Why Standing Up For Your Kids Is Massively Important | Jeremy King (Dad of 2, Ocean Orchestra)

[00:00:00] Jeremy King: I know myself well enough that I obey my calendar like Rowan Burgundy obeys an auto queue. If the calendar says, go to Hawaii and eat a pineapple, that's what's happening. And I will just obey that thing. So if I manage myself by writing, being a dad time, that's what's gonna happen that's how we make it happen. And my wife has a similar system that manages her. Unusual quirks.
[00:00:21] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep in the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I'm your host, Adam Fishman. Today I'm joined by the dad who's trying to save the world's oceans, Jeremy King. He's the co-founder and CEO of Ocean Orchestration.
[00:00:41] Adam Fishman: Formerly CEO of AI customer research company attest and working to help improve the UK's primary school system via nonprofit organization reach two. He's a husband and the father of two daughters. Today we talked about how he and his wife handle quality time with the family as two hardworking professionals and parents.
[00:01:01] Adam Fishman: Some of the most influential books he's read that have informed his parenting choices, principles around no food choices, and why standing up for your kids in big moments is massively important. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. Welcome Jeremy King to Startup Dad, Jeremy, such a pleasure to have you here. And a special shout out to the pl geek himself, Ben Williams, for connecting the two of us.
[00:01:31] Jeremy King: Lovely to be here and thank you for inviting me to join in.
[00:01:33] Adam Fishman: How did you go from being founder and CEO of a company called Attest to, to saving our oceans?
[00:01:43] Jeremy King: Well, I think love for oceans is something that I was born with. I've been a huge fan of underwater world my whole life. I originally studied biology and applied that to underwater world and marine life wherever I could. I worked on how baby reef fish grow up mathematical modeling of. That process and simulating the individual choices they make and how they're influenced by sound. I studied, in the US at Harvard Business School, I managed to make it over to MIT to work on synthetic biology there and could also apply that to marine environments wherever I could. I worked on marine protected areas in Honduras. I watch every documentary I can get my hands on. I read every book I can. Buy and get on my Kindle. So I think it was probably Destiny is the answer to your question. It's something I probably was always meant to do and maybe my career path and education path to today means that, if anything, I probably should have done it a while back. difficult to make the decision to start a second company, while the first one is. Still very much going very successfully, but it felt like the right moment for me to do it. it was probably something that was always meant to happen.
[00:02:50] Adam Fishman: Wow. Destiny would have you saving the oceans and reforming UK schools and not building B2B SaaS like most, you know, average founders.
[00:03:00] Jeremy King: Oh, not at all. Then again, destiny is the name of the massive whale shark in finding Dory. I
[00:03:06] Adam Fishman: it is, it is, yes.
[00:03:08] Jeremy King: part of it too.
[00:03:10] Adam Fishman: you know, based on that kind of intro there, people will now know that you're variant in nature and biology and applying that to the world of technology. so tell me a little bit about that. how did you kind of merge those two things together?
[00:03:24] Jeremy King: So my first job was at McKinsey, and most people at McKinsey, particularly in the uk, have relevant degree subjects or majors that are somehow related to. Business or consulting.
[00:03:37] Jeremy King: A degree in your major is much more like a badge you get on your swimming trunks for collecting a rubber brick, wearing your pajamas. It's more of a qualification of can you do a thing rather than do you know some stuff about a thing.
[00:03:51] Jeremy King: so I managed to convince McKinsey that they should, in addition to hiring economists, business people, lawyers, uh, medical doctors, they should also hire scientists, maybe geneticists, because. We, scientists come with a huge ability to analyze large data sets, put it to work, synthesize simple conclusions.
[00:04:10] Jeremy King: And that's really what happens in consulting and that's exactly what science is. my personal favorite thing to do is to take examples of how nature has solved various problems, the same problems that come up in the world, in business and everything. Nature's been around for many billions of years and has seen and solved every problem in every single direction, every context a thousand times.
[00:04:32] Jeremy King: so whenever I'm stuck on a business problem, I think of weird, exotic, natural solutions and how I might be able to bend them to apply to find a new way to solve the problem I'm facing.
[00:04:43] Jeremy King: And most of the time that works, but it's often a bit weird.
[00:04:46] Jeremy King: I love, I love that, uh, nature finds a way, so why can't you? Some of them are quite exotic. Like there's, a particular species of underwater, uh, deep sea angular fish, you know, the big scary
[00:04:59] Jeremy King: ones with the teeth and the, and the floppy fishing pole light.
[00:05:03] Jeremy King: So they find it very difficult to breed because they very rarely bump into each other,
[00:05:08] Adam Fishman: I thought it was the, looks more than the, the bumping into each other, but I
[00:05:11] Jeremy King: Oh no, they're really into that thing. Like the females are the big scary ones. The
[00:05:16] Jeremy King: males are little tiny, uh, wheels.
[00:05:19] Jeremy King: but when they bump into each other, they're like, hubba, hubba, hubba. This is for me. Um, but that happens
[00:05:26] Jeremy King: so rarely that it might not be the right moment. Uh, they might not have the right food, the right resources, the right time, the reproductive cycle, the right environment, the right season, et cetera. So what happens is the tiny male attaches itself to the big, scary looking female and probably dies. Dies except for one significant part of its anatomy, which the female keeps alive. I won't say that word on this podcast.
[00:05:48] Adam Fishman: I mean, it's a parenting podcast, you know?
[00:05:50] Jeremy King: Yeah. Well, as parents, we all know what this is then
[00:05:54] Jeremy King: biologically. and she keeps that bit alive until she needs that.
[00:05:58] Jeremy King: And then when she needs it and she's ready, she uses it. And the male was like, I did my thing. And the
[00:06:03] Jeremy King: female's like, thanks very much.
[00:06:05] Adam Fishman: yeah, I sacrificed myself for the good of the cause.
[00:06:07] Jeremy King: yeah. And in marketplace SaaS businesses, that's one way of managing fragmentation of liquidity. If you don't, if you get liquidity and opportunities when you don't need it, how can you bank it? Attach it to yourself and then use it when you are ready and do need it. And there's a little lesson from nature about how to manage one of the most complicated things that exist in Marketplace sa.
[00:06:27] Adam Fishman: Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, hey, on that, let's talk about parenting. So you, you are, uh, founder and CEO. Your wife is an executive, at a company. You have two young daughters who are seven and three, or almost seven and three plus or minus weeks or months. can you tell me about the systems that you and your wife have in place as a family to protect both working time?
[00:06:51] Adam Fishman: Family time. 'cause with that resume for both of you, you're, you're busy folks.
[00:06:56] Jeremy King: we did have an active conversation to make sure that we found time to actually be parents as opposed to not be parents. so we've got two particularly weird things that we do. One is we. Block our calendars for parenting time. I've done this since our first daughter was born.
[00:07:15] Jeremy King: it's literally written in my calendar as being a dad time. That's more of a message to me, but also anyone who can see my calendar, any stage knows exactly what that means.
[00:07:23] Jeremy King: and I put that in my calendar every day, which occurring invite, seven till 8:00 AM and six till 7:30 PM. If I'm in the uk, I make sure that I'm here for the six till 7:30 PM slot.
[00:07:37] Jeremy King: To do Bathtime, do bedtime, read stories, jump on a trampoline, catch the end of a movie, hopefully marine life related please and do parenting. 'cause otherwise I. Won't and other things will fill that time. I know myself well enough that I obey my calendar like Rowan Burgundy obeys an auto queue. If the calendar says, go to Hawaii and eat a pineapple, that's what's happening. And I will just obey that thing. So if I manage myself by writing, being a dad time, that's what's gonna happen that's how we make it happen. And my wife has a similar system that manages her. Unusual quirks. the other thing that we do is we really follow this amazing book, called Save Our Sleep by Dizzy Hall.
[00:08:19] Jeremy King: I'm sure everyone's got an amazing book recommendation, this one basically instructs you. it's by an Australian author who's done a lot of scientific researchers. Obviously I favor and like it basically instructs you what to do at any given stage in your child's development. Bedtime is this bath time?
[00:08:37] Jeremy King: Is this, wake up here? Feed this then. And you can move around in the boundaries a bit. But it basically is instruction manual, like in Ikea, put together furniture kit and it changes every six to eight weeks slightly. And this we found works well for us. It's as much about managing the parents. Is it about managing the kids?
[00:08:57] Jeremy King: And it leaves you with no ambiguity that if you're doing all these things, everything that can be right is right. And if something's going wrong. Then there's probably a different reason and
[00:09:05] Jeremy King: you look for that reason.
[00:09:07] Jeremy King: And my wife's an engineer. I'm a scientist, and this helps us. Maybe it doesn't help everyone, but this certainly helped us figure out how to engineer and science our parenthood, and it left us with some nice outcomes.
[00:09:20] Adam Fishman: Okay, so being a dad or being a mom, time on the calendar, consistently recurring blocks, and then save our Sleep by Tizzy Hall. those are two of the things that you've, you've leveraged to, uh, Figure out how to prioritize your time.
[00:09:33] Jeremy King: big fan of both of those things.
[00:09:34] Adam Fishman: Okay. one other thing that you, you do and, and Ben, uh, told me about this when he was connecting the, the two of us is you run a charity that's focused on education in the uk.
[00:09:43] Adam Fishman: So, uh, and specifically improving education. I. You know, it's interesting 'cause me being a, dumb American, whenever I hear about the UK and European, you know, educational systems, I think, oh, there's so much better than what we're doing here. And, but maybe that's not the case. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing with your, your charity and, and why it exists and, and what you're focused on.
[00:10:07] Jeremy King: two minor corrections. Uh, one, maybe the grass is always greener, but there are things that are certainly different about the UK and European education systems, but it is contentious if they are defacto better. and then second, I don't run this charity. I'm, I chaired the organization for four years.
[00:10:22] Jeremy King: I've been a board member, since. Probably 11 years ago now. amazing teachers run this organization.
[00:10:28] Adam Fishman: You were an active participant, uh, an observer, if you
[00:10:32] Adam Fishman: will.
[00:10:32] Jeremy King: Even that is probably being generous. But, I, I bring to it what I can.
[00:10:36] Adam Fishman: So tell me about it though.
[00:10:37] Jeremy King: Yeah, so this organization is called Breach Two. there's a, a movement in the UK where there used to be two organizations that could own government schools. We call them state schools here, public schools in US speak. it used to just be local authorities, so local governments like counties, or the Church of England, which dates back to Henry vii, et cetera. And my history knowledge is bad. Uh, so it's neither the government or the church. A third model came to exist, a few years back, and the whole idea was to find a new business model for running these government state schools. Because it might lead to better outcomes. part of that was trying to get people from the world of business into the boards of these schools. And these groups of schools came to be called Multi Academy Trusts. Some are very big, some are very small. some are very good. Some have some bad headlines written about them, uh, which I will not pass judgment on the record. the one I'm involved in, we specifically work only on. We call primary schools, elementary schools, youngest kids from the
[00:11:40] Jeremy King: very start, from kindergarten up. We call it reception. and we work on the most difficult or challenged schools, ones that are graded by the government, in independent organization to be, inadequate or needs improvement or even special measures is a.
[00:11:55] Jeremy King: the lowest category. And we focus on turning around those schools and helping them figure out how to become good in two to 10 years, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.
[00:12:05] Jeremy King: Um, so far, 62 of those schools, when I got involved, 17% were on the UK scale. Good or outstanding, which is above need to be improved. Today that number is 97%.
[00:12:18] Jeremy King: Uh, so this has created a very material shift for a large number of schools, and therefore a large number of children, in my view, at the most important part of their lives, that dictates the range of outcomes they have, the opportunities that they create. And primary schools, elementary schools are the first chance we have to introduce tech and stem and ideas and inclusion.
[00:12:40] Jeremy King: And all of those things come together in primary schools, and that's why I love it so much.
[00:12:43] Adam Fishman: Yeah. And you mentioned you've been working with 'em for like 11 or 12 years, so this predates the, your own kids who are now primary school age or one, at least one of them is. so something else motivated you to get involved, early on in this. Is this just your love of education and, and educating, people and, and making sure kids have great outcomes.
[00:13:04] Jeremy King: all of that. And I think for me personally, it's, it's the idea of social mobility and fairness. I think, the thing that is unique in the UK school system is that each. Child has a revenue number attached to them. and that is non wavering. It's higher in some areas but there's a minimum and the school gets that revenue no matter what.
[00:13:24] Jeremy King: so there isn't a big divergence in, there are sort of big, fancy schools that have loads of money. There are small schools that are really struggling for money. It's based on the number of kids, which is, I think, a really fair system. So it means that where there is variance of some schools and therefore some outcome for kids are better or worse, it's just bad execution. there's no real reason that the schools that require improvement or in or inadequate, are that way. Weight, uh. The ways to help them become better are much simpler than I thought. I thought on the way in it would be all about, you know, a Toyota factory, reducing variance, finding ways to create scalable efficiencies, or it would be more like an NFL playbook.
[00:14:04] Jeremy King: You have to diagnose what issue you are facing, run the best play, improve the execution of the play, and improve your play calling, and that you'd have a series of interventions and therefore the sequencing and the efficacy of each intervention stacking on top of each other would lead to the outcomes. In the end, it was much more about heating and lighting, good food for kids, showing all the teachers want to know how to be better, taking them to a school that does it well. And suddenly the teachers are like, can I steal from you this lesson plan? 'cause this is great and it's what I need. And the teacher and the other school is like, absolutely, please put it to work.
[00:14:40] Jeremy King: We'd love you to do that. And everyone just shares, there's some things that made it hard. There's some things that make it very complicated, but The way that the organization managed to improve those 62 schools, in my view, was much simpler than I expected, but also very, very hard to do at
[00:14:53] Adam Fishman: Yeah, that, that kind of follows a product, strategy, uh, philosophy that I have, which is just nail the basics. A lot of people look way past the basics. They think there's something magical that needs to be done. Doesn't mean the basics aren't hard to pull off, as you mentioned, but nailing the basics, making sure that you know the electricity works that the kids have, food like that goes a long way.
[00:15:15] Adam Fishman: and clearly all the teachers want to do better and, and do great for those, for those kids. So what a fantastic organization. Thanks for
[00:15:21] Adam Fishman: telling me about it.
[00:15:22] Jeremy King: we also did some extra things that, you know, aren't funded by the government, but we thought were right. So we have a program called 11 Before 11, which aims to give all children, a range of experiences before they get to the age of 11. Things that aren't in the school curriculum at a national, local level.
[00:15:37] Jeremy King: Things that schools don't normally pay for or do. but we think these are part of a good education. So we just do that anyway.
[00:15:44] Jeremy King: and we think that creates better outcomes. And maybe the data shows that. That is correct.
[00:15:48] Jeremy King: so sometimes you need to depart from normal, like a good product manager and do what you think is right in the face of legacy or expectations, and those things can create disproportionate outcomes.
[00:16:01] Jeremy King: And it's nice when it comes off.
[00:16:03] Adam Fishman: great. Uh, well, I wanna talk a little bit about your own kids. so you have two, seven and, and three. and one of the things you, that you told me is that you've taken your kids in some incredibly long flights, including London, to Melbourne, Australia. I. Several times, which, is terrifying to me, uh, when I think about a se seven and a 3-year-old.
[00:16:22] Adam Fishman: And they were obviously even younger than that when you took them. So I have two questions for you. One is why, and two is what advice do you have for parents who are taking their kids on incredibly long flights and that that flight from London to Melbourne is, how many hours is that? 20
[00:16:39] Jeremy King: It is 24 to 26 or
[00:16:41] Jeremy King: longer, depending on how wrong you get it.
[00:16:43] Adam Fishman: I mean, there's literally a full day happens while you're in the air, so,
[00:16:47] Adam Fishman: uh, yeah. Oh my God. okay, so why, and then what's your advice for people who are taking, considering taking their kids on those epic trips?
[00:16:56] Jeremy King: So why is my wife is from Melbourne, Australia.
[00:17:00] Jeremy King: we don't go every year, but we go regularly and she's from a big family. She has, uh. Four older brothers and an older sister. All of you know, many nephews and nieces, lots of friends and family to visit. and it's also just a nice place to go. so we go regularly to see her family, but it does mean that we are at various times taking a six month old, a 2-year-old, recently, a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old at one stage.
[00:17:25] Jeremy King: Just the 18 month olds.
[00:17:27] Jeremy King: That gets a bit crazy. my wife's done it solo once as well, uh, with our younger daughter,
[00:17:33] Jeremy King: she slept the whole way and was a dream to look after. I'm like, I don't believe that.
[00:17:37] Adam Fishman: I mean, a 20. Yeah. Sleep the whole way. Uh, sure.
[00:17:42] Jeremy King: I know. Yeah. She said that people were very helpful. I'm like, okay, here comes the real story. Um, Before we had kids, I was on a flight once in the US where some parents were on there. I think it was one of the sort of coast to coast ones. And I saw the parents giving out goodie bags to the people sitting around them. And in there were some like earplugs, a bottle of Jack Daniels. Like that was quite nice. So we don't do that. but I did get some good tips and I credit this to my friend who's from Zimbabwe, lives in Kenya. His wife is Colombian and they mainly work in Washington DC
[00:18:16] Jeremy King: when we were facing to this first time, I called him and he was like, I've got one tip for you.
[00:18:21] Jeremy King: My son do not do this in the age after they can walk, but before they can watch Pepper Pig on an iPad for more than 30 minutes back to back. and I was like, Paul. That is exactly where we're going. He was like, well then I've got nothing for you. Good luck to you. Um, so tip number one is get age appropriate, because if you're going in that post walking pre concentration phase, you will be walking to Melbourne.
[00:18:46] Jeremy King: that will be really fun for the kids and maybe less fun for you.
[00:18:50] Jeremy King: And with the right attitude, everything is possible.
[00:18:53] Jeremy King: I think the other thing is we, you know, we often like to break up the journey and stop for a day or two on the way London to Melbourne. There's lots of nice places to stop.
[00:19:01] Jeremy King: it can be very efficient. It can be really fun. But that's breaking up the time zone also, the journey a touch and that, you know, that can be nice on the way out, on the way back. other than that, once you've done that flight once a, you know, nine hour flight to Denver from London, that's nothing, that is absolutely nothing at all. Uh, like seven hour flight to Florida, so less than a third. So once you've done one London to Melbourne, everything else relatively becomes easy, and so I'd recommend get over to Melbourne. Crack the code and then everything will be easy forever.
[00:19:38] Adam Fishman: what do they say? Eat. Eat the frog first thing in the morning. This is your thing. Eat, do it with your kids. Take that 24 hour flight and then everything else is gonna be, you know, child's play. No pun
[00:19:48] Jeremy King: Yeah. Push onto New Zealand next time. Make it 27 hours.
[00:19:53] Adam Fishman: Okay, so maybe as a result of these trips to Melbourne, or the fact that your wife is is from there and probably has an Australian accent, your daughters have some really unique accents and vocabulary, uh, that I found really fascinating. So can you tell my listeners more about that?
[00:20:10] Jeremy King: I'm very confused about accents too. So if this sounds confusing, it's because I'm confused. so my wife is from Melbourne, is properly Australian. She doesn't sound like Crocodile Dundee, but it's pretty close. my parents are both from the us. I was born in the UK so I sound like this, but I'm very confused as well.
[00:20:26] Jeremy King: My mom is from Arizona. My dad was from South side Chicago.
[00:20:29] Jeremy King: So if anything, I should have some kind of like Des Moines, Iowa accent
[00:20:33] Adam Fishman: You should Halfway between,
[00:20:35] Jeremy King: I don't believe I have that.
[00:20:36] Jeremy King: Uh, but our daughters sound a bit like me most of the time, so they sound like kids from Wimbledon. but they use American vocabulary, like me, they say bathroom instead of loo, uh, and they say adult instead of. Adult. they drop in quite a large volume of US vocabulary, but with British pronunciation. But then they add in this like extra 10% of Australian where they don't say vitamins like pepper pig. They say vitamins, like, like an Australian Saturday, let's go and play outside. so they just drop in this like, confusing mix of vocab, but maybe that reflects the world around us.
[00:21:16] Jeremy King: And that's just London.
[00:21:17] Adam Fishman: and what do your friends think about this when they hear the, these like. You know, sweet, sweet,British accents and then they're dropping American LAN lingo or, that kind of Australian accent. All of a sudden
[00:21:27] Jeremy King: London is ridiculously politan already. So, you know, having a few unusual pronunciations, but,Your accent being all over the place, that's completely normal.
[00:21:36] Jeremy King: So I think if we were in a different part of the uk, different part of Europe or a different part of the US, things might work out differently. Having a blend of accents and languages, vocabulary parents from different places, that's completely normal.
[00:21:51] Jeremy King: So their version of strange is completely standard round here,
[00:21:56] Adam Fishman: I knew another parent who had three kids. And, each of the kids was kind of raised in a different place, you know, Australia, the us, whatever. And so each of the kids had different accents and pronunciation of their own. And so like the whole family, like depending on who you were talking to, everyone sounded very different, uh, which was really funny.
[00:22:15] Adam Fishman: So.
[00:22:15] Jeremy King: that can lead to some unusual stuff. So I've got another friend where she is half Norwegian, half Indian. He is half Indian, half English. They have three daughters. And their three daughters look quite different from each other.
[00:22:27] Jeremy King: And she told me once, like she got stopped in a grocery store and a lady touched her on the shoulder and said, three different dads.
[00:22:34] Jeremy King: And she was like. No, and I was like, it's called genetics. I can explain it. She was like, you don't need to explain it. I know the truth. That was an unusual I little bit of world of genetics, little bit of world around us, all happening at the same
[00:22:49] Adam Fishman: Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. so you have a couple principles as, as a dad, and I wanted to talk about them here. One is, zero choices on food. So you described this as like no preferences, no fuss, no kids' menu. How did that come about in your house and, and how does it work? 'cause you know, in theory that sounds very good.
[00:23:10] Adam Fishman: But, we all have kids, so that's probably pretty. Has it been challenging?
[00:23:15] Jeremy King: part of this comes from chatting with other parents. Part of this comes from the Tizzy Hall book, but. The theory is if you give your kids a range of interesting foods from the time that they're zero years old, and can eat for the first time, and that there is no backup plan or choices, they can't choose chicken tenders for the
[00:23:36] Jeremy King: 10th day in a row or pepperoni pizza for the 15th month successively.
[00:23:40] Jeremy King: if the food is the food That's the food that there is, uh, and they're used to eating it because they've been trying it all along. Having a kind of slightly zingy fish sauce, heavy mint and herb forward Vietnamese salad is really healthy and they love it and it's completely normal. our zero choices on food was a deliberate choice to normalize, a range of flavors and tastes, and also make it completely normal that what you're served is what's happening and it's not Dick, Kenzie and Britain.
[00:24:09] Jeremy King: If you don't eat it, you're going to go hungry. And more gruel please. Uh, Oliver. we're not like that. The other, the secret backup plan is a rule from my wife's household, which is you, we have an unlimited amount of fruit. So if you're over hungry, and you want to eat anything, anything equals fruit.
[00:24:26] Jeremy King: you voluntarily eat a banana, not a packet of chips.
[00:24:29] Jeremy King: and those two things combine mean that whenever we go out to a restaurant, we reject the kids' menu and order like one adult man to share between our two kids. And they're really happy with that.
[00:24:39] Jeremy King: And they. I choose to believe that they would choose that by themselves.
[00:24:42] Jeremy King: I'm also not sure if that's actually true.
[00:24:44] Adam Fishman: Sometimes they need a little nudge, little guardrails, you know. as a result of that, what, what are your daughter's like? Favorite foods I.
[00:24:54] Jeremy King: my daughter did a presentation on this recently. She cited quite a few Australian foods. So, Some quite predictable ones. So she likes spaghetti carbonara, a thing called chicken parmesana, which is basically a pizza, but replace the pizza
[00:25:07] Jeremy King: base With fried chicken.
[00:25:10] Jeremy King: So that's obviously gonna be good. but they also like sort of interesting stews. They like Indian food. We make them some Asian food. Uh, we make them a range of British food that, you know, has lots of vegetables and herbs in there. we barbecue things and we give them a little taste of some Chi Cho sauce and they're like, oh, that's actually really good.
[00:25:28] Jeremy King: And it's
[00:25:28] Jeremy King: got red chilies in it, but it's not too spicy.
[00:25:31] Jeremy King: And our younger daughter's like, not too spicy dadda. And then she can see it reaching for the milk and going crazy. She's like, I want more.
[00:25:39] Adam Fishman: in this range of foods? I'm, no, I'm noticing that Vegemite is not on the list of of things. Have they tried it?
[00:25:45] Jeremy King: They love Vegemite. Yeah.
[00:25:47] Jeremy King: Vegemite under scrambled eggs. Vegemite, voluntarily. I think they choose peanut butter,
[00:25:51] Jeremy King: but I like to, here's a weird thing I do, is I like to make a, a slice of peanut butter toast and a slice of raspberry jam toast. Cut them up into quarters and then reassemble them like a battenberg cake.
[00:26:05] Jeremy King: that's my signature move at breakfast.
[00:26:07] Jeremy King: That's my, my little bit of flare.
[00:26:09] Adam Fishman: an adventure under every bite.
[00:26:11] Adam Fishman: the other principle that you have is that standing up for your kids is massively important, being on the same team in big moments. tell me about that.
[00:26:20] Jeremy King: So this is something my wife and I sort of agreed with each other. I'm not sure where it comes from, but we, we kind of realized talking to other parents when we were kids. That you remember these big moments where your, parents are on your team or they're not, uh, and therefore, you know, whose side do you default to, default to the person who said that the ice cream fell on the ground because your kid threw it there.
[00:26:45] Jeremy King: Or your daughter who says, my cream fell. and we choose to always trust our daughters and stand up for them. Uh, and that's our way of always being on the same team. And I think with this principle, we tried to get it to work. And what we're trying to do is, you know, always be on their side and make it easy to talk about hard things in those moments that will come up when they're teenagers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:27:05] Jeremy King: the one that's happened most recently is we were at my, my elder daughter's most recent birthday party. We were all sitting around, we're in this big adventure playground thing. All her friends were there. We'd had some like snacks and stuff, including some Cru tape vegetables voluntarily. and then we're doing the happy birthday.
[00:27:23] Jeremy King: The cake arrives and then I can see outta the corner of my eye, this like random boy who's older, shows up, sits next to my daughter, and then as we finish the song, he blows out the candles.
[00:27:35] Jeremy King: And I was like, oh, as a soccer fan, if you are an adult, this is violence. We're going to a car park and we're having a dust
[00:27:44] Jeremy King: up.
[00:27:44] Jeremy King: obviously I would never actually do that, but you know, that's what I'm thinking. I'm as offended as you can possibly be. Uh, and I was like, okay, here we have a big brunch. Do we let this slide? And we're like, okay. That was weird. Or do we do over the whole thing? Everyone, you know, people have already started demanding a slice of cake.
[00:28:04] Jeremy King: People have started dishing out the ice cream. People are starting to move back to where they were sitting. I'm like, no, no, no. We're gonna do the whole thing again. Zara didn't blow up the candles. We're gonna go again. so two minutes passes, we read out the candles, we sing Happy Birthday again. I could hear one other friend was like, why don't you get the, of the candles twice?
[00:28:20] Jeremy King: That person clearly missed this. I was like, okay, great. And so my, daughter really remembers this happening. She was like, and my birthday, where that boy came and blew up my candles. And I'm like, yeah, but then we did it again and you got to blow out the candles a second time. And that's more than most people.
[00:28:34] Jeremy King: She was like, I did, I got to blow out the candles again. And that was really cool.
[00:28:38] Jeremy King: thanks for, you know, making that happen. And I'm like. Uh, so sometimes these massive moments come up, and I think it's these moments where being a parent is hard. Like, you know, running back into the kitchen, getting the people who worked at this adventure playground to run the whole thing again. Reformat the cake, relight everything. Get everyone back. Sing the song again. Blow up the candles again. Defend against any future invaders. the principle being in those moments, you create a core memory of you either do defend them or you don't. You either are on the same team or you are not.
[00:29:10] Jeremy King: You either create a positive thing and out of something that went wrong or you kind of accidentally failed to, or it's too much effort. I think
[00:29:18] Jeremy King: that's where, you know, as a CEO, I feel as though you make your money and you give your value in the hard times.
[00:29:26] Jeremy King: Sometimes it's the same way being a parent too.
[00:29:28] Adam Fishman: Yeah. I mean, you're also teaching your daughter there to stand up for herself in a good way. and I think, you know, there's a School of parenting philosophy that would just be like, oh, just let it go and let's be nice. And, you know, I'm not sure that that's necessarily teaching the right message.
[00:29:43] Adam Fishman: So I think what you're describing, you weren't yelling at the other kid, you know, he's just being a kid, right? Kids do stuff like that all the time, but you're just giving your daughter the chance to have her birthday moment. So, which I think is awesome. you've worked in technology for a really long time.
[00:29:58] Adam Fishman: imagine your wife may have something to do with, uh, technology too. what is the relationship that you want your daughters seven and three to have with technology as they start to get older?
[00:30:11] Jeremy King: Yeah, so I'll separate out sort of entertainment from tech and AI and
[00:30:16] Jeremy King: SaaS as we know it. So entertainment stuff. we're quite. Principled on that. There was a time where our elder daughter, when she was younger would constantly wa ask to watch, episodes of tv. and our solution to that was we have movie night, which is Fridays and Saturdays. There is no other screen time except on long car journeys, long car journeys being defined by 30 minutes according to the car itself. so there's like an ultimate judge and jury on that. So we do get the question, is it a long car journey? But we all know that there's an independent arbitrator for that
[00:30:49] Jeremy King: question. Uh, again, maybe a slightly over-engineered, also overly scientific approach, but it works for us. we have quite a strong view on when entertainment tech comes into the home and into their lives and our older daughter is really into reading and maybe, you know, this is part of the equation. The other side, which is ai, social media, SaaS, et cetera. We're being much more careful with that.
[00:31:10] Jeremy King: Uh, so in Australia, they recently banned social media for under fourteens completely.
[00:31:16] Jeremy King: And one of my best friends lives in Australia still, and he was delighted. His daughter was turning 12 soon, I think.
[00:31:24] Jeremy King: and he was like, I'm about to face into this absolute. Bleep storm and I really thank the Australian government for making that not my call, because I completely agree and meeting quite a few parents who've gone down the same path of, you can have a phone, but it's a brick. You can, use social media, but only at certain times.
[00:31:41] Jeremy King: But like the movie night, that seems to be, an interesting way to go. But we are very much trying to educate them as to how computers work, how software works. They're at a very basic level, but they do have apps on iPads. They do use, uh, coding. Uh, school and learning, in their school time or the older one does. so I think that's something we'll definitely continue, but we've yet to land on a clear principle about how this works as we have on food or calendars or massive moments being on the same team. So if you know of any sort of framework or principle set that we could lovingly borrow and emulate, I would very much love to learn about it.
[00:32:20] Jeremy King: Do you know any.
[00:32:21] Adam Fishman: I think there's a lot of different ones and everyone's philosophy is a little bit different. I mean, I tend to take a more, principled and conservative approach. I would say I don't, I mean, as somebody who works in technology, I, I know how addictive these things can be, and, let's push it off as long as possible until the brains are a bit more developed.
[00:32:41] Adam Fishman: so I think that's the approach that, we're taking, although we still haven't figured it out either. And every six months, something's changing. So, the advice that I would have is you'll figure it out at some point, uh, what works for you and your, and your family.
[00:32:53] Adam Fishman: So,
[00:32:54] Jeremy King: the one thing we definitely do want to do is, with my work in schools in particular, I believe that school is the first time you can influence a nation when it comes to adoption of tech, ai, uh, relevant skills, et cetera. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help that happen at scale,
[00:33:12] Jeremy King: uh, if we want to live in a AI enabled future or a tech enabled future. everyone learning. Subjects that were decided to be part of the curriculum 30, 40, a hundred years ago is not the best way to do it.
[00:33:24] Jeremy King: so trying to accelerate that change and make it happen. 10 years ago rather than accidentally failed to do it for 20 years and suffer the consequences for multiple generations. That's a problem I care about a lot.
[00:33:36] Jeremy King: so I love it when I see in schools people. I visited a, a state school in Walham Stow a few years back. They were programming drones,
[00:33:44] Jeremy King: to move across rooms. again, this is a. Government funded local school. Really good one. and I was like, what can these drones do?
[00:33:52] Jeremy King: The first person said you could use it to deliver blood to people in war areas, or in areas where they'd have some kind of health emergency. I was like, that's a really great answer. I talked to the second
[00:34:02] Jeremy King: person. They said, I'd like to get this drone to deliver pizza to my mouth while I'm playing my PlayStation. I. More probably larger tam. The other first one, probably larger willingness to pay. I'm liking this isn't good. but getting more of that, just thinking awareness into school curriculums. but for it to come in, something has to come out and that's the difficulty of that debate.
[00:34:25] Adam Fishman: Yeah, there's only so much time in the day, right? So this is a thing that we, we hear in our own school district, whenever we wanna add new programs and things, there's a fixed amount of time that you can fit in into the day. So, you know, you mentioned like, old, schools based on things that, that were.
[00:34:42] Adam Fishman: 30, 40, a hundred years ago. Well, one of the things that's not old is AI and uh, it's kind of on everybody's mind right now. I'm curious what the most creative use of AI you found as a parent is.
[00:34:55] Jeremy King: I don't think we've found anything particularly original yet. Uh, although I've got a friend who did, I'll come to that in a second. So, I think our, our best one, we, we recently wanted a Tripp to Madrid. Again, three and a half hour flight. Unbelievably easy relative to going to
[00:35:08] Jeremy King: Melbourne. and we got ai.
[00:35:11] Jeremy King: We were like, we gave it some really detailed prompts. I think I used Claude. I was like. I, here's my situation. We're going at these dates with these people who are this old and we have these patterns according to our own book and delete anything. Uh, but we do need to do nap time. what have you got for me?
[00:35:28] Jeremy King: And it wrote out this amazing agenda. I was like, like that, but with less boring museums. And they was like, oh, you're gonna like this. Then I was like, okay, great. Uh, saved me so much time. Uh, I do have a friend, from my daughter's school he was using AI to come up with cool things to use like Play-Doh and Clay Molds.
[00:35:48] Jeremy King: Uh, and he turned that into a book. So they, they, he and his daughter together published, a book of like, AI generated ideas about what you can do with clay. And it's a very colorful and amazing book and, highly inspirational for people playing with clay. Like if you are not AI native and you don't have a laptop while you're doing clay play and you prefer to look at physical books that are glossy and delightful, they went out and made it.
[00:36:12] Jeremy King: I was like, you've turned this ritual you have with your daughter into a little business and uh, a gift for other parents. I was like, that's really amazing.
[00:36:20] Adam Fishman: that is amazing. by the way, I think the travel planning one, even though it may be. It seems like a straightforward use case. Hugely helpful for parents. Like the amount of time you spend doing your own research on things, is just almost eliminated. You just kind of have to verify some details, is what I've found.
[00:36:37] Adam Fishman: So,
[00:36:38] Jeremy King: Yeah, and just giving it the prompt, like, here's what we do at home. These are the things that we can't change when we're in Madrid. Here are the things that we like to do. here are the ages of the kids. Here are the dates that were there. We don't want to go to museums that are closed. Thanks. What came back was absolutely amazing.
[00:36:54] Jeremy King: so as always, prompt engineering is the key to success,
[00:36:57] Jeremy King: but. Just telling them the problem in more detail. I turned out to be like a good product manager. Turned out to be the right way to get a good outcome.
[00:37:04] Adam Fishman: awesome. So you have two stories that I want to hear about, that you kind of hinted at. One is, getting trapped in a massive steel mesh tube. On the playground or in some sort of playing area. So can you tell me about that? And this is you getting trapped in a steel mesh tube or this is one of your daughters?
[00:37:24] Jeremy King: This is me. there's a big adventure playground near us where they have these amazing, like bouncy trampoline things and these big air pockets and these underground tunnels and zip lines. There's also a zoo with some like. Birds of prey. There's an indoor soft play. There's a kind of science and water zone. Uh, but they have these big wooden castles and they're connected by these mess tubes. A bit like a kind of hamster sanctuary type situation. being a. Person who likes to try hard things and sometimes to impose that on my daughter, I went with just my elder daughter, I think she's about four at the time, and I put her in the 6-year-old area, being like, she's in the 99th percentile for height and I want her to, you know, crack on and try hard things.
[00:38:11] Jeremy King: she got a bit trapped, uh, in that she got up into one of these big castles, got across this sort of mesh area. And then there was this big step that she was too small to reach down. I was like, that's why they put the signs that say you have to be over six to go on
[00:38:25] Jeremy King: this. So I had to go and rescue her. and I'm six three. and I found myself in a mesh tube designed for six to nine year olds. and I was like, am I gonna bring this thing crashing down to the ground? And this is gonna be some kind of like major, uh, public health incident. Like, it felt very secure. As I stepped onto it, I was like, and then I got halfway across and I realized it got narrower and I was like. This is very bad. This is like a kind of bad nineties comedy. Eddie Murphy's gonna appear and start chastising me outta thin air. so sometimes being an a parent who wants to do the right thing and who tries to, you know, help their kids discover new things, you're forced to go and rescue your daughter.
[00:39:05] Jeremy King: And I had to like, make myself into a little kind of worm and wiggle my way through it.
[00:39:09] Adam Fishman: There was no one to rescue you apparently. So
[00:39:13] Jeremy King: they would've needed like a can opener to do it. Uh,
[00:39:15] Jeremy King: like the of
[00:39:17] Jeremy King: life from the firefighters,
[00:39:18] Jeremy King: uh, would be needed to like me out that thing. or maybe just some olive oil. I
[00:39:23] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Grease me up. I'm going through. Oh man.
[00:39:27] Adam Fishman: Okay. Now tell me about your daughter's presentation on Sea Otters. This, this one I'm very curious about.
[00:39:34] Jeremy King: This is probably my proudest moment. So given what I said earlier about, how much I love underwater worlds, my daughter had to do at the end of her first year of school, I think, a presentation on any topic of her choosing about an endangered animal, I believe it was voluntarily, although. Maybe I bring a certain amount of bias to these things, and sometimes psychologically you project a bias and include a bias, whether you realize it or not, but. It seemed to be voluntarily. She chose to do a presentation about sea otters, and she learned about sea otters. She learned about how the sea otters eat.
[00:40:11] Jeremy King: The Purple Pacific Sea urchins, the sea urchins eat the kelp. The sea otters live in the kelp, but if the sea otters aren't there to eat the, uh, sea urchins and the sea urchins eat all the kelp and all the kelp would just float away. and she delivered and memorized and learned and enjoyed this presentation about sea otters. More I can possibly imagine. And that's like my most treasured video. So sometimes I think it's just me who loves, oceans and underwater worlds this much. And then I think back to that, I'm like, maybe she's got that too. it's a really beautiful moment, but
[00:40:44] Jeremy King: watching her hold up her presentation about seas and then do a q and a about it,
[00:40:48] Adam Fishman: wow. Almost like defending, you know, her PhD dissertation.
[00:40:52] Jeremy King: It was a bit like that actually. Yeah. Although some of the questions were like, the first question was what did they do? And I could just see my daughter having the same reaction I would, which is like, I've just been here for 90 seconds telling you about what they do. Like were you not paying attention? And she, and then she was like, no. I was like, she's better than me. 'cause she carefully repeated some of the stuff they do and they added a third one. She
[00:41:13] Jeremy King: was like, and they sometimes keep rocks on their chest to break open seashells to eat what's inside. I'm like, ah. Nice.
[00:41:19] Adam Fishman: she's good. She's got it. Okay. last thing I wanted to ask you before lightning round is how can people follow along or be helpful to you?
[00:41:27] Jeremy King: two things. So one, ocean Orchestra doesn't have a website yet, but we're in the middle of completing a funding round and we will soon, um, Attest is askattest.com or just attest.com. It goes to the same place. so check out those two things, which I think are good, but maybe I'm biased.
[00:41:42] Jeremy King: also hit me on LinkedIn.
[00:41:43] Jeremy King: Hit me. you probably guessed my email very easily as well. It's not hard. and be helpful to me. I would love to speak with people about, applying modern AI and SaaS methods to ocean problems. the particular problem we're focusing on is the problem of global seafood, which, and fishing, which is the largest human influence on oceans. And if there's anyone out there who has a passion for oceans or simply an interesting conservation, science and climate. Oceans are 71% of the planet a huge part of carbon, of climate, of biodiversity, and the majority of the surface of the planet, and certainly by a distance, the majority of the planet by volume. if you are interested in that, let me know. And I would love to speak with you about applying modern tech and methods to this massive global problem, which has absolutely no solution.
[00:42:30] Adam Fishman: Okay. Love that. We will send everybody your way. alright, let's do lightning round. I'm gonna make this super short. What is the most indispensable parenting product you've ever purchased?
[00:42:42] Jeremy King: It's called a groclock. You set it, the sun comes up, that's when you're allowed to get up.
[00:42:47] Adam Fishman: Awesome. true or false? Is there only one correct way to load the dishwasher?
[00:42:53] Jeremy King: I didn't believe there was, but a, a family friend used to work on US submarines, missile boomers, and he was like, I know how to pack stuff into a small space. And he showed me once and I was like, his way is the correct way. I can't do it. I don't, I don't have a life of training. there is a correct way and I saw it.
[00:43:12] Jeremy King: It is real.
[00:43:13] Adam Fishman: Okay. if your daughters had to describe you in one word, what would it be?
[00:43:18] Jeremy King: I know that word and it is silly. Uh, my eldest daughter since she was two, and she still does this now, introduces people to, uh, me as, hello, this is my daddy, Jeremy, and he's very silly.
[00:43:31] Adam Fishman: Oh, love that. What is the most difficult kids TV show that you've had to sit through?
[00:43:37] Jeremy King: Uh, I respect deeply the animators and producers, but it's dog man, the movie. I have never seen something change, subject and viewing angle dialogue tempo so far, so quickly, and I found it to be an assault on my senses.
[00:43:53] Jeremy King: And now I just sound like an old person. Oh no, what's happened?
[00:43:57] Adam Fishman: Uh, speaking of being old, what a nostalgic movie. Can you not wait to force your daughters to watch with you?
[00:44:05] Jeremy King: I think the Goonies, but there's also a movie that I believe to be called Flight of the Navigator,
[00:44:11] Jeremy King: with aliens in a futuristic alien ship controlled by a young boy. which was, I thought was really cool. It's one of those things where I'm kind of don't wanna watch it again 'cause I can't believe it's as good as I remember it to be.
[00:44:21] Jeremy King: But those two.
[00:44:23] Adam Fishman: it is as good as you remember it to be. I don't know if your kids will find it the same way, but as an adult, I loved it again, so,
[00:44:30] Jeremy King: I've got a friend who just started showing their son all the old bond films. I was like, that's a recipe for disaster. That can't be good. He's like, Nope. Loves them. It's
[00:44:38] Adam Fishman: Yep.
[00:44:38] Adam Fishman: what is the worst experience you've ever had assembling a kid's toy or a piece of furniture?
[00:44:43] Jeremy King: so we are forever grateful to Auntie Cindy in Melbourne for giving our oldest daughter the magic mixes magical crystal ball. Our daughter loves it. You wave a magic wand, cast some spells. There's lots of light and smoke, and then a toy appears out of thin air. Learning the instructions for that and assembling. It was like the Manhattan Project. It required all resources of a nation and the greatest minds at our disposal to
[00:45:10] Jeremy King: make that thing come to life and be real. We did it, but it was a truly nationwide effort and a
[00:45:17] Jeremy King: monumental moment for science and history.
[00:45:19] Adam Fishman: love that. Uh, how long can a piece of food sit on the floor in your house and you will still eat it?
[00:45:26] Jeremy King: So personally, I like to make a biologically informed assessment of potential floor contaminants. Then multiply that by the stickiness of the food item to reach a unique max number of seconds for any given situation. So for example, yogurt on a plane that's zero seconds, that's high stickiness, highly contaminated floor, a dry side down piece of toast at home, maybe one of those battenberg cake piece dimensions. I go 60 or longer. If I'm talking about seconds or minutes there, I let that sit for a long time. I'm quite confident about the stickiness, coefficient and the floor cleanliness.
[00:45:57] Adam Fishman: Oh, well that sounds like a great analysis and a great thing to end on. So, Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me on Startup Dad, talking to you about your work in education, uh, your work in oceans, and, some amazing stories about your family. I wish you and your wife and your daughters all the best for the rest of the summer and the rest of this year.
[00:46:16] Adam Fishman: Thank you.
[00:46:17] Jeremy King: Thank you so much. Been a pleasure to chat and all the best to you and family and extended everyone as well.
[00:46:23] Adam Fishman: Awesome.
[00:46:24] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today's episode with Jeremy King.
[00:46:29] Adam Fishman: You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse all past episodes. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.