Episode 115 - Love People and Free Enterprise with Jason Syversen
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Jason Syversen, CEO of Sports Visio, is a tech entrepreneur, investor, board member, and philanthropist. He also has a passion for making a difference in the world through tech, startups, creating value, and giving back. Jason has been quoted and featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, and other media outlets. He founded Siege Technologies, serving as CEO for 10 years, and has been involved in more than 27 investments and counting. What does it take to love people while supporting free enterprise? Jason explains on the Faith Driven Investor Podcast.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Henry Kaestner: Good morning, partner.
Luke Roush: Good morning. Good morning. It's great to be with Jason here.
Henry Kaestner: It is great to have Jason on. You know, we've been around the world on this podcast in many, if not most states. We have never been to the very, very fine state of New Hampshire. And when I was growing up, I collected license plates and I loved New Hampshire license plates. Live free or die. There's just something just massively motivating about that concept and that context. And so we've got a really special guest. We've Jason Syversen in the house, who is an investor and entrepreneur and stepped into politics because I think he probably has read enough of the backs of people's cars in his home state of New Hampshire and decided that actually maybe that might mean something. And so maybe he might even talk about that a little bit during our time with him today. But Jason, thank you very much for joining us.
Jason Syversen: [...] Guys I am a long time listener, so excited to be on the show and enjoying the content that's been producing and for being here.
Henry Kaestner: Thank you. Thank you for listening and your encouragement. And then also we've gotten to know each other just a little bit more. We're you know, we've got this Faith driven entrepreneurs group which right now in our January cohort on time stamp on this a little bit about when we're recording, we have 1500 entrepreneurs representing 88 countries going through these this eight week process. We've watched some Faith Driven Investor through that group, but we've never had a Faith Driven Investor specific group with new content. And you're helping us debate that out. We've got four different cohorts going through that, some really neat stuff and exploring the new Slack channel. We have to be able to interact and you've been a big part of that and really advancing the conversation, so thank you for that.
Jason Syversen: I'm thrilled to. I think i have shared not having that local community, and [...] to find a virtual, or even global community that you are helping assemble cause without you know those kind of matchmakers like you guys making that happen, that's super hard to find other folks that have that same passion person. Investing in entrepreneurship so it has been awesome in finding. I feel like a wet sponge soaking up moisture. So it's been great to get poured into and have a chance to share with others.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Okay, so as we work with any podcast guest, we'd like to get a flyover of who they are, where they come from, give us a biographical sketch. And then eventually, of course, during this podcast, we'll talk about all the things we're talking about, the entrepreneurship, the investing and the politics a little bit. But who are you?
Jason Syversen: Yeah, thanks. I thought about this last night and I've been listening to podcasts. I listened at one and a half speed. I think I mentioned that, I have ADHD, so I like the extra stimulation. Funny trivia fact I actually read the entire Lord of the rings trilogy in a single night, which of course is part of the reason I never thought someone like me had ADHD, you picture ADHD as a person who can't sit still and force my leg like sit in here as I chat, so I tend to move at high speeds. So for those of you that like me like to listen at high speed, I'm to talk fast and gain a lot of content. So you might want to move to one and a quarter speed or even one speed some of the Southern drawl folks that talk nice and slow. 1.5 speed works great but I might not do as well.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it's funny you say that. I've always wanted to listen very quickly and I can't. I feel like I've just haven't been able to do it well. Luke and I have a great friend and business partner at Bandwidth With David Morgan who listens to books at 3 x , and I remember calling him up after a book. He recommended to me the hard thing about hard things, about the injuries and hardwood story. And I said, yeah, I just can't listen to this guy. The guy that had read it had this British accent. I said, It just is grating on me after a while. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about. And I was like, you know do you know that British accent? And I listen to it. At three X, you can't discern any accent.
Jason Syversen: That's fascinating. Now yeah, I've never three is impressive. I've done two before, but one and a half is a little more comfortable where I can feel like I'm absorbing it better. But that three is that's a real speed listening right there.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I'm locked into one and I feel really inadequate. Okay. Who are you? Where you come from?
Jason Syversen: Yeah. So thanks born in New Jersey. You grew up in Maine. My dad, is some KAT engineer that they're working in the paper mills for [...] reasons. Someone tried to abduct a girl down the road from us in our house in Jersy. And so my parents decided they wanted to move somewhere safer. And that works with paper mills. They start shutting down and we ended up being out of work we loss the house that we bought on the auction. When I was young maybe 10 and went through period of a decade of kind of, I guess American poverty. So rental properties and crappy housesyou know with like a holes in the floorboard and wearing your shoes and doors and cutting wood in the middle of the winter time. So we'd have heat. My dad ran ground over a gravel driveway trying to fix our broken down. 1967 Chevelle was cutting Christmas trees or all kinds of crazy stuff, fermenting butter and food stamps. I did not realized that this was like life in Maine and everybody's like that. Normal, rich people from out of state can afford to come Maine in the BMWs eventually was that wasn't the case. And we're just actually in a very poor place. We were actually homeless for a summer, living in someone's pop up camper, and I remember the shame my parents had in kinda sharing that, but I just thought it was cool we were camping, but I didn't realize some of the ways that that changed my mindset and motivation to try to live differently until I got married and my wife was kind of yelled at me one day. Why do your socks have holes in them? I was like because I wear them and they're tube socks. What's the big deal? It's like they have multiple holes and she pulls up the socks and there's like holes around them. I was like, Yeah, cause I just rotate them and keep wearing them like to do with socks. And she kind of soften in her face and she realizes, like, honey, you're not poor any more like wearing some decent the socks. We are going to throw them out. We are going to buy you new socks. Like, why that's so wasteful? Like, I didn't understand. That wasn't what normal people did with socks. And so that's some of that mentality. Even my forties, I find myself still sometimes spending 5 hours to try to save $15 on something. I'm like, It wasn't a good use of my time. I really need to delegate that and just like pull it in. So it's something I'm still working on today. Yeah, I've got a free ride for computer engineering at U Maine then went to New Hampshire because I love that [...] mentality and have a quality of life of Maine by people. Slower pace of life, but also a great high tech economy. Close to Boston. I live about an hour north of Boston and my wife and I got married in college. I have been believer since I was five. Never went to that falling away phase In college, many do when I try to center my entire life around my relationship with Christ I have loving, homeschooling parents you know grew up reading scripture and made that the centerpiece of my identity and my wife. We have four children biologically we end up adopting twin boys. My wife and I felt passionately about kind of adoption story and being something in our family because that's so central to the gospel message about us being adopted into Christ's Kingdom and family. So that was a long journey and my wife actually wrote a book about it [...] CNN was interested in. We also went three years infertility.
Henry Kaestner: Wait What's a book called.
Jason Syversen: It's called Mustard Seed Faith Journey Through Infertility, Miscarriages. And Faith she talks about our process of trying to adopt to adopt failed adoptions, people ripping us off lies and crazy stuff. And then also years of infertility, miscarriage and how challenging that was in her faith and just her belief is God good, right. We feel called to do this and age analogy seems like touching a hot stove and keep burning its keep touching on the hot stove that we felt like we're supposed to at some point feel like I don't want to touch the stuff anymore. I keep getting slapped or burned. And then we gave up trying and then someone approached us and ended up adopting these amazing twin boys, four identical twins, like the guys [...], which is really fun to watch them growing up. So, yes, I went to New Hampshire, I work for the defense company, decided signal processing all that was great, more like warfare school but I really want to be a hacker and started hacking the company network reporting it to the IT guys which of course annoyed them but their management loved it.
Luke Roush: So in the wake of like events of the last year or two with Russia, many of our listeners are probably wondering, you know, what does it mean to be a hacker? Maybe just talk a little bit more about that.
Jason Syversen: Yeah. I mean, I was just I was going to grad school at Boston Polytechnic Institute for Electrical Engineering focused on crypto and security. So I'm getting the academic knowledge. But inside the network, I'm poking around and like, how can I do this? And realizing I could see vulnerabilities in the network and I would try them out or I'd get permission before I actually did anything. I'd try stuff out of my own system, but if I was touching anyone else's, i want to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules. So I told the IT guys what i was finding. They're like, no, you can't do that. Oh yeah, i could get domain admin. I can on all 4000 computers in this network and they're like, prove it. Like, cool. I was hoping you'd say that. Like, you give me that in writing just so I do not lose my job or get in trouble here. So his boss emails me and it's like a couple of weeks and I wrote a little program and I had full control over the entire network and I sent him a message was like, How did you do that? But I told you about it two weeks ago, man. He's like, Oh, you got to write that down. So I wrote a whole report up about all the things I was finding. Then had a meeting. Yeah, one of the IT guys like you should be fired. Like, I can't believe you're doing this. And I'm like, Dude, I'm not making the issue. Like, I just got a flashlight and showing you what's there like, You don't have to fix it. You don't have to do anything. I'm just identifying stuff that exists on the network because your boss told me to like, No, no. And the boss is like, You're good at this. Like, you should do this for a living, but I don't really want to do IT. I really want to be an engineers engineer. I love inventing stuff and finding new things that other people have done. And if I'll be on a IT management side, I really want to be inventing finding new capabilities. So ended up hooking up with the older guy in the building, a group inside the company to do cyber warfare. So built it up to about 20 folks.
In that siege. That siege right.
Jason Syversen: Now, this is inside of a large defense company. Then I got recruited to go to DARPA, which was a total joke, going to out of jail to Pharaoh's Palace. I'm a 30 year old guy in New Hampshire, and I am going to DARPA and all my peers are in their forties and fifties. They have PhD These are like lieutenant colonels and military. I'm running $100 million portfolio of research programs. And I'm this I was the youngest person they'd ever hired at DARPA at the time, which again, it was a total divine thing. I'm pretty self-confident guy, but I told my wife I'm like, Honey, there is no way I get this job unless God is divinely orchestrating something to put me in this position. So I'm commuting from New Hampshire every week [...] To my house and my mother in law asked my wife, do you still feel God called you to Virginia? Now you got the job and he has to commute and she's like, Yeah mom, I do. It's not always works is doesn't always go the way you want but we will prioritize our family. I was gone Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights. I was a geo bachelor and ended up going down. And then Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I was home and I just cancel everything I was becoming an elder in our church. And I stepped out of that and said, I'm just gonna be a family guy for that time. I did that for two years. I ran the portfolio transitional program, airports, Army, Navy, CIA, NSA and other groups and then [...] said, I can't do two more years. It's only a temporary job. And then I started my own company, Siege Technology in 2009, 2010, we did a million in revenue and we just kept growing from there in cyber warfare, technology, R&D were mostly government contracts for defense companies and other [...] clients and paid us to build technology and find problems. It's all about the capabilites response and tech venture backed firm, and then we scaled up and wanted to build a couple more and I was like, You know what I skipped to that point. I can't be a good husband, Dad, run this company and run two more companies. So we ended up selling to somebody called Nehemiah Security. The founder is also a Christian. I think guys at Nehemiah called Farrell. I think. Yes. I think he has some exposure in Sovereigns and that great guy. We prayed together after the acquisition every week and I left in 2019. My wife and I had a double digit exit we basically had committed before the company started that we were going to take all we needed to just what we need to live on. So I enjoyed the conversation that earlier about financial disclosure. So I lived on my 12 grands a month And have six kids and we're joining the rest of the foundation. So I work with the National Christian Foundation and put [...] Into the nonprofit. So that's kind of what I've been doing. So that happened 2019, went into full time investing and I also end up running for Senate because I really felt like God was pushing me to do that. I did not want to do it, but I felt like Jonah [...] go to, Niniveh. And I was like, I've read that Bible story and I know what happens if you don't get into Niniveh. So I guess I going to go to Niniveh. I did that and did not win lost by 3%, but I had a chance to share my testimony to a bunch of folks and then this past year decided to start new company.
Henry Kaestner: Gosh there's just so much there. There's so much that a part of me wants to go all the way back to a startup and selling government contracts is you hear that the sales cycle with the government is just really really really long maybe just very quickly hit on that.
Jason Syversen: Yeah it is long but you know so much of it like anything is relationship driven so like found is by you know if you have a high end team and a great reputation, which I was very blessed to have coming out of DARPA, we were able to get sub contracts under bigger companies and cut off that process of the long sale cycle. We didn't win a lot of prime work, but we just were able to come in and help them find some work that they had with our team. And then we got on the process that long cycle and it can be long but sometimes I can sort any other group like tactical customers, like special ops guys. I've been privileged to work with groups across the gamut from intelligence and defense and some of those to move pretty quickly. If you have a capability, they can they can make things happen.
Luke Roush: So when you first get going with kind of that company, it was very much kind of a founding moment. Yeah, there's some great stories around just bootstrapping and what that looked like for you and your family. Maybe to speak a little bit more about those early years.
Jason Syversen: Sure it was actually really cool faith building experience for me because I actually started the company in 2005. So before I went to DARPA, I really was feeling led to kind of start this company. And I prayed about it for months I said God, like, I'm not going to start this company unless it's for you, because I don't want to be an ego thing for me and I'm just too good for this company and I'm going to be an entrepreneur. So I prayed for months and I was like, I'm not starting it until I feel like you're telling me to do this. And it took three or four months and I kept praying. I didn't ask God if I starts company, which is kind of weird. I was asking would it be successful if I did? So it was like a foregone conclusion and I kept praying and finally I felt like God said, yes, it's going to be successful. I said, okay, I'm going to do it. So 2005, I started the company Siege Technologies Inc and wrote a proposal, submitted it to [...] Because I didn't want to do anything competitive with my current employer and a year goes by and I didn't win sales cycle to go on did not win, okay, God, I still trust you. You said it's going to work. Maybe the next one, right? Wrote another proposal, throw it out off the wall, six months or whatever go by. I don't win and my buddy who started it with. said, you know what, you really need to go and do this full time. But I was like, I have the money, I have the big enough reputation. I don't think I [...] in my twenties. And I kind of gave up like, you know, like this just isn't going to work out, I guess. And so it kind of cost me question my faith. Not that I didn't believe in God, but I was like, maybe I just have no idea how to pray, right? I think that you've shared Henry about listening, sometimes being challenged in prayer, and I definitely do. I talk too much when I'm praying and don't listen enough. I was like, I actually sound like I thought, God, really told me something and it didn't happen. So I have no idea what I'm doing. It's clearly I have no idea how prayer works. And then suddenly I get this offer to go to DARPA out of the blue, they call me at my desk. Would you consider come to DARPA? I'm like, Yeah, I would so I go to DARPA I get this job came to DC, so I can't take a job at one of these other places. I'm back in New Hampshire. Not really an opportunity to do cool cyber warfare technology work in New Hampshire outside of my old job, which I didn't want to take. And I'm back in and I start this company, Siege Technologies, LLC, and we take off, right? We do a millionaires and scale up. And I realized, like, God had to do some things right he wanted to say, Will you trust me and move out in faith and start this company. Despite the fact that [...] New Hampshire And I did and it didn't work out. And he's like, Do you still trust me in the middle of that? And I did. And He was like, All right, well, I got to move some things around to make this work. He has me go to DARPA, then he puts me back. I can't move down to New Hampshire then I start the company and it takes off and I totally could look back. It was like, Oh, I asked if we were going to be successful. I didn't ask when. I just ask would it? And as long as I stayed faithful and kind of trusted him, he made things happen. So that way we were able to be very fortunate and take off after I had that reputation. So it was amazing. It was scary, right? We bet everything we had and part of it was that difference of doing it part time the first time around, the second time I put all the chips and I saved up some money, I had 30 grand in savings and took out a home equity line of credit for 30 grand to put in company. And I said, All right, God, this is it. And I have to say, my wife was a key part of that. I've heard people share and hear one of the other guests who had talked about the wife not being supportive but my wife was all in the whole time. It's like, I believe in you. It's like, what's the worst that happens? We lose our house, we go back to rent and it's like, I don't care. Like I have your back. I think this is going to be tremendously successful.
Henry Kaestner: And that's awesome. That's a special gift.
Jason Syversen: Having that support for me was like, All right, I don't have to worry about her because I'm not planning on losing the house like I'm going to do everything I can, which doesn't happen. But knowing she was willing to go there took a lot of pressure off of me. I just felt completely supported throught that journey.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Okay. So a bunch of other things you mentioned along the way. One is running for state Senate in New Hampshire and sharing your faith along the campaign trail going and I know you well enough and we talked about a little bit before we went on air, but part of that means door to door campaigning. What does that look like?
Jason Syversen: Yeah, during the pandemic. Right. So that was an extra twist.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah.
Jason Syversen: So yeah, 2019 in one day, you know, just getting some started. Why I ran once again, I had zero interest and I'm reading this paper from a group called Founders Pledge, which I'm part of. So Founders pledges this group of entrepreneurs who have pledged to give some portion of their proceeds of their company to charity. It was actually it's not a Christian group. It's just a group of folks, Christian or not, that I felt strongly about having a public declaration about something around giving. Right, you have heard about the giving pledge. The billionaires have wasn't anything really like that beyond that. And founders pledges is cool because it's a contractual commitment, you actually sign a contract saying you're going to give whatever amount you've determined. And I wanted there to be something in a public declaration and a community that was part of that can connect others. They also have a free donor by fund and they have free researchers. So they will make available to help you make informed philanthropic partnering decisions. So I did that. I was getting to know the head of research, another random topic we could talk for hours about is. I'm pretty passionate about effective altruism and this concept of giving wealth and how do you do that and how do you research and build randomized controlled trials and counterfactuals and how the nonprofits measure impact. And they have a great research team. So I was talking to their guys about how do you do that? I don't know this. I am new that having any money, right. I came from nothing. I don't have a network of people. I can just figure out how the rules work. And I'm an engineer, so I want data. I want understand the logic and the system, the rules, how does it work. And so they're giving you some feedback. And you wrote a paper on government and said, look, if you actually care about impact, you should think about influence and government. And it gives examples of China and Vietnam, India, South Korea and how when they embraced capitalism, open borders, they lifted literally a billion people come out of poverty. And he's like, if you can influence economics, people that write a paper, it influence, a government leader that can change policy in a nation, you could have hundreds of millions of billions of dollars in impact very quickly and affect millions of people in a way that your orphanage and your microloan program is just not going to have. So I am reading this paper. And I was like, Wow, this is really make sense to me logically, but I don't understand how it applies to me personally because it feels a little bit like playing pool, like it's going to be like a four ball combo. Like I'm going to fund the economist is going to do a study, is going to write a paper that maybe a bureaucrat reads and maybe changes law. Maybe four people get help from like, I don't know. And I want to read the gospel message. A very much point in the sphere. You're helping someone who needs help. So I go to talk to my wife about it and she's on the phone with someone saying, Hey, this person do you want to run for Senate. I was like well, that's crazy. And that's never going to happen. But that's funny. So we're talking and my wife have done some work to start a group fighting human trafficking. So she's done some work working with the state and governor trying to help legislation to help protect women, and we were joking about maybe I can run and you can serve and you know, you can do that thing because we like to state our self and I don't. But while we're talking I look at my phone, I had a voicemail from an unknown number and there's a guy saying, hey, do you want to run for State Senate for District 16. And I felt like that kind of a booming spotlight moment. I'm like, Okay, wow. So in a period of 3 hours, three random people are now convincing you the logic, the impact you can have in government and pushing me to run for this one specific seat and I've never had anyone asked me to run for town [...] all the way to governor before. Kind of feels like it. Maybe God is pushing me in this direction. So I said, okay, I'll look into it and I talk to people that all pushing me to go and I prayed about it, and alright God a little fleece out on the ground like Gideon, I'm only going to do this if all four of my older kids and my wife are all 100% in because it's going to affect them. And of course, I laid out for them and they also yes dad that you should do it. So yeah I ran for Senate went door to door, had to wear a mask, ran around and was very challenging, lost by 3% to the incumbent, which sadly I learned in New Hampshire. You actually work for a special interest group that paid him a full time salary while he served as a senator. And New Hampshire is unique in the [...] World. They only pay $100 to our state senators, even though it's a full time job half of the year. And so he had an arrangement where they paid him, but then he voted on issues related to the special interest group and the press for bragging about it. That was part of what got me fired up and part of my campaign message. Wow, It doesn't matter what party you are in, that seems like something we shouldn't do and part of something I hope to change if I got elected. But I didn't which I was totally fine with because God you ask me to run, I did. I'm totally fine not winning. And you had a plan. I got to share my story and background with dozens and dozens of people along the way.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. I love that entrepreneurship investor, politician. We get an investor side, but we're going to try something we haven't tried before because I've got all these notes, all these things I wanted to ask you, maybe because you have this experience and all these different things, we're going to bring up a bunch of different topics, 32nd responses to each one and we got to go rapid fire kind of like I love watching ESPN's Pardon the interruption and just go through okay so first one. Effective altruism.
Jason Syversen: Effective Altruism was started by Peter Singer, he is an atheist. And the idea is like if you actually care about doing good and not just feeling good about yourself by giving money to someone, then you should do some research on where you're giving. And as a Christian, I think that is a parallel to parable talents about giving well.
Henry Kaestner: Okay. Number two, talk to us about capping your lifestyle. You mentioned before 144,006 kids.
Jason Syversen: Yeah we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. My wife and I went to Haiti with our olderst kids and we saw people living on $3 a day. We saw someone getting robbed over a $10 that we bought in wristbands from a local there. And you realize that how much wealth we have, the poor people that we serve sometimes some of the nonprofits we work with are richer than middle income people in Haiti. And we have our comparing ourselves to [...] model in the U.S. So we felt strongly that once you get to a point where you can pay your bills, you have a house and go on vacation once or twice a year you don't need anymore. And anything else, for giving us something for us to use exclusively for charitable purposes. I think it's all about money, obviously, but that particularly should be allocated to funding high impacts charitable activities that are Christian. But you want.
Henry Kaestner: Okay, correlated to that, what do you feel about leaving kids money?
Jason Syversen: We're not giving any of our kids money, so we think that they're growing up in incredible home. They can do a travel basketball, they get to travel internationally. We took them to Australia, New Zealand after I sold the company. They go to a private Christian school or homeschooled. I'm going to introduce them to my network and give them every opportunity I can see my network. I'm going to help them get a great college education, but I'm not giving them checks like they had to buy their own car they bought on iPhones and if they ever hit hard times, I'm always going to be here to support them and back them. But I think that it's damaging and harmful to kids to give them handouts and have them just live independently.
Henry Kaestner: Okay, next one up evangelism within the investor community. You live in a place like Boston. That can't be easy.
Jason Syversen: Yeah, it's challenging and I don't have it figured out, which again is part of my enthusiasm for embracing what you guys are doing trying to learn best practices and I lots of friends often about being in some in your faith so the porch I've taken, which is what I learned on the campaign trail, is, you know, I'm just naturally a fairly transparent guy. Like, you know, I'm the kind of person I'll tell you what I need. I'll tell you what's going on. My kids will see on what issue, and I try to balance that. And social media is the same way. Like, I'm the guy who puts awkward pictures of failure and not just, you know, I don't hear someone shaking vice president hands or whatever, but also a picture of like, oh, here's some drop in on my stuff all over the floor looking like an idiot, clinging to poopy diapers or whatever.
Henry Kaestner: What did you say, you're posting picture of you with poopy diapers on Instagram?
Jason Syversen: I didn't post the picture, actually I did post a long story about cleaning up like a diaper explosion when I was, you know, solo dad or whatever. So I.
Henry Kaestner: You may or may not get more followers after this.
Jason Syversen: Yeah, that one was kind of gross. But that that's kind of how I decided to just be open about my faith. It's like, look, I'm not going to try to push what I believe on other people, but I'm just going to be super transparent, honest about who I am, what I believe. And if someone wants to learn about that or engage or find that attractive, then I'll take that opportunity. But I don't want to take up a strategy or try to manipulate someone into taking a perspective or whatever. So I'm just like, Look, this what I believe this is why I do the things I'm doing. The new company is I want to make as much money as possible in that company that I can drive into helping charitable causes. And that's kind of a purpose for me is take the wiring that I have. I'm not the most touchy feely guy. I'm not always the most empathetic. When I work with these nonprofits and serve the soup kitchen or food pantry, I do what I can, but I'm really good with math, I am good with number, I am good with engineering and technology and risk taking and vision, if I take those skills and drive that. To create capital, I can drive into high impact charities, then that's a way that I can feel. I love that quote from Chariots of Fire. Where he said when I run, I feel God using me or God purpose through me. And when I'm doing those things, I feel like I'm operating with gifts and the talents that I have and I can use that in a way that doesn't make me feel like a failure, because I'm not the most warm, compassionate person who can help administer someone on a street. But I have other gifts that do have value that I can use to fund people that do have those frontline talents. And that's super exciting.
Luke Roush: Hey. Okay, bootstrapping or resourcing, what do you prefer for companies that you start?
Jason Syversen: Yeah, great question. I think it really depends on the type of company. So some businesses lend themselves while bootstrapping and others, especially for second time entrepreneurs, are better for taking outside capital. But I think to cop out the real answer is it really depends on the situation.
Luke Roush: Got it. All right. That is a cop out, but I'm gonna let you get away with it this time. Having worked for intelligence agencies and the defense sector, make a biblical case for some of the work that you're a part of DARPA.
Jason Syversen: That's a great question. So I think one of the things that I shared and I got quoted in Bloomberg, I think on this I think particularly cyber weapons and non-kinetic options provide alternatives to kinetic warfare, which actually can produce saving lives both for US, obviously, but also for people overseas. Right. Because you don't have collateral damage. If you use electronic measures to shut down a power facility remotely, you don't have to worry about the plant operator or the civilian who's nearby and killed in the kinetic strike. So for me, I was always excited to provide non-kinetic options and alternatives to dropping bombs and shooting bullets as a way of having projecting national power and kind of hopefully saving US. And that's.
Luke Roush: Okay. That's good. That's good. Waterboarding or sleep deprivation? Favorite torture style. Go
Jason Syversen: Neither of those would be ones I would try. I've never done waterboarding. It seems kind of interesting, but sleep deprivation is definitely a measure for me. I sleep almost 9 hours a night, so I probably might go to the board.
Luke Roush: All right, last one. Negative screening. Positive screening. We should invest in things that we really love and think are redemptive, or we should avoid things that are actually putting sin into the world. Which one is your preferred style of investing and deploying time ,Talent, Treasure?
Jason Syversen: That's great question I started with negative screen, but as I'm growing in my faith and acting, the FDI and other groups and excited about embracing some screening abilities. So I'd love to have kind of a holistic model that look at both sides of the coin.
Henry Kaestner: You started an Angel Network in New Hampshire. What's one thing that you've learned that you hadn't expected in doing that.
Jason Syversen: I think, how many people are accredited investors and honestly, a passion project of mine. Is that question your answer? Just legalized sports betting online. The governor has even pushed it as a way of getting state revenue and it really upsets me that it's legal to bet your entire paycheck on sports teams, but it's illegal for non-accredited investors to invest in private companies. We're worried about people losing money. And I think it's a travesty that great people who I know who are excited about growing and getting out of poverty or getting from the middle class to upper class levels, and have the connections of interest and passion and investing are legally prohibited from doing that. But they're actively encouraged by state representatives and others to go get a paycheck in a gambling casino. I think that's a travesty.
Henry Kaestner: Artificial intelligence, does it create more jobs or does it take them away?
Jason Syversen: A phenomenal question. I think artificial intelligence is trying to make a dichotomy, too. I think it's kinda create more jobs, but I don't know that for sure. But the history of our planet has been new technology. Disruptions have always produced more opportunity than less. And although AI naively, on the surface, it does look like it's going to be another thing that takes more jobs, and it certainly will. Any time we have efficiencies in society and technology creation, we've always seen wealth grow and opportunities created every time. So using that historical narrative, I have to believe that that's going to happen again even I don't see how it's all going to happen.
Luke Roush: Universal Basic Income. As a native of New Hampshire, how do you feel about that topic?
Jason Syversen: So it's a great question. As a technology person, I appreciate it. That being part of the discussion in politics, I do think that dependency cycles and you know, Henry, you and I are both fans of Hope International and some of the work they're doing. I'm a fan of programs that help create opportunity for people. I'm not a fan of things that builds just the dependency cycles. And as someone who's come from poverty to the middle class, who's and moved from middle class to different financial layer, I'm super passionate about helping people who want to move up the social ladder do so and maybe within government resources to do that like public education. But I don't think three checks for nothing is a great idea. But I also think that we do need to do something to try to provide those opportunities to help pull people out, which we haven't done a good job at.
Luke Roush: That's good. Hey, Jason, one of things we'd like to do at the end of every episode is just close out by hearing what God is teaching you now. So what do you found in God's word lately that stuck out to you?
Jason Syversen: Yeah. I mean, it's not something. I've read lately, but I've been sharing it lately. James, where he says religion, your father in heaven accepts, is pure and faultless. It's this look after widows and orphans in their distress and keep themselves from being threatened by the world. That's a verse I've literally shared with some non-Christian investors we see the other day. That's my message of why I'm passionate about philanthropy, and I think it's a restating of Christ's commandment to love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor like yourself. And I think that loving your neighbor out by yourself, your neighbors, the person, the marginalized, those who experience persecution and injustice. That's what I'm excited about in trying to formulate my life around how do I do that? And frankly, loving God is usually done by loving. James also says, I can see you love God. See if you can't love a person, you can see. A lot of that message is encapsulated in loving those who are marginalized and how we do that. And as entrepreneurs, we do that in our business, our customers and all. That's great. You also have a philanthropic side as a way to really get to those who need help.
Henry Kaestner: That's such a great word. And what a great word to end on. May we all keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. May we also just not be held back from an investment return of 160 or 30 fold by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. And you spoke to all that today, and thank you. You blessed us all. Jason, that was awesome. Grateful for you. Our friendship, our partnership in the movement you hold now out the standard out in New Hampshire and beyond and really appreciate your time.
Jason Syversen: It is awesome to be here and enjoyed talking and I look forward talking again.