Surrogacy, Raising Twiblings, and Navigating Fatherhood as a Gay Man | George Arison (father of 2, CEO of Grindr)

George: I think what we're trying to do is make sure that kids, A: feel a lot of love and B: have a lot of opportunity to figure things out on their own. And number three, develop as much grit as possible. It's actually not about teaching a lot of content knowledge. It's more about develop grit and capabilities with which they can learn later on.

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Adam: 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. And in this episode, I sat down with the CEO of Grindr, George Arison. In this conversation, George gave me an inside look into the surrogacy process from finding an egg donor to the birth of his twins, or twiblings.

He opened up about the difficulties gay men can face, like the lack of health insurance coverage and legal complexities around becoming a parent. We also talked about his experience growing up in the Soviet Union and immigrating to the US as a teenager, and talked extensively about his family's love of books, his parenting philosophies, and the values that are central to raising his young kids.

This episode was a deep dive into the experiences of a gay father, how to prepare your kids to understand different family structures and handle questions they might get about having two fathers. It was a privilege to talk to George and hear about the growing acceptance and supportive communities that he's experienced.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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Adam: I would like to welcome George Arison to the startup dad podcast today. George, it is wonderful to reconnect with you after almost a decade, we decided. Thanks for being here.

George: My guess is sometime in 2014 at best 2015 just based on which office for my last company I met you in. So it has been a long time.

Adam: It was small, whatever office space it was. I, it was early days at Shift.

George: It was very, very, very, very small. 100%.

Adam: Yeah. Well, George, I want to jump right in. It's a pleasure having you here today. You have such an amazing background and so I thought we would start really quickly there. You and I first met when you were the founder and CEO of Shift and you've done quite a few things since then.

So, I was hoping maybe you could just give us a little bit of overview about your background and kind of what you're up to today.

George: Sure. So I'm originally from Georgia, the country. I was very fortunate to move to the U. S. when I was 14 to go to prep school. I was the first Soviet kid to kind of be easily able to leave and come to school here. So I've been in the U. S. pretty much ever since. Didn't ever think I was going to start tech companies or whatnot but here I am. Along the way, I started a company called Taxi Magic and then went to Google for a bit and then start another company called Shift, which I spent 9 years building and we went public in 2020.

So it was a great great journey with all the challenges and ups and downs of a low margin business that you want to be a better margin business. But, you know, I didn't think I was going to do an operational business, but then it became a very operational heavy business. But obviously, you know, I learned a lot of things along the way. In 2022, I passed ownership to my successor and then was recruited to become CEO of Grindr, which is what I'm doing right now, obviously, unlike Shift, which actually needs introductions, Grindr, I've discovered, everyone knows- that's never a topic where you have to explain what Grindr does um, but you know, Grindr has gone through a series of ownership changes. The last ownership group that came in, frankly, really saved the company because it had been under Chinese ownership previously, really hollowed out, no investments in technology, no investments in the product.

So, even though the user base was continuing to grow dramatically, the product itself was not improving much. And so the new ownership really kind of went to solve and address all those things. So significant growth in revenue. And then the company went public in 2022. And so I came in about a month before IPO and have been here now for nearly 10 months.

Adam: Wow. Wow. What a ride. Turn around story. That's pretty awesome. So you mentioned you're from Georgia, the country, which I think is a good caveat because Georgia, the state, very different from Georgia, the country. Um, So tell me a little bit about life growing up.

So you came here when you were 14, but I mean, you know, you probably brought a ton of. First generation immigrant values and stuff to the U S. So what was life like growing up in Georgia? And then what was it like growing up in the United States?

George: Sure. So I, came to the U.S.  on my own. So I spent a lot of time in dorms and there's an American family that kind of helped make it possible for me to come here. And so they would host me on holidays and weekends and whatnot. But Georgia is a, you know, very different today than even when I was there, because it was a Soviet country back then.

But family has always been really important. In Georgia. And so, that's, you know, 1, really big thing. You know, people are very close to each other. Most people tend to even live in one, you know, home, apartment building, et cetera, where it's like multi generational or even if not, you still are very interconnected a family, which is obviously a huge difference with the U.S.

Like, we moved down to Palo Alto right before my kids were born partly because my husband's sister lives really close to where we live. His parents live really close to where we live. And then we brought my dad here as well. So we kind of recreated this like very close family together, but even still like the frequency with which we see our family here is way less than the frequency, which you'd see your family in Georgia. We're like, if you don't see them for 24 hours, it's like a very unusual kind of phenomenon. You know, my dad was convinced that the Soviet Union was going to fall apart, which was a pretty you know, aggressive point of view to have back in 1980 or 82, 83.

And so he was very focused on. Hey, my kids need to learn English. My kids need to learn how to leave this country when it's time to do that. And so I had English tutors from the time I was very young. The first language I ever wrote in was English. And this whole idea that, like, getting out of here is a really critical thing was really ingrained into my head as something that I needed to kind of, do and accomplish.

And obviously, you know, he turned out to be very right. He would spend a ton of time. Telling me, like, when you are 17 XYZ is going to be happening, he was off by about three years. So, like, the stuff that he would describe actually did all happen, but it happened, like, when I was, you know, 13, 14, not 17-18.

So, including, like, you know, civil war and people not having food and, you know, having to, like, really fight for survival. So, I was raised with a lot of privilege because my grandfather was a fairly senior official in the communist system. And so we had. A lot more than a lot of people did, but then also I was raised with this idea that like, hey, you got to get out and you got to work really hard.

And so, yes, I came here very much with this ingrained view that, you know, you work really hard and that's what makes you be successful. And frankly, I've learned that's actually true. You work really hard and that's what makes you really successful. So hard work and perseverance are very much like quintessential values that I really believe in.

And then doing, like, impossible things is something I really believe in pretty strongly as well. And so, I've been very lucky in the U.S. over the last nearly you know, it's been actually 30 years, I guess. Yeah. 31 years. It's been a really amazing journey here.

Adam: Wow. And you mentioned that you met your husband. And then moved your father here and you have a family now. you have the honor of being the first gay person who I've interviewed on the pod. So I'm excited for that and excited to have you on.

But tell me about your partner. How did the two of you meet? And then tell me a bit about your kids.

George: totally. So, well, first, let me just say, I've always wanted kids again, coming from Georgia culture. It's always a really big deal. Frankly, the idea of like, oh, I might not be able to have kids was always a huge problem with me coming out, like coming to terms with being gay. And this whole children topic was always really tough.

My co-founder in my previous company will remain nameless for privacy purposes. is also gay and he had children. You know, in kind of a decade and a half ago, like very early days of gay surrogacy. And so once he did that, then I was like, much more convinced that, you know, you actually could do that.

And so I had a very strong view that like, by the time I'm 40, I'm either, you know, in a relationship and on track to be married, or you know, I'm going to do it for the kids on my own, the same way that my co-founder in that company had done. And so, you know, I Was kind of on the verge of like starting to stop going on dates and start to like plan on my own.

In 2015 when I met my husband and, you know, it's a little bit of like, you stop looking and then it kind of turns up for you and for me dates were always complicated because I would like literally start talking to my children. Like, right away you know, day one, because it was like, what's the point of having this conversation if we're not going to be on the same page on kind of where this goes?

Which, you know, with all due respect to my many gay, you know, acquaintances in the world, most of them don't want to have children, right? It's like an unusual kind of thing to have, but I think it's much different now with, younger generation came in, but at least for my generation, it was not always the thing.

My husband, Robert you know, was on the same page with me on having children. He was not as like obsessed with the idea of having kids and that I was, but, like, he was very open to having kids, assuming that he had a partner who also wanted to do that and so we kind of hit it off on that perspective very early.

And then you know, I think we have a lot of values that align in terms of what matters. He is not an immigrant, but his parents are. And so from that perspective, in terms of what matters in life-very similar point of view as well that, like, you know, you do a lot to set up a really good life for your children, et cetera, et cetera.

And so, we met each other in 2015. I was early days of shift. And so he lived the entire Shift journey vicariously. And then in 2017 took charge of kind of planning our kid's journey. And I tend to call that Robert startup because the whole, like, difficulty of having children is about as hard as, uh, as starting a company, if not harder.

Adam: I've had a couple of parents on the show who have referred to this, their startup as their third kid or something

George: For me, it was my first kid. And I have two kids kind of later.

Adam: There you go. And so your kids are almost four years old now, or just about to turn four.

George: So we did what's called twibblings where you have two surrogates at the same time, and we were very lucky because we transferred embryos in the same day and they both worked. So we have about a 50 percent chance that would happen. And they were born 9 days apart. So our son's birthday is coming up in like, 4 or 5 days here. And then our daughter is born, you know, 9 days after that.

Adam: That's amazing. So you and Robert, your partner were aligned from the jump, right? Probably from that first date that kids was a thing that you wanted. But what was that conversation like when you were sort of both ready and it was time to do

George: Oh, so he actually pushed it more. There's a group called Gay Men Having Babies Through Surrogacy. It's a Facebook group and they also host in person conferences three or four times a year. And like a lot of, you know, surrogacy companies, agencies, IVF clinics, et cetera.

They all come to advertise themselves at these events. And so they were having one in San Francisco, like, January, February 2017. And so Robert was like, I'm going to go to like, you know, learn about this. And I was actually not ready at that point to like, let's go pull the trigger. Because you know, Shift was going through a pretty rough journey. I'm like, hey, let's figure this out first. And then talk about this, but he's like, well, it's going to take forever. Like, you don't have a full condition of how long it's going to take to do this. And so he went and met all the different agencies and whatever, and it was very helpful because you kind of can evaluate, you know, who's the right partner for you and how it should work.

 And then you know, he really drove it from there. Because again, I was like, a little resistant in 2017 to kind of move quickly on some of these things. But, of course, I'm really happy that he did because. In hindsight, it took way longer than you think it would, right? So, like, January 2017 kids were born in September 2019, right?

So it's like two and a half years plus to get to children. And our journey was actually, like, fairly simple. We didn't have a lot of hiccups along the way. A lot of other people have a lot more hiccups along the way. So you kind of you know have to look for an egg donor, which is, in our case at least, was probably the most challenging piece because we really wanted an egg donor who was very academically inclined, in a strong way.

And the whole process isn't set up to do that like the entire process is for what does the egg look like, not like what is the academic background. You know, intellectual background of them, and for us, like, looks were very secondary. The other factors were a lot more important. And so, you know, initially, you go through all these agencies and you look for it knows you had kind of depressed because you're like, wow, I can't find who I need.

Then we finally were recommended an agency that doesn't let you into the list of people they have until you pay some money. So it's like a more selective list of donors. And so there we were able to find a donor loved and and the donor has and then being very careful in what I'm saying, which has some level of post Soviet background, like, I do so, you know, her family is originally from the Soviet Union. She was born in the Soviet Union. So that was interesting because, like, it was going to be a little bit of more of a connection there. And she had also done this before. And so she was a proven egg donor which was really helpful.

So we signed her up and, like, you know, you had to move really fast and thank God we did work because within a day of signing her up two other people express an interest in working with her as well. So she was like a very in demand donor. So that worked out really well.

And then you concurrently like apply to look for surrogates, which is actually the much more time consuming process, but less stressful because eventually you can get that. I think when we took us 9 months, which, you know, with 2 surrogates at the same time, reasonable amount of time for during the pandemic, the periods increased dramatically.

Like, I've had friends wait for over 2 years. And then I think now it's getting better but it's you know, obviously, you know, there's some money exchanged for surrogacy, but, like, the amount of work that these women do, kind of, for you, if you can even call it work, right, is so significant, like, no amount of money can really, you know, pay for what you're getting from them, and there's a definite, like, selflessness to this, and, you know, you discover some people, like, really like being pregnant, and they tell you, so, yeah, I actually like being pregnant, like, that's not what you expect most of the time, but some people really do enjoy it.

And so, like, there's a little kind of, I think, like, get pregnant and surrogates. There's a concentric circles on that front. And so we, you know, we had 2 wonderful surrogates who you know, did an amazing job for us and obviously super grateful for what they were able to give us because you can't really put a price on that.

And so, you know, we found these 2 surrogates and then in July, August 2019, and then there's some work with the clinic to get ready. Our embryos were already ready. So we had gone through egg donation process and creating embryos, et cetera. And we have a lot of embryos actually still frozen if we wanted more kids.

And so then transfers happened in early December. And then we were actually in Thailand for Christmas vacation when we found out that you know, both of them had worked and kind of everything else was history after that.

Adam: Wow. What a process too. And so you mentioned two and a half years and that's at the lower end of the spectrum of what it can take people that is impressive. The resolve that it takes to kind of go through that whole process.

George: There are now, you know, groups that are trying to help you do it more easily. But back then there weren't as many. I mean, there's now a couple of startups that are trying to do this, but even still, it's like, it's just, you know, very manual and very individual process, right?

Like, know, you meet a surrogate and okay, she likes you and you don't like her for whatever reason, or, you know, you like her, but she doesn't like you. Right. And I think, you know, a lot of surrogates don't want to actually be surrogates to gay parents, they only want to be surrogates to straight parents, of course, like that's, you know, limits selection kind of even more.

And there's geography, like, okay, where do you want the surrogate to be? Like, for us, it was important for them to be within, you know, reasonable closeness to us turns out actually, it didn't really matter. We thought that was a really big deal, but it turned out it actually wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

But then you also consider, like, what states do you want to do this? And California is an awesome state to do. Because you can do what's called a pre-birth order. So you can, be declared to be the parent of the kid prior to the kid being even born. So, when you show up at the hospital, like, it's very clear.

You're the parent, and then this is your kid, etc. Like, it's very structured, which, for us, mattered a lot, right? In a lot of other states, you do a post birth order, where, like, yes, everything's decided, but a judge has to stamp paperwork after the baby's born, which, like, you know, can give you a little bit of heebie jeebies about, like, are you actually a parent of the kid or not?

Now, like, yes, 1 of the dads will be because he's biologically the parent as well. But what about the 1? It's not et cetera,

so California is a great state to do it. And but that also limits your choices. Right? Et cetera. So, you know, it's a long process and. Very obvious, and it's also very costly because all of this is done kind of out of pocket expenses, right?

So if you are a, you know, straight couple or you know, a lesbian couple that's trying to have kids through with IVF involved, insurance will cover some parts of the cost, assuming you have insurance that does that but if you're a gay couple, even if you have insurance that covers IVF, you actually can't use it because you are not the recipient of the IVF, it's the surrogate who is the recipient of the IVF.

And then on to that, like, medical expenses are generally tax deductible above a certain dollar amount for people. So, if you are engaged in and you're paying out of pocket, you can most likely deduct all that from your taxes, but if you're a gay couple, you can't because they're not regarded as your medical expenses.

They are the surrogate’s medical expenses. And so the cost on surrogacy is insanely high and again, I'm very fortunate. I've had a very good career and we could afford to do this, but for a lot of people, it's a massive constraint on being able to do it because it's so expensive. This is very top of mind because I just spent an hour this morning with our insurance broker talking about how can we potentially get this included in Grindr's health insurance, because I think if one company should like figure this out, it's Grindr, given that, you know, we're in the business of creating love among gay and bi men. And so, we, you know, internally, we should like solve this and then hopefully we can push other people to solve this as well, so.

Adam: Wow. I, you know, I would've never known the whole health insurance angle here. I knew it's hard enough for straight parents, or like you mentioned, lesbian couples, but I had no idea the lack of coverage for gay men when it comes to just something as silly as like, well, it's…the IVF isn't happening to you, so therefore we don't cover it, you know, or we can't let you deduct that from your taxes because it's not your body.

Wow, that's seems like bananas to me, but you probably used to, to experiencing these kinds of wild you know, discriminations in your life.

George: It’s been an interesting, so I actually been very lucky, like, I've lived in very tolerant places. I went to prep school in Maine, college in Vermont, lived in D. C. for a long time, and in the Bay Area, these are like the, you

Adam: Yeah. You're pretty good.

George: Among the most tolerant places in the world. And so,

Adam: You hit the bingo card.

George: Vermont, like, first state to do civil unions, Maine was one of the first states to allow gay marriage. Obviously, D. C. has a huge gay population, and, you know, San Francisco kind of speaks for itself. And so, I've not had these challenges. Now, I actually face them a lot more, right? Like, now that I'm at Grindr, I encounter something like, seriously, like this kind of stuff still actually happens because, you know, I've been so selective in where I've lived it's never been a thing, but like, you know, we had a bank and I never named names, but, you know, who declined to work with us on a pure commercial relationship purposes because they were concerned about reputational risk of Grindr.

And I'm like, are you kidding me? We are by far the largest and there's nothing even close to it, the cohort of this community in the world and so you can, you know, declare all you want about awesome things related to your LGBTQ, you know, leadership, blah, blah, blah. But like, when it comes to actually doing business, you're not willing to make a choice.

That's a pretty basic choice, right? I had another bank that is an investment bank. We have a very long term relationship with them. They are basically not willing to support us as an investment bank. Now they would claim it has nothing to do with us being a gay company, but it has everything to do with us being a gay company based on kind of where things have landed.

And so flip side is, you know, there have been banks that have bent over backwards to be very supportive and have very much put money where the mouth is. So that like, I don't want to say it's all bad, but it's definitely the opposite. And like, you know, I was at a event with Jamie Diamond and I walked up and I'm like, you know, like, it's really amazing how well you guys have behaved in this regard.

And I really appreciate it. And he like was very direct, like totally not allowed to discriminate and then give you some examples about how he feels about it, which is like awesome. But sadly, yeah, it still happens more often than it should.

Adam: That's really interesting I was gonna ask you about potential blockers to success with surrogacy, but I think you covered a lot of them actually especially interesting and I sort of figured that this would probably be the case that there are surrogates who get to a place and are like, I don't want to work with a gay couple on this. And then that must be a, you know, a pretty tough situation when that,

George: The flip side is also true. There's some people who actually really want to work with gay couples because, you know, it's a little bit easier, right? Like, in some ways, cause you're not like second guessing kind of, what's going on. And I think for straight couples who are having kids through surrogacy, You know, most likely the mom went through a lot of along the way to try to get pregnant herself.

That didn't work and there's a little bit of like emotional, like, my God, like, what happened, like, et cetera. And so there's definitely some people who like actually prefer to work with gay couples versus not. But it's a very emotional and a very personal kind of. You know, relationship and it's look, you know, these people do an amazing thing for you because it's like a year of their life, basically you know, with a significant amount of discomfort while you're pregnant.

Adam: Yeah. so you've got these almost four year old twiblings. I love that term, by the way. What's the earliest memory that you have of becoming a father?

George: Well, I kind of view becoming a father when, like, we knew that they were pregnant. So the memory is, I was like, lying in bed in Thailand at a resort and Robert got a text message from 1 of the surrogates that she had just done an at home test and it was still very faint, but clearly there was a pregnancy and then like, you know, waking me up and telling me, oh, wow you know, we think we're pregnant.

And then I was like, texting the other surrogate. Hey, maybe like, could you try to do a test to see what's going on kind of kind of thing. So, and then like hearing from her and like, it was super exciting and it was really great. So that's the end of the first memory. Now when our son was being born we had to go to Reading because that's where the surrogate was and we drove so fast that we were stopped and Robert had never been stopped by a policeman in his life. So, like, he's like, well, and I think this. Policeman like eventually understood what's going on and like, let us go because we're like, oh, we have a baby coming.

And he's like, what are you talking about? But eventually it kind of worked out. I actually was negotiating a term sheet while my son was being born in the room.

Adam: Oh, God.

George: So there's also that, like, I'm a total workaholic and we were working on something and like a lot of back and forth with the other side on what should be the terms.

And like, you know, it's a long process. Right. So I was kind of, I was not really needed until the baby was born. So I would come in and come out and come in and come out. And on calls and sending emails on, on this term sheet. And then unfortunately the natural didn't work.

And so they kind of had to actually rush really quickly cesarean. And so. You know, we were waiting there to kind of see it happen and then boom, suddenly had to go. And Robert went in because he's a doctor. And so I think they kind of let him be close. And so he grabbed our son first when he came out from surgery and then, you know, grabbing him.

And like, you know, for me, that was like a pretty miraculous thing. And you know, experiencing all that was pretty awesome, but yeah, I probably never forget what it was like holding him. When he was born, when our daughter was born, that was all natural. And Robert actually got to take her out. Because again, he's a Doctor.

Adam: Oh,

George: So he was in the room and then the OBGYN knew that he's a doctor. And so she's like, hey, do you want to grab him? And so he, you know, he grabbed Amelia’s head and took her out. And so that was definitely crazy because you see, like, the whole thing. And we have this picture of, like, Robert's face in a very weird expression while he's grabbing the kid out.

 And I probably will never forget that either, but it was pretty awesome. And it was a really fantastic.

Adam: Yeah, wow. Yeah, usually fathers, if they're lucky, don't get to or have to deliver their own kids. But in this case, what an honor.

George: And you also, like, you were not, like, really kind of, I mean, you're there to support the surrogate, but, like, they usually have their own person supporting them. So, like, you're kind of able to focus a little more on the baby.

Adam: Yeah. So You know, you always wanted to have kids and now you do, and I'm curious what some of the most sort of surprising things are that you've discovered after becoming a dad.

George: Well, it's definitely a lot more work than I thought it would be. For sure. I mean, we're very lucky because we have a lot of help. And so I kind of had this view that are like, it's going to not actually alter my life that much. And its altered my life in a pretty significant way. And especially the first, like, four years, I think are much deeper, like, now we're kind of at the point where, like, they can actually play themselves and you're not like, having to, like, always watch them all the time.

I think you obviously know that kids learn, right? Like, for me, observing my kids, like, learning and figuring things out is like a really remarkable thing, right?

Where it's like simple math problems or like, you know, like, when my son first figured out, like, 1 plus 1 was 2 and like, you know, like, oh, there’s 1 car there's 2nd car, there's 2 cars, like, that was just like on his face. It can just be like, you know, so I think that's been like, really amazing to watch. And I don't think I, Yeah.

Had a full cognition of what that would be like to kind of observe. But yeah, I don't actually really know what I expected being a dad to be like, so I said, I expected to be this way. And then it's turned out to be the other way. I've definitely like, loved it. And also, there are some moments that I'd like, really, you know, really hate it.

Um, but, you know, it comes with the territory because they're a little like vultures to, you know.

Adam: Yeah. Always circling.

George: Like, yesterday I was eating a peach and Amelia's like, can I have it? And I'm like, can we go get you a new peach? And she's like, no, I actually wanted my peach.

And I'm like, really?

Adam: That's very special, peach, because it's yours. That's amazing. so at four, you know, at four years old or almost four years old, your kids haven't really fully experienced the world yet, but I'm curious, this didn't happen to me, right. Growing up, but I'm, wondering if your kids have ever asked you about being gay or how you talk to them about that concept or if it's something you talk about a lot in the household.

George: We do. No, so we have a theory that the earlier you do everything, the better, because it should just be totally normal for them. So they don't not then like, surprised by some questions and whatnot. And so on a lot of stuff that's like unusual. I don't mean in a bad way, but that is not the same as majority about our family.

I tend, we tend to talk about that more than not just being gay and having kids and surrogacy, which we've talked to kids about all those things, but also like immigration, for example, like, like, I mean, our kids know what a refugee is. I could know what an immigrant is. We've read, you know, dozens of books about immigration and refugees.

Because, like, we think it's important for them to know kind of where they come from and what it means. So, that stuff we've always talked to them about a lot. On the, you know, being gay part, like, we, very basic level, we're like, hey, there's many different kinds of families. There's some families that have two dads.

There's some families that have two moms. There's most families that have a mom and a dad. There are some families that only have one parent and I think kids really get that, and there's never, you know, real questions kind of about that as much as, like, Bay Area is so welcoming of gay people, obviously, the number of gay parents is actually not that high, so, that's definitely, like, not ideal, because it'd be nicer if they had more you know, around them that they could, like, experience so that's something we need to kind of work on a little bit.

There's one other gay couple in the, school, it's in a different school, but in a different class. And so, at 1 event, they met them, which I think was really good. On the surrogacy point, like. We, you know, there are books that kind of explain what IVF is, they're very basic, like very basic books.

And so we've used those books to kind of, you know, read to them. And so, you know, like, our daughter and our son will, like, say things like, oh, was that when I was in the surrogate's tummy? Or et cetera. Because we got married while the surrogates were already pregnant.

And so... Robert brought the ultrasound pictures to the wedding, and there's a wedding picture of him holding them up and so it hangs in our living room, and so sometimes the kids will be like, you know, was that when I was in the surrogate's tummy? But like, they know, you know, they know what an egg donor is, they know what a surrogate is, they, I mean, I think they understand what IVF is, but they know what IVF is too.

 So that's been like, really I think really good. You know, prep them for like, when someone's going to say like, where's your mom? And like, no, if you ask our kids, where's your mom, they'll say, I don't have a mom. I have two dads and or they’ll say like I have a dad and a dada. And that's been, you know, generally really good.

And frankly, they've not phased. So far, any issues on any of these things. I think eventually, like, the challenging ones are going to be when they ask about the egg donor, Because I think when you're talking to them, so early, they eventually ended up. Well, who is the donor? And can I meet her?

And we know ours was an open, donation, but this meant to be no contact. So, like, that's going to be a challenging kind of period, I think, at some point, but I think we never tell like, hey, this is your donor. Like, here are the pictures of the donor, but like, we can't contact her until, you know, you can try to contact her when you're 18, but not until then.

But I think, you know, we are very lucky in where we live, but they generally not face any issues with that, but they're, I think, very aware of it. You know, our situation and kind of what our family like versus.

Adam: Yeah. Certainly probably much more aware than other kids who are four years old, I would imagine.

George: Yeah, totally. But I think the reality also is like, all the kids in their class are also way more aware than most kids because like, we are there, right? Like, and so I think that's also really good. But kids have been really good. I think there's a definite, fascination among other children with them because they're like so close, right?

Like these two are like always together. So twins have a definite advantage that way when they first start school. And so, we're actually trying to, like, break them up a little bit. Now, like, the snack tables have been split up so they can have snacks separately.

Adam: That's the first big milestone. Yeah. Separate the snack tables. So when we were prepping for this interview, one of the things that you mentioned is. That you are a household of books and that there's a ton of books.

George: Oh, yeah, it's like coming out of everywhere. like, it's everywhere 

Adam: And so you also mentioned, I was going to ask you, you know, what are some of the ones that are kind of most important to you?

You said it's impossible to list them all. I believe that after I saw the list that you shared with me and we'll link that in the show notes so that other people can follow along. But I'm curious what some of the maybe more impactful books are for you and your kids.

George: Yeah, well, there's two buckets of things to talk about, like, there's authors that we really like or books that we really like that we read a lot like Julia Donaldson, who's a British author of a book called Gruffalo, but she actually has a huge collection of books. We really love her poetic kind of writing is really easy to read and it's been really awesome. So we've been reading her books since the babies were like, you know, since the kids were babies. We really love those. Grumpy Monkey is very popular in our household and all the books related to Grumpy Monkey. I really like this book called Going Places, which is like in effect a book about entrepreneurship.

It's a really cool book from that perspective. The Rabbit Listened is a really... A good book. It gets a little bit of challenged by you know, some of the more crazy elements of our society because it's written without revealing the gender of the kid.

But it's a very empathy, happy, book, so I really from that point of view, read it a lot. And then I wrote this little piece on Father's Day about, like, books that have been really helpful for us in terms of explaining our family to our kids and, like, what's the, different about that.

So I have a whole set of books on that, like And Tango Makes Three, which they constantly try to ban, which is kind of completely ridiculous because it's a fact based book, like actually tells factual stuff, which is around, two penguins, who are both male you know, basically parenting an egg and then and having a child in New York. It's a really good book. Mister Seahorse we read to our kids a lot. It's a very famous book, but we liked it because it's all about dads taking care of the baby fish.

Adam: Yeah. That's the Eric Carle

George: Yeah, I mean, it's a very popular book. We really like it. The family book is a really good book about different types of families and so like teaching our kids that hey, this is our family.

This is our families like that's been really good The book I mentioned earlier about the surrogacy, it's called Happy Together, very simple, it's a self published book, I like it, it's super great and then a book that I started to really like last year is called Harriet Gets Carried Away and the reason I like that book is because it's totally like normal, like nothing unusual about the book as you read it, it's about this kid who, you know, really dons a penguin costume and ends up in Antarctica and then has to figure out how to get home, right?

But then like you're reading the book and then on the second to last page, you know, she's greeted by her two dads. And it's like incredible normalization. We're like, okay, it's one thing to have books like that are specifically about... You know, two dads and whatever, and those are necessary too, but here it was just like a kind of afterthought, but like, oh, yeah, she has two dads, but the story's about something totally different I think was really great as well.

So those are some of the books we really like from that perspective. And then the offers I mentioned are probably the ones that we most enjoy. I buy like probably 400 books a year because we do one new book at least a day, and we do like 10 books a day in terms of what we read at least, and so books are like a really big part of our life.

Adam: Has that always been something that's been important to you, or is it something that's changed since you had kids?

George: Well, I mean, education has always been really important to me because everything I've achieved in life has been through education, and I've been, you know, quite lucky, and so I have to kind of pay homage to what's made it possible. I actually don't read books myself much now, I don't really have much time.

I do a lot of reading all day, but books for myself is not a thing. I also really like, current events, politics and news. And so if I have time to read, it's like, mostly news and analytical pieces of that nature. But you know, I think educating our kids always been. A thing and for us, learning is not something you just in school.

Right? And so I think reading to them from day 1 has been very important before day 1. So we had an app with a device that you can buy where the surrogate could put these 2 microphones on her tummy and kids can listen. So we use that device and we would read to the kids all the time, even before they were born.

Because the theory goes that they can get used to your voice. And so when they're, you know, when they're with you, when they're born, they're not as surprised. And so we would read a lot of these books, even before they were born. And then obviously, once they were born, like, that's been a constant thing

Adam: Yeah. That's amazing. So I wanted to turn the corner for a second and just ask you. And one of the things I talk about with a lot of people on here is how important partnership is when you have kids. And obviously, you know, you have a partner of many years now. And it's really important to align on things when you have kids and be in lockstep.

But I'm curious if there's an element of parenting that you and Robert don't agree on. Where's something where you're at odds.

George: So he mostly wins. So our joint approach is whatever he kind of recommends because he has done a lot of thinking on kind of how to parent and he's read and or listen to every primary kind of child. Yeah. You know, psychologist and or, you know, education person out there. I am probably the Georgian parenting is not the style that we want, but unfortunately, I default to it. Nevertheless frequently, it's very much like do stuff for your kids right? And like, and tell them a little bit of no when you need to, but, you know, so very permissive, but a little bit too much yelling. I try not to do the yelling, but the permissiveness still kind of kicks in.

And then you like do stuff for them. And so that's like something I don't like, but it still happens because you inevitably default to what you were, you know, raised with versus Robert's a lot more like, you know, let me explain to you why the things have to be this way. I'm not going to tell you no, I'm going to tell you let's do it in a different way. Hey, you know, if you need to build this Legos, you're going to build it yourself. You can ask me for help, but don't say I can't do it, et cetera. So, yeah, I mean, I think we are generally aligned so that my natural instincts fall in the direction that's not great.

And so then I like, correct myself from that. But, you know, we are very aligned on what we want to do broadly speaking, and like, you know, a lot of our, I think what we're trying to do is. Make sure that kids A, feel a lot of love. B, have a lot of opportunity to figure things out on their own.

And number three, develop as much grit as possible. It's actually not about teaching a lot of content knowledge. It's more about like, develop grit and capabilities with which they can learn later on. Whether my kids know how to write At four or not, doesn't actually matter per se it's whether they are developing natural skill set for how to get educated when they're more grown up.

Adam: Yeah. I love that. I love that approach. Curious. We talked about this as it relates to surrogacy and some of the challenges that you experienced or that gay couples can experience during surrogacy. Have you, since your kids have been born, experienced any, you know, obvious challenges as same sex parents?

I know in the Bay Area, we're very liberal here and we think everything is wonderful, but I'm sure that there's some things. That are more difficult, that I don't have an appreciation for.

George: Yeah, we actually haven't faced a lot of challenges about gay parenting, and we've been very lucky and very fortunate. Like, it is not meant to be like, oh, everyone has it this way. You clearly don't. Like, we are just very fortunate in the environment that we are in. I mean, We live in Palo Alto, like, this is not a place where anyone would would discriminate in any way and you know, schools have been really positive all the parents that we meet are generally really positive there was thinking in my head, I'm like, like, if I take this granted job, like, what will that mean as far as, like, schools, et cetera, for kids, and Robert, you know, really asked a lot of questions about that.

Surprisingly, it's been the opposite of what I think you would have expected. Like, people have been, like, super supportive. It's awesome. And people I never expected to be supportive have been like, wow, that's, like, awesome that you're doing this. That's been really good. You know, I think, some people might say, oh, you have to, like, provide explanations, which we have to do sometimes about, like, oh, how were the kids born?

Who's the biological parent of who, et cetera, et cetera. Like, I don't actually view that as an inconvenience. That's just the reality of life. Like, it's totally reasonable for people to ask, like, you know, what are the relationships to the kids, et cetera. So I don't get offended by any means. Some of other parents I think find that, like, intrusive, whatever, I don't.

I think it's just a totally normal, natural thing for people to want to know like, how this all happened, because it's an unusual story, and like, you know, great, it's actually better if they ask, because it means they're like, curious and want to learn and. Understanding that they might previously not have understood.

So in that regard. It's been really good. Now, there have been things that, like, we've not done because of covid our travel has been more limited. So I think, like, that'll be as we travel more. That'll be interesting because I definitely. You know, parts of the country that are not as easy.

And sometimes you know, you definitely hear reports like, hey, try to go through security. And there's all these questions around, like, why are you with these 2 kids? If you're traveling alone, and like, your name's not on the birth certificate, et cetera, or whatever, like, that kind of stuff, like, still, unfortunately definitely happens. But I think, you know, as much as, like, there's still a lot of work to do to get people's minds to change and whatnot in terms of gay rights and equality what I experienced when leading up to me having children, especially was that a lot of people you wouldn't expect to be super supportive really are.

So, for example, in 2018 you know, in 2019, I spent a lot of time on BD deals with other automotive sales companies when I was at Shift. So I had to travel a lot to like, all these different parts of the country. And some of them are like, very conservative parts of the country. And, you know, I would not like.

This is a very important part of my life. And so I would very directly say like, yeah, I'm having kids, et cetera, et cetera. And so people that you wouldn't expect in any way to be like, wow, that's awesome. Were always like, wow, that's awesome. And I still like very supportive. You know, if they ever talk to me like about my children and whatnot.

So that's a very positive thing where like, you know, where I thought there would be issues. Actually, I have not been issues. That's really good. Now, you know, I think there's definitely stuff happening in certain states. It's like really terrible. And, you know, I think it's pretty obvious what those things are and like a bunch of books that I just mentioned to you.

You couldn't actually read in Florida. And that's also nuts. Right? And so I had like, I know somebody who has kids through surrogacy and during COVID they had moved to Florida because it was safer outdoors, et cetera from Northeast. And, you know, he chose to actually leave Florida recently because even though he himself might not be targeted per se and the area he was in definitely wasn't targeting him in any way. And his kids, the fact that like teachers feel uncomfortable talking about these topics, et cetera, inevitably makes kids lives a lot worse, right? And that's like, pretty disgusting and horrible. And the fact that he had to uproot his kids and move them for no reason is really awful. And that's just like, a more simple one of those versus like, you know, hey, want to make XYZ decisions about my kids. And we talk all the time that family should be allowed to make decisions and not the government. But except for like, you know, what kind of treatment should my kid have?

Like, that also doesn't make any sense, right? We can debate about who's right and wrong as far as what we mentioned, but like parents should have the decision. It should have the right to make a decision for their children. You know, in an almost universally 100 percent way, right? That's how it is and has always been.

So that's like a real. I think there's definitely those issues. And so I've, you know, we've not faced that because we've not been in those areas, but I think in the future, I'm sure that'll come up. And I think the best thing you can do is just kind of prepare kids for that and, you know, have them understand what the world's like out there and then they can, you know, better deal with it. Like, no point in hiding,

Adam: Yeah, that makes sense. One thing you mentioned throughout, and I didn't pause to ask you about this, is that your husband Robert is a doctor. Is he still a practicing doctor?

George: He doesn't see patients anymore, but he has been doing public health for a long time and he still does.

Adam: Great. Great. I was going to ask then you know, the follow up, because you mentioned kind of communicating with the schools and things like that. So in a lot of very, like, heteronormative relationships, you have kind of the default parent that gets the phone call when somebody bumps their head or something like that.

Unfortunately, it typically happens to be the mom in a lot of these situations, even despite everyone's best intentions to maybe shift that. So, who gets the phone call when one of your kids bumps their head at school?

George: Yeah. Robert gets the phone calls, but that's, you know, part of A, cause I'm a, you know, public company CEO and I work crazy amount of time. I also don't answer my phone uh, frequently if uh, I don't know who the call is from and then thirdly, I mean, he is a doctor, so it's like the more appropriate thing,

Adam: ha,

George: That he gets a phone call.

No, I look, I'm very lucky because I do think yeah. It's very hard, and I'm not saying it's impossible for people to do it, but I think it's very hard to have two high powered job situations in a family and be able to raise kids the way at least we'd want to raise kids, which is very active involvement in their lives.

And the fact that Robert takes on a lot of the stuff makes it actually easier for me you know, in a way that I don't have to prioritize something. So then I can prioritize things that really matter. So that I really appreciate the fact that he does a lot of the heavy lifting and the challenging work so that I can then be there for the more you know, fun stuff. But that's also really critical for the kids to have you know, for their relationship with me.

I've been very lucky with COVID, frankly, because that sense, because the, look, I'm, you know, actively, I think we need to be back in the office in some way, like, I think it's really important. But the flexibility is also really nice. and I don't think these 2 things are necessarily mutually exclusive.

You can be back in the office 2 or 3 days a week and have a reasonable amount of flexibility on the other days. But for me, like, I have made it a massive priority to go pick my kids up at school twice a week. And I go there for story time and I know sit there and with them and then bring 'em home.

But like, you know, if you want to get a parking spot at this place, you have to show up early. I can never do that. So what happens in our household is my husband takes the car and goes there early. I take an uber to show up, like, right before story time starts and then we drive back together, but that's what I mean by, like, how grateful I am for, like, the fact that he, like, takes an extra 45 minutes to do this when in practice, like, 1 parent could just bring both kids home from school, but it allows me to then be able to be there versus otherwise I wouldn't be able to do that.

So, the flexibility has been really good. And I do try to, like, really make sure that I'm offline as much as possible, like 545 to 715 every day. Now that obvious time will move as kids grow older, but like there from like, hey, we're starting back to do dinner to get them to bed is really really critical.

So, that's been really really good because otherwise it's just be I think it'd be very hard for the relationship with kids perspective.

Adam: Yeah. So I have two more questions for you. And the first one is what's a mistake that you've made as a father?

George: I mean, I'd probably make one every hour on a regular basis. I think I probably don't do enough explanation to the kids on why certain things have to be a certain way or tell them no versus like, you know, get them to the no themselves. And I think that's something that's like, you know, frustrating, but I do it anyway.

So, so that's probably the big one that I kind of get, you know, upset with myself about.

Adam: Yeah. Okay. And my last question for you is in the prep for the show, you mentioned this balance of work and play and sort of conflating those two things. And you mentioned, and I was kind of confused by that. And you mentioned in your follow up that it's an important topic for you and it's related to what they're learning at school or the philosophy that they're experiencing at school. So tell me more about this concept of play and work.

George: Yeah. So, I mean, our kids go to Bing, which is a school at Stanford, and it's a really amazing research school and they're very lucky, as we tell them on a daily basis that they're there, because it is like an incredible place. But, you know, Stanford's philosophy is learn through play, right?

Like, they don't teach anything formal, but you're learning an incredible amount every minute of the day you're there through play. And you can see how it works outside of it, right? Because they do that, they have a replica of that in our backyard and whatnot. But the way Stanford kind of tells you this to the parents, like, play is the kids work, right?

Like, that's what they're doing. And our kids will sometimes actually tell you, like, can't right now, I'm working and I'm like, you know, building a Legos or, you know, building a sandcastle, whatever. So, that's been a big wake up. For me, in terms of, like, how we want to educate our children, right?

Because I think coming in, I'm like, oh, yeah, tutors in this, tutors in that, like, get them into you know, math class at 4 years old, et cetera. And, like, I'm now, like, 180 degrees away from that. Like, we're gonna, you know, probably hold them back from when they start kindergarten, kind of give them even more time to be in this, like, completely unstructured setting and, like, you know, they should learn completely at their own pace.

And what I'm finding, actually, is that they're learning at an insanely fast pace, even without having to be in this, like, any kind of structured environment. Like, Amelia, on her own, decided about... 3 months ago that she really wanted to learn how to write. And so she'll constantly come to you and be like, hey, how do you spell XYZ word?

And then she'll like, remember it. And then, knows how to write it, even though we've never had any kind of formal instruction of, you know, what the letters are and whatever, they just picking them up on their own. And with twins, the way that usually works, like as soon as one kid does something, then the other kid wants to do it too.

So there's a little bit of like, one upping of each other uh, going on. So, that helps as well. But I think this like, you know, there's a lot of awesome things about the Bay Area, but too much structure and too much like pushing kids is a definite issue here. And so we've really found the Bing education to be like an antidote to that in, in a lot of ways.

And at least has made me very much into a convert on what you should do.

Adam: That's great. Thank you for explaining that to me. Okay, let's do this. Here's how rapid fire works. I ask you a question. You say the first thing that comes to mind as quickly as possible. No editing, no edited thoughts. Maybe we'll follow up if it's really funny.

Are you ready, George?

George: Yeah

Adam: Okay. Number one, what is the most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased? 

George: I would say Legos is definitely our kids love Legos. And so we do a lot of Legos building.

Adam: lot of work, a lot of work building the Legos. Ha. What about the opposite? What is the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?

George: Oh, I don't know. We don't buy a lot of stuff like it's very kind of concrete. So most things we have were like either passed down or where we're told by experienced parents that like, you need this. And generally, it's been pretty accurate.

Adam: That's good. So you have a lot of books in your house. How many parenting books do you have in your house?

George: We have an insane number of parenting books as well.

Adam: And how many of those have you read? Cover to cover?

George: None

Adam: Zero! But it sounds like your husband's read a lot.

George: Yeah he’s read most of them, sure. 

Adam: Okay. What has been your favorite age for your kids so far?

George: Oh, favorite age. I think the early age was really awesome. Like, the kind of first year was, it was really good. The last, like, 8, 9 months has been awful, that was definitely the worst, but, you know, the early days, but I think we're about to everyone's been telling me four is when it all changes.

It's totally different. And I'm feeling like it's actually true. Like, the last 3 months, a lot of the things that have been very hard about that kind of like 3 and a quarter to nearly 4 period are going away.

Adam: Okay. Well, I'll have to share the Matt Greenberg episode of this with you because he has a different take on the age four.

George: I might 6 months and I'm like, oh, my God, 4 was awful.

Adam: We'll check back in. Okay. What about screen time? Good, bad, or are you indifferent?

George: We don't allow screen time. They get to watch number blocks and alpha blocks for about 10 minutes a day.

Adam: Yeah, I feel like I have to ask you this next question because you founded an online car reselling company. Do you have a point of view on minivans?

George: Well, I think if you have more than 2 kids, 100%, yeah, positive, right? We are fortunate 2 kids we can do with a regular car. But, but, you know, I can understand why you need all the space now, which I never understood before, because even like a three day relocation is still a relocation with kids.

Adam: Gotta find somewhere to put all those books.

George: Book and all this other stuff. It's like too much.

Adam: Yep. Speaking of which, what is the most absurd thing that your kid has ever asked you to buy for them?

George: So we went to Hawaii for July 4th week and they really loved it. And they now kind of regularly say, can we move to Hawaii? Can we move to Hawaii? And so at one point, one of them said, can we buy a new house in Hawaii? And we're like, well, okay, maybe a little bit too early to be making this demand and no realization of, you know, where money comes from, but its ok.

Adam: Yep. That's a good one. What was the most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

George: Cocomelon is just absolutely awful. I mean, I think any parent…

Adam: I've heard! You're not the first to say this about Cocomelon.

George: Awful. It's absolutely awful. So... And it's very addictive. Like, somehow

it's designed to addict them to it. So...when we discovered alpha blocks and number blocks, which are, like, amazing shows, actually.

They really do teach a lot of really good content. Getting off Cocomelon, et cetera, was was quite good,

Adam: Have you ever had a traumatic experience assembling a children's toy or piece of furniture?

George: So my husband does most of the furniture, fortunately, and he does almost all the toys because I just am very incompetent when it comes to that.

Adam: So you're avoiding it as it means to an end. I love that.

George: To not have a traumatic experience.

Adam: Yes. How many hours of sleep do you actually get with two almost

four year olds?

George: I end up sleeping somewhere between five and a half and six and a half hours. I need to do more but you know, if I don't do at least six, I tend to be very tired.

Adam: Okay. And finally, how many times have you said, go ask your father to one of the kids this week?

George: I don't say go ask your father. I say go ask, daddy. I'm Dada and he's daddy, but, uh, a lot because whenever I, like, don't want to be the one who has to give a negative answer, I kind of send it over there. So,

Adam: It comes back to Robert, the enforcer of the rules. I love it. I love it.

George: Well, he also knows better because, like, I don't actually know what all the rules are. So sometimes…

Adam: That's a great, it's a great point. George, last question for you. If somebody wants to kind of follow along on your journey. Follow along what you're doing at Grindr or just support you in any way. What's the best way for them to do that?

George: You know, LinkedIn is probably the best because I don't, I don't do a lot of social media and I don't use, Twitter almost at all. But, LinkedIn, I do a lot of so that's probably where I would send it.

Adam: All right. I will make sure to direct people to your LinkedIn in the show notes. George, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been really great and an eyeopening conversation for me. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

George: Thanks for having me appreciate it.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with George Arison. If you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe, share, and leave me a review. It'll help other people find this podcast. Startup Dad is a Fishman AF production with editing support from Tommy Heron. You can stay up to date on all my other thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening.