The guest
Cyan Banister: General partner at Long Journey Ventures, former partner at Founders Fund, and one of the top angel investors of her generation; early backer of Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, Affirm, Niantic, and 100+ companies. Author of the Uglyduckling Substack.
What this episode covers
Cyan Banister tells Tim Ferriss the unlikely story of her life, from being raised on the Navajo reservation and becoming a homeless ward of the State of Arizona at 15 to becoming a celebrated angel investor. She breaks down how she sourced legendary deals like Uber and Niantic through pattern recognition, persistence, and refusing to accept any answer short of a hard no. She discusses founding the nude-art platform Zivity a decade before OnlyFans, her early porn-and-capitalism awakening, and lessons from failed deals like Game Crush and HQ Trivia. The second half covers her dice-rolling practice for removing decision fatigue, a near-fatal brain blood clot (a stroke), and a profound spiritual awakening rooted in Gurdjieff, Crowley, and the film The Razor's Edge.
Recommended on this episode
MediaRecommended
Icahn: The Restless Billionaire
HBO
“if somebody wants a great documentary watch icon the Restless billionaire”
“if somebody wants a great documentary watch icon the Restless billionaire if you want to see what like super Hardball activist investing looks like”— Tim Ferriss
BookRecommended
Magic Glasses
Frank Harris
“so I highly recommend reading this story it's fantastic”
“a weird short story called magic glasses by Frank... so I highly recommend reading this story it's fantastic”— Cyan Banister
BookRecommended
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
“the unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kera which I highly highly recommend to folks”
“it features quite heavily in the unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kera who which I highly highly recommend to folks”— Tim Ferriss
The guest's own work
MediaBy the guest
Ugly Duckling (Substack)
Cyan Banister
“you can subscribe to cyan substack uglyduckling dos substack do.com her writing is great I would recommend subscribing”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
Uber
“she was also an early investor in a few names you might recognize Uber SpaceX Deep Mind flexport affirm”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
SpaceX
“she was also an early investor in a few names you might recognize Uber SpaceX Deep Mind flexport affirm”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
DeepMind
“she was also an early investor in a few names you might recognize Uber SpaceX Deep Mind flexport affirm”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
Flexport
“she was also an early investor in a few names you might recognize Uber SpaceX Deep Mind flexport affirm”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
Affirm
“she was also an early investor in a few names you might recognize Uber SpaceX Deep Mind flexport affirm”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
Niantic
“Niantic the makers of Pokémon go Pokémon go okay so how does this how does this show up”— Tim Ferriss
ProductBy the guest
Pokemon Go
Niantic
“this whole weird thing called alphabet that's happening and niantic's becoming its own thing... used to create Pokémon go”— Cyan Banister
ProductBy the guest
Hint Water
Hint
“I'd invested in a company called hint water I don't know if you've ever had hint water but they're these flavored”— Cyan Banister
ProductBy the guest
Flock Safety
“Garrett Langley is the founder of flock security... it's now valued at over6 billion doar”— Cyan Banister
ProductBy the guest
Game Crush
“this is game crush and Lessons Learned ah yes game Crush could have been twitch”— Tim Ferriss
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
MediaReferenced
The Matrix
“it's the same concept that was explored in The Matrix and in in lots of different Fiction it's just to wake up”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
The Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac
“he read Jack carak or something I was just gonna say like Dharma bums or something yeah he probably just read Dharma bums”— Tim Ferriss
ProductReferenced
Buffalo Exchange
“I would go in and find items that I could sell to Buffalo Exchange or I could take to a bookstore”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Ingress
Niantic
“Chris Collins that met me and showed me a computer started playing a game called Ingress and Ingress was this early game that came out of Google”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Zendesk
“she didn't have anybody to help her set up her support system and I knew how to set up Zen desk so I went in and set it up”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
AngelList
“I went to angelist had just started and we they were allowing syndications and I wanted to Syndicate this deal”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Tesla
“we've seen this play out with Tesla in terms of launching higher priced vehicles and then using that to subsidize the development of the lower cost Vehicles”— Tim Ferriss
ProductReferenced
Twitch
“after that twitch took off but they didn't have the right tools or the right anything to be a twitch”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Discord
“twitch didn't exist Discord didn't exist none of that stuff existed there were webcam sites”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Myspace
“let's put this in perspective there was Myspace was a thing still Facebook came out and was sort of On The Rise”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
HQ Trivia
“I learned this interestingly with another company HQ trivia which would I would argue is a much bigger disaster and failure”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
OnlyFans
“zivid actually which only fans has figured out and a lot of these other platforms figured out is it's about not about the content at all”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Patreon
“later on patreon figured out it's called patronage and Kickstarter figured out it's called backing somebody”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Kickstarter
“later on patreon figured out it's called patronage and Kickstarter figured out it's called backing somebody”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
Suicide Girls
“a competitor which became a friendly competitor of mine called suicide girls that had launched and I tried to start zivid before suicide girls even”— Cyan Banister
ProductReferenced
OpenTable
“maybe we we hone in on a talian like... we basically put Italian into Open Table we roll the dice whatever it lands on we committed”— Cyan Banister
BookReferencedISBN verified
My Life and Loves
Frank Harris
“he wrote one of the smuttiest books of the time called my life and loves which was banned worldwide and it was an account of every single sexual encounter”— Cyan Banister
BookReferenced
Random
Penn Jillette
“my friend pendulette who's who's a magician wrote a book called random at the exact same time and that book is a bit graphic”— Cyan Banister
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Razor's Edge
W. Somerset Maugham
“I started watching this movie called The Razor's Edge which is based off of a novel by Somerset mom”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
The Razor's Edge
Bill Murray
“there's a version that Bill Murray did... it explores all of these ideas around gf's philosophy around suffering and what suffering is”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
Ghostbusters II
“I believe that he agreed to make Ghostbusters too in exchange for them making this movie that he wrote The Razor's Edge”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
Groundhog Day
“Alinsky wrote a book called I think it's called The Curious Case of Ivan oin which is what Groundhog Day is based off of”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
Caddyshack
“I hadn't seen groundhog Bay I hadn't seen catty Shack I hadn't seen any of these movies”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
What About Bob?
“What About Bob I hope I so what about Bob oh are these hands shocked”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
The Man Who Knew Too Little
“The Man Who Knew Too Little Broken flowers like I watched them all and I realized that this is an artist”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
Broken Flowers
“The Man Who Knew Too Little Broken flowers like I watched them all and I realized that this is an artist”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
American Beauty
“another movie that actually really helped me in my life was the movie American Beauty with Kevin spacy”— Cyan Banister
BookReferencedISBN verified
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
G. I. Gurdjieff
“There's a book that he has called Basel buubs Tales to his grandson”— Cyan Banister
BookReferenced
The Curious Case of Ivan Osokin
P. D. Ouspensky
“alinsky's the uh The Curious Case of Ivan oakin is about a guy who falls in love with a girl but he has to pursue his career”— Cyan Banister
MediaReferenced
In the Air Tonight
Phil Collins
“this song comes on over the loudspeakers... it was Phil Collins I Can Feel It In the Air Tonight”— Cyan Banister
Big reveals from this episode
- At 15 a judge made her a ward of the State of Arizona after asking her mother in open court 'do you want this child anymore' and her mother answered 'no I do not'; her mother had earlier left her with a $20 bill and a note saying 'good luck.'
- She and her husband invested in Uber (then 'Uber cab') after a livery driver named Roger kept handing her CEO Ryan Graves's card; she wired in after seeing Travis Kalanick pitch, getting ratcheted from 75k to 50k as one of only two individuals in the round.
- She got into Niantic (Pokemon Go) by tracing Ingress game codes on Hint Water bottle caps to John Hanke, camping at his office after being told no; her friend Lucas got hired and both were allowed to invest.
- She landed the Flock Safety deal (now valued over $6 billion) by spotting founder Garrett Langley's name on hotel Wi-Fi, Googling him, and walking up to introduce herself as being from Founders Fund.
- She founded Zivity, a fully nude art platform, roughly a decade before OnlyFans and ran it for 10 years; she identified that the value was real human interaction, not the content, but was barred from app stores, ad platforms, payment processors, and even WeWork offices.
- Her dice-rolling practice: she wears dice in a locket and lets random rolls decide restaurants, road trips, chores, and talk topics to eliminate decision fatigue, saying she's 'never been led astray by the dice.'
- A spiritual awakening hit while watching Bill Murray's The Razor's Edge; she felt energy shoot up her spine (a Kundalini-type event) and experienced ego dissolution, after which she stopped being an atheist.
- She suffered a stroke at Founders Fund, a deep venous sinus thrombosis with clotting through the center of her brain, and was 'moments away from death'; it was repeatedly misdiagnosed as a migraine until a nurse suspected a stroke.
Worth remembering
- Raised on the Navajo reservation as the white minority, she has roughly a 9th-grade formal education and a distinct regional accent.
- An RV driver pulled over and saved her from hypothermia on the roadside, saying 'God told me to save her,' taking her all the way back to Flagstaff.
- To survive homeless, she made $2 a day reselling donated clothing and books to Buffalo Exchange and bookstores, then made hemp jewelry, which she calls the beginnings of her love for capitalism.
- Travis Kalanick was nearly the number-one ranked Wii Tennis player in the world and would play with his non-dominant hand to give opponents a chance.
- She argues Pokemon Go's July 2016 release was 'the closest we've come to world peace,' with people running around even in Juneau, Alaska; she holds an honorary lifetime Niantic key card.
- HQ Trivia, which she invested in, ended with one of its 50-50 co-founders dead; she now avoids companies without a clear single CEO.
- Her interest in adult content began at age 11-12 watching a 'wolf dog' for a man, where she found vintage Playboys, plus her art-teacher mother's lewd Chinese sculpture books she'd resell to classmates.
- Her fashion constraint experiments included wearing only plaid for three months, then polka dots (which she hated), to combine minimalism with joy.
- After failing with meditation apps, Tibetan throat singing was her unlock; she can now meditate for up to 6 hours at a time.
- In Boston, chasing a vision of a cartoonish Irish man, she experienced a multi-day surreal episode where a hotel insisted she 'didn't exist,' met a man who claimed he'd medically died, and got a Gurdjieff-philosophy 'baptism' on a Boston duck boat tour.
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