Surviving Cancer, Stepping Back From The Workforce And Then Working For Your CEO Spouse | Eric and Sara Mauskopf (parents of 3, Winnie, Google, YouTube)

StartupDad_Sara&EricMauskopf-V1

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Eric: Sarah and I had a pretty important conversation around one of us stepping away. And to Sarah's credit, she kind of broached it and she left it open ended. Like one of us has to step away. 

Sara: And it's not going to be me.

Adam: Ha

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 today's episode, I sat down with Eric and Sarah Mauskopf. Sarah is the co-founder and CEO of Winnie, a platform that helps parents find much needed childcare and helps childcare providers find parents and run their business.

Eric is on the product team at Winnie, having returned to the workforce after several years caring for their three kids. Both Eric and Sarah have worked in tech for decades and met each other at Google. In our conversation, we discuss what it was like for Eric to be diagnosed with cancer when their eldest daughter was only nine months old.

What it took for Eric and Sarah to battle cancer together and how you handle family planning in a situation like that. We talked about Eric's decision to step back from the workforce and be the primary caregiver for their three children after over a decade at YouTube and Google. And the decision three years later to go back to the workforce, this time working at his wife's company.

We covered a lot of ground in this episode and had a unique conversation that taught me a lot about battling through adversity. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Adam: I would like to welcome Eric and Sarah Moskoff to the Startup Dad program. It is a pleasure to have both of you here today. Thank you for joining me in a rare couples edition of startup dad.

Eric: Thanks for having us.

Sara: My first dad podcast. So I'm very excited.

Eric: Mine as well.

Adam: This is why I do this. Because there are not very many dad podcasts out there. Well, let's jump right in. I'm very curious to hear more about your background. So both of you currently work in tech. Has that been a thing for your whole adult lives? Tell me a little bit about your origin story in the professional world.

Sara: Well, Eric's story starts way before mine. Cause he's, you know, my elder which I love to make fun of him for. But yeah, I think both of us started our careers in tech. I actually started working at Google right out of college. And that's where I met Eric, but Eric had been in the workforce for a couple of startups as a software engineer prior to joining Google.

So he was like the, you know, older, more successful guy. But we ended up meeting at Google and we were both in a role that was,  at the time, a cross between a product manager and sales. I don't even know if the organization still exists within Google because it was a little bit redundant, but it was like a job for people that, you know, had a technical background.

Adam: All right. And Eric, you're the elder Statesman. What were you doing before you got to Google?

Eric: If I go to the way back time machine, my first job getting paid for anything when I was 16 years old was being a golf caddy. At a country club in New Jersey.

Adam: Great job

Eric: And got to meet Phil Sims and some of the different sports celebrities. It was all kind of downhill from there. Pivoted to tech, ended up coming out to Silicon Valley in 2001.

Like Sarah mentioned, working for a couple startups as a software engineer my first five years. And got poached by Google. And I think a couple weeks into my job on the Google video team, Eric Schmidt pulled us into a room and said, We bought this company. It's called YouTube. You're all going to San Bruno.

It was just kind of a rocket ship from there. Helping this 75 person startup that just got bought by one of the biggest tech companies go from zero to where it is today. And in the process uh, met the love of my life.

Adam: All right. That's a wonderful story. Yeah. I think that YouTube acquisition is probably going to go down as one of the biggest acquisitions, best acquisitions of all time. So, cool that you got to work on it at such an early stage. So you mentioned New Jersey which most people don't go to by choice.

I can say this as someone who is also married to someone who is from New Jersey. So. Tell me, both of you, about life growing up. I think you're both from the East Coast, if I'm not mistaken, but where are you from originally? What was family life like growing up?

Sara: Well, I'm from the better state of Pennsylvania from the Philadelphia area and yeah I grew up right outside of Philadelphia, went to Lower Marion High School, same high school as Kobe Bryant, still the most famous thing I'll ever do. And I had a good life! I can't say I, I like, struggled from like, you know, homelessness and pulled myself up from the bootstraps I had and have great parents and they cared a lot about me.

And I, you know, hoped to be like even a quarter as, as good as them as parents to my kids. But I feel like, you know. I can't complain about anything in my childhood especially compared to what kids these days have to deal with, which is like a billion times worse. Yeah, and I think, you know, Eric can speak about his childhood, but I think he had, you know, similarly to really loving, nurturing parents and you know, kind of grew up in an environment that was conducive to him, you know, getting to where he's at today.

Adam: Yeah. So, Eric, tell me about your family growing up.

Eric: I grew up in a small Jewish family in North New Jersey, which is an important distinction. If you know people from New Jersey, and I had a younger sister who was my playmate growing up four years younger than me and as a family, I'd say one of the more memorable things was going on ski trips all over New England.

My parents had a pretty strong work ethic. Which I think was formative, and some traits I ended up developing. But they also had an emphasis on life balance. like, for example, I remember they had date nights and we'd have a babysitter and that was something I remember and I think instilled in me when I became a parent kind of that work life balance being something that's important.

I also saw they had hobbies like playing golf or doing yoga. As a kid, I played way too many video games instead of reading books.

Adam: same.

Eric: I was into puzzles of every kind. Eventually discovered programming my junior year of high school. More as a way to get out of Spanish but ended up loving it and pursuing that for my career.

Adam: Awesome. So you mentioned, both of you have pretty like sort of stable family life growing up. What did your parents do for work? What were their careers like?

Sara: So, my dad was, still is, a lawyer. If you need a trust…

Adam: I’m married to one.

Sara: a will, any estate planning needs, he can help you out. My mom, actually, she was a stay at home mom for, like, when I was growing up. And then when I was in middle school, I think, she went back to school and got a master's in library science and then became a librarian.

So, basically, when I was going to high school, she was going to high school working in a high school library. My high school library for my high school and then she got a different job when I left. But you know, I think that was actually really inspiring for me. Like I saw that your career and your learning never end.

I saw that she, like, wanted better for herself and her family and, like, wanted to, you know, provide an income and have a life outside of just raising kids. And I think that was also, like, you know, now looking at the time, I was like, you know, what is she doing? She's going to classes at night. This is annoying.

Like, I don't have a driver. But now looking back on it, I feel like that was formative for me, seeing that, you know, I wasn't everything, I wasn't the total center of her universe, she had a life outside of me, like Eric said, and kind of saw her invest in herself and her career.

Adam: That's awesome. And then I didn't ask you this, Sarah, but do you have any siblings?

Sara: Oh, yes you know, not important whatsoever, uh no, I have a younger brother.

Eric: So competitive!

Adam: Don't worry. He won't listen to this. I'm sure.

Sara: Who uh, ironically is also named Eric. So.

Adam: Okay.

Sara: Source of confusion for my parents.

Adam: There you go. And Eric, what about your parents? What did they do? Did they work outside the home? Do you also have an estate trust and will father or no?

Eric: No, my. Parents did both work outside the home. My dad ended up working for Prudential his entire career, all of 38 years, and my mom had a MBA and a math degree and she stepped away from working when I was born for a few years and then ended up going back to work part time in an area that was more her passion.

She was working for a chiropractor part time for a number of years, but kind of in the area of holistic medicine and research.

Adam: That's great. You both have some very accomplished parents. This is nice. Do you get a lot of advice on like your will or your estate or anything like that from your dad, Sarah,

Sara: I actually ask him for like a ton of legal advice for Winnie, my company, because he's free. And, like, I'll just ask him like, can you review this contract? And he's like, Sarah, like, I don't do this. But I'm like, no, you can do it. Like, it's fine. Like, you know, I'll take your work over, like, paying, you know, my lawyer $500 an hour.

So yeah, I have him do, like, all our legal work, like, doesn't matter what domain it's in, he's doing it.

Adam: That's amazing. You figure like risk/reward, right? Free work from dad, probably still better at 80 percent than, you know.

Sara: Yeah, I mean, like, we have, like, a really elite law firm that does, like, all our official paperwork and fundraising, but, like, the small things, it's really nice to have, like, an attorney on call that is free.

Adam: Okay. Well, we're going to come back to this a little bit later, but you mentioned Sarah, your company. So you are the co-founder and CEO of Winnie which I will introduce separately from this and Eric, you now work there. Is that right?

Eric: That's right. A year and a half in.

Adam: A year and a half in. Okay, cool. Well, we're going to hold onto that thought and come back to it because I want to go all the way back to this fateful meeting at Google.

So how did the two of you come together? Were you working on the same project, just bumped into each other at one of the million of cafeterias one day?

Sara: I think the first time we really hung out in a non-work context was actually watching the Phillies in the World Series in, I guess it was 2008. They won the World Series that year. But that was kind of when I started to get to know Eric as like a friend and it actually took a while until we started dating.

But I feel like that was very memorable, kind of, you know, I was also very excited about the Phillies. So he had good timing. If they would have lost, I don't know, I would have been as happy to meet him, but I kind of felt like, oh my god, he's the guy that's gonna. You know, break the Philly sports curse and he has, you know, then the Eagles won a Super Bowl.

It's just, it's been good.

Adam: Now I know the underlying reason why the two of you are really together.

Adam: This is amazing.

Eric: It all comes back to Philadelphia sports.

Adam: But at least Eric, you got like a taste of what life was going to be like early on. Right.

Eric: That's right. Yeah, it's not too much different from that now. Instead of a bar, it's our living room, but the Phillies are still on.

Adam: Yeah, a little harder to take the kids to a bar these days, but I'm there too. So speaking of which it's a good transition. You have three kids if I'm not mistaken. So tell me a little bit about your kids. How old are they? What are their names? What's something fun about them?

Sara: The funny thing is if you ask, like, Eric about our kids, like, how many we have and their ages, he always starts from our youngest and works up. And I always say the oldest and work down. So we have an eight, five, and three year old. Eight year old is Bryn. She's a girl. Five year old is Aubrey. She's also a girl.

And the three year old is Ryan. He is a boy.

 But Eric will tell in reverse.

Adam: Yeah, why do you tell it in reverse, Eric? Is that because you get boy first? Or is that just some other quirk?

Eric: I feel like the oldest child gets the most attention and just deserves to be more balanced.

Adam: I love that.

Sara: I feel like I want to, whenever I say like the three year old, people are like, oh my God, you're in the thick of it. That's so stressful. But if I'm like, I have an eight year old, they're like, okay, awesome. Like that sounds fun. And like, I hate like the reactions of like, oh my God, it must be so hard.

You're so in the thick of it. Like, it's just like, it stresses me out more. Cause I'm like, it's not that bad. So I always start with like eight and then that's like what they hear. That's what they take away. I'm like, Oh yeah. And I have a little guy too. He's three, but like, it's really. It's really not that bad and I do feel like we've reached kind of a new, I'm sure it gets even better with your age kids, but like it does feel like we've reached sort of a new phase having two of our kids like in elementary school and pretty like self sufficient and our three year old is like He is not that bad.

He's pretty mature for a three and a half year old. So I, I don't, I just don't like to like hear those like, oh my God, you have your hands full kind of reactions.

Adam: And I don't really know what people are hoping that they accomplish with that statement like maybe some empathy or something

Sara: I mean, I say it to other people, so like I'm just as bad. I'm just as guilty, but I really feel like it was, oh my God, how do you do it? And now it's like, okay, it's actually manageable. It's a lot of logistics and pretty stressful at times, but like it is possible if I can like run a multi million dollar company, I can manage three kids.

Adam: Yeah, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But I wanted to ask about the decision to start a family for you two. So this is something I love to ask everybody who's on the show, and I'm just curious to hear about that. So, you obviously, you met each other, got married, and at some point there was a conversation about having kids, starting a family.

Did you, what was that conversation like, or that sort of decision making process?

Eric: I mean, from my point of view, I feel like our values were always aligned around wanting to have a family. Even if there was not a timeline from the beginning. So for me, the process was waiting for Sarah to be excited about that. I think you were 26 or so when we got married. So giving her the time to, to feel like it was right for her.

I wasn't in a rush and I knew that it was gonna be best when we were both ready.

Adam: Awesome. And Sarah how long did it take you to come around?

Sara: So I was 24 when we started dating and Eric is, I guess, six and a half years older than me. So I think it was like a lot of his friends, even when we started dating, like already had kids or it was like on their radar if his friend's wives were like the same age, like in their early 30s. Whereas for me, like 24, it's just not even, wasn't even on my radar, especially living in the Bay Area.

Like no one has kids in their 20s here. So then, yeah, we got married when I was 26 and it was never a question, would I have kids one day? But it just still wasn't, like, on my radar as a thing we were going to do right away. And Eric, like, wasn't in any rush either, it seemed. But I think, like, when I turned 29, is like, it, all of a sudden, I was like, oh my god.

I have to have kids. I literally had a list of goals that I created, I guess, when I graduated college. And one of them was, like, have a baby by 30. So I don't know why, it just was like, oh my god, like it was not at all on my radar and then suddenly it was like, oh my god, like, I can't believe I'm not pregnant yet, how is this taking so long? It's like a month, but yeah, so when I was 30, Bryn was born, got pregnant when I was 29, yeah.

Adam: Check that box from the list. Way to go. And did the two of you always know three kids was the ideal?

Eric: No, absolutely not.

Sara: Yeah.

Eric: We’re both from families with just two kids. So I felt like I was the one pushing for it. Our second child was not even a year old. And like Sarah mentioned, I'm six and a half years older than her, my dad was significantly older than me, I think he was 43 when I was born and I saw when I got older, he wasn't able to keep up as much, and I didn't want to be in the same position. And even though I didn't know I always wanted to have three kids, I knew I wanted to have a bigger family. I didn't have a lot of extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles growing up.

 And I just felt like that was something I wanted for myself and my kids.

Adam: Yeah. That's great. And then I imagine, imagine there's some chaos, but probably all of the kids are, you know, somewhat good to each other at various points of the day.

Sara: Yeah. Any two of them always get along really well, but there's always one that is not happy and it always changes. Yeah, I also think we were a little bit tricked because our daughter, our second daughter was a really easy baby and it, you know, it was such a transition going from zero to one kid.

Like, I still feel like that's the hardest transition and we had such a hard time with it too. Like, you know, then Eric had cancer. It was just such a hard first year and second year, and I definitely didn't just take to motherhood. It was like, so I just feel like that transition was so hard that when we then had our second daughter, it just felt like, oh my god, this is like, not that much hard, like this was so easy compared to the first one where like, he's dying, I'm depressed, like everything's a mess.

Then the second one was like, oh wow, it's like cute little baby and she just is so easy and we don't even have to worry about her. And life just kind of continued on the same track. And we didn't wait very long to have that third. Like our second and third are less than two years apart.

So, we were kind of fooled by like, okay, this was really easy. What's one more? Like we might as well. It's now or never. Eric's getting older. Like we want to do it now. And we were like completely fooled, but now it's great. And I'm happy we did it, but it was definitely not as easy as I thought it was gonna be.

Adam: Yeah. You're a little bit out of the fog of war now, I guess. So this is good. So you mentioned something, Sarah. You mentioned Eric had cancer. You just sort of like casually dropped that one in there, which is a topic that I wanted to talk about. And this is a good point, I think, to talk about it.

So Eric, you got cancer at a pretty young age when you had a very young daughter. So I guess tell me about that whole experience and I'm sure, I mean, obviously it wasn't yours alone, Sara you have a very big hand in navigating that, but Eric, I'm just sort of curious, like, what was it like , when you found out and how did that all go down?

Eric: Yeah, I think the headline is that it was a dismembering experience for me. looking back, I feel like it robbed me of many things. Like I used to have an endless amount of energy when I looked at people around the room. As well as just kind of a blissful ignorance of how fragile life can be. And so I think there's definitely a silver lining.

Like, some people say people that had cancer now have like a superpower in that they really understand the value of every moment. In their life and make the most of it as a result. And that has been the case for me as well. But it was really hard to accept at the time. And really happy that I got introduced to a therapist in the middle of my treatment because that really helped me think about how to get through each day mentally.

Adam: Yeah. Wow. And Sarah, what was it like? I mean, how old was Bryn when you found out that Eric had cancer?

Sara: Bryn was less than a year old, I feel like around nine months old. But he was actually sick. Like, I think starting around when she was six months old. And it took like three months of not knowing what was wrong with him and it just kept getting worse and worse. And there was like more and more doctors that didn't know and gave him different antibiotics.

And so it was not like, okay, he was living his life fine. And then the next day he had cancer. Like the diagnosis felt like that, but it was already like really impacting our lives because we didn't know what was wrong with him. And like it was starting to become like, okay, I need to like, take time to focus on this because it's like trying to navigate the medical system when someone's getting sicker and you don't know what's wrong with them, like, is a full time job.

So yeah, I mean, like, Eric always jokes with me, like, I shouldn't get to talk about how hard it was. And I agree, like, it wasn't anywhere near as hard for me. I did not have cancer but I do feel like I had the same realization about life and how fragile it is.

And also, like, I get to reap some of those same benefits of, like, now, really nothing phases me. We've had so many ups and downs with Winnie, ups and downs with our kids. And like all of them feel really minor. Like even COVID was like, okay, so we have to be locked in our house for two years and like, that's fine. It just, it didn't have the same. Like, I think a lot of people with COVID, it was like the first time their life was really disrupted. And I was like, oh, this is kind of nice. Like. Not only am I suffering, but everyone around me is, like, I'm not alone this time. Like, we get to do it with everyone.

Adam: A whole planet.

Sara: Yeah, because I kind of felt like with cancer, it was like our lives, like, stopped.

Like, we had to, like, just focus on this one thing, which was getting Eric better. And like everyone else got to go on with their life and do things normally. And we had like a year of just like hell. And you know, a lot of people have it much worse and like have many years and don't make the recovery that Eric has so, you know, I think we're really lucky, but it was also like a really shitty year.

Adam: Yeah, I can imagine if somebody's listening to this who maybe is going through a similar thing where they've just gotten some serious diagnosis or maybe they have a loved one that has cancer. Maybe it's a spouse or something like that. When you look back on this and obviously Eric you emerged successfully on the other side, but like what you had a young kid, you probably felt like you weren't done having a family, like what was the sort of family planning or that kind of process like to, you know, I guess, prepare for the future.

What do you do when that happens? And you're like. Not done having a family yet.

Eric: Yeah, like Sarah mentioned she really took over the reins even before I was officially diagnosed. And one of the best things and decisions she ever made was, you know, finding out that it's important to freeze your sperm, if you're a guy, before you go through chemotherapy. Which surprisingly, even at an institution like UCSF, apparently isn't something that is information that is volunteered unless you ask about it.

Adam: Interesting.

Eric: Um, And, you know, when you sign the paperwork to have chemo, it's you know, a lot of fine print. But, you know, you're saying they're not responsible for 50-50. You'll probably be fine. Well, when we tried to have our second child, turned out my sperm count was basically zero. Which was a shock to me based on how the doctors had prepared me.

And so, thank God, Sarah had taken the initiative because otherwise we couldn't have followed through on our family plan.

Adam: Yeah. I imagine, Sarah, you were all over the research. I could just think

about what my wife would do in that situation.

Sara: I was really focused on like Eric just getting treatment and I really wasn't thinking about like having more kids. I mean, I was overwhelmed with the one I had. It was actually like a friend who suggested it to me. And then kind of gave me the information of like, here's the clinic at UCSF, you can actually just call them cause it's actually like, if you're going through fertility struggles it can be very challenging to get an appointment can take many months.

But if you are about to go through cancer treatment, like any fertility clinic will fast track you. Which is an important thing to know, because I was kind of overwhelmed by like, well, how am I even going to get in and get an appointment? Because he was set to start chemo immediately, like, there was no… sometimes with other forms of cancer, they need to do surgery first or other treatments.

Like, this was not the case here. So I was just, it's too logistically overwhelming for me to figure out. I need to just get the treatment as soon as possible. He needs to live and, like, all this other stuff is not important. But it was actually a friend who, like... had done it at UCSF and put me in touch and we got fast tracked.

It was literally the next day, in time for his chemo to start. And the other thing is like, you know, we were really fortunate that we could just pay for it. There are resources, especially if you have cancer to pay for this kind of treatment, but I also, like, didn't have the time or energy or mental brain space to figure that out. So we just paid for it.

It can be a huge expense and a lot of people don't have the resources to just fork that over.

Adam: Sure. Yeah. What sort of family support did you all have to rely on when this was going on? Was this a thing where like you kind of rallied the troops and everyone like flew out to help? Because this seems to me and I've never been in this situation but entirely overwhelming like a nine month old kid husband with cancer like forget about it.

I would just be in a dark room all day. So yeah. What did you have to do to kind of make it all work to navigate through this?

Sara: Yeah, it was really crazy. So, the whole diagnosis came because Eric had three months of being sick and finally they said, we're going to take out his tonsils. We're going to do a tonsillectomy because we think he has tonsillitis. And that's been causing it all even though we didn't know this before. So they scheduled him for tonsillectomy, which is, it's like an outpatient procedure.

Adam: I’ve had it!

 Sara: Yeah. Okay. So did you have it as an adult or as a kid?

Adam: I had it at the end of my senior year of high school before Iwent to college. My dad is an ears, nose and throat surgeon.

Sara: oh, okay.

Adam: So

Sara: So we needed your dad when Eric was uh, so anyway, getting your tonsils out as an adult is actually like worse than as a kid. And I was like, he's going to be fine. But my mom was like, you know what? I'm going to fly out and just be there in case. He's not fine. So she flew out and one, that was really good because after the procedure, he's like started bleeding and he needed to go back for emergency surgery.

He was just coughing up blood. Really terrifying.

Adam: yeah.

Eric: The timing was pretty bad too. I think I received a note, not a phone call or a personal email, but like a note from the pathology department of Sutter Health that there were indications of lymphoma in my pathology from the tonsillectomy. And I was like, what is lymphoma? And then, I mean, we looked it up and we're just both in tears.

Sarah called my mom and told her. And a few hours later, I was brushing my teeth getting ready to go to bed and the sutures opened up.

Adam: Oh that is rough.

Sara: Yeah. So, anyway, it was good my mom was there because he had to get rushed to the ER and I had this baby at home. And so, that was the timing when we found out he actually had cancer and she just never left. Like she, she was working at the time. Cause like I said, when I went to high school is when she was starting her career.

So she was still like trying to establish herself. And she took like a leave from her job for a little bit to be out with us. And then actually my aunt, who's my mom's twin sister took over for part of it when my mom like used up all her leave and had to go back to work. But yeah, we would not have survived um, when you have a cancer patient, like, you know, you need a full time caregiver for that person and a baby also needs a full time caregiver. So, like, there were not enough caregivers without another adult living with us. And we even had a nanny, but, like, that wasn't that's just childcare during the day.

That's not a full time caregiver when I had to rush Eric to the ER. Multiple times, you know, in the middle of the night throughout his cancer treatment. It's actually impossible. So that's another thing I always tell people who, you know, just received a cancer diagnosis. Assemble all your help and then add more because like, you're not even gonna realize the amount of help that you need.

Like, you as the patient may need to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night. And so, like, you need a full time caregiver just for you. And then any children you have also require a caregiver, if you're just a two parent household, like, the math doesn't work. So, you need to find someone else.

You need to find another family member.

Adam: Yeah. Well, I don't want to say a great situation, but great that you could have that family support and some people who would get on an airplane and come out on a moment's notice. So that's pretty great. And a recovery from you, Eric. So that’s also great.

Eric: I am forever grateful. This is the best case scenario. So it's not an easy situation to deal with.

Adam: No kidding.

So I wanted to move on to a different topic and that is, so Eric, you started to get sick when Bryn was maybe what, six months old or something like that? Somewhere around that. When Bryn was born, or even before she was born, I'm curious to hear about what the earliest memory you have of becoming a father is.

Eric: Earliest memory was still looking at the imaging from Sarah's like first trimester scan and I just teared up. It was like one of the happiest I've ever been in my life. It's when it truly hit me that I was going to be a father and really validated a lot of feelings I had. Throughout my life and felt like, wow, I really have done something that I really wanted to achieve.

Adam: Wow, that's special. That's really nice to hear.

Eric: And then the next most memorable, I would say, is holding my daughter Bryn in the delivery room, you know, minutes after she was born.

Adam: Wow. And so, the other thing that I wanted to ask you about is... That you had actually stepped back from the workforce after, is it after your second kid was born? Or was…

Sara:Yeah.

Adam: Yeah, and that was so that Sarah, I imagine so that Sarah could lean in more and be CEO and co-founder of a company, which is an incredible amount of work along with parenting.

And so I'm curious. To hear a little bit about. What that conversation was like. I don't talk to a lot of dads on this show, unfortunately, who have made that decision at some point, where they've said, Hey, I'm gonna take a step back.

It has happened in some of these conversations, but I'm just curious to hear about, like, what that conversation was like with the two of you, and how did you come to that conclusion?

Eric: Yeah. So we had at the time uh, issue with our nanny, the only nanny we had ever had for our daughter and we had to let her go and the nature of the reason we had to let her go made us feel like we didn't want to trust someone outside of our immediate family or outside of our, you know, close family to, you know, raise our kids at least for a period of time until we could kind of process the issues we had with our nanny.

And I had reached a point in my career where I felt like I had achieved a lot of everything I wanted to achieve. I ended up spending 12 years at YouTube and Google and building out this new product area for growing users in emerging markets. And, you know, it was working directly with Susan Wojcicki, the CEO at the time.

And you know, the kinds of conversations I was in on a daily basis was just exceeding everything I ever imagined. And also I ran into some challenges at work that you know, were really pressing on my ability to be present with my kids, maintain the healthy lifestyle. I was traveling all over the world, like wasn't really the right fit for a family person or family man.

And so Sarah and I had a pretty important conversation around one of us stepping away. And to Sarah's credit, you know, she kind of broached it and she left it open ended. Like one of us has to step away. And

Sara: And it's not going to be me.

Adam: One of us has to step away, and that one of us is also running a company.

Eric: So this was a little over 2 years into the founding of Winnie, if I recall correctly. This was around the spring of 2018. And I was eager to take some time away and be more present with myself and my family on a daily basis. And so it was like the right timing but it still took, like, a lot of mental effort on my part to accept walking away from a lot of the accomplishments and status that I had YouTube and Google and the teams that I built there but at the end of the day, I realized it was the right thing to do for myself, my marriage, and my family and I don't regret it a day.

Adam: That's amazing. I'm gonna get a little meta here. What do you think it is about that decision that is so hard for men to make?

Eric: In general, I think man's identity and I don't want to just isolate to men, but that's how the question was framed. Ideally I'd frame it as like driven successful people, but you know, stereotypically a man's identity is wrapped up in their professional success and I think it's as simple as that.

Sara: I have another take.

I think it's actually really isolating. I think that's actually worse than the identity piece. And then, you know, especially with COVID, but let's put COVID aside for a second. I think for a lot of men who take a break from the paid workforce, they really do it with like a, Oh, I'm just taking a break for a year.

And so there's just not a lot of stay at home dads. And the stay at home moms are very clique-y with each other. And I don't know that it's, like, you know, they're very nice people, but I think they also just don't feel comfortable, like, texting a man. You know, I see the conversations I have with other moms now about my kids, and it's like, would I feel comfortable texting their husband?

Like, probably not, that would be weird, you know. They might find that inappropriate, so I don't text the dads unless the wife is on the thread. The exception of the one, like, single dad that my daughter is friends with, the daughter. But I feel like that's part of the issue is like you just don't have a friend group.

Like the nannies are friends with the other nannies, so like the nanny kids are friends. And then the moms and stay at home moms are like the moms with part time jobs, they're all friends. And then there's like the working moms group.

But the dads, like they're not stay at home dads and so you just don't have that community and it can be really isolating.

And so I think ultimately, like, that was the real reason that, like, Eric wanted to re enter the workforce, or part of the reason is like, there's just not that community so even though he was comfortable with it, and like, you know, he did that work to be like, it's okay that I'm no longer the breadwinner for this period of time, it's hard to do a job when you have no, no support.

Eric: Yeah, I think that's also true, but you might be giving men too much credit to say that they're aware of that before they make the decision to step away. I think in my case, at least that's something I didn't realize until I'd already made the decision and learned the hard way.

Sara: Right, right. I think that was maybe not a factor in the decision, but a factor in like, you know, why after three years or however long it was, like, you decided to come back.

Eric: I didn't grow up imagining myself being a stay at home parent. That was never something that entered my mind. Which might be different just because of what girls are exposed to contextually growing up.

Sara: But I think, like, I think he actually enjoyed being a stay at home parent. Like, I think he would have done it for longer. Except that, like, once... It started being beyond, like, the infant classes, there was a lack of community, there's a lack of, like, camaraderie, and I think stay at home parents or, you know, part time working parents, they have, like, co workers, it's the other stay at home parents, and, like, if you don't have that, whether it's from your job as a parent or from your job at work or from a combination of both It's just really hard to continue.

And I think now you know, it's also possibly easier to form connections with other parents having a job and career like that's my guess, there's just more to talk about more areas of commonality and interest.

Adam: Yeah. So I wanted to talk about the transition back to work, not only back to the workforce, but also working together, the two of you at the same company which is sort of doubly interesting to me. And so I'm curious, Eric, you mentioned you've been back for like a year and a half now, your son was like about two or a little bit under two or so when that decision was made. So what was that conversation like to say like, one, I need to go back or I want to go back and then also. About working together.

How did that come about?

Eric: I was resistant to going back when Sarah brought it up probably six months before I decided I really wanted to go back. I think I was just dead set on doing everything I could for my family. Helping raise the kids so Sarah could focus on work. And going back to something I said earlier I think that it's important to be present as a parent.

And I no longer felt like I could be present because I wasn't getting everything I needed mentally and emotionally just from focusing on the kids. It had been three and a half years and ended up being four years before I reentered the workforce. And my brain was just stagnating after, you know, having had a 17 year career.

I no longer really knew who I was anymore. It was kind of confusing. And so Sarah planted the seed and then like many things I decide to do, as soon as I decide I want to do it I just go all in. And so when I shared with Sarah, I was really eager to go back to work. Her first idea was come work for Winnie.

Sara: Always be recruiting.

Eric: Day one meeting Sarah, like she always wanted to work together might've even had the idea of like us doing a startup together a couple of times. Which I don't think I latched on to in the beginning. But yeah, I went back part time initially and full time this past September.

Adam: Awesome. Sarah, what was the interview process like for hiring Eric to come work at Winnie?

Sara: Yeah, so he doesn't report to me and I actually didn't interview him. Like it was an independent…

Eric: There might be more layers than when I was at Google.

Adam: We're separating as much as possible.

Sara: There was a lot of org structure stuff, but like, it was really important, like to the team that he was interviewed. Like I knew he was amazing. I was like, guys, you don't need to interview him.

Like he's so good. But anyway the team was like very skeptical. And I was like, okay, like, do your interview process. I'm not going to be part of it. Like, you're all gonna make a decision. Give the normal interview process and like people were really skeptical before meeting him and then literally after like the one round of interviews people were like, oh my God He's amazing.

Like I was so skeptical like I didn't know how it would work and like then we talked to him and like, we have to hire him immediately. So, I mean, I think that's just a good lesson. Like, you know, people will form judgments and opinions and often they just need to give these ideas a chance. I knew we could work really well together and that it wouldn't be a problem and it would be a huge asset to Winnie.

I think people were concerned that like, I would have more influence. I was like, I already have all the influence guys. Like I'm the CEO, like, I don't know, like that. I need to have more influence, but okay. So I don't know what people were concerned about, but after meeting Eric and after interviewing him, like all those concerns went away.

 So that, that was really good as far as like. Like when I started planting the seed in Eric's head that he needed to work, like I saw that he was like doing a lot of projects and spending a lot of time on things that I was like, okay, this is like excessive. Like he had become one of those pandemic bakers and like taken it to like new extremes. Every day there would be like new baked goods and like bought all the professional baking equipment. And you know, he built a bunch of stuff in our house, like baby banisters for like the kids to use that were different from the regular.

Adam: Yeah.

Sara: Staircase thing. Like put in like a heating cooling system and like I had never seen this guy do anything handy in his life and suddenly he's like basically a general contractor Like I don't it just came out of nowhere Like all these new skills and talents and I was like, this is really cool. Like, I love having a professional baker and, you know, professional handyman and all that stuff.

But like, this is not the best use of his brain and skill set.

Adam: It was secretly a cry for help, Eric. 

Eric: I wasn't reading additional parenting books or creating you know, resources for parents. I was focused on other things.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So, okay. I wanted to ask about, the two of you have taken your kids and some pretty interesting adventures. And again, I only know this. Thank you, Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it. but I would, suggest that you've taken your kids to a lot of places that most parents would be pretty anxious about taking their kids.

Professional sporting events, World Series. You know, business trips, things like that. And so I guess my first question is how do you do it? You know, I would be so terrified that my kids would get bored after one inning and be like, I'm going to go home. And I would say, well, I just spent a thousand dollars on these tickets, you know, and I'm sure that happens, right?

Sara: That did happen by the way.

Adam: Yeah,

Sara: That happened and I spent, I spent more than $1,000 on the tickets and airfare.

Adam: So yeah. So I guess like how do you do it? Why is it important to you in the first place? I think to take your kids on these things and then yeah, how do you how do you make that work without, I guess, getting frustrated when the kids want to go to the bathroom a hundred times or want to leave after the second inning or whatever?

How do you navigate that stuff?

Sara: No, I do get very frustrated. Like, are you serious? Like, we're watching this game. Shoved a bunch of cotton candy in their face. I don't know that we're that adventurous. I think part of it is... Like the desire to, like, do things we enjoy doing. And, you know, with the sports and like taking my girls to the World Series and like taking them to, you know, to Giants games, Warriors games.

Like it's because we're really interested in that. And I think, you know, parenting doesn't just have to be like. You suffer through all the stuff that your kids want to do. Like we do a lot for our kids and a lot of things that they want to do that we don't necessarily want to do. And I think, you know, we've found ways to make these things enjoyable for them, too, so that it's not, like, we're not taking them to, like, miserable places.

A baseball game is, like, a reasonable thing for a kid to learn to enjoy. But yeah, I feel like you know, it all boils down to childcare and like, if we don't, you know, include our kids in some of these activities, we wouldn't be able to do it as much. Because it is really hard to find childcare.

So it's, in many cases, like, only possible to do things that we want to do by involving our kids.

Adam: And Eric, how many of these adventures have you been on?

Eric: I've been on a number of them. I think the earliest one I can remember is taking our daughter, Bryn, when she was, what, two years old to uh, Eagles game in Seattle.

Sara: Oh yeah, well, Seahawks game where they played the Eagles.

Eric: We lasted maybe one quarter of football after um,

Sara: But we went on the field before

Eric: Beginning of the game, which was nice. Yeah.

Sara: We got a lot of photos on the field.

Adam: That's cool.

Sara: It was very loud.

Eric: But I would just acknowledge what Sarah said that I think it's important to do things that everyone in the family can enjoy, and it's important for the parents to enjoy what they're doing because that puts them in the right state of mind to be most present and engaging with their kids. You can just always do what the kid wants to do, but I don't know. I'm a very patient guy, but eventually it wears on me too.

Sara: Like, we can only go to like jumpy, bouncy houses like so many times before we can't take it anymore.

Adam: Yes. I agree. I agree. And you've probably been to them all many times with three kids, birthday parties and all of the sorts. So what has been the most fun? Of these kind of like sporting adventures or concerts or things where you've taken one or more of your kids, which ones like really sticks in your mind as like, God, that was super memorable either because it was terrible or because it was wonderful.

Sara: I mean, I have really good memories of taking my two daughters to the world series and Eric and Ryan stayed at home and this was not this past World Series, but the one before that the Phillies were actually in.

Adam: Yes. I'm sorry for your loss.

Sara: Yes, but they won the game that we attended in Houston. And I just, it's always fun.

Like they, they say when you have three kids, like two kids is like no kids. So anytime I'm with like less than all three and I get, you know, ideal is one on one, but I'll take two on one. It's just, you see a whole different side of them and I felt like taking that solo trip or like that, you know, I was the only parent, like they definitely, it was a bonding experience for us.

Like I see my older one like really help out with the younger one. I see the younger one like step up and kind of hang with us. So I really enjoy opportunities that are like, you know, I love family time, but like it's nice to have opportunities that are partial family experiences with just one kid or two kids.

Adam: Yeah. What about you, Eric? You didn't go to the World Series, but

Eric: I did not make it to the world series, but more recently we went on a business trip with Sarah to of all places Hawaii. So, Sarah was occupied for the majority of the day and I got to spend that with the kids in a new environment, which I think always brings out memorable experiences and thankfully, you know, I had the help of a babysitter that worked with the hotel just to be able to help with the kids.

I wasn't giving direct attention to when you have three kind of need some help like that. If you really want to have some quality time. And so I made some really memorable moments with my son, Ryan, who's three and a half in the swimming pool coming up with these imaginary games that we've now continued to expand upon at home outside of a swimming pool. But that really created like the opportunity to have those new moments and experiences and bonding by, you know, taking our family to a new environment and without Sarah present, because she was at work, it kind of forced me into those one on one experiences, which was perfect.

Adam: Pretty awesome and not a bad place to be outnumbered by your children in Hawaii.

Eric: good choice for a business trip.

Sara: Yeah.

Adam: Love that. I'm going to have to see if I can find myself a business trip to Hawaii sometime soon. Okay. I just have a few more questions and then I want to get to my favorite part, which is rapid fire. So I think one question that I have is, and I've alluded to this a few times that I feel like I know a decent amount about you both because of social media.

Right. I follow Sarah on Twitter, Sarah, you post a lot on Twitter. I think it's a big part of, you know, your personality as CEO and talking about all the things that you talk about related to your families. And I love your Friday childcare updates. I read them every week. I usually learn something new.

So I'm very curious. You know, a lot of parents get really nervous about living their lives I won't say living their lives online, but being online a lot and talking about their kids online and stuff like that, and there's a whole kind of spectrum of feelings about that. And so I'm just curious how you two have thought about that.

And if that's ever a thing that's come up in conversation or come up with other parents or anything like that, I'm just kind of very curious about how you handle that.

Sara: Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of parents are really protective of their children's identity online. And I, I think, you know, for as open as I am on Twitter and these other platforms, like, I am protective of my kids too. I will show their faces because their faces are out there anyway. And I don't feel like there's tremendous risk of showing their faces, but I don't talk about things that I feel like are sensitive or personal to them. Their particular issues or struggles or, you know, I feel like I'm talking in a more general way and definitely trying to be relatable without doing anything at their expense or in a way that brings them down.

I also, you know, over the years have learned it's important to not share where we are at the present time, you know, so I wouldn't tweet something like my kids are home alone with the babysitter right now, you know, come find them because there are real safety concerns and like we've had some real weird and bad experiences with that.

So I, I do have to be careful there, but I'm not particularly concerned about sharing their faces. Because their faces are like in their school marketing materials and like. I just don't see the real worry there.

Adam: That makes sense. Eric, anything you want to add to that?

Eric: I Think what Sarah left out unintentionally was just she's always been someone who shares a lot about herself and her life online and that's part of what I think she enjoys doing and it provides, kind of engagement with people she knows and people she might not know. And you know, forms connections that way.

I'm a little more reserved naturally. But I've experimented with posting things as well. And I've been able to engage with people I wouldn't otherwise meet through sharing, you know, faces and activities in a fairly safe way that my kids are up to, or that I'm doing with them, and I learned from those connections that I've made, and I get some acknowledgement about some of the tougher things I'm going through and it gives me an outlet to talk about them as well.

Adam: That's great. You two seem like you have a very strong partnership and obviously that's super important when you're parents and when you're raising three kids, but also it's really hard to agree all the time, right? That's just part of life, especially part of parenting.

So I'm curious to hear from both of you. What's something that the two of you don't agree on when it comes to parenting?

Sara: I feel like it's almost less that we don't agree, but that we're like ships passing in the night. We just don't have a lot of time. Like, people are like, oh, you work together, you live together, like you must always be communicating all day, but like, we actually never get to talk to each other, like Eric works on different stuff than I do at Winnie, and sometimes we interact about that work stuff, but rarely, and then, like, about our kids, like, it's so hard to just have any kind of discussion with him when they're around, we literally have to set aside time, like, I'll be like, tonight, after the kids go to bed, I need to talk to you about X, like, we have to remember to do it.

Adam: Yep.

Sara: And so it's less that we don't agree, but like more that we didn't have a chance to get on the same page. So he may, you know, tell them something or do something and then like, I didn't realize or vice versa. And then it's like, we're not aligned on something that we could have easily gotten aligned on how to handle it.

Eric: I think it helps that our values are pretty aligned. I would say that the disagreements we have, whether it's public versus private school, how nutritious their diet is. Or really just a matter of like information that in many cases I don't have, but Sarah has and she just needs to catch me up and I need some time to process it.

So I might be like really concerned with some decision or idea that she's proposing. And so I just try to be patient with myself emotionally until I've learned the information that I wasn't aware of. And then, of course, in the rare cases that I have some information or a take on something that I feel really strongly about I'll bring it up.

Adam: All right. All right. Okay. Last question for you, Eric. What's a mistake that you've made as a father? And no, no fair answering this for him, Sara.

Sara: Yeah, I have a list

Eric: I’m sure there’s a lot

Adam: Yeah. It's going to say, hold on. Let me just go to my file over here.

Eric: I think in the realm of discipline, I think sometimes I get too caught up in rules that I've made with my children. When, like, I think rules are really just something that helps guide their development, but also like helping your family get through all the different things that they need to get through in a given day.

And yeah, like I think it's not important to be consistent all the times in the rules that you have with your kids. You really need to adapt it to what each of them is going through at that moment. And+ so I wouldn't say like the consequences of, me like trying to adhere to the rules too much have been anything like severe or extreme.

But I've come to realize that it's really important to take into context like what the individual child is going through. Even if it feels easy to just take the shortcut of, oh, we made this rule, let's go with that.

Adam: All right. That's a good one. Okay. Last question. If people want to help either one of you on your journey, follow along, what's the best way to do that for both of you?

Sara: So check out Winnie at winnie.com if you need child care or education, we now have all sorts of things even just beyond daycare and preschool. I am @sm on X formerly known as Twitter. Eric is at @mauskopf on X, formerly known as Twitter. We're on all the social media. You know, connect with me on LinkedIn.

I've been posting a lot on there lately. So, whatever your preferred social media is.

Adam: Cool. Well, I will link to Winnie. I will link to all of the socials. That's great. I've been a big fan of Winnie for a long time. Okay. Last question for you, Sarah. Are you excited for the Detroit Lions to meet the Philadelphia Eagles at some point in the playoffs?

Sara: Yeah, I actually saw, I was looking and I saw like the lions are actually good this year, I was surprised.

Adam: It's a miracle.

Sara: Because I just always think of them as really bad.

Adam: You wouldn't be wrong.

Sara: So yeah, I mean, I'm like, I feel like the Eagles are the worst eight in one team I've ever seen. Like it's shocking that they have the best record in the entire NFL because, like, I feel like every game they were, like, so close to losing so it's like, how do they keep doing this?

I don't know. When is the luck gonna run out? But for now. Yeah. It's been an exciting season.

Adam: This is the opposite of the Lions for many years, which were so close to winning and always lost. So we had the opposite end of the problem. So, Okay, cool. All right. So here's how rapid fire works. I ask you a very quick question.

You answer with the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe we'll try to popcorn back and forth between the two of you. So, okay. Most indispensable parenting product you have ever purchased?

Eric: Baby gate?

Adam: Baby Gates. Sarah, what do you think?

Sara: The iPad.

Adam: Great. What about the most useless parenting product you've ever purchased?

Sara: That stupid crib that like shakes your baby back to sleep. It never worked on my babies. I had to send it back.

Adam: Never. Eric, would you agree with that one?

Eric:Yes. That was awful.

Adam: Okay. Which one of your kids is your favorite? You both have to answer at the same time.

Sara: The one who cried last, not as recently as the other two.

Adam: That sounds like a good answer, Eric. I bet you're at the same camp on that one. Okay. Eric, what is your go to dad wardrobe?

Eric: Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, and baseball cap.

Adam: Alright. Did you ever drop one of your kids as a baby?

Eric: No.

Sara: I did, she went to the emergency room, but always, you always do it with the first child and then never since.

Adam: Yes, of course. What has been the favorite ages for your kids?

Eric: Three, five, and eight.

Sara: Eight. Definitely eight.

Adam: Definitely eight. What is the least favorite age for your kids?

Eric: One

Adam: One, Eric didn't even let me finish!

Sara: Yeah, one or, one or two.

Adam: yep. Okay. Screen time. Good, bad. Indifferent.

Eric: I think it's good in moderation.

Sara: Very good. Love it.

Adam: Okay, I'm excited for the answer to this one. What is your take on minivans?

Eric: Oh, father's best friend.

Adam: Father's best friend. Sarah, minivan?

Sara: Really embarrassing, but I can't find a way around it. Like, it's just, I have to go with it.

Adam: Yep. So it sounds like you're, you know, when your arm is twisted, you're pro minivan, but Eric is all in so good to know. Okay what is the most absurd place that you've ever found a diaper?

Eric: Thankfully it's been a while.

Sara: Yeah, it's been a really long time. I can't remember. I don't remember.

I've blocked out everything having to do with diapers. Our littlest one was potty trained very early. And, just, there was no looking back. We threw them all out.

Adam: I heard a lot from people, glovebox was the most interesting place they ever found a diaper. Okay, have you secretly thrown away a piece of your kid's artwork?

Eric: Every day.

Sara: All of it.

Eric: We have a whole process around it.

Sara: I haven’t kept anything. I throw it all away.

Adam: Just had parent teacher conferences with my kids and came home with a stack of artwork that ended up in the trash.

So... What is the most absurd thing that one of your kids has ever asked you to buy for them?

Eric: A new house?

Adam: Yes. Would you say that's it too, Sarah? New house?

Sara: My son really wanted a kiddush cup, which is the cup you drink out of on Shabbat, you drink wine.

I don't know where he even learned about it, but he really wanted one.

Adam: Oh, God. That's awesome. What is the most painful children's television show that you've ever had to sit through?

Eric: Oh God. A lot of them.

Sara: I don't watch any of them. Like if my kids are watching a screen, that's like to give me time. So I don't watch it with them. I don't know anything about any of the kid shows.

Adam: Okay. Eric, it seems like you may have one in the back of your head here.

Eric: I don't know, Gabby's Dollhouse. 

Adam: Oh, okay. I'm somewhat familiar with that one. So, what is your worst experience assembling a child's toy? Or a piece of furniture.

Eric: Pretty good at it. Go ahead, Sarah.

Sara: I don't, I mean, I think like the swing set we bought during COVID. It was like a lot of work to watch Eric assemble it for like, I was like, wow, I just signed myself up for like days of child care because I gave him a whole swing set to put together.

Adam: Oh, that's awesome.

Eric: The bunk beds I built definitely took the longest. That was like eight hours straight with no eating or drinking.

Adam: Oh, that sounds terrible. That's what I'm calling a Task Rabbit. Have you ever accidentally mixed up your kid's names?

Eric: Every day.

Sara: Yeah. I don't ever call them by the correct name.

Eric: Sarah resorts to whoever you are.

Adam: Okay. How often do you tell your kids back in my day stories? This might be more relevant for you, Eric. I don't know.

Eric: It comes up once in a while. Yeah, like explaining that we didn't always have the ability to pick any music we wanted in the car and you had to listen to whatever was on the radio. So listen to my playlist.

Adam: Listen to that Traveling Wilburys tape or Bob Dylan or whatever. Okay. Now, I'm not sure how the best way to answer this one is, but the origin of the question is how many times have you said, go ask your mother or father this week? So how often does that happen where you're sending kids to the other parent?

Sara: Very often for me.

Adam: A lot of go ask the other one.

Eric: Yeah. I mean, I think we each have our limit. They'll flock to one of us for 20 minutes for nonstop questions, and then we'll reach a limit and say, go talk to the other one.

Adam: Yep. Yep. Awesome. Okay. Well. That is it. That's all we've got for rapid fire. Thank you both. I super appreciate you being here and good luck with

all those kids

Eric: Thanks for having us.

Sara: Thanks for having us.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Eric and Sarah Mauskopf. 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 also stay up to date on my latest thoughts on growth, product, and parenting by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com

Thanks for listening.