Michael Fey On Building A $1.3 Billion Business By Giving Companies Complete Control Over The Browser

Michael Fey has gone from playing soccer to writing software to building really big businesses. His venture, Island, attracted funding from top-tier financiers like Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital, Stripes, and Cisco Investments.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Transitioning from technical skills to a business operator
• Why not to listen to your customers
• When stealth mode can work for a startup

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For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash.

Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Michael Fey:

Michael Fey is the Co-Founder & CEO of Island. Prior to Island, they were the CEO of D2iQ from December 2018 to March 2020. Michael has also been a Board Member at ShieldX Networks from July 2018 to May 2020, the President and COO of Symantec from August 2016 to December 2018, and the President and COO of Blue Coat Systems from December 2014 to August 2016.

Michael Fey began their career at McAfee in 2007 as EVP & CTO and was responsible for overseeing the Office of the CTO, including the management of McAfee’s team of regional and sector CTOs and go-to-market teams, as well as ensuring the success of global sales engineers and advanced technology groups.

Michael Fey is an engineering physics student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Michael is studying physics and mathematics in preparation for a career as an engineer or physicist.

Connect with Michael Fey:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Rocketreach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to their deal maker show. So today. We have a really incredible story. You know from this founder. You know we’re gonna talk about going from the tech side to a business guy and now to actually you know writing this rocket ship that he founded so. I think that we’re going to be learning about you know building scaling fundraising. You know all the good stuff that we all like to hear so without further. Do let’s welcome our guest today Michael Fay welcome to the show.

Michael Fey: Um, thanks for having me This is a lot of fun.

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s do a little of a walk through memory lane. So how was life in Ohio and growing up.

Michael Fey: Ah, you know I grew up in a very small town and went to a very small school and you know I think it was ah a very special Experience. You know we we got raised on amazing hard work values and got to work with or grow up with amazing people. So I feel blessed for that. But it definitely wasn’t a lifestyle I wanted to maintain the rest of my life.

Alejandro Cremades: And out of all things Michael Walk got you to soccer.

Michael Fey: Ah, you know I played almost every sport under the sun I wasn’t quite tall enough to be you know special at basketball was it quite big enough to be special at football but soccer I had the right size and the right build to to go to college with. And I enjoyed the heck out of it. It was a wonderful combination of competition and personal Capabilities. So I loved it and and I still do to this day I Love I Love watching it as well as every sport it’s just just a pleasure.

Alejandro Cremades: And and and obviously you use that too to see if you could get to become an astronaut. So what? what happened on the way. So.

Michael Fey: Ah, well I got a degree in engineering physics from a wonderful school called the called Emory Riddle um had an out had an amazing college experience there and as a young kid. You just thought you know why not be an astronaut. Um. I was graduating at the time where the usage of astronauts the number of astronauts being put into space was you know, wildly less the number of american astronauts going in even even less. It was really apparent that you know with all the amazing candidates. Unfortunately I wasn’t going to cut it despite finishing very high in my class in good grades. There were. Ph ds and all sorts of things that one would have to obtain to get there in that journey and the lure of the economics of software pulled me and out of my my studies and and got me to forego my my ph d efforts and. And you know, kind of go into the dark side and start writing software and making money early on.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing and obviously right after school, you know you went into the into the tech side. You know of things you know you became a developer at Lockhe Martin and and it’s interesting like how you go, you know, kind of like from more the tech side to perhaps more. Customer inter interfacing you know type of thing with Mercury and I know that that they transitioned to mercury and how you got mercury. There’s something interesting there and worthwhile sharing. So what happened how did you land that job.

Michael Fey: Um, yeah, so I knew about mercury was this amazing company that had built ah a phenomenal product and and it was just this really exciting place that I wanted to be a part of so they were looking for a Java specialist. And I had taught myself every language up into that point that I ever used so when they asked me if I was great at Java of course I was said was amazing and at that point in time Java was coming onto the scene so they didn’t really have any experts to challenge me. So I I claim to be great at it. They asked me to start in two weeks and I told them I need at 4 and I spent the next four weeks you know learning Java and trying to become a a Java specialist which ah I think was a just intime scenario. It worked out great. But. Probably 1 of the scariest things I ever did was was that to to make that jump without having the creds to back it up.

Alejandro Cremades: And there you were for a few years and then you know right? after there, you actually went to Mcafee where where you did spend quite a bit of time and you actually went through the ranks all the way to becoming a Ceo is that right.

Michael Fey: Yeah I started on the pre-salll side and ended up running ah support as well. Which was my first chance or or services actually professional services. So my first p and l exposure um and just kept trying to add as much value as I could eventually I became cto um, which was a phenomenal role. And then finally after that gm of the enterprise business and and all this was happening. You know that the later stuff as intel acquired ah macafee so I got to experience the power of Intel and some of the capabilities there. But. Back ify was was quite a learning ground and an amazing process for me and in my journey and development as an executive.

Alejandro Cremades: So then you actually ended up landing in blue coat and not only that you took 350 people with you I mean how the hell do you do that I’m sure they were not happy.

Michael Fey: Ah, well it was a combination of a lot of events mac v had just been acquired I moved over to blueco with an amazing Ceo is his number 2 in in great Clark um, and blue coat really had transitioned they they were owned by ah tommo. Bravo. And they were moving out of that restructuring into a growth phase right? as Intel was trying to right size the macafee business to meet the margins they needed so as they were thinking about how big did they need to be I had to grow. Luckily you know after being at macfe for so long I built such strong relationships. The first thing I did was hire some key executives to join me at bluecoat and then it was the snowball of you know the next executive bringing on another 10 people and those people bring on another 10 people and. Before we knew it after a couple years. It ended up being you know in in the 3 and four hundred s of how many people we’d worked with and the best part about that was it was a team that knew how to sell together. It was a team that knew how to work together so we were able to to increase the velocity of blue coat in a really substantive manner. And we had the support of that company to do so um so it was it was phenomenal I think if Intel wasn’t laying off people. It would have been a lot harder. Obviously I didn’t solicit I opened up the job res and people applied. Um, but really it was about people wanting to work with the people they loved and that became.

Michael Fey: A bit of a centerpiece for me moving forward. You know, really focusing on people that enjoy being together and are great at their jobs allows you to build a very special team.

Alejandro Cremades: So you actually this is the time where you went through the second acquisition right? because you went through the acquisition of my coffee with Intel Now you know blue code with semantic. So what did you also get you know through going through those 2 acquisitions because.

Michael Fey: Um, but.

Alejandro Cremades: Going through an acquisition is not easy. You got the integration then you got all the pressure to deliver on the promise and make sure that the a acquisition ends up being a success. So what was what was that for you and what did you get from that experience first.

Michael Fey: Well, you’re right I think one of the most challenging things to do is to be acquired or to acquire and assimilate right? Both are very very difficult. The integration process and the semantic one was made even more challenging they acquired blue coat. But then appoint our Ceo Greg Clark and myself as Ceo and president. So we ended up running this company that just acquired us so we had to learn that company while integrating our own and you know it reaffirmed a lesson I think we all know as fast as possible identify the great people. And lean on them as much as they can handle. It was the only way to do it. We surrounded ourselves with amazing talent. We set our goals made them clear one of the goals was massive cost reduction to get the margins in line. We took almost a billion at cost out of the organization and you know under 18 months and we got the products back on the right track. But. That wasn’t done by an executive too. It was really done by a culmination of great executives that were empowered to own their areas. So as fast as possible. We broke up the problem case somebody an owner and let them rock and roll on that item. Ah, only way to move fast and definitely reaffirmed in that. But. Huge challenge I don’t wish it on my worst enemy to have to go do that. It’s ah it’s a 24 hour day job and it’s exhausting.

Alejandro Cremades: And you know then right after this, you know you became the Ceo of d two iq now very interesting. You know sequence of events here in your career Michael because going from the technical side to the business side and being able to master. Both is. Extremely difficult. In fact, most engineers or or technical people they failed. You know when when doing that transition. So how was that transition for you and then also you know like how did this role you know on on d two I q come about and and what were you guys doing there.

Michael Fey: Yeah, you know the transition into into the business side I really have to think you know a multitude of of mentors and executives that allowed me to join those conversations as the technical expert and in so doing I could sponge and learn. What it meant to run the business what it meant to build a salesforce how to motivate a salesforce. You know how to run um a real pl. How to think about investments and prioritize those and we had amazing leaders at each of those companies that I could learn from when I left blue coat. You know I needed to take some time out of security based on noncompetes and things like that. And the Andreessen team approached me about joining this company called mesosphere which at one point time was an incredibly high flyer and and they were trying to figure out. You know what? their next part of their journey was and they wantedt an outside executive to come in and help the company scale. And so that’s what I joined and and quickly when I joined I realized that that they had a product positioning problem as well as a scale problem so we reshaped the product we stopped focusing on the mesos platform and started focusing on Kubernetes which you know definitely is is carried the day in that space. Rename the company so we could allow the company to reinvent itself and not have to carry the the baggage of the past That’s how it became day two iq and we structured to resize the company in a way that it could be successful and grow from that new point. Ah.

Michael Fey: It was an amazing journey. Um, after about a year year and a half I realized you know this really needs to be run by its original founders. It’s ah it’s at a very technical part of its journey. It’s not at a scale point so position that back gave it back to the founders. They’ve done a phenomenal job and now they’ve got a thriving healthy business. So um, it was a a. Ah, massive experience in branding rebranding and I learned 1 incredibly valuable insight what led them down the difficult path is they did something. We’re all told to do they listen to their customers and I will say that’s a great mantra but it should be modified slightly. Listen to your customers and prospects your prospects provide you amazing insight your customers who make the bet on you end up in the echo chamber with you at times they love the solution they want to see the solution more sometimes hearing why the others didn’t buy it in the first place will teach you everything you need to know. And that’s what I learned there I went out and talked to the people who did it by and I learned that Kubernetes was this, you know overwhelming wave that we had to get on regardless of how we felt about our technical platform and that’s what led us to get the company back on that right track. And you can totally understand how the original founders you know had built this amazing product and they had all these bright customers guiding them on where it needed to go and they just needed to modify it and add some prospects into that so was a huge lesson learned of that journey.

Alejandro Cremades: And obviously the immediate step that needed to happen for Island to come to life so you know as they say they ideas you know they’re there. You don’t even know they’re there and then over time you know they just take different shapes and forms and you know for you? What? what? do you think worthy.

Michael Fey: Um, ah.

Alejandro Cremades: Events that needed to happen in order for this company to see the light of the day. But.

Michael Fey: Well first and foremost Dana Miga who’s my co-founder. Um, when I left symante he reached out to me and he wanted me to help with some of the startups he was working with and so I leaned in as a board member and we we stayed in contact that way. Little did I know he had this bright idea he was brewing up that he was trying to you know if you will start to engineer his company and Dan brought this idea to me of what if the browser collaborated integrate it with the enterprise to do some of the common functions in cybersecurity. And the first one he had in mind was her own web filtering and I thought was really bright idea. It might be difficult and I actually offered to funding and and try to give him his seed money and Dan stood firms that listen I don’t need your money I’ll raise money I want you as as our Ceo and i’ often thought about it and. Ah, very important individual in my life. Our chief strateg officer Brian Kenyon and I debated it for some time and it was in that journey over a period about a week we realized that what Dan had stumbled upon wasn’t a minor security feature an upgrade and one off he really stumbled upon this enterprise browser concept that had virtually. Endless possibilities and we started to realize we could tackle almost any area whether it’s productivity performance security you know, ah data rights data management. Whatever at that privileged layer. It got really simple to solve problems and.

Michael Fey: Was really in that conversation I actually came back to Dan after turning him down and saying Dan I want to join up I want to do this and here’s why I want to sell this and Dan agreed and and saw this future work concept and we really you know in that iterative process amongst the 3 of us. Came up with what would be the enterprise browser and you know Dan was the focal point of that of that technical part about what was possible but how we sold it how we would monetize is really where we spent the bulk of our energy. So after we agreed to do that about thirty days later um

Michael Fey: We yeah, we started the process of reaching out to our network and not our not the investors amazing cios and cissoss and technologists and you know execs from all across the industry and started bringing the idea to them and hearing them. Rev it and modify it and point out the challenges and it gave us the confidence to really put our whole heart and soul into it. So when we finally called up our first vc I had already canvassed about a hundred cios and cisos on is this an idea that makes sense to you. And I had their endorsement of how it would work and what would work for them so when we were talking with the vcs we weren’t pitching an idea as much as we were pitching a company we knew we were going to build this. We knew it was going to happen now who was going to be our partner in that. And so we got to approach that in a very very aggressive way and we literally asked for 20,000,000 in seed funding out of the gate because we weren’t here to test an idea we’d already done that we were here to build it and that was a little bit of a difference from from us versus a lot of seed companies.

Alejandro Cremades: My god if I was to be on the receiving end on that and I was the investor I will be ready to run through a wall of bricks and unbeliable Michael now now let me ask you this I mean obviously a really big is seat round.

Michael Fey: If that.

Alejandro Cremades: I guess for the folks that are listening to really get it. Why ended ended up being the business model of Ireland how do you guys make money right.

Michael Fey: So We make money by, um, selling you know, ah per year user licenses of an Enterprise Browser. So think of this as a browser that is built on the Chromium open source project. So It has the same look and feels the browsers. We all know. But integrates back into a management console where the policy the corporation that runs it manifests itself so it governs everything in the last mile whether that’s things that impact your security where data can go where it can’t go how you connect what network you use. Can you cut Cut copy paste. What can you do inside of that or. What is the performance of that environment. How do you move Network traffic or the actual business side of it. How do you autopopulate Data. How do you automate things inside of that layer and then finally the end user. How do we? How do we delight the end user. How do we give them a more productive environment. But we monetize that per license seat and it’s you know, usually. Ah, at the ah roi of taking out a whole stack of tools that they had to use to accomplish the same thing with a non-cooperative Browser a consumer browser.

Alejandro Cremades: And now let’s go back to the seat round of 20000000 you were obviously racing not on you know, just an idea out or on a deck I mean you were you were racing on on stuff that you knew you know I mean you had validation you were ready to really build and and and make it happen I guess.

Michael Fey: This.

Alejandro Cremades: What were you because 20000000 is a lot of money for a seat round. You know? So even if you are ready to make things happen. How are you able to walk the investor through the canvas with the same colors that you have in your own head.

Michael Fey: Um.

Michael Fey: Ah, so we built an actual pitch deck that is very similar to the 1 we give customers now three years later and we approached it is almost how we would sell and then we game theoryed out all the challenges. An investor might have. talk to me about the tam talk to me about adoption you know which markets are going to go after and and really built that out. So after we gave that pitch. We waited for the response and then immediately could jump in to supporting slides on that and we’re able to show them that we had thought this out in ways and depths that they had never. I think a lot of times the vcs see holes that you know and they give people things to go back and think about we had obviously game theory this out now we were definitely helped out by the fact that we were known people in the industry. We knew a lot of these investors you know had known us through the years um but that whole process which we had just. I think the best of the best investors we were able to talk to and and get on board. We were. We were fortunate enough to choose between a good chunk about 10 different investors um in a two week period and so. 2 wo weeks we we settled on sequoia and cyberstarts we chose cyberstarts because they had this phenomenal network to help companies build and validate their first set of deals and then we chose sequoia because you know certainly with the brand name and capabilities of sequoia behind you.

Michael Fey: Validates a lot and this was an idea that would be challenged by is it real or is it just some crazy idea a couple guys had so we wanted that you know uber logo of Sequoia. We also won it Doug Leone who was the head of sequoia on our board. We thought that further validated us as well as guilly the head of cyberstarts. And that was the the first choice there were some other great funds. We really debated on um and it and it was a tough decision but the combination of that partnership a cyber starts and sequoia was just too much to pass up.

Alejandro Cremades: And how is it like to have someone like dog leone in your board I mean this guy is ah is a legend. So how how how is you know, really Bor dynamics. You know when you have people of this caliber.

Michael Fey: It? yeah, you know and you mix it in with Jeff Horing who’s on our board who’s who’s you know a legend in his own right? Ah, my board’s terrifying. Um, they’re they’re amazingly capable people. And um, their insight is just ah, scary smart and and the only thing that makes it you know, kind of a palatable is you realize they’re on your side and they want nothing but the best for you and and that’s what what carries you through it but I will tell you. Ah, we were debating at 1 point in time like were we ready to have a guy like Doug you know, riding on top of us and and you know because he is intense and and 1 of my trusted friends said you know Mike why would we have it any other way. We’re only here to succeed having somebody push and lean on us is exactly what we need. And that’s what we did um the amount of business experience now on that board between Sheila Jordan and and Stephen from Georgian and you know the Cisco team. Um, it is a phenomenal room to bring an idea to and to validate a business plan. Um. They’re also senior enough they respect where we’re at in our journey. We’re not 20 something year olds building our first company. Um, but also we’re not startup guys so we need some advice for certain but the right advice.

Michael Fey: Yeah, it’s an amazing experience to be on a flaw and fly in the wall that boardroom I Love hearing fear him talk and debate. It is a battle the Titans come in and and just brilliant ideas afloat.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing now so far for the company. How much capital have you guys raised to date.

Michael Fey: So we’ve raised a little over a quarter billion.

Alejandro Cremades: I got it and what has been the experience of obviously you know we talked about the seed round of 20000000. You know when you raise so much money to seed to certain degree. You’re also setting up expectations for the next round. So what? What? what? What were the you know the the sequence of events you know of going from cycle to cycle. How did those expectations. Also you know shift over the course. So.

Michael Fey: Um.

Michael Fey: Yeah, you know I think first and foremost it’s important to know we didn’t set 20000000 because Dan and I like money that wasn’t the reason we set 20000000 because we knew unlike a lot of products especially in cyber security ours was going to touch end users. And we had to from the start build a fully flushed out product. There was no way we were going to be able to run a broken pilot. You know where where a lot of times a product can be built and it just touches a couple administrators and they can wait for core functionality. But when you’re impacting end users. You can’t go to somebody and say hey your end user is going to be less. You know productive today. Wait a minute so we knew we needed enough capital to really build the product and and that was the reason for the 20 is let’s build the right company to begin with with the right engineers so we didn’t hire 20 individual contributor developers Underneath Dan and try to make it work. We hired our architects. We hired our vps of development then hired the teams. So we could build the right product. So at that point you know we had a product we were able to show the product to to organizations and the more progressive investors all have these Cio and Siis Networks they’re all out there saying what’s hot. What are you seeing and it just so happened that. Who we were working with overlaid with the insight teams network and they were able to get educated to what we were doing understand it was exciting and they reached out tos and said listen we’d like to invest we were still you know only? ah probably 4 or 5000000 into the seed round weren’t even thinking about that at that time.

Michael Fey: But they came at evaluation that really felt like that’s where we would be six months or a year from Now so it made sense to go there and having that additional capital I think at the time it was another 80000000 um made sense and in the stripes teams joined up with them so gives another group of experts to call upon ah and you know to be Frank. We’d be fools not to do it so we did it and that was our series a so unsolicited series a and then we had the same thing for series b things were starting to take effect. We hadn’t gone come out of um, ah stealth yet. And and that’s probably an interesting point I kept the company in stuff a lot longer than most startups we were having a wonderful ability to get to customers and get pilots and get engagement without being out of stuff so we resisted the urge to beat our chests and try to tell the world what we were doing. We enjoyed anonymity about it where a lot of companies. The first minute they take money they run out and tell everybody look we got funded. We don’t want to start that clock. We didn’t want start the clock on okay, are you selling and what are you selling and we wanted to make sure the product was ready and luckily our investors agreed with us. They were happy. We stayed in stealth. And it was only at the series b when we realized list we’re about to take another 100 and something million dollars we probably should tell the world what we’re working at all and and it’s time to start to transition these pilots to monetization and that’s when we ended up taking our next round about a month after coming out of stealth.

Michael Fey: And that valued it is it a billion 3 um and we opened up that round because we felt a billion three for that early in the journey was ah a generous valuation. So we we opened that up a bit and filled it up to the quarter of billion investing we have now. But.

Michael Fey: It was ah an amazing journey. Um, with with you know, insight and stripes and Georgian and these that all all chipped in and had the confidence what we were building mattered and we’re very fortunate that the customers we had were all willing to talk. And they’re all willing to take their calls and explain yeah and why it was valuable and why this crazy idea would actually work and it was a ah it was a crazy experience to go through that and hear the company valued it a billion. You know that early in the journey. And then have it affirmed recently you know it’s you know I know right now it’s hard to get evaluations up there. So We’re very blessed. We haven’t had to worry about ours.

Alejandro Cremades: Man oh kidding I mean talking about being the co-founder of a company that has had a billion three and being able to say that it was a generous valuation and who would have told you that and unbelievable Michael now now question here for the people that are listening to to understand here the scope and size I mean. Anything that you can share around you know number of employees or anything else. You know to to get an idea.

Michael Fey: Sure we’re closing in on 200 employees. Um, you know we’ve got a very very large r and d organization which is bulk of our our employees. We’re engaged with about half the fortune 100 um, we are. Ah. We think you know we’re we’re not sure yet we’re in the middle or at the end of our q four. So hopefully if we execute I think we’ll be one of the ah the best performing category creators First year of sales ever. Um. You know there’s there’s a lot of hot startups a lot of them that that take business. You know so better mousetrap steal existing budget category creations its own. Nightmare you have to go into a company that’s never thought about what you’re doing even if they get excited. They have to figure out how to put in their work product. How to break budget free. All of that stuff. So category creation usually takes a little bit longer. So we’re we’re doing very well on that journey. Um, and you know despite the economic challenges. You know we’re going to double in size next year and and continue to press on um, things are going. Yeah, we are at least two years ahead of the first plan we built for the company. Um, and you know right now the rollouts are going well, the adoption is going well and the large transactions are are happening much faster than we ever dreamed so we’re we’re very, we’re very blessed in how this is working out with that said we got a long way to go. We got a lot to prove.

Michael Fey: We got a lot of deployments to to make happen and you know we start to prove you know the world that this category is as meaningful as we believe it is. There’s a lot of confusion about the category old legacy secure browser thought processes come up in people’s mind and so there’s ah, a predisposition to assuming what we’re doing. Every time we show somebody. They realize oh they they misunderstood it. So At some point we have to get more household and not have to fight everything hand to-hand combat? Um, but all in all, things are going well and and we’re hire and strong. Amazing. You know people that we go.

Alejandro Cremades: And you were talking there about you know what’s coming so I guess the question that comes to mind is imagine if you were to go to sleep tonight Michael and you wake up in a world where the vision of island is fully realized you know besides that world being beautiful. What what would it look like.

Michael Fey: You could safely go to any device you chose and use it for whatever purpose you had, but when you chose to go to work you’d click on your company’s browser and that would be your work. You’ll be your work format Everything you need would be there. It’d be there safely. Be there securely and as much automation and productivity that could be provided to you would be so whether that’s a tablet you’re working on at home your work computer. But we would stop drawing this delineation between managed devices and unmanaged devices and BYOD and we would just be able to adopt self it and if you got a computer and you can install a browser you can work safely and productively that will be a wonderful thing for us to do. And to simplify the backend supporting stacks Now What does it mean? We’re an independent company. We are a meaningful company and most importantly, we’re a great place to work. Um that that would be you know a wonderful way to wake up.

Alejandro Cremades: No, no, no kidding no kidding now we’ve been talking here about the future. So let’s take a look at the past you know with with some degree of reflection here and if you had the opportunity of going back in time. Michael. You know, maybe you know you go back to the days where you were still kicking the ball you know behind the net and and being a soccer player but you know wondering you know like what what would that be you know what would that future look like for you and and maybe you know you were able to look at it from ah from an entrepreneurial perspective. No.

Michael Fey: Um.

Alejandro Cremades: Ah, thinking about like putting a solution to a problem that maybe you know you would encounter if you had the opportunity of having a chat with that younger self and give me that younger Michael one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why doing what you know now.

Michael Fey: So think I give 2 pieces of advice 1 personal and 1 business. Um personal I would try to convince myself to not worry about so much stuff to enjoy the ride. Enjoy the experience learn as you go. It’s going to work out. You know I tried to control too many variables as I grew up and make sure that everything was planned out and everything was governed and everything was managed to that and in reality business just doesn’t work that way on a holistic scale. Your career doesn’t work that way what you need to do is focus on being around people that matter people that can teach you people that grow you people that expand you and trust in in that collective good I would have had a lot less sleepless nights a lot more fun along the way and probably ended in the same spot if not better. So I think that’s personally from an enterprise perspective. It took me really late in my career to start asking the question. Why not? you know when you think about introducing a new browser into this space. You got to be a little nuts to do that. But then again it makes perfect sense and the sooner you can start looking at the problem. Not as an ideation or iteration of the past but just freshly the sooner you’re going to find a great idea that that is worth spending your career on and is worth building a company for I think too many startups and too many products which I’ve been a part of were just trying to outdo the last 1 trying to.

Michael Fey: Trying to not make the mistakes the product before it made and while that’s not a bad business model and it may provide things. It doesn’t provide the inspiration the motivation that a true unique solution does to a problem. And and maybe I would have told myself to go look for problems that that I could find that for and spend my career more on those than optimizing existing platforms. Um, it’ll be a lot more fun and a lot more motivational I think.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow very profound Michael so for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi what would but be the best way for them to do so.

Michael Fey: Um, you know Mike at island.io go ahead. Shoot me a note I’d I’d love to hear from you. So that’s simple.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. Is he enough is enough. Well Michael thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us enough.

Michael Fey: Thank you Sir I appreciate it.

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