't repeat. They don't look the same. So I was shocked, right? I didn't do well in year one. I had a very sarcastic remark from my professor. So all that shaped my first year. It was tough. So what did I do? I mean, thankfully, I was quite good at football then and that I played for college, and that allowed me a way through sports as a common language to integrate with the locals, right? They're glad that they have a good player. We hang out, after a game, over drinks and beer. What I could never get used to is taking beer, warm beer with Indian food and curry. That's something so English, but I never could have understood that, but it really helped me integrate. So that was good.

(09:03) Jeremy Tan:

I think then, Cambridge from an academic standpoint changed my life in a few ways. One, the way they've gone about setting the papers, they know by the time you leave uni, the tech would have changed, but what wouldn't change are the first principles. So those questions are set so that you can, even though the question looks different you can fall back on first principles. And it to me has served me very well in life, right? So whenever I come across a situation, particularly now, you know my entrepreneurial journey, in Tin Men, you'll meet many situations where you have never seen before. It's that training and the confidence to fall back to first principles. That really served me well, right?

But separately, Cambridge has opened up, widened my horizon and open up doors. Honestly, I mean without that name, I wouldn't have landed my first job or maybe more difficult to land my first job. Got me to meet friends that I still keep in touch with, who have now done really well in life, it's a strong network. And from then, my trajectory really took off because that led me to getting a job in an international bank like Morgan Stanley, which took me to four cities around the world. So I always look back at that very fondly and as a finance person I always look at the ROI on that and it's a really strong ROI.

(10:16) Jeremy Au:

And what's interesting is exactly what you said is that you choose to be a student, enjoy, integrate, and then at the graduation or as you ramped up to it, you chose to go to Morgan Stanley and also the finance route. Could you share about what was your decision making at that time?

(10:30) Jeremy Tan:

Yeah at the age of 14, believe it or not, I had a very distinct vision of becoming a refinery engineer. It was very clear in my head. I told my teachers that I want to pursue chemical engineering. I think it was my second summer at Cambridge, I managed to secure an internship with ExxonMobil in Singapore, Jurong Island. So I remember a pivotal moment when I was climbing up a distillation column. There's a very long column where distillation takes place, and my hard hat and those hot toe shoes on, I was climbing in the hot sun. I remember on my way up,, this is not for me. I saw the hardship, but you know, I think it's the surrounding information that I gathered from the experience.

I saw the engineers there who are lifers there. They're very good at what they do. And more importantly, they're very passionate, and I knew I did not have the passion at least, right? So that spoke to me. And I realized that, okay, my interest really lies on a more macro view of how businesses are run, investing, and so on. So then after that summer, I pivoted. There are two types of companies that recruits very heavily at campuses. One is investment banking. And the other is consulting. I explore a consulting route, realized that it just wasn't my cup of tea, I mean, I need to see something complete and recommendation being adopted and so on, investment banking appealed to me, and the thought of finance, high finance, working with big companies, being able to interact with the C-suites and so on, with the help of many kind souls who have been down the journey. I was able to reorientate my thinking as an engineer to then prep myself for interviewing investment bank without obviously understanding anything about finance. So that's how I pivoted.

(12:04) Jeremy Au:

And so you took this job at Morgan Stanley and you had this whirlwind time right at the four cities that you mentioned. And then you chose to go and go for an Harvard MBA.

(12:13) Jeremy Tan:

Yeah. So Morgan Stanley took me first to Hong Kong, then to Singapore. And then at the end of my second year, I received a phone call from someone that I used to work with at Morgan Stanley who moved to New York. He said, look we need a third year analyst. Would you come? And I jumped at the opportunity. So that led me to work in You know finance center of the world. Why not, right? And let's go even though I never lived in New York before but let's go. So I went there. You really had a good time. And a transaction, I worked on was the IPO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

At that time, investment banks were laying off people. And right before the road show, my VP was laid off. And then I was stuck with the client on the roadshow. And this client's from the Midwest, I have absolutely nothing in common with them. They talk about football, but it's a different football. right? It's football in their hands. And there's no common language. But I told myself, okay, let's go back to first principles. What can I fall back on? So I say, look, let's get to know them personally. So over the two weeks, I got to know the chairman personally, asked about their family, be genuinely interested in their life. And through that, I actually broke through the barriers and I won their trust. At that moment, I think it was halfway through the IPO, the chairman, over several Budweiser light, which is a terrible beer, by the way, gave me a job offer. He said, why don't you come over with us at Chicago? You help us open up Asia. So I jumped at the opportunity because to take a transaction to fruition and then to join them to go to business, something that appealed to me, so I did that. They dawned on me that a few things, the power of having a strong network, this is a classic example. You got to know the chairman. They liked you they like what the work you do. What differentiate me from another resume was that there's a personal relationship and I wanted to have that network. And the sole reason why I applied to business school was because I want access to the network. So hence, I applied to a few schools. Thankfully, I got into one, Harvard Business School. And that set my journey on to the HBS.

(14:03) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. What was the experience like at HBS?

(14:05) Jeremy Tan:

I did a few things. I tell this to a lot of fresh people who just go in there, about to enter the school. I didn't quite enjoy the first year. At least definitely, the first few months of the first year. You felt that everyone were either over-caffeinated or on steroids because there's this anxiety to prove themselves, as anxiety to want to get to meet as many people as you can and not lose out. There's a FOMO there. So as a result, the interactions are all very transient. Hi, bye, what do you do? And then you can see in their eyes, they are doing a calculation. Are you useful for me? And so on. And then they move on. For someone who values a deep relationship, it just wasn't enjoyable for me.

That changed, I think it's subsequently at the end of first year and the second year where everyone calms down. I did form some really, really good relationship that I still keep today. As the case study method is Socratic. A lot of your grades depend on how much you speak up in class and bring strong points. I struggled with that in the first few months, because I look at everyone around us, especially Europeans, Americans, they sound so eloquent, put together. The points sound so robust. And I'm sitting here thinking, I just don't have the points to make. But, as I get to know my classmates in deeper conversations, I realized that actually, I know as much as them, if not more than them. And a different perspective to bring, given that I'm an international student and there's interest in Asia and so on. So that gave me the courage to speak up, finally, and to bring my points across. And I will say that of all the skill sets that I acquired in business school, that's one of the more important ones because being able to articulate your thoughts succinctly and concisely is really useful when I rejoin the workforce. I think a lot of us have good ideas, but how you communicate your ideas is important to empower people, to convince decision makers and followers to help fulfill your vision.

It's communication. So that's one key skill set and takeaway that I took from HBS. Overall, the two years, I had a really good experience. I made some very powerful network. The ROI, I would say, there's a huge J curve, I would say, compared to Cambridge. But I say as you get more senior, the network gets more powerful and I would say that, Tin Men, fundraising would have been a lot more difficult without the Harvard network.

(16:12) Jeremy Au:

How has the network been helpful for you?

(16:14) Jeremy Tan:

In many small ways, after Harvard, I worked two years at a bulge bracket PE fund in Boston. They only hire one per cohort. So it's very exclusive. In my section, there was a classmate that worked there. So that was helpful. It does understand the culture. For the interviewers to know a bit more about me beyond the interview slots and so on. And I was very very glad that I had the opportunity to work there. In 2008, when I decided to move back to Singapore, I decided to move back because I saw the growth here and also also honestly after 10 years overseas, From wanting to get out of Singapore, I didn't have the context to say I want to come home. This is hope, right? I moved back without a job. I just got on the plane and moved back and within months, weeks actually, I got referrals, coffee chats, there's a lot of interest in terms of people wanting to hire. And mind you, that was 2008, post Lehman imploding and GFC setting in.

And then, through that, I landed a lot of this uh, through the Harvard network. And then I landed my job and then the rest was history. And I think along the way, fast forward Tin Men. Some of our anchor LPs are from the Harvard network and it's because they've seen, in this case, me over the years and that builds trust and they understand the person they're backing. So that's really helpful as well. But also in daily life, when you need someone to call, someone to understand a little bit about a particular industry and so on, all that is helpful.

On a personal side, you want you're traveling to, I don't know, Australia, for work or to the US or Europe, you just post in a Whatsapp group. Hey, I'm coming and who's around, and then you know, there's always classmates around and it's always good and cathartic to just catch up. It's as though that we never stop talking to each other. So at many levels, I think that's a beautiful network to have.

(17:49) Jeremy Au:

And what's interesting is that you were sharing about your experience because you moved from investment banking into kind of like follow through. And then now you're doing more of this private equity and private assets, and then you did M&A. So how did you make that transition to say this is venture capital and technology is actually a more interesting subset or set that you want to go after?

(18:09) Jeremy Tan:

Yeah, so maybe let's talk a little bit about what I did before founding Tin Men to give context. So I rejoined Morgan Stanley in 2008 and I helped set up the principal investment desk for commodities. Morgan Stanley obviously has a great trading platform, but I wasn't trading. I sent this to the traders. My job was to invest in hard assets so we could be lending money to a pre-production coal mine and they'll pay us back with the underlying commodities at a discount and then my traders can trade around that. Spent many months in the remote area in Australia building storage tanks for diesel.

So I did that for five, six years coincided with a nice, super cycle for commodities. Then I left because it became increasingly hard as the banks got more regulated. GFC was hunted by Trafigura, which is one of the largest oil trading firm in the world. The title there was hit on investments for Asia PAC and Middle East. They're very deep into emerging markets, Africa. They want to do the same in this region. First deal that we invested in was in Papua New Guinea, last year in Pakistan, so very frontier markets. Through that journey, with commodities and with the underlying common factor input as we were supplying to supply chain logistics company construction firm, manufacturers shipping firm, and so on agriculture as well.

So all these are what I call the legacy industries in Southeast Asia, and they're also the big part of GDP. And I note, I formed deep relationship understanding of this sector but also I noticed that these sectors, they need to digitize. You're dealing with sometimes hundreds of millions of worth of cargo and it's all over email and pen and paper. So that's what I observed. And then along the way, I started investing in angel deals. First by backing some of our classmates from Harvard, helping them break the Asia. And I got hooked. I was getting up at 6 a. m, all I had was my equity, trying to bridge calls between LA and New York. And I just loved instead of just moving numbers, we're building something. And that to me was very uplifting. It was very inspiring. I love the idea of disrupting the incumbents. So that's the first taste of VC, but then that also got me a front row seat of what's happening around Southeast Asia.

(20:03) Jeremy Tan:

Along 2016, 2017, I also came to a crossroads in my career. I was offered a promotion to run the function globally at Geneva with a clear path towards growth within I always talked about starting my own things. I think my wife in particular has been sick of hearing me saying it without doing it and I think it's time to make a decision. So around that time, a life changing event happened. My dad passed away unexpectedly and it was a very difficult moment for me to do someone who has been supportive and giving me the opportunities in life and it dawned on me, I know it's a cliche, but only when you lose something precious that you truly internalize it that life is short. I think all that in combination got me to overcome what was holding me back, which is a fear of failure, to start my own things. So with that, we then embark then I met Muli, my partner, and a lot of things click. He was ready. I was ready. Our values are very aligned. We're both self made people. We share values of integrity and transparency. We're both first principle thinkers as well. And then we hashed out what we see in Southeast Asia. And the thesis that we had and what we could offer, it was a match so for the first time, the head, head, the heart and the gut align. And I just knew I had to do it.

So then that transition, then I turned down the promotion and embark on starting Tin Men and, it's been seven years already. So there you go.

(21:25) Jeremy Au:

Wow. And what was it like for you to raise that first fund, because, you're really part of that almost first wave of VC funds or fundraising in Southeast Asia. So new market, new thesis. How was that like back then?

(21:38) Jeremy Tan:

Before we embarked on fundraising, we each wrote on a piece of paper how much we think we can bring to the table and I added up the number.. It was like, oh my god, it's less than 10 million. Come on You know, that's not a good start. But anyways, it was difficult. I talked about jumping in, but it's hard to raise a first fund. It's very hard, and with hindsight, I think it's functioned a few things. Number one, unlike markets like the US, China, India, the solidification, the stage of development is still quite nascent here, relatively speaking. That also means that the type of LPs who would allocate or understand venture capital, it's quite limited. It was a slog to be honest, right? And then we quite quickly figured out that we need to look outside Singapore, so thankfully the Harvard network clicked in and so on. And and we got first anchor LP second anchor LP and then what we have success as well is strategic LPs from this region that have worked with us before. And we have deliberately set up for strategic LPs because I know they're digitizing. They do not want to run their own CBC. They view us as an outpost for them. So all that click and we have use for them because our startups go through go to market via them. It's a good match.

So from then we started building and building. And then, got to find one fund size, and then we started deploying, and thankfully have good results and and we built from there.

(22:51) Jeremy Au:

Could you share about a time that you personally have been brave?

(22:53) Jeremy Tan:

Yeah. I would say, coming back, is setting up Tin Men. Let me just expound on that a bit. I talk about fear of failure. If you recall, my dad, make up the difference for Cambridge. It's not a small amount. And it was a time, '97, 2000, where Asian crisis happened and the pound was let's just say it's 12 Sing dollars to get a plate of duck rice in the UK. That put him and his business under a lot of stress, and we went through very hard times, and that always had a deep scar, emotionally for me. And I carried a scar all these years for the fear of failure and the act of starting Tin Men. I had to really overcome that fear of failure. What will my friends think of me? Can I support my family? Can I do it? It is a relationship that I, I guess have mastery over now before I make the jump. So if I look back, that's one of the things that you know was emotionally and very hard for me, but thankfully I did.

(23:44) Jeremy Au:

Why would you describe it as a scar?

(23:46) Jeremy Tan:

It's a scar because at a young age, I had to step in and help support the family as well. Without going into too much details, it was a very, very hard times. We're talking about financial stress and so on. And at a point, being a young person, just starting out your career and I was the oldest son. So it kind of felt that I'm the last fallback. So it was a lot of stress and debt, pain I associate with a particular episode in my life. And unknowingly, I carry that and been chasing money and big names and the security of that and the thought of coming out on your own, not having that safety net and with that scar and the very emotional experience, I had made that decision to embark on an uncertain entrepreneurial path. Very difficult. Emotionally very draining.

(24:26) Jeremy Au:

How do you take care of yourself when it's very draining?

(24:29) Jeremy Tan:

A very good question. I'm still learning to juggle, but what I do every morning is that I journal. I spend a few minutes just write down my thoughts, write down things I'm grateful for because I know how my mind works. It tends to focus on the negatives and just having that time to just focus on what has gone. That has been very grounding for me. Small breaks along the way just say simple things. You're in a taxi. You do a deep breathing. And I exercise every day. So exercise does gives me that uplift and that reprieve from not having to think about work. Weekends, generally I switch off and spend time with family and kids and carve out just a few hours just to meet, to myself because weekends actually you're sending the kids around. So what I do is I get up early in the morning. My routine is Saturday I head out to do some fishing. couple of hours before I take the kids swimming so, that being part of being with nature and so on, for me helps me ground myself.

(25:20) Jeremy Au:

You shared about how your parents played a pivotal role in your life. How has becoming a parent change your reflection about your own personal experiences and memory of that?

(25:30) Jeremy Tan:

This is an interesting one. Having been a parent, I think it brings back what my mom used to tell me, which is that next time you we have your own kids, you'd understand. Of course, I will never let her know that I understand that now, but I guess they are mirror image of you. They are mirror to yourself, the rebellious, the questioning back and so on, they are basically reflecting, they're reflecting you back to yourself essentially and it's very humbling that you know for you to take a look, for me to take a look at what I could change and do better as a role model for them. I have to change as well the way I parent. When I grew up, there's a household with a cane. That was still condoned at that point in time, but now it's different. Yelling doesn't help either. Try to rewire how I was parent, to new ways of parenting has been challenging for me. And that has changed me as well.

(26:17) Jeremy Tan:

Being a parent also got me to become a better investor and here are the reasons why. To me, talking to kids has similarity with talking to founders. Try telling your kids what to do. It doesn't work, right? And founders, the reason why they are in this path is because they have conviction. Telling them what to do just doesn't sit well, so I have adjusted my style and my communication to get a message across so that it lands well. It speaks to the founders and it becomes a more collaborative relationship. So all that, you know has made me a better person.

I think finally this, when you carry my first child in my hand, I was going through a particularly stressful time at work but then you realize, there are more important things in life like when your child falls sick, that's something worth worrying about. The rest of the stuff is small stuff, right? So all that, it's how parenting and being a parent has shaped me, and continue to shape me.

(27:04) Jeremy Au:

And last question is, if you could travel back in time to your younger self when you are going to sit for your PSLE, you had a time travel machine, if you had coffee with your younger self, what would you say?

(27:14) Jeremy Tan:

At that age, I think I wouldn't have changed what I've done. I mean I've done enough to get past and so on, I think at the age of 19, when I was in the army, that's when I make the switch mentally from happy go lucky to I gotta be serious in my life, but I think I swung in the pendulum to the other end, became very stressed, became very serious and all that is because well, I have a lot to lose here.

My parents are paying for this. I better make sure that I get it done and so on. All that weight, I will go back then and tell myself then, look, it's okay. Things will work out. You do your best and things will work out. I think with that, I'll be a much happier person. I think my friends will enjoy being around me more and perhaps I will have the capacity to expand my life experience, travel a bit more instead of being stressed about it.

(27:56) Jeremy Au:

Thank you. On that note, I'd love to kind of like summarize the three big takeaways to go from this conversation. First of all, thank you so much for sharing about your early childhood and what you were like as a student in terms of academics, in terms of what you're stressed about how you worked your way through your academics to eventually land at Cambridge and Harvard. And I think there's a fascinating journey there.

Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about your professional career, about how you started focusing on finance. But also some of the career decisions you made the opportunities you took up, the networks that you were able to leverage and how you eventually became a VC as well.

Lastly, thanks so much for sharing about your own reflective philosophy as a parent and as somebody who's looking back upon your prior career about how you have done things differently and how you would have viewed life differently in light of your new experiences that you have today.

On that note, thank you so much, Jeremy, for sharing.

(28:38) Jeremy Tan:

Oh, thanks for having me it's been fun.