“Kids Expose Wasted Motion” | Gabe Larsen (Dad of 5, CRO of Atonom)

[00:00:00] Gabe Larsen: I’ve talked to my wife about that because at some point she ended up quitting her career now that we have a whole basketball team. For a while there, I remember saying to her, “Oh man, must be so hard. It’s so boring. These kids, you got to be with all these punks all day.” And I remember one time she looked at me. It was very moments and she’s like, “I’m growing people every day and you’re growing revenue. What a boring life you have. I’m growing these humans and shaping them.”
[00:00:27] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I’m your host, Adam Fishman. There’s a common belief in startup culture that having kids will slow down your ambition and hurt your leadership effectiveness. My guest today couldn’t disagree more. Gabe Larsen is the CRO of Atonom, an AI company building always on AI agents. He has been the CMO of Kustomer, director of marketing at Meta and an executive at Insidesales.com. He’s also the father of five kids ranging from one to 14 years old, along with his wife, Carolyn. Today, we talked about why startup culture massively underestimates how much becoming a parent can improve your leadership, how kids expose wasted motion fast and force ruthless prioritization. The way fatherhood has shifted his emotional center and transformed his identity, how having hard conversations with his kids translates directly to better management skills and why he runs monthly one-on-ones with each of his five boys.
[00:01:34] Adam Fishman: We also discuss his family mission and quarterly goal system and how the leadership principles he’s developed as a father have made him more empathetic and effective with his employees. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube or Spotify so you never miss an episode. You’ll find it everywhere you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy today’s conversation with Gabe Larsen. Welcome Gabe Larsen to Startup Dad. Gabe, it is my absolute pleasure to have you on the show today. Thanks for- No,
[00:02:02] Gabe Larsen: Man, excited. This is one of those when I saw it, I’m like, “I got to do it. I got to do it.
[00:02:06] Adam Fishman: “ Yes, yes. So you have five kids from one to 14, quite a spread, and you have a spouse, Carolyn. It would be pretty amazing if you had those kids without having a spouse. And you described Carolyn to me as an incredible professional as well. So we’ll get to that a little bit later. We’re going to talk later in the show about how the two of you make it all work, which as we know, you’re grossly outnumbered by your children. Oh my goodness.
[00:02:32] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. I’ve gone too far. They’re taking over. Help, help.
[00:02:36] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Before we talk about that though, I wanted to just jump right into a bit of a contrarian take that you have. And that is that startup culture massively underestimates just how much becoming a parent can improve your leadership. So what have you learned about this and why do you think this is contrarian?
[00:02:57] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, I think sometimes if you’re really going to be a founder, you don’t have time, I mean, especially in today’s world where you just don’t have time to kind of run another business, Larsen LLC, you got to run your own business. But I find there’s so many lessons that are very applicable that you can oftentimes … At night, you learn the lessons and the next day you kind of apply them at work. So happy to share a couple of those, but I do think it’s a unique benefit to be able to have one and the other.
[00:03:31] Adam Fishman: You said that a lot of people kind of come into this and they act like family really slows down your ambition or your drive, but I think you’ve learned the opposite. It focuses you, it helps you with delegation. So what have you learned in that regard?
[00:03:48] Gabe Larsen: I would say the ambition concept is something I’ve realized, and truthfully, I’ve found it when I’ve hired other professionals as well. You got a family, you got a house, you got a boat, you got kids in school. Who’s paying for those bills? So you better get your little fanny moving. So I mean, I joke a little bit, but look, when you’re basically supporting other people who you love and you want to grow, then I think it absolutely puts that ambition upwards. It also then increases prioritization. My ability, I’m not a real caffeine guy, coffee person, but my prioritization, my engine, you work whatever hours during the day, you come home, you do the kid family thing and play dad, and then you’re back online doing stuff. But that ability to lock in immediately.
[00:04:40] Gabe Larsen: People are like, “Oh, do you just peruse on LinkedIn?” No, I jump in, I knock stuff out, I go. So those would be two. But the third is when you have kids, and again, I happen to have multiple, but by all means, maybe I’m the wrong type of leader, but I definitely am like a lead by example leader. And I prefer to have a standup and a stand down with my kids every day. And I prefer to have a standup and a stand down with my employees every day. And I think humans need that kind. Now look, obviously different roles, different people, different structure, but I’ve often employed a lot of young people. And I think some of that stuff where we wake up as a family and we talk about some of the stuff we have to do today. And then at night we talk about what we did and didn’t do.
[00:05:25] Gabe Larsen: And it’s never perfect. I don’t want to paint it. It is. But those principles, even just that, run the mission and debrief after. I think that’s powerful. It’s powerful.
[00:05:34] Adam Fishman: Yeah. You’re describing a bit of a lighter touch way of doing accountability. Say what you’re going to do, do as much of it as you can and then say what you did at the end. And it’s a good bookend for the day on family and in professional life.
[00:05:49] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. Yeah. I read a book once. It was the American Fighter Pilots. This was maybe 20 years ago, but they had that principle. It was Brief Mission Debrief is what he talked about it in the book. And he said that was the core. When they get ready for their missions, they all line up, they have this room, they all rip off their badge, they put the badge on the table, they brief before the mission, they go hold the mission. And right after the mission, they pop back, rip off their badges and come in and debrief. And there’s principles there that I think are very applicable in life.
[00:06:22] Adam Fishman: Yeah. The other thing you sort of described to me is that I love this phrase. You said kids expose wasted motion fast. What does that mean?
[00:06:32] Gabe Larsen: Well, it’s a little bit on the prioritization, but in this world, and man, I’m writing the crux of AI with some of the things I’m doing. And this idea that busy equals productive, right? And we find it in our lives and we find it in our jobs and we find it in management. Again, when you have so many things going on, obviously ideally you’re going to try to get rid of that busyness and just get right into productivity immediately. But I’ve found with kids in particular that the heartfelt moments matter the most, right? It’s not playing soccer mom that matters. It’s the real conversations. And you see those, even if it’s a two-minute moment, it becomes so much more impactful that you start to say, “Man, I’ve got to not just be busy with these kids. I have to find ways to connect with them because that’s what actually creates relationships.” Man, when I then look at work, it’s like, do I need seven meetings?
[00:07:22] Gabe Larsen: I don’t need that. I’ve got to get right to the heart of this issue. And so some of these things, again, I think you practice it at home and then it shows up at work and you’re like, “I just saw that last night. I got to get right to the core issue. This kid’s got a problem. The last thing I need to do is play Nintendo with them for five hours. I got to go straight to the point.”
[00:07:42] Adam Fishman: Right. Yeah. I wanted to build on that. One of the things you told me is that fatherhoods has sharpened your own operating system. One of the ways that you described that to me is this idea of clearer values, better leadership, empathy, and kind of redefining what success means for you. And fatherhood’s helped you with that. So could you tell me more about some of those topics?
[00:08:08] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. Look, I think when you have as many kids as I do, an operating system sounds a little bit maybe cliche, and I don’t want to pretend like we run a military system or structure here either, but it’s on a couple of those things I’ve touched on. Do you have a family mission or a family much like a company? What are those values? Is it written down? And again, I’m also one. I know a lot of companies throw values on a wall and what did Enron have values on their wall and stuff like that. So you got to be a little bit careful with how cheesy you go maybe. But again, there’s some of these concepts in business in life. Yeah, the family, we have a mission. We have some of our values. We have our quarterly OKRs that, and I use OKR, but these things that I challenge each of my boys each quarter, I want to hit some of the physical, the mental, the spiritual.
[00:09:05] Gabe Larsen: Give me some of these things you’re going to go through. And one of the really valuable things is I think being able to talk to them in a way that you’re trying to help them become men or you’re trying to help them become future leaders. And I don’t know, sometimes, again, especially in the AI world where people are looking to cut people and people are disposable. And I mean, that translates like, “Hey, when I’m talking to my employees,” and we’re talking about OKRs, again, I don’t call them OKRs with my kids, but we have our quarterly goals or whatever. But when I talk to my employees, I find myself then trying to not just look at them as assets, but as people, what are you trying to accomplish? And what is your family vision? What are you trying to get? In some cases, I hear a car or we’re trying to buy a new house or something, but anchoring on that big picture vision, like my family anchors on that big picture vision, and then talking to them with their OKRs or through their OKR, reminding them that we’re trying to actually help them make more money so that they can pay their kids’ school off or something.
[00:10:11] Gabe Larsen: I don’t know, just bringing in some of that empathy has made it a little bit more realistic in some of those conversations.
[00:10:19] Adam Fishman: Yeah. It sounds like it’s really changed. Becoming a dad has really changed how you lead teams or at least approach the idea of leadership on the job. Would you say that’s true?
[00:10:30] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, look, I think it has to. I think with kids, you have to have the hard conversations as well. I know a lot of us, it’s hard to fire people. It’s hard to tell somebody they’re doing bad. But I’ll tell you what, when you catch a kid with swearing with his friends, catch a kid staying up. I mean, there’s just these moments obviously where you talk to your kids or the awkward conversation, the birds and the bees. I mean, come on, how many times have I had those conversations? I actually had a friend of mine, he’s like, “I’m amazed that you can have these conversations with employees like you do. “ And again, I’m like, look, I have to have real … In the world in which we’re trying to raise boys today and the things going on, the technology, the pornography, the Hollywood, the movies, the language.
[00:11:19] Gabe Larsen: And again, I don’t want to be … I’m not trying to create priests or something here, but I want good law abiding citizens. You just have to have real conversations at them often. I try to have a monthly one-on-one with each of my boys and have some of those real conversations. Because again, if I don’t have it planned, for me, it’s very hard to have natural in the car driving. So I try to have a Sunday once a month where I line them up, they come into dad’s office. And again, I know it’s a little funky, but this bleed over, right? And I’m using a one-on-one. I just say to the boys, I just say it’s their monthly check-in, trying to check in how they’re doing. But in the employee world, we call it one-on-one. But you’re right, in that one-on-one with my boy, I’m going to talk through.
[00:12:05] Gabe Larsen: I got to have those hard conversations like, “How’s your language?” You’ve been using some of these words like, “Dude, we don’t do that at this age.” I do that every month, five times. So when I get in with my employees, I think it feels a little more natural when it’s like, “It looks like you’re leaving early every day. Talk to me about why that is. “ And I just don’t feel quite as awkward. It’s never master, don’t get me wrong, but you learn to get a little thicker skin. And like I said, I don’t want to say you practice on the kids, but a lot of the people I’ve managed in my career are sales development reps, our early marketing people. And my kids is 14 now and we’re talking about a 21-year-old sometimes. I don’t know. There’s not always that much of a difference sometimes.
[00:12:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah, they’re closer to your oldest son’s age than to you.
[00:12:56] Gabe Larsen: I mean, I say that with a little bit of Jess, but they’re just coming out of that teenage years. So to say they’re perfect and they need that guidance, I think.
[00:13:05] Adam Fishman: I actually think it’s awesome that you have a structure where you have one-on-one conversation with each one of your boys. Because I imagine the opportunity to get them one-on-one in a house with five kids and a spouse almost never happens organically. So you have to create that structure in order to do it, or it’s just you’re never alone with one of them or rarely.
[00:13:30] Gabe Larsen: And I did for a while, I wanted it to be more natural and let’s do it, but yeah, it just doesn’t lend itself. And the other thing is they’re not as prepared, especially these teenagers, you catch them off guard, they’ve got their phone, but if I can kind of be like, walk into dad’s office, you better be ready. I don’t know. There seems to be a little bit of a … It’s still awkward. It’s still terrible, but it’s a little different than driving to a basketball game and being like, “We got seven minutes.” And I’m not saying you shouldn’t take advantage of those moments, but it’s a little hard sometimes.
[00:14:04] Adam Fishman: Yeah. There’s something about crossing that threshold into dad’s office or something like that that changes the dynamic.
[00:14:10] Gabe Larsen: This is where the magic happens. We should actually do a little tour. I got my whip over here. I got my …
[00:14:17] Adam Fishman: Speaking of this, not whips, obviously, but speaking of emotional conversations and things like that, one of the other things you described to me is that this idea that your emotional center has moved since you’ve become a dad. And I read that when you were describing that to me and I was like, “Oh, I wonder what he means by that. “ So can you tell me more about this idea of your shifting sort of emotional center?
[00:14:41] Gabe Larsen: I just used to be more of an emotional … I’m an external processor. I’m not an accountant by trade. I’m more of a marketing and sales guy, so I’m an external personality. Yeah, I probably wore my emotions more on my sleeves. I was a little more up and down, bad day, good day. I think the whole office could tell. But man, I just got way thicker skin. I mean, you go, I got that six month old right now and one rough night with a baby and they’re coughing and you’re sick or they’re real sick and they’ve got group or something. And it’s getting that scary moment. You wake up and you look at that sales deck or board deck even just a little bit differently or you rush a kid. I’ve only had a few thank heavens where I’ve rushed a kid to an ER and it’s a different feeling than what you fill in business.
[00:15:33] Gabe Larsen: And so anyways, those types of things, I think I used to be just more emotion was everywhere, but I used the word emotion a little bit more centered in the sense that it just, my perspective has changed so much on life.
[00:15:48] Adam Fishman: Yeah. You mentioned the ER and it’s like, well, with kids, there are some things that are in fact life and death. And then you put that into perspective with your job and certainly you want to do well. And the company’s success often depends on you and things like that, but the stakes are a little bit different than they are when you’re talking about your tiny human beings.
[00:16:09] Gabe Larsen: I’ve talked to my wife about that because she, at some point, she ended up quitting her career now that we have a whole basketball team. And for a while there, I remember saying to her, “Oh man, it must be so hard. It’s so boring. These kids, you got to be with all these punks all day.” And I remember one time she looked at me. It was very moments and she’s like, “I’m growing people every day and you’re growing revenue. What a boring life you have. “ I’m growing these humans and shaping them. I was like, when you put it like that, selling SaaS or something is software. So anyways, yeah, the emotional centeredness definitely gets a little bit different, I think, as you move down this path.
[00:16:54] Adam Fishman: The other thing that you said has shifted is just generally this identity, sort of your identity shift. And I think there are a lot of founders, and you called this out to me. There’s a lot of founders and leaders who struggle with this tension between, “I’m ambitious on the job, to feel guilty if I’m not present for my kids. I want to do something meaningful at work, but also meaningful at home.” What have you noticed in yourself has shifted there from an identity or who and how you identify yourself?
[00:17:33] Gabe Larsen: This is a hard one. And I don’t know if I think a lot of a struggle, you mentioned the struggle between that ambition and guilt, wanting to build something awesome, but also be this awesome dad. And I don’t know if I’ve got a great answer for it because this is like moderation in all things. You have to find, I love the work-life integration versus work-life balance. There will never be a balance. There just isn’t. But can you find a way to integrate it and find those magical moments to make it happen? And so I certainly have noticed I’ve lost myself a lot more. People always, they’ll hit me and they’ll be like, “What do you do for hobbies?” And I’m like, “I mean, it’s my kids.”
[00:18:15] Adam Fishman: I have five kids. What do you think I do?
[00:18:18] Gabe Larsen: There is no … I used to go skiing for a half day and I used to go with my friends on a golf, the 18 rounds of golf. And look, I’m not saying those don’t happen, but it’s much fewer and farther between. But my identity has kind of moved more into my kids and my job. And I think you can still find happiness there depending on who you are. I don’t want to say you want to completely lose yourself, but you’ve got to get rid of that idea of work-life balance. You’ve got to find that word choice of work-life integration. That I think is achievable. And is it possible? I certainly think it is. You just have to start to get some of these principles like rigorous prioritization and you’ve got to get with kids and you’ve got to make those moments count. You can’t just be on your phone.
[00:19:14] Gabe Larsen: I do, I try to play that. I come home in six to eight. It’s like, that has got to be phone off time. That has to be when I’m in town, 8:00 to 1:00 AM, that’s a different story. But if you can find a couple of these things that work for you, I’m just integrating it now. It’s not balanced because obviously I work 17 hours a day and I’m with my kids 60 hours. That’s not balanced. You’ll never find a balance. But maybe when you’re … We had a basketball tournament this weekend and I helped coach my kids’ team, but for the next two tournaments, I want to be out of town. You find that integration.
[00:19:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah. So if you were talking to another founder and a lot of founders listen to this show, and a lot of people who are on the cusp of starting a family or they’ve got a young family and they’re on the cusp of starting a company, if you’re talking to somebody who’s on the cusp or on the edge of one or both of these things, how would you talk to them about what we just discussed here? Would you have advice for them? Would you just tell them the same things that we just talked about? Or if you were to say, sit them down, you were having one-on-one, pull them into your office, what would that conversation look like?
[00:20:26] Gabe Larsen: I would say just do it. You got to build the plane while you fly. I’d probably start there. Second is you’ve got to decide what brings you joy in life. Some people are kidding. Some people are climbing Mount Everest people. That’s their thing. Some people are pickleball, no harm, no foul on whoever you are. But if you are somebody who wants to experience that family and job, there’s no way through it but through it. And so you do just got to jump in and you’ll learn on the go and you’d be surprised at how fast you learn on that front. So that’s probably the biggest advice I’d give is we were debating number of kids and my wife’s job and those things, you just make those decisions.That’s such a great example. If you meet my wife, never would she have quit her job. She was absolutely a professional and loved her career in finance and tax and accounting.
[00:21:22] Gabe Larsen: And if you talk to her today, you’d be like, well, she’d never want to work. People change, kids change, your job changes. And so I just think there’s something about a crawl, walk, run approach to it. Don’t try to boil the ocean and salt. You’re not going to be able to decide if your wife’s going to work or not work. Or if you’re passionate about family and you’re passionate about AI or whatever your business is, just take one step and then take one more and then one more. And if it’s right, I think more doors will open. Things will kind of work themselves out. And like I said, the wife and the job thing is a fascinating one of … It’s like I said, you meet her, the 25-year-old, you’ve been like, “Oh, she’s not going to have any kid.” There’s one kid and then the 45-year-old, she’s a very different person.
[00:22:13] Gabe Larsen: Hey, people change, time change, and that’s okay.
[00:22:16] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah. Did your wife work or stop working outside of the home? Let’s not underscore the important job that she’s doing with the kids. Right. Did she stop at the beginning of you starting your family or kind of midway through when she realized like, “Hey, this is a lot going on here. We need to make a shift.” And what was that discussion like?
[00:22:39] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, look, it was an ongoing discussion. So I think at the beginning we were kind of passing kids at the airport and I was doing some consulting stuff and it was hard, but it’s what we both felt was right. And I can’t remember the exact kid number.
[00:22:58] Gabe Larsen: But I think between two and three, I think it was the third one that … And this is one of those things obviously with two independent people. It’s just a very interesting conversation of how we want to do it. And there has to be a we because it’s so hard to run two high-powered careers that something is going to take a hit. And I don’t know, I don’t think it’s right for everybody, but yeah, that law of specialization, instead of both people trying to be the CEO, is it better to have one be the CEO of the house and one be the CEO of the company? And for us, that did feel right. And it felt about right as we were moving from, what do they say, man to man to zone to what’s the next box, the box in one or something? Oh, triangle and two, I think is what we’re doing right now.
[00:23:46] Adam Fishman: I’m not sure. In basketball?
[00:23:47] Gabe Larsen: I’m familiar with all the things, but I definitely have been running different defenses, still haven’t figured out which one works against this group. But for us, that specialization, when we made that change where she really doubled down and I really doubled down, for us, I think that really worked. I was able to go from work-life balance to work-life integration. We had this company, we sold it to another company. I don’t know if I would’ve done that had we kept trying to run the … We’re both trying to do … I’m not saying that’s for everybody, but boy, that was about the right time where something had to give … Either we both had to have a … We were feeling like we both had to have a little more mediocre careers or a different career. Maybe the two careers we were having wasn’t working, but when we switched, we felt like, hey, whatever, leadership of the home and leadership of the business might work better if we specialize.
[00:24:41] Gabe Larsen: And I think so far so good.
[00:24:42] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Well, it kind of comes back to the point that you were making earlier, which is the advice to founders, which is like, “Just do it. You got to build the plane while you’re flying it. And eventually you’ll figure out if you got to land that plane somewhere and then take off in a different plane.” So it sounds like that’s what you did in your house.
[00:25:01] Gabe Larsen: I mean, yeah, we were comparing notes the other night and we’ve been married now coming up on 20 years and I think we’ve moved 16 times. That would’ve never been our original plan to … We spent some time on the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest. I was five years overseas doing some consulting in different places. You don’t know, man, until you take one step in front of the other.
[00:25:24] Adam Fishman: That’s a lot of different places to live in too. That’s wild. I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned, hey, you were coaching basketball tournament or games this weekend. The next couple ones you’re missing and you obviously as a CRO, you got to close deal. You got to go somewhere. Clients, potential customers, sometimes they want to see the boss face-to-face. And so I’m curious, with your kids, is this something that they ask you about? Do you have to talk to them like, “Hey, dad’s taking a trip. Here’s what I’m going to do. “ How much do you bring them into, here’s why dad’s going to be gone for the next handful of days or week or something like that. And obviously the six month old, probably a different conversation than the 14-year-old.
[00:26:13] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, that’s interesting because with each of them, it is a little bit different, right? The 14-year-old, I’m fairly involved with some of his sports. And so there’s a little bit of a conversation like, “Hey, you’re…” Because that’s another interesting … I want to be involved in their sports, but I’ve found it’s very hard to run my own sports club or something like that. So I’ve tried to find a way to be part of it without running it so I can jump in and jump out at times and it doesn’t feel like the team collapses or something like that. So that one keeps it a little more on the professional front. And he’s a teenager, so I don’t know if he cares that much. The youngest one obviously doesn’t really know his left hand from his right hand. It’s the middle ones that I find that to be interesting, why leave.
[00:27:00] Gabe Larsen: But I do think, and I wouldn’t say I’m the best at communicating, but yeah, I often feel like those are great moments to explain that this is what men do. A great father tries to provide for his family, and so this is what I’m doing and they are working, and that is an expectation that I will have for you. Doesn’t mean you need to have a million kids, but I expect you to be, again, a contributing member of society earning some sort of paycheck that is not my paycheck. And I make a little joke of it, but I think in some of those early years, the 10-year-old like, yeah, look, when you have a job every day, you don’t have these vacations, some are vacation like you have with school and sometimes you do. It’s a field trip that you got to go on. But I’d like to try to bring it back when I can into, this is kind of what life is going to be.
[00:27:53] Gabe Larsen: There’s job and there’s expectations and there’s this kind of provider concept. So anyways, I wouldn’t say I’m perfect, but I think it’s a little different conversation for each of the bunch.
[00:28:04] Adam Fishman: Tell me about the realities of partnership. It sounds like you have a great partnership with your wife, but tell me about some of the realities of partnership when there’s a lot of pressure. You’re obviously balancing ambition and parenting and marriage. You got to spend time with your wife too when life is moving as fast as it is. How do you and your wife still find time for each other without necessarily having a scheduled one-on-one or maybe you do?
[00:28:32] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. No, if it was up to me, we probably would, but no, that has not worked. Yeah, I think we’ve tried to … There’s no book on that. There isn’t like a playbook or a framework that I’m familiar with to find those types of things. So when we run into different problems, I think we try to look at each other and see which one’s better equipped to handle it. One of the things we’ve found more is that my wife does really well when they’re younger and as they’ve turned into teenage boys, it feels like a natural responsibility is more turned to me. And I don’t know the best way to explain that, but they’re a little more parented by the mom when they’re young. And as they hit this like 12, 13, 14, they are naturally wanting to move away from mom. And so we’ve kind of had conscientious decisions that we will try to do those types of things.
[00:29:23] Gabe Larsen: And then we also, we try to talk a little bit about strengths. I’m an old strengths finder guy, and what do they say? There’s no such thing as a well-balanced leader, but there’s a well-balanced team. Yeah, my wife, there’s certain things, like she is more of an analytical mind and she’s more numbers driven. So sometimes with the math stuff, for example, she might jump in there more and we’ve kind of just tag teamed that. If they’re working on a presentation, just last night, the boy had a book report that he had to present and he was getting out the slides and I’ve got years of consulting. All I know how to do is build slides. And so I kind of go in that realm, for example, we’ve tried to talk through where we feel like some of those strengths are. And if we can, we’ll do a little tag on the shoulder and work through it.
[00:30:14] Gabe Larsen: But they aren’t any written in stone, man. It’s more like, how do we do that? Now, when it comes to our own marriage, it’s back to that integration versus balance. There’s a month where we don’t see each other or there’s not much interaction. I’m coming through or I’m working late and she’s doing her thing. And so there isn’t this date night or whatever that type of thing is. It’s back to like, “Hey, can we then the next month make up some time for that? “ But what we’ve really talked about is not making it personal. Sometimes when it is, “Hey, if I’m not around for a little while or we don’t have this, “ and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be not hanging out for a month or something, but it’s part of this business that you might miss quota one month and you can either let that, “Oh, woe is me, woe is me.
[00:31:13] Gabe Larsen: “ Or you can pick up your feet and get after it again next month. And so that’s been great to say it is sometimes a little bit like a business, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, but it’s like, “Yeah, we missed it this month. How can we do better next month?” Okay, cool. Yeah, let’s do that. You
[00:31:30] Adam Fishman: Have a couple frameworks that I wanted to get after. And the first one is this idea of presence over volume. And that means when you’re home in that window with your kids, it’s laptop closed, phone down, focus on the family. And inevitably, somebody’s going to call you from your team, not every day, but it’s going to happen. They’re going to want to close a thing and they need your approval and you got to get on a phone to bring something across the finish line. What do you do when you find yourself drifting from this, when you’re tempted to look at your phone or what do you put in place so that you remove that temptation? I
[00:32:04] Gabe Larsen: Mean, there are small things I’ve tried to do that do help. I’m actually pretty active on a lot of social platforms like a TikTok and Instagram and some of these types of things. But I’ve found myself, even as of recently, I don’t have those apps on my phone. And that’s kind of a small thing. I’m working my way to your question here. So there’s sometimes things like that. I have played around with the do not disturb on my phone and trying to do things like that. The challenges you said is there are phone calls you need to take. And so just turning your phone off gets pretty hard. And so man, that is, it’s kind of like mind over mattress. I’ve been talking to my 14-year-old on that principle. Yes, you want to put systems in place whenever you can, do not disturb. But at times you’ve got to be able to pull up that phone and you got to have the discipline to say, “You know what?
[00:33:02] Gabe Larsen: I see this as a customer. It’s my best customer. I’m sitting at … I need to take this. “ And you know what? It’s back to work-life integration. Truthfully, I take the call. I think there’s sometimes where I am, I probably abuse it and the family gets hurt because of it. And then there’s times where I am where I’m like, it’s my boss, it’s my friend, it’s my rep. And I say, 10 minutes is going to be fine or something. So that one, I wish there was that magical system and I’ve tried a few different things, but I do feel like the truth is if you’re really going to be a leader and there are these emergencies, you do need to be available and ready. But I do. I try to talk to my teams and say, “Look, I’m here 5:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
[00:33:51] Gabe Larsen: I am fully … I talk to them about the communication methods, email for this, Slack for this, text for this, phone for this. And this is how I like to be communicated with. That’s how to work with me best.” Six to eight o’clock, I’m trying to be with the family so they’re aware of it. If you need me though, I’m totally here. This business has to keep going, but know that that is meant to be my designated. 8:15 to midnight, I’m totally open and available. Those are the channels to reach me on. Just that communication piece I think sometimes helps, but I haven’t found that magical system to be able to do it. But just putting in a few of those principles, it makes a difference.
[00:34:36] Adam Fishman: Yeah, it probably gets you 80, 90% of the way there.
[00:34:38] Gabe Larsen: At times. Sometimes it ebbs and flows, but to your point, it’s not bad.
[00:34:43] Adam Fishman: When you are, let’s say at the dinner table, the family and you get that call from your best customer and you’re like, “Ah, I got to take this. “ Do you just tell the family, you’re like, “Hey, this is the thing. I got to get on this phone call. Here’s somebody.” Do they understand, especially your older kids, maybe they understand? Oh
[00:34:59] Gabe Larsen: Man, they just don’t. They never do. I think that I can see it in their face and I ask them to not have technology at the dinner table and then I basically break that rule and stuff. So that is a challenge. But what I try to remind them is, and again, some were a little younger, but when we started down this path of more entrepreneurship or trying to be in this world of creating companies, we did sit down as a family and we talked about this and we laid some of these things like, “Hey, I’m going to do my best to have some of these principles in place. I’m sure I’ll break them.” But I think the upside for this is the right thing for the family. If everyone’s bought into that, let’s go down this path together a little bit. And so maybe I abuse that a little bit, Adam, but sometimes if I see that snarky kind of look when I take that call and then maybe when I’m chatting with that person later, I’m like, “Hey, I know sometimes dad’s not around, but as we kind of talked through, this is something that we felt like.
[00:36:00] Gabe Larsen: And I felt like in particular this is the right thing we wanted to do. “ And I don’t know if that helps a lot, but no, in the moment, it never felt very good. I think they look at you and they’re kind of like
[00:36:11] Adam Fishman: Isn’t it funny how kids are so good at calling you out on that stuff? We have the same rule at our dinner table. No technology at the dinner table. And then inevitably one of us will check an Apple watch or something. The kids will be like, “Ah, gotcha.”
[00:36:25] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, see right, it happens. And the hard part is they want to apply the same …
[00:36:32] Adam Fishman: Yes. The rules don’t always apply to dad and mom, they do apply to you. But
[00:36:38] Gabe Larsen: That’s been an interesting … I don’t think I’ve landed that playing yet too. They’re like, “I don’t understand why you can stay up late on your computer and I can’t.” And I’m like, “Because you’re playing games and I’m playing life.” I’m playing
[00:36:55] Adam Fishman: Build a PowerPoint deck.
[00:36:57] Gabe Larsen: But to them, I’ll tell you what, computers are computers, so they’re really frustrated about that one.
[00:37:03] Adam Fishman: All right. So since you have five kids and the age range, like I said, is basically six months to 14 years. How has your parenting style changed across five kids, aside from having a lot less time? What else have you learned that maybe you didn’t know when you had kid number one and now you kind of know that you’ve finally reached kid number five?
[00:37:26] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. Look, I think it’s almost like what you learn in business. The first time they fall, you’re all freaked out and scared, but now when they fall, you’re kind of like, “That’s got to be part of life.” I think I took a lot more things much more seriously, like the kid who was crying, going to sleep, I was like, “This kid’s going to be crazy.” The first time they got in some tassel at school, I’m like, “Is my kid a bully?” So that type of stuff, I definitely feel like I can roll with the punches a little bit more. Also, I don’t know, I probably find a little bit poor line, but yeah, on this one, but I’ve also found I’m probably maybe leaning a little too much of being their friend as they hit this 14, my 14-year-old turns 15 here next week. When they were young, I felt very much more directive and disciplinary.
[00:38:19] Gabe Larsen: And now I’m finding myself trying to, “What do you think about this? “ I try to go to my 15-year-old here and I’ve got this challenge of business and what would you do here or what advice would you have? And turn them into more friends or advice so that we can start to change the relationship here because where before I was dictating now, I really want to guide more. And so I want them to feel like he is the man. He should be thinking about how to get a job. He should be thinking about … So that would be a very different parenting style as kids have gotten older, but I’m definitely a little more milder. And a stubbed toe, a broken arm is part of the game, not the first broken arm was pretty scary.
[00:39:04] Adam Fishman: You’ve been desensitized to it across five tiny humans.
[00:39:08] Gabe Larsen: Yeah. And all boys. It’s like WrestleMania here.
[00:39:11] Adam Fishman: Oh my God, every day.
[00:39:13] Gabe Larsen: We got the wrestling names and my wife is like, “We got a little female puppy just to try to bring testosterone down a little bit.”
[00:39:21] Adam Fishman: That’s funny. So you mentioned your sons are … I don’t understand. Why can’t I be on my computer until midnight and you’re on your computer and blah, blah, blah. I get the same thing from my kids, so I get it. What is the relationship that you want your kids to have with technology as they get older?
[00:39:41] Gabe Larsen: Truthfully, I’m probably changing much more on this in the last year than I have ever before. I was pretty try to be the last parent to give the kid a phone, try to find times on the iPad to make it more structured. Certainly no access to social media until, I don’t know, they’re 50. We got this AI company and I’m in the thrux of building these digital workers and I’m fairly deep in Claude code and working with businesses to implement agents in different parts of their business. And I find myself really trying to find more productive ways to get these boys very active in using … We had a little build something in Lovable the other night type of activity and I just don’t know if you can stay behind the game on this new trend of AI. And so I don’t know if I have the answers, but yeah, I was pretty anti just technology in general.
[00:40:47] Gabe Larsen: But yeah, I’m really trying to find ways for them to teach them to use ChatGPT in school rather than just default to it. How do you use it as an enabler rather than like a Dumifier product there? And so I’m more nervous about that one, but yeah, I’m deep enough in AI. I’m like, I don’t think these kids can stand on the sideline, but if they obviously just default all learning and thinking to it, then it’s going to be scary. But I still hold true on some of those other things, social media and I’m still a little bit opposed to. But the AI is, that’s a tougher one.
[00:41:22] Adam Fishman: Yeah. How do you use AI as a parenting tool or do you?
[00:41:27] Gabe Larsen: That’s an interesting question. So we have kind of a shared version of ChatGPT that we both use and we’ve tried to give it some memory. We have these shared projects and it’s fun. We have one on parenting and one on homework and some different things, our finances. And we’ll use those and share feedback within those. And fairly often we were trying to put some furniture outside and we have one of the projects as like a home services agent there. And so we were comparing notes in it and stuff like that. So I would say it factors in there more. And then truthfully, I’ve been trying to build some stuff at our company where we could … We’ve got some cool stuff in that sense, more on like the assistant standpoint, my phone calls and helping answer emails and stuff like that, but nothing much more than that.
[00:42:19] Adam Fishman: Well, that’s probably more than most, I would say. So you’re at least on the right path. All right. Well, before we get to lightning round, how can people follow along or be helpful to you in any way?
[00:42:31] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, look, I’m a big networker. I think the more we talk, the more we figure things out here. And so I always like to have conversations on what’s working and what’s not working. So if you haven’t already, I am on some of these social platforms. I was saying, I worked a couple years at Meta or Facebook. So I mean, I talk a big game against social media, but I’m pretty active on it. Man, you can’t figure out things unless you’re interacting and connecting. So yeah, grab me on LinkedIn if you haven’t and let’s have a little dialogue about what’s working and what’s not working.
[00:43:03] Adam Fishman: Awesome. I will send people your way in the show notes. So okay, here we go. It’s lightning round time, the favorite time of everyone. Here we go. What is the most indispensable parenting product you’ve ever purchased?
[00:43:17] Gabe Larsen: The initial Binky was the … That’s a tough age for me. I’m not as big on the newborn kind of thing. So whoever invented that thing was a genius. That makes all the difference.
[00:43:28] Adam Fishman: All right. What is the most useless parenting product that you’ve ever purchased?
[00:43:32] Gabe Larsen: They have some of these toys. I literally have it right out my office door, but they’re toys that make annoying sounds. It’s a giraffe right now. And it does like these squeaks. They’ve got one of these chicken ones that you squeeze it and it’s like … I don’t know who thought of making toys with the world’s most annoying sounds, but there’s just enough commotion already that when you add something like that, I just am like, why is that even invented?
[00:43:59] Adam Fishman: That’s
[00:43:59] Gabe Larsen: Crazy.
[00:44:00] Adam Fishman: Well, we have a 3D printer and my son over the weekend 3D printed an aquarina, like a little plastic whistle thing. And speaking of most annoying noise on the planet, a 3D printed aquarina ranks up there with a giraffe and the chicken, I think. So the problem is if I throw it out, he could just print himself another one. So this is a problem.
[00:44:22] Gabe Larsen: I’m glad we’ve got one of those and my boy’s been sticking with these figurines. I won’t tell him
[00:44:27] Adam Fishman: About that.
[00:44:28] Gabe Larsen: That would be
[00:44:29] Adam Fishman: Terrible. Don’t tell him about the musical instruments. That would tip your hand. All right. What’s the weirdest thing that you ever found in your kids’ pockets or the washing machine?
[00:44:37] Gabe Larsen: This is probably not very long ago. He had, goll, it must have been like seven giant rocks in his pocket. And I think he’d had it for … Must have had it for multiple hours. They went on this little field trip and there was some water. And oh my goodness, he must have been lugging around 10 extra pounds. I mean, that was the recent one. I could probably think of others, but weird.
[00:45:00] Adam Fishman: Always with the rocks. Okay. True or false, there’s only one correct way to load a dishwasher.
[00:45:05] Gabe Larsen: Yes, true. According to my wife, I’ve not figured it out.
[00:45:10] Adam Fishman: I was going to ask that as a follow-up. So clearly we know who’s in charge of the dishwasher.
[00:45:15] Gabe Larsen: Oh my heavens, that is so stressful to think about.
[00:45:18] Adam Fishman: If your kids had to describe you in one word, what would it be?
[00:45:21] Gabe Larsen: Oh my goodness. I don’t think it could be one word. It might be, it’s a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. High, maybe two-sided because there’s this fun kind of whatever dad, and then there’s serious dad. Sometimes you don’t know which dad you’re getting. So
[00:45:36] Adam Fishman: That might
[00:45:37] Gabe Larsen: Be a bad thing, but I think that might be part of it.
[00:45:39] Adam Fishman: Depends on how crazy the animals have gotten at the zoo, right? Something like
[00:45:43] Gabe Larsen: That. It is something like that.
[00:45:45] Adam Fishman: All right. What is your go-to dad wardrobe?
[00:45:48] Gabe Larsen: I’ve got this bathrobe that’s kind of like a, I call it my Moses robe. What’s that old Moses movie where he
[00:45:58] Adam Fishman: The 10 Commandments?
[00:45:59] Gabe Larsen: It’s the 10 Commandments where he’s got Let My People Go type of thing. I’ve got something like that. I prefer to wear that most of the day anyways. The boys are often … Why am I
[00:46:11] Adam Fishman: Wearing
[00:46:12] Gabe Larsen: That?
[00:46:12] Adam Fishman: Unimpressed. They’re unimpressed. Yeah.
[00:46:14] Gabe Larsen: But I tell them, “You can’t think. This is like I’m doing my Moses thinking on the
[00:46:19] Adam Fishman: Mountain
[00:46:19] Gabe Larsen: Type of thing.”
[00:46:20] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Oh, man. I have so many follow-up questions on this robe, but it is lightning round, so I’m just going to move on. I love it. It’s a judgment-free zone. How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?
[00:46:32] Gabe Larsen: Oh, I don’t tell jokes, but I do dad things that I think my kids are just like, they do the same reaction. And I think that’s three, an average of three a day. What were we doing the other day? Oh, I had my two boys in the back and there was two young women at the light and I was like, “Oh, you know what I’m going to do is I’m going to roll down that window and I’m going to roll up mine. I got nice tinted windows in the front.” So anyways, at the light, I pulled up just a little too far so they would have to look right in there and they were just like, “Dad, this is like, why would you do this? It’s like a dad joke. This is terrible.” And I’m like, “Yeah, this is the way it works.”
[00:47:11] Adam Fishman: Just to embarrass them. Yeah. I was going to ask what the most embarrassing thing that you’ve ever done in front of your teenager is, but it sounds like that one and probably any other thing ranks right up there. No,
[00:47:23] Gabe Larsen: Man. I love to be social. And so whenever I can … I got a couple of these older boys, again, they’re just turning 15 and 13 here in the next
[00:47:32] Adam Fishman: Week
[00:47:33] Gabe Larsen: Or so. But the opposite sex is becoming something of in there, it’s passing through the frontal cortex here. So yeah, anytime I can embarrass them, there’s a couple young women around the other day that were walking down the street and we were out with my wife and I just on the porch and I was like, “Hey, you guys, you should come over. These boys are downstairs.” And anyways, they took me up on it. And there’s four boys and these two girls come downstairs. Oh, my boy was so mad. He was so mad. I would do such a thing. And so whenever I can embarrass him, I do it, that’s for sure. But usually it’s with the opposite sex.
[00:48:10] Adam Fishman: I love that. What is the most difficult kids TV show that you’ve had to sit through?
[00:48:16] Gabe Larsen: Dora. Dora the Explorer, man.
[00:48:19] Gabe Larsen: That song is, as they’ve said, “Whoa, whoa, do you explore?” I’m just like- It’s
[00:48:26] Adam Fishman: Almost as bad as the chicken. It
[00:48:28] Speaker 3: Was a long one. It’s a long one. I remember it.
[00:48:31] Adam Fishman: All right. Do you have a nostalgic movie that you cannot wait to force your kids to watch with you? Or maybe you did with your teenagers already?
[00:48:40] Gabe Larsen: We’ve done it multiple in the reactions. Sometimes we did the old karate kid. They thought that was pretty dumb. We did Back to the Future. They thought that was pretty stupid, but there’s been some … Are there good ones? I’m not remembering any off the top of my head. Those two are more recent. I was like, “Oh man, I don’t mean to … “ Oh, we watched Remember the Titans. That was one where
[00:49:07] Speaker 3: Those
[00:49:07] Gabe Larsen: Two older boys were like, “This was great.” So I try to do a movie night occasionally. So I’m probably batting 500, maybe fifty fifty on those.
[00:49:18] Adam Fishman: Pretty good. You could still make it to the Hall of Fame with that batting average. Look,
[00:49:21] Gabe Larsen: Keep your eye on the prize. Keep your eye on the prize.
[00:49:24] Adam Fishman: How often do you tell your kids back in my day stories?
[00:49:27] Gabe Larsen: A lot with sports lately. I’m six foot and buck 75 or buck 80 or something like that, depending on the weekly ice cream splurge. But I was tempted the other day. I pulled up the old high school stats. I’m like, “You see this right here. I averaged eight points a game or something.” I don’t know. I was off state with basketball. So that’s come up recently. We’re just coming out of basketball season, but they neither seem to care nor … But I care. Yeah, I do care.
[00:50:03] Adam Fishman: They were unimpressed. Unimpressed. I’m going to pull
[00:50:05] Gabe Larsen: Out the Letterman’s jacket.
[00:50:07] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Oh, I think so. I think you should put that under the bathrobe and walk down the street with that. Or maybe over. I don’t know.
[00:50:12] Gabe Larsen: I have a Letterman’s jacket, so in case you’re wondering, I’m not kidding. I
[00:50:16] Adam Fishman: Believe
[00:50:16] Gabe Larsen: You. Number four, that was my jersey.
[00:50:18] Adam Fishman: All right. I don’t know how often you get these kids on an airplane, because it’s a lot to take a family of seven on an airplane. But do you have a favorite dad hack for road trips or flights that keeps everybody engaged and calm?
[00:50:32] Gabe Larsen: We really struggled to find … That’s a whole segment of itself, the family vacations with the family of the Partridge family here. But for hacks in particular, what I’ve found is the roller bags. If you can have roller bags that they can ride, you’ve seen some of these things and I know they can get out of hand, but I’ll tell you what, it makes a layover if they can kind of roll around on a roller bag in some … And this is probably less for the 15-year-olds. It is more for the five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. But god, those sit-on roller bags have been awesome. They’ve been awesome.
[00:51:09] Adam Fishman: All right. Last question. What is your take on minivans?
[00:51:14] Gabe Larsen: Yeah, you got to have them. You got to have it. I don’t like to drive it. I kind of got myself a truck. We moved back to Salt Lake City, so I joined the mountain men here and got a truck. But we’ve had a minivan for, I don’t know. I think we’ve had three minivans, four minivans in 20 years. And so I mean, when those doors pop out like this and they don’t hit the other car, this is probably the most genius invention. When those kids are in my truck and they bang the guy next to the door and I, like a jerk, don’t leave a note and I just let him … No, the doors thing is incredible. The built-in TV, the space, it fits. I mean-
[00:51:57] Adam Fishman: Amazing.
[00:51:58] Gabe Larsen: It’s God’s gift of mankind.
[00:51:59] Adam Fishman: Amazing. So you’re on team minivan. 100%. That’s good.
[00:52:03] Gabe Larsen: 100%.
[00:52:04] Adam Fishman: All right. Well, Gabe, on that note, we will end on the high note of minivans. On that note, it has been my absolute pleasure having you on the show today. Thanks for joining me and best wishes to you, your company, your family, the entire basketball team that you’ve got going. That’s right. The Larsen
[00:52:21] Gabe Larsen: Five, the Jackson five and the Larsen five that’s coming.
[00:52:24] Adam Fishman: And have a great rest of your year. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today’s conversation with Gabe Larsen. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes. Thanks for listening and see you next week.