[Bonus] Rust Belt Rundown featuring Jeffrey Stern of The O.H.I.O. Fund

Hello everyone, and welcome to a special bonus episode of the Lay of the Land
podcast. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today we're going to do something a
little bit different as we flip the proverbial script, and I step into the role of
guests on other podcasts to share some recent developments in my own journey and
glimpse into what is coming next. As some of you may know, I recently started a
new professional chapter, joining the founding team of the Ohio Fund, and in the
near future I will record a dedicated episode to explore the Ohio Fund in depth
with some of my partners. Until then, please join me in these exciting conversations
as I share my own insights and stories about transitioning to this new chapter,
reflections on building actual, lay of the land, Cleveland, and a whole lot more. In
this specific conversation, I sat down with Paul O 'Connor of the Rust Belt Rundown
podcast, hosted by Rust Belt Recruiting. We've actually featured Rust Belt Recruiting
on Lay of the Land's 180th episode featuring Taylor Evans. So please go check out
that episode if you want to hear more about Taylor's journey and Rust Belt
Recruiting's story. With that, please enjoy my conversation with Paul O 'Connor.
Welcome everyone to episode 82 of the Rust Belt Rundown, a production by Rust Belt
Recruiting, original leader in manufacturing talent acquisition. I'm your host, Paul O
'Connor, and on this episode, we are joined by Jeffrey Stern, principal at the OHIO
Fund. Jeffrey, welcome to the podcast. Pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for
having me, Paul. I'm excited. We got a lot of questions. These are more, we usually
don't have 12. We'll see if we get through all of them usually average around seven
or eight. So we got a lot to get through. I was just I said OHIO. Do you say
that? Or is it the Ohio Fund? The Ohio Fund. So that's top of mind for me,
obviously, because I live here and people in Ohio are obsessed with saying it.
Yes. But I was just on a flight. I went to Denver and I came back and we you're
on Southwest and Southwest, they have fun, you know, like, they have a lot of fun
on Southwest, a lot of fun on Southwest. And I swear to you, the flight attendant
must have said OH 30 times. By the end,
I was like, All right, please, please sir, just we got to get off the plane. We
know the destination. Yeah, we are well aware of where we're going. But Let's dive
in. We got a lot to talk about. And I want to start with what at least on the
outside looking in seem to be a inflection point in your career.
And that's going back a couple of years now when you joined Venture for America as
a fellow. And I want to do two things. One, tell us about that experience. And
then two, was it inflection point because this is very much outside looking in, but
it also involved a move and somewhat of a shift in what you were doing career
-wise. So talk to us about that experience. Yeah. Well, the short of it,
and just to introduce what Venture for America was for those who may not be
familiar, a fellowship founded by Andrew Yang in the spirit of kind of Teach for
America, but instead of placing recent college graduates into educational systems in
cities across the country did so from an entrepreneurial perspective and specifically
into cities that what I would call lack the young person gravity of a New York or
San Francisco. So places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore,
where there is a lot going on, but have a bit of that, that brain drain challenge.
I was just going to call. Yeah. For sure. VFA for me was an inflection point. At
the time, it actually felt sort of purpose -built and tailor -made to help someone
like me navigate the process of figuring out what to do next. As I was
entrepreneurially inclined and curious, but I think without the full set of experience
or direction or passion about a specific problem to start something myself.
Yeah. I came to VFA after what I felt was the spirit of a midlife crisis that I
just happened to happen experienced after graduating college, which I'm grateful to
have kind of reconciled with it early in my life. But I came pretty quickly to
understand that the well -troddened, prestigious while,
you know, well -paid and with all the external markings of success were likely not
the paths that would bring me fulfillment. So, you know,
I turned in words, tried to figure out what I wanted to do, and tried to
understand what would bring me fulfillment, and came to realize I didn't really know
what I wanted to do in a world I didn't really yet understand. And I knew,
though, if I proceeded to do what I thought other people expected me to do instead
of what I actually wanted to do at a deeper level than when things go wrong or
they get hard or difficult, which they always do. I would more likely find myself,
you know, doubtful, despondent, frozen on the stage of my hypothetical life at that
point. And if I could figure out what I love to do,
I was quite sure that I could be more resilient in the face of that kind of
adversity. So the challenge was that I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did
know what I didn't want to do. So the internal compass that I use as a proxy to
try and help guide me down this path was my curiosity. So I wanted to learn as
much as I possibly could at the highest velocity I possibly could, and I came to
believe that the best career decision I could make was to take on this kind of
career risk before I actually had a career to risk. And the best way I had learned
how to learn was in practice, taking on as much ownership, accountability, and
responsibility as I could with the most frequent feedback loops. And my intuition was
that building something, entrepreneurship was the best way to do that. And so Venture
for America was really this kind of graceful bridge into this world of
entrepreneurship that it was my intuition would be the fastest way for me to learn
about what it was that I thought I was interested in. There's a lot to unpack
I again, are we going to get through all 12? I don't know. But I want to go back
to, you know, you're like your quote unquote midlife crisis early.
Yes, my quarter life crisis quarter life crisis, you know, and I don't you know,
graduated from Cornell, we probably should have mentioned that obviously top 10 top
15 have you know, depending on what list you look at university in the country.
What is your advice to people that may experience that, that may graduate and say,
oh no, I actually really don't know which direction I wanna go in.
And you said frozen, despondent, right? Like those are the feelings that people get
if they go down the path that you mentioned, right? Like the logo, you know, you
go work at, I don't know, the big or Google, you know, whichever way you're going.
What is your recommendation or advice to people that may go through that early in
their career, like you did? - Yeah, it's tricky, especially at institutions like that
where, I don't know, my old English teacher, Mr. Fisher had expressed this concept
to me that is still with me today, which is that, you know, we all got in that
kind of environment, very good at what he called hoop jumping, where enthusiastically,
very competitively, in those environments, you would demonstrate getting good grades,
doing the extracurriculars, doing the right kind of volunteer and philanthropic work,
to ultimately try and attend a well -regarded college, build your credentials to try
and get the prestigious professional management consultant or investment banking job or
whatever it may be. - Yep. - And I mean,
literally all I did was a bit of a thought of an experiment of, I had a sense
for bits and pieces of what those kinds of professions felt like through software
investment banking and I just played out you know what would it be like to do this
for the next 10 15 years and and it was just not I couldn't paint a sufficiently
compelling you know vision for myself and I felt if I couldn't convince myself of
it then I and I was doing it to appease the expectations of other people I was
not a good enough enough reason to do it and so I really wanted to,
I mean, first and foremost, be able to convince myself it was the thing that I
actually wanted to do and it brings me back to this. Take the career risk before
you have a career to risk. At the onset, there's no shame, there's really no
drawback to just trying as many things as you possibly can and using your curiosity
as that compass to guide you through things that you might enjoy doing. Yeah,
I love it. Let's stay, uh, let's stay on curiosity as a compass. Big news,
uh, the launch of the Ohio fund, um, for people, for our listeners that may not,
uh, be aware of, of the inspiration to start this, as well as,
you know, The fund itself what you guys are funding how it all works give us give
us the full rundown of what the last couple months have looked like for you and
the team. Yeah, so it's very exciting we have officially launched the fun with the
first close of of a hundred eight million dollars to invest. At its core the way
that that I think about it is. The Ohio fund is an impact fund that is seeking to
invest in compelling and high -growth opportunities that are centered around the future
and present of Ohio's economy. So we can talk about a few pieces of that,
but the premise, you know, if you believe that Ohio is well -positioned to benefit
from certain structural trends over the coming years, the coming decades, and we can
unpack what some of those trends might be. But if you take that premise, then the
Ohio Fund is what we are building to ensure that we can actually fund and invest
in the set of opportunities that would allow Ohio to realize that potential.
Because it's really not a given that all this progress will just happen on its own,
left to its own volition, even with the tailwinds of these trends. And so you
actually need a catalytic force, activation energy to take these companies,
institutions, people locally who can actually make it happen and invest in them.
And the Ohio Fund is that activation energy. It is that catalyst. So the Ohio fund
is, I would say opportunistic in that we will invest in all the opportunities we
come across tied to their economic and regional impact within Ohio. So the fund
actually draws much of its inspiration from a firm called Tamasic, which is a firm
that Originally started 50 years ago back in Singapore and took this place -based
opportunistic approach to helping Singapore invest in a broad set of holdings,
which at its inception was something like a steel mill, an airline, which today is
Singapore Airlines, a hotel, a shoemaker. So things that were strategically important
to the economic and financial state of Singapore, but at the same time was not
limited to traditional venture capital. There was new business formation, there was
real estate, there was infrastructure with the thread that tied it all together being
to the benefit of Singapore. So today, Temasek is a $400 billion fund and that
model is one that has never really been emulated before. I mean,
certainly within the United States, but it is the exact model that we're trying to
emulate here in Ohio. I really appreciated the fact that you said, you know, Ohio
in 2024, and certainly, you know, dating as far back as you really want to go.
But I would say since probably 2000, you know, the last 24 years, and look, I'm in
Columbus. And so, you know, Columbus gets fair or not,
a lot of the press, or a lot of the hype around the Ohio train,
if you will, although yes, although we don't have trains, you guys do.
But I'm curious, I wish we did though. Oh my please, this it's gonna be really I
hope you can make that happen. But that idea of like the force right the catalytic
force behind it's not a given that Ohio will continue or any state pick any region
or any state Charlotte or Austin or whatever that there will continue on that track
and so my question to you is are there opportunities what opportunities do you see
specifically in Ohio that people may be Overlooking right now that are just not on
the radar
Yeah, well, I think I can speak to some of the What those structural trends are
because I think within that you know cover some of the things that May or may not
be on on people's minds when they think about I mean for one What is the
opportunity set but but certainly what what we're thinking about it at the Ohio fund
and It kind of ties into the whole thesis and the way we've thought about it.
But some of those trends that I found interesting as they relate to Ohio,
but much in the way that I mentioned earlier where I tried to convince myself of
what the sufficiently compelling thing is, and I couldn't do it for investment
banking I, you know, before every job that I've ever had, I've, I've tried to
convince myself. And when I, when I did that for the Ohio fund, I thought about
what these trends were. And you have kind of a broad set of things like this
desire for domestic, secure and robust supply chains, that's kind of come into the
zeitgeist of recent. You have this infusion of software and automation into hardware.
So, you know, people in the venture world talk about bits and atoms and kind of
the collision of those two things. You have politically and at a macroeconomic level,
these incentives from the IRA and the CHIPS Act specifically to reshore and develop
manufacturing competencies locally. You have kind of this mass proliferation of demand
for electricity that is even tied into the kind of exponential growth of AI and our
desire to build semiconductor chips, modules, all the related micro -electronic
components and the energy needed to power those and data centers. And then kind of
holistically, even from a defense perspective, this kind of imperative to secure
strategic independence, considering the political environment we're in and security
vulnerabilities that may exist within products manufactured outside of America,
and I think maybe even more importantly, our dependence on other regions for critical
technologies that we actually need here locally.
And so those are the kinds of things that when I think about Ohio and tailwinds
that we have, again, it's not a given that Ohio will just be able to run with
those. But if you did this experiment of 5, 10, 20 years from now,
what are the set of things that you would need to invest in to support locally to
ensure that Ohio could actually benefit from those trends? Those are the kinds of
things that I'm very excited for the Ohio fund to be able to invest in.
I want to go back to, you know, you mentioned, am I pronouncing it right, Tamasic?
Yeah. Okay. I want to go back to that. I was, you know, you mentioned that there
was not another fund like Tamasic in the States and that it is a, you know,
place -based investment model. Why hasn't that been replicated?
Clearly, I don't know what the starting figure was, but the ending figure or current
figure is $400 billion. Hard to argue that that's not success. Why hasn't that been
replicated, and why was that the model you wanted to go after?
Or replicate, I should say. Well, I think there's something to the opportunistic
nature of it. Part of it is because it's hard. When you think about traditional
venture capital fund or a private equity fund or a real estate fund,
the limiting reagent, the constraint that you're putting on yourself is the kind of
asset that you're able to invest in. And typically, the limiting factor is not a
geography. In fact, that that's often considered maybe even a detriment if you were
to apply that to a specific asset class. But I think what is really compelling
about what TAMASIC did, what the Ohio Fund is aiming to do is our ability to bring
together the state, I mean really at a state level with representation in Cleveland
and Columbus and Cincinnati across the founding team of the Ohio Fund. This really
formidable group of people, both from our investor base and the kind of respective
networks that we have to corral folks to invest and support and bring to fruition
the set of opportunities that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise. So, You know,
the kinds of things that we might be able to do are things that a venture fund,
a real estate fund, a private equity fund focused just on Ohio, couldn't do on
their own. And so it is kind of the broadness of the assets that we're able to
invest in that will allow us, I think, to do something similar. And the requisite I
think is is actually the founding team of the Ohio fund that it's Ray Leach who
ran jumpstart in Cleveland for the last 20 years that it's Mark Kwame who is really
the one who spearheaded jobs Ohio and founded drive capital in Columbus that it's
Mike venerable who is.
Who's who's ran since he tech for the same amount of time that Ray has run
jumpstart and And that's Jill Meyer, who ran the Chamber of Commerce down in
Cincinnati as well. I mean, that group of people and their respective networks and
there are our collective ability to rally, you know, people who, like you mentioned
at the beginning of our conversation, people love Ohio to a degree that like,
you know, I'm from New York City, people love New York, but like, not like people
love Ohio. Ohio. There's this, there's this crazy energy that I think we can,
that's, that's certainly expressed, but I think latent from a business perspective
that we can tap into. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in the Connecticut,
New York area. So I'm right there with you. My first experience was I went to
school at OU. And that was that was my first taste of the pride that the state
has.
Okay, so let's dive into, you know, this term or this concept of an industrial
renaissance in Ohio. Talk to us about a little bit about what you mean by that and
particularly what industries or advancements you think will play a pivotal role in
the industrial Renaissance here in Ohio. Yeah, so I love this concept of the
industrial Renaissance in Ohio. I love reading generally,
but there's a specific book called The Ohio Guide, which has been one of my
favorite books of recent that kind of details in the holistic story of Ohio from
pre -inception to the 1940s. Now, I think that the context that is important to
consider here is the historical one, because in the span of a long but single
lifetime, Ohio underwent really a crazy set of transformations From natural wilderness,
which really is where it was at the founding of the of the state to an actual
industrial force through successive waves of technological innovation that each in
their own reshape the whole state's economic landscape. So the early 1800s saw the
rise of steam power and our ability to navigate the canals,
which was completely rendered useless by the time of the 1840s and '50s when the
railroads came around. And the railroads laid the groundwork,
I mean, literally for this era of unprecedented manufacturing might within Ohio where
Ohio emerged as this leader and builder of things I mean really as on a global
level the epicenter of oil home to the greatest iron port Arguably in the world
producer of half of the world's rubber a leader in steel production so When I think
about this industrial renaissance, it's hearkening to that spirit of,
I mean, not just Ohio, really the Midwest, but specifically here in Ohio, that that
building of things mentality. And I think this moment where we are today,
really reinforced with the perspective we have in the wake of COVID,
stems from a renewed appreciation, I think people have for the know -how and the
capacity to actually build things, better, faster, cheaper,
and goes back to a lot of the structural trends that I mentioned before,
that it's as much a strategic initiative at this point to develop those competencies
locally. And so to me, that's kind of the spirit of the industrial renaissance that
I think we actually are experiencing. - Yeah, I mean, it's hard to argue.
I mean, you mentioned the CHIPS Act and obviously you live down here like Intel,
you can't go without talking about
But there's there's more right like I think the exciting part about I mean look
Intel is historic, you know, it's it's the biggest investment they've made and I
think their company history in terms of like a you know new area and chips and all
that but what comes along with an Intel is almost as important right all of the
other brands other organizations, other companies, the infrastructure to just flat out
build everything. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's an exciting time to be in the state.
It's an exciting time to be in one of the three C's or or Dayton.
And so I want to piggy back off that, you know, I can't imagine how long it took
you to get to this announcement. Probably the last year and change,
I am assuming, of getting the fund in order and the people and the team and all
of that. Are you able to share some of either the projects or organizations or
people or things that you guys are funding right now or are planning on?
Are you able to share any of that yet? Is that public knowledge? Our first deal
is, and the rest we could paint in broad strokes, but are really all tied to the
structural trends. Those are the kinds of things that we're interested in. At the
highest level, the fund, again, tethered to Ohio, it's hard to forget in the name,
will invest across directly into later stage companies in the space in the way that
people might think more like a venture capital firm would, but also has the ability
to do this real estate infrastructure and even fund investment much in the way
Tomasic had. So the first deal that we actually did was the purchase of 148 acres
of land in Sunbury, Ohio, in the business and technology park there,
which is about 20 miles north of and in collaboration with the new Albany land
companies, new industrial new industrial park where, as you mentioned already, the
Intel chip plants are going and which is actually proximate to the AEP power station
that is supplying electricity to the area.
I think in the first few deals, we're trying to be quite intentional about
demonstrating the ability we have to do things that wouldn't otherwise have been
invested in in traditional models. So the collaboration with the new Albany land
company
and demonstrating that kind of capability is one thing that's kind of important so
that we can speak to practically things we've done rather than hypothetically things
we want to do is important with these first three deals. And also really core to
it is you mentioned this kind of gravity around Columbus. We are trying to be quite
intentional that roughly 25 % of the fund will go to the Northeast Ohio region,
25 % of the fund to the greater Columbus region, 25 % of the fund to the region
around Cincinnati, and 25 % of the fund across the rest of the state. So You know
a few axes we're keeping track of but we want in the first few deals to also
reflect that desire to Spread the allocation of capital in its deployment.
It's interesting Yeah, are those hard and Steady goals or can they can they shift
based on need opportunity project? Yeah, I think I think directionally directionally,
those are, you know, what we're going to do. Again, the fund being opportunistic in
nature, you know, well, I don't think we would turn down, you know, investing into
Cincinnati twice over if we didn't have a Cleveland deal in between. But
directionally, it is absolutely, you know, we want it to be representative and
investing across the state. So let's switch gears a little bit.
You are a podcast host yourself, the lay of the land podcast. You started about
four years ago in 2020, I believe.
Before I get to some of the stories that you've been able to tell and people and
organizations that you highlighted, you know, what was the motivation or inspiration
to start it?
Yeah, so it After my venture for America experience, I knew at that point with a
greater degree of certainty that I did actually like entrepreneurship, but I still
did not know what I wanted to build. And so what I set out to do was to meet as
many founders in the greater Cleveland area as I possibly could over the summer of
2019. So I probably connected with about 70 founders that summer and CEOs in
Cleveland, all of whom said yes, you know, to a pretty much stranger reaching out
from a place of curiosity. And it's probably the reason I'm still here. So I'm
grateful for that Midwestern, you know, kindness and warmth. But I observed a few
things in talking to these folks about who they were as people, what motivated them,
what inspired them to go out and try and solve whatever problem it was that they
built a company to solve and some of the tactics of company building. And the
things that the kind of patterns of observation that were interesting to me were
that most of these people did not know who each other were, which was kind of I
thought surprising. Most Clevelanders did not know who the Cleveland founders were.
And again, many of these folks have built $100 million top -line organizations,
everything from seed stage to public company CEOs and founders.
And the complete dearth of media coverage of any of them. And I was pretty
confident, again, coming from New York City and having a lot of friends in the
startup worlds in San Francisco, in Boston, and kind of the larger cities that had
any of these people been there, the TechCrunch wired VC media mechanism would have
been amplifying their work and celebrating it, both in success and in the trials and
tribulations of maybe even the ones that that didn't have the great outcome.
And in parallel, I was co -founding my own company at that time,
Actual, which was in the healthcare space in Cleveland, which is still around today.
We've since raised about $40 million for it. It's on a good track. But the thing
that I had learned, One of the explicit things I had learned through my Venture for
America experience was that it's certainly very hard to build a company,
and from the founder and CEO perspective, it's lonely in that to have a support
network, a peer group of folks outside of your specific company that you can talk
to who can actually empathize with what it is you're going through is really
important. And so the podcast came from a place of wanting to build cohesion amongst
the founder community in Cleveland in a way that I was surprised didn't really exist
already. And to amplify the stories of people that I mean,
genuinely were inspiring to me, and many of whom I think have been on this podcast,
and many others Who you know, so as I came to appreciate the Midwestern warmth and
kindness the third characteristic is this humility and I really appreciate it,
but I have come to Think and feel that they're the downside to it is the lack of
celebration of excellence and and like truly inspirational things and and success.
And so the podcast was my attempt to amplify those stories in a way that,
you know, I have no qualms about doing, because I think they're worth celebrating
and amplifying. Are there any stories, people,
organizations that stand out or are particularly memorable?
And, you know, were there any lessons that you learn from those conversations?
I'm sure there's a ton of lessons. How many podcasts do you want to do here?
We could do 200 episodes worth of podcasts on that. Just that it was too broad.
But no, I can. I mean, there are there are some that are just top of mind. I
mean, so I'm baseline. The podcast is the greatest learning vehicle I have ever come
across outside of trying to build a company myself. I'm sure maybe you feel similar
about that.
It's like from this selfishly, it's the greatest thing that I did not expect to be
a consequence of it, but is really a gift on the other side of it. And
there are really too many memorable stories. But I was just working on editing this
one. So it's top of mind. But so I had Fred DeSanto on the podcast, who's the CEO
of Ankora here in Cleveland, which is just about a $10 billion investment fund.
And he talked about his philosophy around giving without expectation of anything in
return and the dot connecting idea of like making these really superlative
introductions, this whole kind of pay it forward mentality, giving without expectation
of return. And that one has resonated because it has come up so many times across
dozens of the conversations I've had that it's like been reinforced as important.
And it's a mentality that I certainly try in practice in,
in the community building side of the work I'm doing with with Lay of the Land
now. Interesting. The document. Yeah, I mean, that's a hard thing to
convince people of, you know, I'm in fundraising, I'm in philanthropy.
And there are some people that believe in philanthropy, and there are some people
that don't.
And so I, it's hard. What I'm trying to get at is,
we don't spend as much time, I don't we don't our organization doesn't spend as
much time because there's not enough time in the day To convince someone of the
power of philanthropy because there are enough people that believe in it And we need
to be meeting with anyway. And so this question is not on here, but You know that
message that mantra that belief was passed on to you Through this one episode and
you know, I'm making an assumption through a variety of conversations many. Yeah.
Yeah, kind of like you refer to how have you been able to
Pass that message or ethos or belief onto people in your life,
whether it's family or friends or partners or Or even the team that you've worked
with or companies like how have you specifically been able to do that? And maybe it
is just action, right? You know, sometimes it's lead by example, but I'm curious to
see how you've been able to pass that along. It's not easy. Yeah,
it's not it's not easy. I mean, my intuition was that was the right thing to do.
I don't know where that intuition came from. But and so I didn't have a good, you
know, quantifiable justification for it. But I can tell you over the many years of
doing the podcast now and having been able to facilitate, I mean,
literally many hundreds of introductions for people within the podcast community that's
been built, who I just felt should meet each other.
Many hundreds of introductions later, I have seen, I mean, literally companies formed,
companies funded, people hired, friends that have been made,
sales that have happened, all of which in, you know,
retrospect could identify the introduction as like their origination moment for that
thing. And it's so personally fulfilling,
you know, for me. And so that's like The truth is that the giving without
expectation of return is there, but it brings me such joy and happiness knowing now
what the power and importance of those introductions can make for someone in their
life and their professional journey, that I'm just so happy to do it all the time
whenever I feel that there are people that that should connect. And,
you know, and sometimes I don't even hear about what the consequences of of an
introduction are for, you know, many months, even years later. And I, and the
reality is I probably, I've probably only heard of a few because most people don't,
you know, it's hard to remember to like close the communication loop. And so I'm
quite sure that there have been far more, you know, interesting Consequences and
other people who have since introduced each other to people because of this that I
don't even know about but The that pay it forward mentality.
I Don't need any convincing of anymore because I've just seen I've seen it work And
now that's like sufficiently convincing for for me So Well,
we'll Wrap up with this one question and then we'll hit the rapid fire. I think it
kind, it attempts to close the loop on this. But you mentioned the humility of
people in the Midwest and Ohio. You mentioned, you know,
the lack of maybe celebrating the successes and the wins and things like that. Do
you think at all that that hampers or I don't want to say slows down,
but let's say
Prevents the speed of something it's it It could be going 100 mile an hour,
but because it may be of humility and lack of success. Maybe it's only gonna go 70
do you think that hurts Ohio, part one,
and or Midwest, you know, I think we'll focus on Ohio. And then two, you know,
what strategies can someone like you or a fund like the Ohio Fund take in nurturing
the entrepreneurial spirit with a little bit more,
it's okay to, you know, puff out your chest every now and again. It's all right.
You know, no one's trying to keep some humbleness for sure. But I don't know,
those are the kind of the two questions we'll wrap up with and then we'll jump
into the rapid fire. Right. Somewhere between the two extremes of John D.
Rockefeller, who, you know, by the way, built Standard Oil here in Ohio. And the
humility that we have today is to me where the healthy medium is because I think
on either side there are challenges and the challenge on on on being too modest and
kind of humble it and this is another theme that's kind of come up in in a series
of conversations through the podcast over the years is is a downstream second order
consequence of it is like there's a tolerance for complacency to a degree.
And I think it depends what your priorities and your values are and what you're
actually trying to accomplish, but I personally am motivated to help people elevate
their ambition and what the bar for excellence is,
and an understanding that you don't have to tolerate
less in a lot of ways. And so, and that's like, that's my personal feel.
But, and I think a lot of that has just come from, you know, I've gotten to see
a lot of places around the world, I grew up in New York And I've been very
privileged and fortunate to travel and I mean, there's this there's this mark twain
quote That always comes to mind that travel is is basically fatal to prejudice and
narrow -mindedness and if You are to kind of develop a charitable and wholesome
Interpretation of people and of things you can't just you know Vegetate in your
corner of the world you have to actually go and see things and I'm I feel lucky
to have been able to see things. But with that has come, you know, not just a
perspective of, you know, the things that are out there, but of different cultures
and of how people think about things. And it's tricky because I really never mean
to impose anything on anyone else. But I just, I know what is out there and like
what people could achieve. And it's, it's, it even goes back to the Ohio Fund.
It's very much, you know, I think there's a real opportunity in this place, in the
people here, and I'd like to do what I can to help unlock the latent potential
within.
And so, if anything, I think it's not a complete barrier,
the modesty to it, but I don't think it helps, it doesn't help either all the
time. - Yeah, the tolerance, the way you put the tolerance for complacency, that's a
really interesting perspective on it and like you said, a downstream effect, right?
Like almost as if, well, you know, this is how it's always been and so this is
how it will be and it's like actually the opposite, right? Actually it someone built
whatever your, you know, we, this is all made up. We all did this, people before
us. - And again, Rockefeller on the other side of it is probably too extreme in his
like, in, you know. - Yes. - But I think there's probably a healthy medium. - There's
a healthy medium.
Jeffrey, this has been great, man. We're gonna get you out of here on some rapid
fire. I think we could probably talk for another hour so we'll try and find another
time for you to come back on in a couple months or next year and kind of check
in on everything but we always end with the same five questions you know as as
fast as you get the answer in your head you spit it back my way but first
question best piece of advice you've ever received yeah the quick rapid fire it's
not normally how my brain works um the The best pieces of advice I've received,
I think, have predominantly come from my mom. The one that comes to mind at the
moment is to leave things better than you found them. Yep. And I think it's funny
what, you know, I'm sure she said that to you years ago, maybe when you were young
or middle school or high school, and like look at what you're doing right like you
are attempting to leave the place you are better than you found it so kudos to
your mom um worst piece of advice you've ever received yeah i try to not keep bad
advice in my in my mind so it's hard to recall um it could always be a generic
one too right like uh i don't know so you know there's a lot of generic advice
out there that just does not applied to everyone by any means yeah let's see
there's like a lot of conventional wisdom that I I don't think is of wisdom and
anymore yeah like you know no one ever got fired for for IBM may not you know
apply anymore so some things like that okay Next one,
best or favorite book you've ever read? Well, again, an impossible question.
I think like advice, books resonate at different frequencies at different points in
your life depending on what you're feeling. I mean, I'll tell you, I recently reread
Animal Farm by George Orwell, and I'll tell you that resonates much more And today,
then, it did when I read it in middle school. I was going to say, when did we
have to read that seven-- Yeah, but that would not be my favorite, although it is
excellent. Orwell is quite a writer. I mean, favorite, across time. I am often drawn
back to the Stoic writers, and I often revisit Seneca on the shortness of life.
This is my daily read.
I read this every single morning. There it is one or two pages. All right, we'll
get you out of here with this. This is sometimes slash most of the time the
hardest question our guests get and that is free publicity for restaurants in
Cleveland. What are your what are your go to spots favorite restaurants breakfast
lunch, dinner snacks, post a guardian game. What do you got? It's it's easy for me.
The answer is Mitchell's. Oh, okay. Mitchell's ice cream. Best ice cream You know
that that's it. That does it for me. That's the reason. I'm still here in Ohio
Mitchell's ice cream. Well, that is that's a that's the strongest endorsement. I
think we've got as a another New Yorker I'm very jealous of Cleveland from a pizza
perspective because Columbus Pizza is truly awful. There are three spots,
maybe, that you can go to, and they all cut their pieces in little,
like, squares. They put 4 ,000 pieces of pepperoni on 'em. I mean, they just have
no idea what it is. - It is tough to get a slice in Cleveland, but I will-- I'll
plug Ilrione as well. It is-- - Listen, if you think it's tough up there, stay,
'cause It's just harder down here. It's harder down here. Illrion, what's it called?
Illrion. Illrion. I -L -R -I -O -N -E. OK, Illrion and Mitchell.
So you got a slice and a cone for post -Guardians or-- I think the Guardians are
first in the ALEs. I don't know if you're-- or AL, I should say. I don't know if
you're a baseball guy. But they're having a hell of a year I just learned. It It
is very possible. Yeah, I'll be honest in that You know, I thought I like sports
growing up in New York and then when I got to I was like, oh, I you know I
actually don't Not to the degree that people here love sports. Yeah Well,
Jeffrey, thank you again for coming on in really appreciate it and you know, we
wish you and the team best of luck With everything this year and and beyond, So
we'll definitely have you on again soon. - Thank you. I really appreciate the
opportunity and it's, you know, I feel like we're kindred podcasts, you know, in a
lot of ways. So it's fun to be on my fraternal show here. - Yep, absolutely. All
right, man, we'll talk with you soon. Thank you again. - Thank you.
(upbeat music) - Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Rust Belt Rundown.