Two married company founders on starting companies and family | Trae Stephens & Dr. Michelle Stephens (parents of 2, Founders Fund, Anduril, and Oath Care)

Startup Dad Transcript

Trae and Michelle Stephens 

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Trae: We forget that the word awe literally means a combination of wonder and fear. And so I think it's okay to let your kids experience the world and take risk in doing so. And so I think that's like really what I've tried to balance as a father is like. I don't want to prevent my kids from putting themselves in risky situations.

I want them to like fully experience what that's like, because otherwise they won't really experience awe in the world.

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 husband and wife team, Trae and Michelle Stephens. Trae is a Partner at Founders Fund and is also Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense technology company focused on autonomous systems.

Dr. Michelle Stephens is the Co-Founder and Chief Nursing Officer of Oath Care, which aims to provide instant answers to all your parenting questions. In this conversation, Trae and Michelle share the joys and challenges of parenting their two sons. They discuss the emotional journey of starting a family, including the heartbreak of miscarriages, and the importance of community support in those times. We talk about how faith plays an important role in their lives, in how they were raised, and how they raise their kids.

Trae tells an incredibly touching story about his earliest memories of being a dad that is connected to the loss of his own father. Our conversation sheds light on how two hardworking company founders are able to divide up their professional and personal lives, take care of themselves and their family, and the support structure that makes it all possible.

Listen all the way to the end for a special challenge from Trae.

Adam: I would like to welcome Trae and Michelle Stephens, power couple in tech, to the Startup Dad Podcast. Trae and Michelle, thank you for joining me today. I'm excited to have you here.

Trae: Thanks for having us. 

Michelle: Yeah, great to be here.

Adam: Awesome. This is a bit of a rare episode because we don't introduce husband and wife duos very often. This is usually a dad centric show, but...

I felt like this particular show would benefit from both of you being here. So I'm excited. Let's dive into it. So I wanted to start and just ask you a about your backgrounds. So Trae or Michelle, either one of you can go first, but tell us a little bit about what you do professionally. You're both very impressive people.

Trae: Go ahead. Fire away.

Michelle: Sure. I am Dr. Michelle Stephens. I'm Co-Founder and Chief Nursing Officer of Oath Care. I was actually a pediatric clinician my entire career. So, I became a pediatric intensive care unit nurse, actually inspired by my personal experience of losing my brother to a congenital heart defect when I was seven.

Worked at the same hospital that he was actually treated in. That the doctor actually had his surgery there and got to take care of a lot of patients like my brother. So while I was in the ICU, I actually experienced the tremendous amount of stress that parents and children undergo and was inspired to effect change there, but didn't have the tools to.

So went back and pursued a pediatric nurse practitioner degree in primary care in Washington, D. C. and Hopkins. Took care of a big patient population down in Washington D. C. I realized that maternal and child care is completely broken and there's so much we can do than just measure and track a child's height, weight, and head circumference.

And the care recommendations and protocols I was giving to moms and children were just wildly insufficient. Black box medication this, contraindication that. And so I went back and pursued my PhD at UCSF to understand early childhood stress physiology finished up my PhD actually in three years and wanted to build a stress diagnostic tool so that we can actually do more for kids. Measure their exponential neurobiological growth that happens before the age of five and found myself not really able to do that in academia and research.

Just moving the science incrementally was not enough. And so left to pursue building it. And serendipitously met my co-founder and yeah, four years ago this month.

Adam: Wow. What an awesome background. How do we follow that up? Trae. Your wife is very impressive. So how are you going to follow that one up? You couldn't have more of a different background, I think.

Trae: I was gonna say we're pretty different despite…we actually met each other in college. So there's all - there's like a shared history for sure. But I was on the other side of campus from her at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and actually had no intent to ever end up in technology at all.

I was working in the U. S. intelligence community for my first few years out of college. Had a focus on counterterrorism security studies and got really frustrated with bureaucracy and ended up leaving to join a super early stage company at the time that had zero dollars of revenue called Palantir that ended up working better than I could have expected.

And spent most of my time there on growth. We didn't have a sales team, but I kind of ran the sales team, which is a statement to how much the CEO wanted me to, you know, be public. Literally said my job didn't exist. And did that for about six years, got to be close with one of the co-founders, the chairman of the company, a guy named Peter Thiel, who is one of the founders of PayPal.

And in 2013, he asked me to come over to Founder's Fund to work with him on the venture capital side of things, my entire exposure to the field of venture capital was through “Wedding Crashers,” at that point where they were telling people they were venture capitalists. That's all I knew about it.

Adam: Emerging maple syrup conglomerate.

Trae: Yeah. Yeah. I knew nothing about this but ended up joining here in 2014 after a really fun time at Palantir and kind of spent the first couple of years trying to figure out if there was another Palantir or SpaceX since that was like the one thing I kind of knew the government focused technology companies.

And I didn't find anything that I got excited about. So in 2017, I started a company called Anduril which is we're working to build like a next generation defense prime, kind of like a 21st century Lockheed Martin. we're just over six years now into that which has been really cool.

And I'm splitting my time between Founders Fund on the venture side and Anduril on the operating side. And then also started a consumer hardware company that's building a wearable e reader. So I'm trying to like learn as much as I can about these, you know, consumer startups and large enterprise companies and finance, which was not at all what I thought I'd be doing in my 40th year here on earth.

Adam: Yeah. And usually, you know, people go into government work when they're ready to wind down and retire, but you seem to have started that way and just hit the gas pedal on that.

Trae: Yeah. I mean, this is exactly the problem for what it's worth. It's like the government is fulfilling some of the most important aspects of services in our society. And people think of it as like a wind down and retire thing um, and that's really bad. We should be thinking about this as an industry that is a necessary function for a stable society.

And we've done a really bad job at encouraging, aspirationally, our most talented people to go and work on some of these problems. Instead they're, you know, optimizing ads at Google or whatever, which is a pretty pathetic usage of our most talented people in a society.

Adam: Well, I imagine that your household is pretty secure in an apocalypse or something, because you've got a nurse with a PhD and then you've got defense contractor, so. You've like a full on compound secured -  hermetically sealed from the outside. So…

Trae: Adam, we live in San Francisco. There's only so much you can do.

Adam: This is true. This is true. So I wanted to ask the two of you, I want to talk a little bit about what life was like growing up for both of you, because I think that's always really interesting to hear about sort of how people came to be doing what they're doing today. But first thing I wanted to ask you before that is, you know, Michelle mentioned a little bit when she shared her bio with me, that she's into bodybuilding and watching thrillers and traveling. What's like a hobby that the two of you share? Are you both in the gym, like throwing up huge amounts of weight together? How do the two of you unwind and spend time together?

Trae: Look, I take the dad thing very seriously, including with my body. We are full out dad bod over here, man. 

Michelle: Yeah! Being a college athlete and basically working out most days of my life, he has maybe been to the gym with me less than a handful. So that is…

Adam: He's clearly intimidated by that. So I could see how that would be…

Trae: For sure, yeah that's why. That's a good…

Adam: That's it. That's the reason.

Trae: That's the reason, you found it!

Adam: Okay. Well, so tell me what life was like growing up for each of you. So, Michelle, I think you're from the East Coast. And Trae, you're from the Midwest, like me. A good midwestern boy. So let's hear it. what was life like?

Michelle: So I'm from outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I was born in South Philadelphia and then moved out to the suburbs Delco. But I have a very big, maybe fat Italian wedding family. And we are predominantly Catholic. It's a very like big identity in our family because my dad's side owns a Catholic religious goods and also restores churches, cathedrals, has done work for the Pope and whatnot through his company.

So, yeah, spent a lot of time with my family, both, like, personally and professionally, like. basically started working when I could at the family business. You know, spent every Sunday with my cousins having, you know, a big pasta dinner that would last all day. I loved playing piano and playing sports all my life.

Like, I have two other sisters. One who's like my Irish twin. We're the same age for five days. Her name is Leah. Natalie is nine years younger than me. Because I did have a brother who passed away, like I said in between. And yeah I'm so close with my sisters. I played tennis with my sister Leah all through high school.

And even in college, we went to schools in DC where we played. It's wild now because yeah, sports were just such a big part of my life. It felt like it was my safe place. It was my place where all my friends were. It was the place where, like, my sister and I were able to really hang and like, have time together and bond.

And what I also really like about it now is that my sister and I live together. Natalie so she lives with us and I get to work out with her in the mornings because she was so, into sports as well.

Adam: Cool. You may be excited to learn that I am actually a licensed minister from the Universal Life Church. I've done two weddings now. Very important. I just did my sister in law's wedding at San Francisco City Hall. So I mean that's the extent of the religious background for me but we'll come back to that one later. So.

Trae: Deep theological underpinnings, I hear, at the Universalist Church. 

Adam: Exactly!

Michelle: Yeah, I feel like the price of $40?

Adam: For the price of 40 and I may actually have somewhere, I have a guide to doing a wedding, I think right next to me on my desk. And they gave me a little badge and a minister parking pass, which I've unsuccessfully used to park place. Doesn't work, let me tell you in advance. So Trae, tell me about you. You're from the Midwest, like me.

Trae: That's right. I'm from a little town in Ohio about 30 minutes north of Cincinnati. I mean, I literally grew up in a log cabin in the woods, like literally a log cabin in the woods. So, you know, spent my entire childhood running around getting scratches and cutting down little branches with machetes.

It was a really fun childhood. My dad worked at an amusement park. He was doing construction and rides maintenance and stuff like that. So I grew up kind of riding roller coasters all the time. Was the one free thing that I got to do as a kid that everyone else was jealous of, which was great.

Unfortunately my dad passed away in 2013 from early onset Alzheimer's. Which really formed a lot of my experience as a father as well, which we can talk about. But also grew up in, in the church. My grandfather was actually the pastor of my church growing up. Which was incredibly entertaining to say the least.

I also played a lot of sports growing up, but I wasn't nearly as good as Michelle is at them. I was not a college athlete at Georgetown. But still really enjoy you know, playing pickup games of basketball and taking the kids to the gym and shooting around and things like that.

Michelle: That's one thing we do together. 

Trae: Yeah. We both love playing basketball. Yeah. We do that a lot.

Adam: Fun. I also love playing basketball. I'm not very good at it, but I do like it. Cool. So you two met in college at Georgetown. Tell me that story. How did the two of you meet? And then tell me a little bit more about your kids because that we're going to get into that.

Michelle: I think it depends on the version that you want to hear. So I'm just going to go and tell you mine, cause I'm quite honestly, afraid of the version that he's going to tell you. So, my dad actually brought us together. He would come and do work at like churches and cathedrals in Washington, D.C. We’d get a hotel in Georgetown. And that was the hotel that Trae worked at. So, he actually became friends with Trae because my dad is a pretty friendly guy. Also always looking for a good deal. So, would get lots of, like, parking coupons, breakfast coupons from Trae. They would, like, watch football together on Sundays.

My dad would come down to do that, and then go to work on Monday. And one of those Sundays actually my cousin who was visiting Georgetown, myself and my sister who was at Catholic University, were all at my dad's hotel room. We were watching the Eagles play. I think the either NFC, yeah, the NFC championship game, I think.

And, you know, Jersey on, face and wings. I'm like, totally just not about anything else, but the game. And Trae walks in looking to watch the game with my dad. My dad is like, Oh, right. There's this kid that I've been hanging out with forever that goes to your school and is your year. Go ahead, meet. And so we did, and like my sister and cousin are like, you know, oogling over there on the other bed.

And so we knew mutual friends and went back to our lives. We exchanged screen names at the time.

Trae: Oh yeah, AIM screen names.

Adam: Oh yea, instant messenger.

Michelle: AIM screen names. You should definitely ask him what his AIM screen name was. It's…

Adam: Ha

Michelle: The best. And we let's see…decided to meet at, oh no, your mutual friend decided to call him one night and let him know that I was at this party because, Oh, you went back to that mutual friend and was like, Oh, I met this girl, Michelle. And she's really cute. And what's her deal? And he was like, Oh, she's definitely not your type. And Trae was like okay. And I guess kind of left it at that.

And so, this friend calls up Trae one night and I guess wanted to prove that I wasn't his type. When he invited him out like really late in the night.

Trae: Really late.

Michelle: Yeah, like woke you up out of your sleep?

Trae: I think I was doing homework, but yea something like that.

Michelle: Okay and invite… right doing homework!

Adam: Sure. Sure!

Trae: Cool guy over here!

Adam: Ha Ha.

Michelle: Invited him to this party that we were at and so apparently he walks in and I may or may not have had whipped cream in my hair and dancing on a table and really far into the night.

So, we talked for a while and then he offered to walk me home. I reached back out to him the next day. I was like, so, so sorry. Would love to actually get together with you. And don't know if we actually, did we go out after that? I think I…

Adam: You immediately got married. The rest is history.

Michelle: This was a process. 

Trae: It was a long process. I think we met in January. And we went out on our first date in April

Michelle:  And that was only…you asked me out to ice cream

Adam: Okay. Oh, that's a nice first date.

Trae: But I mean, it's like kind of remarkable, like looking back on life at this point, like we just realized that we've actually been together the majority of our lives this year. 

Adam: Same.

Trae: It's just totally wild. Like we started dating when I was 20, she was 19.  I turn 40 in three months and like, I…it's just kind of cool to think about like all of the growth that's happened over that time. This year was actually our 15th wedding anniversary.

Adam: Congratulations! Very exciting. Next year will be my 15th wedding anniversary, but I, too, met my wife when we were sophomores in college. So,

Trae: Nice!

Michelle: Wowww

Adam: You know, just took us a little bit longer to figure things out, I think, so. So, okay, so arranged marriage from your dad. That's how you met.

I love that. Now tell me a little bit about your kids. By the way, Trae, we are going to come back to that AOL instant messenger handle later. It's, I have it in the notes now. So you've got two kids. You've got a 10 year old and a seven year old, right? So tell me a little bit about them. Both boys.

Trae: Two boys, yep Thad just turned 10 last week so he's very excited to be a preteen, he's calling himself. Couldn't be more different, you know, they're like, you know, friends with each other when they choose to be, but Thaddeus, our oldest, is kind of like a creative, like he loves making things, he loves cooking, He loves drawing, he loves building robots and Solomon is not that.

He's kind of a wrecking ball, like he's very physical he loves to fight, he loves to wrestle he like walked into Tae Kwon Do and was like a black belt on day one. He's like, his whole body is just like built for destruction, really unique. It's been cool to see them both grow.

Adam: Awesome. So Solomon, your seven year old seven, right? He's seven?

Trae: Yeah.

Adam: He got the Michelle. Genetics, the athlete..

Michelle: I feel so seen!

Adam:  And Trae you've contributed to Thad, more, you know, introspective and created more of  the build there.

Trae: Yeah, in some ways. Yeah, that seems right. Yeah.

Adam: Cool. Tell me about the decision for the two of you to start a family. What was that like? What was that conversation like? You both strike me as kind of very hard driving folks.

You both have very successful careers. Pretty intense. And so what was that conversation like when it was had - about family

Michelle: Well, we knew we always wanted to have a family. And it was just a matter of when. I think what was really important to me and to us was that I completed my master's because of how intense both working and going to school was to complete that degree. And it really felt like, becoming a pediatric nurse practitioner was that's what I'm going to do the rest of my life.

And so once that happens we can start a family. So we were married about five years until we started trying.

Adam: And then you had a couple of bumps in the road along the way and this has actually been a pretty common theme in a lot of the conversations that I've had with folks and I'm sure as a nurse, you know, all of the statistics about this, but it took you guys a few tries. I think.

Michelle: It's so, interesting that you bring this up and I'm so glad you are I was about 28-29. So I was actually one of the first in my friend group. And in my family, quite honestly, because I am the oldest of like all the cousins as well to get pregnant and start trying have a baby. And even though I had my undergraduate and graduate degree in nursing, I was pretty ignorant to the Personal statistics around miscarriage.

I mean, honestly, this was like 12 years ago and it wasn't as public. It wasn't as out there in terms of even the knowledge and research around miscarriage. And so, it was a pretty devastating experience because I went and posted it immediately on Facebook when I found out that I was pregnant.

I was pregnant at the same time as my sister, who's my Irish twin. And so we were just living the dream, like both living in D. C. Both having kids at the same age. And I went on to lose that baby and she went on to have hers. And so just really heartbreaking to have that all happen and to learn those lessons in a pretty isolated way.

And it wasn't that my family wasn't super supportive. It was the fact that we didn't really understand it. Our friends didn't really understand it. And yeah, it was a hard, it was a hard thing to go through alone.

Adam: You know, for people who are listening to this, and it's a very common experience. Like I said, this has come up in almost every one of the conversations I've had so far. What advice would you give to somebody who is going through this? What would you tell them to do or what would you tell someone who knows someone who's going through this because people don't always know how to act in those situations.

Michelle: Don't go through it alone. Try to connect yourself with folks that you can deeply share your story with. I was actually able to do this with one person. Her name is Despina and her and I actually had like the same gene mutation that was like really rare that caused these multiple miscarriages and we were willing to do this drug that actually required two injections a day that wasn't fully proven, but we only found out because we did our own research and went to the right perinatologist to get this going. And we had to be each other's coaches and advocates and teachers and encouragers through it.

So Get your intimate community that you can find safety and support from.

And I encourage them also being just people from all walks of life a little bit further along than you. Folks that have that medical background and experience and folks that are actually emotionally healthy that's also really important. Because almost feels like you don't want to share and don't want to go through this with other folks because they can't handle it.

And so, I can't emphasize enough the importance of a intimate, solid community.

Adam: Thank you for sharing that. That will be very helpful for lots of people. I'm sure. I wanted to ask you both about, you both mentioned in your introductions that you have some connection to religion and faith. Michelle, you're from a big Catholic family and Trae, your grandfather was a pastor, so that's pretty religious right? On both sides there.

So how does religion play a role in your family life? This is actually a topic I haven't talked to very many people about, so I'm curious how it finds its way into your life or your decision making or just your way of, of living.

Trae: Yeah, I think faith and meaning probably trump religion as like an institutional concept more than anything else. Religion at its core is just meaning making, right? It's like building a connection between the things that you do in life, the way that you go about the things that you do, and your purpose.

And I think that's something that we've infused throughout not only our professional life, but also in our life with raising our kids. And we've reiterated over and over again in lots of different contexts that the things that you do matter. It matters beyond the simple surface level of humanity.

There's, you know, a purpose to your role in this world that you play. And, I can't even imagine, like, how much differently we would have to think about things if we didn't have, like, some foundation of what we believe is truth. The world is painting this picture that truth is relative and subjective and I think that's a shaky ground for kids to try to build their understanding of the world on.

And so, I think for us it's really about, like, giving them the foundations and then encouraging them to build on top of those foundations whatever their purpose is, whatever their mission is, and the way that they live their life. So it, plays I would say a super central role in not only our own experience, but what we're encouraging for children as well.

Adam: Yeah, for anyone who's thinking about how they approach faith and religion and having those kind of conversations with their kids, you've probably done this at some point now. What would you recommend or what would your advice be on how to kind of have those conversations, whatever shape they might take?

Michelle: I think for us, we had to prepare ourselves first. So be unified in the message and in the truths that we know. And to be able to confidently explain them. And also knowing that, like, the opposite can be true in all the things that we are talking about and wanting our kids to be able to ask us all of those questions and to understand why we believe what we believe.

And so we really believe that it's just not like we spit this truth and like that's it like, you know, either love it or not we really encourage discernment and questioning, around all these things. And this is what we did throughout our faith journey. So even though I grew up Catholic, I now practice as a non denominational Christian.

It was because I went to Georgetown and my first class was called Problem of God. Like up until then, like everyone I knew was Catholic didn't have a need to like question my faith. And I found it so authentic and refreshing to be welcomed into a faith community and be able to question it. And that's where I learned so much more about my faith and either really got to make my own decision around, you know, is this something I believe and how do I want to actually live it out? And, you know, these things die hard. I have to say we for most, if not all of most of our relationship, we ended up going to both denominational services. So, like, we go to Catholic service in the early morning, get a bagel and then, because you can't eat before Catholic service at all.

Adam:nooo

Michelle: And then we would go to the nondenominational service. And it was, you know, something that we wanted to do out of respect, but also I think because we wanted to just build our own understanding and knowledge and experience, awareness of Jesus and so yeah, it's definitely something that we want to infuse into our children but we have to be solid first in order for them to feel that foundation is solid.

Adam: That makes a ton of sense. Thanks for sharing that. I wanted to ask too. So you're from a big family, Michelle. And you have two kids, 10 and 7.

Was it a conscious decision to have two? How did the conversation get going? Did you want a bigger family? Were you always aligned together on two kids?

Michelle: Oh, we actually have four children um, and and Earl. So,

um,

Adam: We'll talk about that in a minute.

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. Two kids was actually a very clear and unified decision for the both of us. That's not to say that I still and I don't know if this is true for you, but like still have um, desires, pangs whatever is in me to want more children.

But intellectually and for the most part emotionally, like two kids is good and feels complete. Yeah, I just, I really think that it was apparent to us when, gosh, we had such a beautiful morning this one Saturday morning. We had our first child, Thad. He's about a year old. We, like, take him in the Bob stroller and walk him to brunch and we have a lovely brunch together because he can eat, like, all the foods now. You know, he's so curious about it and he's so cute about it and he likes sitting in his chair and it's a game and then we take him to the park and we're pushing him on the swing and he's laughing and it's, we're just like, oh, this is so great.

And then we look at each other and we're like, shit, we have to start trying for our second and have to do this all over again. So, you know, we both have siblings that are close in age to us, and that was something really important. And so, really pushed for that more than anything. And yeah, thankfully they're pretty close in age.

Adam: Yeah.Great.

Trae: I will say this. Growing up in amusement parks. I don't know if you've ever gone to an amusement park.

Adam: I, I recently did. I recently went to one this last week.

Trae: Amazing. Where did you go?

Adam: I went to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk for dad camp with my

Trae: Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah we actually just a few weeks ago went to Six Flags in New Jersey,

Adam: Oh, nice.

Trae: Which is great. I had never been. But if you've ever gone to an amusement park, stayed at a hotel with two queen beds and bought a family pack of tickets, it's four tickets, two kids, two adults.

You can sleep your whole family in one hotel room. The whole dynamic changes. You have to buy an extra ticket when you get a family pack for the fifth. You know, I don't, it's tough. It's tough.

Adam: Yea once you hit that third kid the car needs to change like…

Trae: Yea, yea you can have a two door and two kids.

Adam: That's true. That's true. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but you could have that.

Trae: You could do it. We did that. We did have a two door with two kids. It was great.

Adam: I mean, I guess if you seem to be into doing hard things starting companies and having a two door car with your kids. Alright, I wanted to transition and Trae, I have a couple questions for you. The first one is a question I love asking people and I know you have a you've a really interesting and somewhat sad position on this, but what's the earliest memory that you have of becoming a father?

Trae: Yeah, I think mine is, I'll count being a father as when Michelle was pregnant.

Adam: Sure. Yeah.

Trae: So my dad, as I mentioned before, he passed away in 2013, which was the year Thad was born. So he died in January of 2013 after a pretty long fight with Alzheimer's really young. I think he was like 56 when he died or something, really young.

And Father's day that year I was trying to prep the nursery, like we're painting walls and building furniture and all that stuff. And we had gotten this really cool. Like chandelier, like a globe chandelier and you know, I'm standing on a a step stool in the middle of the room trying to wire it up and I was just having a horrible time and Michelle came in to check on me and she saw that I was just like dying, like just weeping while I'm doing this.

And she like told me to go take a break. And I remember going into our bedroom and just laying face down on the bed and just thinking like, man, it's just so brutal that I'm not, like, particularly handy with this stuff. And I didn't have anyone to call. And like, I had this moment where I was just like, my dad could have done this in like 30 seconds.

The chandelier would have been done. He would have moved on to the next thing. But like I wanted to call someone to ask for help and I realized that my dad wasn't there anymore. And I think it was like a kind of a two part thing. One was like sadness from my own situation, but it was also this realization that like I really want to be there to answer the phone for my kids.

And just like, infusing into them this idea that like, there are some things that dad is going to be really good at. There are other things that dad won't be really good at, but how do I like, help them grow themselves by like, leveraging my passions and skills? And yeah, it was just maybe the most sad possible way of realizing that.

Adam: Yeah. I mean, you're doing a hard thing. It's Father's Day. You've recently lost your father, like, wow, I can't, I don't know. I would have been laying in that bed for the whole day, I imagine.

Trae: Well, the fixture did not get installed. Let's be very clear. We had someone come and take care of it.

Adam: Which is the best solution, in my opinion.

Trae: Which was the right solution from the beginning, to be honest, but I thought I would give it a shot at least.

Adam: Well, so thank you for sharing that story. Aside from. Your inability to install light fixtures. What are some of the most surprising things that you've discovered as a dad?

Trae: I think it like unlocks the emotional part of you that you didn't even know existed. At least it did for me. I'm like, not the most like sympathetic to suffering type of person. Like I even today, like when one of the kids falls, I'll like pick them up and I'll be like, go like, you're fine, chill out.

But man, when my kids get sick, I'm a wreck. Like. The first time our oldest got sick, I was like kneeling next to his crib crying and I'm like, what's wrong with me? He's going to be fine. He has like a stomach bug, but it like helps you to understand. I think that there's like different unlocks of love and it opens up this entire part of your heart that I certainly didn't know existed where you're just like, I would literally do anything for this.

Adam:Yeah.

Trae: And without any limits at all. It's like, just an incredible feeling to, like, feel that sort of accountability and ownership over, over something.

Adam: Do you still get that way when your kids get sick? I mean, they're a little bit bigger now?

Trae: Yeah, some, usually, I think sometimes I'm skeptical. I'm not sure other parents can I can appreciate. 

Adam: Yeah

Trae: There's a lot of like, my tummy hurts. It's like, does your tummy hurt? Or do you want to go play and you don't want to be sitting here anymore? But if it's real and it's like demonstrably real, then yes, I definitely feel that way.

I actually, what was it earlier this year, like May of this year our oldest was not feeling well on a flight home and he was kind of like leaning on my shoulder and then he like looks up at me and he's like, Dad, I need to go to the bathroom. Can we go to the bathroom? And I was like, yeah. So I like have my hands on his shoulders, walking him back in the airplane aisle.

And he was like, I'm going to get sick. And I put my hands in front of him because I had my hands on his shoulders and he just threw up into my hands as we're walking down the aisle. And so we like, get back to the restroom. I had caught most of it, not all of it. But then we like, get into the restroom and I'm just like, like throwing the vomit into the sink of the airplane.

And that was definitely one of those moments where it was like a combination emotion maybe of, wow, I feel really badly for you and I also feel really badly for me. 

Adam: And such a dad instinct too, to just be like, oh, I know you're gonna throw up here I'll catch it in my hands because that makes a lot of sense, umm… Yeah,

Trae: Well, he didn't tell me that he was, he didn't tell me that he thought he was gonna throw up, otherwise I would have gotten a little barf bag. He just said he needed to go to the bathroom. I don't know. It's tough.

Adam: All right. This is a really quick tangent, but Michelle as a nurse are you tough on your kids when they say that they're sick? Like, Oh, my throat is sore. And then you look in their throat and they're like, you're fine. It's not red at all. Is that, are you like that with your kids?

Michelle: I'm firm, I would say, so I like to say why I am not concerned, right? So like I give them the whole like differential diagnosis, like your throat is not red. And if it were red, it would be like pharyngitis or strep or, you know, hand, foot and mouth, you know, and so. I think I, like, either annoy them or distract them enough from whatever they're complaining about that then the problem goes away.

But I am, I feel caring. So, like, I'll attend to their needs and so, like, whatever I can do because I feel like nurses are very sort of, like, quick to respond, creative with how they respond. So it's like, I'll do tea, I'll do, so it's oftentimes like if I say like, Oh, you're fine. I feel like they'll keep complaining until they get the attention I think that they're seeking.

So really it's like, can I give them like, some honey and some tea and like a lozenge and a water bottle. And then like, you know, boom, they're like, fine, and that brings me joy because I actually get to wear my nurse hat and take my mom hat off and actually use my skills.

Adam: By the way, can we all just agree that honey is like a miracle drug for children? It's amazing how much that works.

Michelle: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Adam: Yes.

Michelle: We are big fans of honey not until after your child is one, one, let you all know. Okay, great. But yes especially for all those cough and colds.

Adam: Yeah.

Trae: I don't, I feel like I don't actually call them honey very much. 

Adam: oh…

Michelle: Ok yes. We love dad jokes here.

Adam: Oh we'll get to those. Don't worry. So, you know, one of the things we haven't talked about yet is the two of you, you mentioned you have four kids and two of those four are your companies that you run. So that's a lot of work. Most people I'm not going to lie for a lot of founders. It's sort of like a young person's game, no other obligations except their job.

And they get to be married to work or have work as their kid or something like that. So how do the two of you manage, how do you outline roles and responsibilities while you're working incredibly hard and raising two young kids who maybe need you a little less than they used to but still need their parents present and functioning. How do you divide it up?

Michelle: I think we run a bit nontraditional. And this is actually based on…

Adam: I love that!

Michelle: Thank you! What brings us joy and what gives us energy? Because we think the things that we want to do and have to do for our kids is another job. It's part of our calling. And so, just as we want to do things in our work that are within our wheelhouse and are energizing, we want to apply that same principle to parenting.

And so, actually, this guy shamelessly does the chores. He does all of the laundry folds it, puts it away. He does all of the dishes, washes them, dishwasher, cleans up after breakfast and dinner. Very consistently. And he says that this is what calms him down, brings him joy around completing a very simple task because in his work, things are so complex, they're so intense. And so this really helps him unwind and helps him feel accomplished, shall I say?

Trae: Yeah, there's so much decision fatigue in the day to day and I think having that like kind of quiet time to do something that's like just, you know, programmatic that has a defined completion is a great way I found for me to close my nights out. Like it feels very relaxing to fold laundry, do dishes, take out trash. So yeah I, it genuinely, it's therapeutic.

Adam: Yeah, I find the unfortunate part about climbing Mount Laundry is that it's never quite, you never quite reach the top, especially with two, with a 10 year old and a 7 year old and two parents, there's probably a lot of laundry in the house. So.

Trae: I listen to podcasts. I've listened to one of your podcasts actually while folding laundry before the one with Alex Cohen and you know, also like love listening to music. I like listen to the the most recent Muse album one night doing laundry and I was just like jamming out to it while I'm folding.

So I don't get that opportunity throughout the day. It's like when I'm hanging out with the kids, it's like, I don't have my AirPods in. And when I'm at work, I'm not listening to music while I'm, you know, doing pitch meetings or, you know, making decisions at Anduril. So, it's kind of nice.

Michelle: And you don't work out, so you can't listen to music.

Adam: It's the subtle dig or the not so subtle dig. I love that. So is, if Trae's doing the household chores, then Michelle, what does that, I mean, there's a lot to running a family. So what does that leave for you? What do you lean into?

Michelle: Yeah, it's actually the, like, operational stuff, the process, the strategy around the kids schooling their after school activities, their camps you know, their activities that on the weekends. I'm managing all that saying yes and no to all of that, plugging that into our calendar. So I find joy around that. I feel like I'm good at it until I oversaturate our calendars.

Trae: When she says saying yes and no, she means saying yes.

Adam: Yes

Trae: And yes and yes

Adam: To the point of breaking. Yeah.

Michelle: So yes, have had to learn how to say no. And protect our time a bit more.

Adam: Awesome. I like that division of labor that's really good, that's a good one. So, when it comes to managing the household between both of you I guess maybe I would ask Trae and then Michelle too if you've an answer to this, but do you have any particular frameworks that you use for parenting or guardrails or philosophies or anything that you subscribe to?

Trae: Yeah, part of this is I think what Michelle was mentioning in her response about faith is like we really encourage curiosity - like we want our kids to explore their interests And if they're really committed to being interested in something like we'll let them run all the way to like the most extreme exploration of that interest but only if they're demonstrating the interest.

If they're only mildly interested in something, it's like, we're not going to go out of our way to do anything for that. We want them to like tell us what they really want to dig into and you know, like the classic cliché version of this is like kids asking why we made like a pact very early on in in our life as parents to never say because I said so.

And so we will continue down that path to extremes that you wouldn't even imagine. I think like two weeks ago, we got into talking about the impact of gravity on time and the theory of relativity and it was just following the line of why questions. And uh, you know, it's kind of fun for us as parents, but on occasion, like I'll see the kids like break out some of these answers from these why trains, like even this morning, driving our youngest to camp, he was asking about the impact of gravity on time.

And he's like, so wait on a bigger planet, time moves more slow. I'm like, whoa, you're actually listening to these crazy why trains that we're going through. So. Yeah, it's I think that is like an overall framework has been really fun for us to see unfold.

Adam: That is amazing. And I'm sure you each probably have areas that you can lean into depending on the line of questioning, I suppose, that comes into play.

Trae: Well, we also do a lot of Googling. So when we don't know the next answer, we'll say, I don't know, but let's find out. I don't know, but let's find out.

Adam: I find myself saying that personally a lot more because as my kids have gotten older, the level of questioning has gotten way beyond my realm of comprehension. So, how helpful has AI and things like ChatGPT been in getting to the answer of these questions?

Trae: I mean, it's definitely a useful tool. At least our oldest knows what chatGPT is at this point. And he'll say, well, why don't we ask chatGPT? Um, So that does come up. It's probably not like my initial go to. My initial go to is to try to answer the question. But I think as a tool, these large language models are going to do wonders for these sorts of things, for sure.

Michelle: Yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we're literally incorporating it into our app because it has been incredibly helpful as a parenting tool you can ask it all sorts of questions around, like, make a meal plan for my family or for my kid who's going away to camp or, you know, a lunch plan for, you know, these items that I have.

So it's just like, incredibly helpful to use it as a, at least a guide or a starting point to, yeah, getting to where you have to go.

Adam: Yeah, we'll come back to that because I have yet to play around with parent GPT, but I did see it in the app. So, um, I'm more curious about it. So I want to talk about partnership because it's really important when you have kids well acknowledged, right?

You have your own divisions of labor in the household and you have things you agree on and disagree. But you know, it is hard to agree with everybody with each other a hundred percent of the time. So I'm curious for you. One or the other of you. What's something that you don't necessarily agree on when it comes to parenting how do you resolve that sort of conflict?

Trae: I mean there are a lot of things we don't agree on. I think one of the core lessons for me, that's more of like a marriage lesson than a parenting lesson, is that you can still fully love and support each other and not agree on things. And you know, I think this is an art that has been lost in modern culture where everyone's so locked into their tribes - we don't play that game in our household. We encourage debate and disagreement. But that's tough, especially with the people that you love the most to, like, accept that they might reach a different conclusion than you do. On the parenting side of things, it's, you know, To go back to what we were saying before, it's like, I have reached total saturation socially.

You know, in prior jobs, you like meet your colleagues and then you kind of like somewhat plateau maybe with some growth over time. But you're mostly interacting with the people that you work with… in venture capital like it's just a constant slope up and to the right because everyone you meet with for a seed round is going to come back at a series A and they're going to come back at a series B.

And so, you know, I met with, I don't know, mid single digit thousands of companies at this point and like every time one of them is raising money, which is literally every second of every day, I'm getting emails. And so I'm like totally saturated and Michelle's like, we should have playdates. And I'm like, I want to stay home.

I don't want to talk to anyone. And so we definitely have these moments where it's just like, there's some tension behind our wants and needs. But again, it's possible to fully support and love one another inside of those tensions.

Adam: I think that's a great perspective. So because partnership is so important and because the two of you are so busy How do you take care of yourselves and your relationship while you're parenting and working intense jobs? What rituals or things do you have together?

Michelle: Rhythm is very important to us. And upholding those rhythms. Making sure, you know, we get back on those rhythms. So every Sunday in the evening, typically we get together and we go over our schedules, things that have come up, things that, you know, we want to make sure are on our calendars are communicated, things that we want to address throughout the week with each other.

So that's like on sort of like logistical operational rhythm. We have weekly date nights and so I want to caveat all of what I'm going to say in -  my sister who is in her early 30s lives with us and is our rock. She's been living with us since Solomon was born. And just how that all worked out has just been so providential in our lives.

And so she is helping us a lot with like, we have no other family other than her out here really. So, she is there for us and helps us with the kids in the afternoons, picking them up, dropping them off to their activities, helps cook dinner, and so, yeah, she is there to help us with date night.

So we can do that. Then we have quarterly like overnight getaways. And what we love about living in San Francisco is just like there's so much within like a two hour radius of us. So we can, you know, get away into nature, particularly into isolation to kind of, get out of the noise and reconnect with each other.

So we do quarterly overnights. And then each of us try to go away once a year alone. This was something that he actually gifted me for the first time when I was writing my PhD. And he was like, just go on a writing retreat. And so what that entailed was me going away alone and like doing my, and this is, I have not ever done.

And it was just like mind blowing to me. And I'm like really speaking to parents here or how important it is to go away alone to get back to self, to recharge. You can do all the self care in the world, but really having substantial time to yourself. And living by yourself is, yeah, just really refreshing.

Um, came back really energetic and creative with that. And I think I'm going to nerd out here. We were inspired by our church to create a family plan. So we have a family mission statement. We have values that are written. We set priorities and intentions for each person throughout the year.

Our date nights are also sometimes mixed in with, like, working date nights. So, I highly recommend these, especially when you feel overwhelmed or like, I can't squeeze in a date night this week. I'm too busy with work. We, like, actually go to this club, we like have a room, we like eat dinner while we're on our computers, we're working, we're chatting, it's open really late so we can just like, cause everything closes really early in San Francisco, so we get to actually, yeah have a late night together working, but spending time together and so we're always reviewing those, like, intentions and priorities and goals for ourselves and for our kids. Every quarter.

Adam: That's great. And I love that idea of the working date night because I find if you've got something on your mind from work and you're stressed or you feel like you can't squeeze it all in, that's not going to be a very enjoyable date night for anyone if your mind is somewhere else, you know, so just kind of owning it and saying, Hey, I need to do this, but we can be together. And we're not around the kids. It can be very liberating, I guess. So, that's really good. Okay. I am very curious about this because you two have really good systems together. But I'm curious what you would say each other's pet peeve is about something that you do.

So, like, Michelle, what is Trae's pet peeve. I'm thinking it's gonna be something around not socializing.

Michelle: And you know what bothers me so much about this is that he's actually an extrovert. he's Very extroverted. He loves being around people. He gains energy from being with people. But I think like. Throughout the years with his job, it's just created more and more of like he likes now to go fly fishing by himself.

I can't think of a more introverted activity than that. Um, so, you know, just kind of like accepting um, embracing the change. Yeah, welcoming it and finding other ways around it. Like, okay, cool. You can stay home and I'm going to go out with the kids.

Adam: yeah. I would say I am an extreme extrovert. Maybe you could tell 'cause I host a podcast. But even us extreme extroverts need a break every once in a while. So, so okay. On the flip side of that Trae what would you say is sort of Michelle's pet peeve with you?

Trae: Oh interesting. Well, I think we're both like pretty clean people like we're our house is pretty organized. Like we're not like living in chaos. As we mentioned before, I like cleaning up. I like doing laundry, doing dishes, whatever.

Adam: Incredible accomplishment, by the way, with two young boys that your house is remotely clean.

Trae: Well, they do have a playroom everything is isolated to, but I think it's like the level of strictness around organization is probably the biggest difference where like, you know, I kind of can tolerate a little bit of disorder as long as it's not filthy. Whereas Michelle does not like the disorder as much, so there will be moments where she's like furiously working with the kids to get things back in order and they'll come like scrambling down and look at me like, what's going on?

And I'm like, go have fun with your mother!

Adam: Yeah. Ha. Ha.

Trae: I'm not getting in the middle of this!

Adam: Michelle, do you think that's the nursing instinct of like everything sort of organized and compartmentalized and in its place that comes out?

Michelle: As much as I want to blame nursing, I'm going to go family of origin on this. So, I learned growing up that if you don't keep your things tidy and well kept, it means you're disrespecting your parents, you're disrespecting your things, you're not grateful for your things. And so, for better or for worse, my kids are learning how to respect their things by keeping them orderly and clean.

Adam: It's the Catholic guilt coming out in different forms. So Trae, I asked you in sort of the prep for this, what's something you had to give up to become a father. And you mentioned that you are not a morning person. And so you now have to wake up earlier because you have kids, which that is true.

So I kind of wanted to ask how early do you have to get up sort of what's your definition of sleeping in these days? What is it? What is this great sleep in day for you look like?

Trae: You know, I always think it's funny when when people talk about how they like wake up naturally with their kids and stuff. Like, I have no experience of this at all. Like, I would. I would not be awake by the time they go to school if I was able to stay in bed. So my morning wake up is at 6:40 AM, which is over an hour earlier than I would prefer.

I think sleeping in to me is probably like 8 AM at this point would feel pretty good. Like if I wake up at 8, I'm like, wow, that was an A plus night of sleep. Because I can't really go to bed before 11:30. I will lay in bed staring at the ceiling before 11:30, but I can't really go to bed until around 11:30.

So, yeah, 6:40 is pretty early. And you know, I think that we're like getting to the point where this is kind of becoming more of an unlock because on the weekends, our kids are self-sufficient in the mornings. And so I don't have to wake up at 6:40 on the weekends. I don't have to get them to school or anything.

And then we mentioned before, our oldest loves to cook. And so if he knows that he's responsible for breakfast for him and his brother, like you know, we'll come downstairs and there are pancakes, eggs, bacon, all sorts of stuff, just like ready to go. In fact,

Adam: Wow! I’d like to come to your house for breakfast

Trae: One of my colleagues at Anduril stayed overnight at our house a few months back and I walked downstairs in the morning and he had like a whole breakfast ready for him. And he was like, yeah, Thad made me a pour over. And I was like, sorry, what? And Thad's like, 18 grams. I'm like, wait, what? And he's like, yeah, I 18 grams. I made him a coffee. I'm like, well, our kid is over here literally doing pour overs. Like what in the world? 

Adam: You know, I was gonna joke that he was like pouring him coffee, you know in a thing But he literally was that's amazing!

Trae: Literally making a fresh pour over.

Adam: That is something else, way to go Thad. I love that.

Michelle: I don't know if that's more of a reflection on how,

Trae: yeah, how much coffee we drink that he by osmosis learned that you needed 18 grams per cup. But yeah,

Adam: Well, hey, those are valuable life lessons, right? And in, especially in the Bay area, we love our snooty coffee for sure. So

Trae: Artisanal, single origin, light roast coffee. That's right.

Adam: That's right. So I think Trae, you had a really interesting perspective on this. And I'm curious about both of your takes because you both work in startups. You both run them. You've both seen a bunch, Trae especially, with investing. And there's this sort of conversation around the hustle culture Of working at a startup, or running a startup, or being part of it. And I'm curious what your take is on that, and how it fits in with family life.

And what you've done maybe differently to kind of embrace the balance of both of those things.

Trae: I think that it's usually like a mistake the way that people think about this, they're like, I have my professional life and then I have my family life. And there's this giant wall that sits between them. And what ends up happening if you go back and watch like movies from our childhood, like Hook. It was one of my favorite movies of all time.

Adam: Love that movie.

Trae: And there's like the whole story is kind of rooted around this idea of like, an unsupportive, not present father and him like going through Wonderland to like find himself again. And I think that's really what people are talking about when they're talking about hustle culture is they're like, I'm a bad parent.

Adam: Mmm.

Trae: I wish I weren't a bad parent because I'm working too hard. I don't think those things are, they're not actually related. It's like you can work really hard and be a good parent too. You're just making a decision to not pay attention to your children. That's not your job's fault. That's your fault. And so I think that the approach that we've taken as parents is we don't need to build this giant wall between our professional life and our family life.

We can be present. With our kids, while we are engaged in our passions, and we choose to bring them along for that ride. Like, our kids are going to be here at the office this afternoon, with us, hanging out, doing their summer reading. They know everyone that we work with, on a first name basis, you know.

I think, like, if you ask one of our kids, like, do you feel like your parents are present? They will both tell you, our parents are super present. Like, they have total access, we go to their sporting events, we take them to places they need to go. It's just a choice of like, are you going to be present in the moments that you need to be present, or not?

And if you find that your job is getting in the way of that, well, that's a choice that you've made to let your job get in the way of being present for your children. These things, they're not mutually exclusive.

Adam: I love that. I love that perspective. That's really great. The last question that I had for you both before rapid fire is you mentioned this idea of experiencing awe and wonder with parenting. And I'm kind of curious about what that means. If you could say more about that.

Trae: I think there's like this constant kind of experience of, at least from a father's perspective that, you know, you see your kids learning these new things, you see them experiencing the world and oftentimes that leads to a level of protectiveness, like trying to like scoop them up and say like, Oh, I know that this is really interesting, but it's also dangerous.

And we forget that the word awe literally means a combination of wonder and fear. And so I think it's okay to let your kids experience the world and take risk in doing so. And so I think that's like really what I've tried to balance as a father is like. I don't want to prevent my kids from putting themselves in risky situations.

I want them to like fully experience what that's like, because otherwise they won't really experience awe in the world. They won't really know what it's like to climb up angels landing at Zion national park, figuratively speaking, I mean, and that's where all the best experiences come from.

Adam: Wow. Really love that perspective. Thank you for sharing that. Also probably helps that, you know, if there's a broken bone, Michelle could set that bone.

Trae: That is very helpful.

Adam: Or maybe give an IV bag or something if necessary, a couple of quick stitches. Okay. If folks want to help or follow your work or anything like that, what's the best way for them to do that for each of you?

Michelle: Yeah. Parents who are looking for, like I said, intimate community and expert medical advice from pregnancy through age five. Check us out at Oath Care.com.

Adam: Awesome. And what about you, Trae?

Trae: Twitter. I post stuff that's going on Twitter. My DMs are open.

Adam: Okay. What's your Twitter handle?

Trae: It's just my name, Trae Stephens.

Adam: All right. We will link that in the show notes. So they shouldn't instant message you is what you're saying on that.

Trae: Definitely not. No.

Adam: All right, here we go. Are you ready? Rapid fire. Question number one, most indispensable parenting product that you have ever purchased.

Trae: Oath care. 

Michelle: Coffee.

Adam: Most useless parenting product you've ever purchased.

Trae: Most kids toys are stupid. Like they just acquire in piles in the corners of rooms.

Adam: All right, Michelle, same thought for you.

Michelle: I was thinking of this like vibrating pad because I wanted my kids to sleep so bad and there's a lot of science around like mimicking the womb and now we have the Snoo, but the Snoo was never out 10 years ago when I had my kids.

So it's like this, it was. So bad. It made me even more frustrated.

Adam: Which one of your kids is your favorite?

Michelle: Natalie.

Trae: Natalie. Yea

Adam: And, and Natalie is your sister?

Trae: The nanny. The nanny. Yes.

Adam: Awesome. Awesome. I mean, she's younger. She could be like a kid. You know, she's an adult kid. Okay, Trae, most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you as a dad?

Trae: I remember this time that the school called me to come pick up my kid because he bit another kid. And I was then in the lunchroom here at Founders Fund talking to another father. And I'm like, man, it's just like, doesn't it suck when like the school calls you and says your kid has hurt another kid.

And he was like, I don't know. It's never happened.

Adam: He's lying. He's lying. All right, Trae, what is your go to dad wardrobe?

Trae: Jordan's jeans and a hoodie. It's actually kind of a miracle I'm not wearing a hoodie right now.

Adam: Michelle what is your go to mom wardrobe?

Michelle: See, I taught him the, like, white sneakers, sweatpants, crop, well, t-shirt, hoodie. Like, this is just Delco to its core. So yeah.

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

Michelle: I wish I had a story, but I don't.

Adam: Okay. How many parenting books do you have in your house?

Trae: On Kindle? A lot. We have a lot of parenting books on Kindle. You mean on Soul? On Soul Reader? Well, not yet, but soon enough. I think one of the benefits of Michelle being a Ph. D. nurse scientist is that she is the book.

Adam: yeah. Trae, you mentioned you just read a book, though, that you really loved. What was that book?

Trae: Yeah, it's a book by this guy named John Tyson who is a pastor in New York City. It's called The Intentional Father. It's this great book about kind of, raising boys in particular in modern culture. Highly recommend. Very good.

Adam: Alright. Awesome. How many parenting books have you both read cover to cover?

Michelle: More than I can count, honestly. But more for my education. I can't recommend enough Emily Oster's books. Um, So really have a lot of respect for her. Yeah, I think it's Crib Sheet and then Expecting Better were the first two. And then she has one around Family Matters. So all of her stuff is solid.

Trae: I've read not nearly as many as Michelle. Though my personality is that I actually can't not finish a book once I've started it. And so every parenting book I've read has been cover to cover. Even, the end notes. Everything was read.

Adam: Same it's probably why I don't get through them all. Okay, what are the favorite ages for your kids what have they been?

Trae: Now. Yeah.

Adam: Right noow and you know, everyone says, that's really funny. What about the least favorite age for your kids?

Trae: Oh, like when they're tiny, like infancy for sure.

Michelle: Yeah, I think it's actually like the young toddler years for me. I love the infancy years. They were particularly tough for me as like a mom recovering from postpartum, but raising them is the hardest for me at like that 15, 18 month to maybe three year old.

Adam: Yeah, can't do anything right when they're that age

Michelle: No. Nothing. Yeah. No communication. It's very difficult.

Adam: Screen time. Good, bad, and different?

Trae: Both. It's good because it gives you a break and it can help a lot with travel. And bad because your kids just turn into zombies.

Adam: True story. They do.

Michelle: To say that kids need breaks like physiologically their brain does actually need time to rest. And I want to specifically call out over stimulation that parents are doing to not use the iPad, but they're actually creating the same effect as if their kids had iPads.

Adam: Oh Interesting.

Michelle: So it's just something I want to call out and let parents know, like rest is ok.

Adam: Yeah.

Michelle: yes.

Adam: So in a quest to keep the kids off the screen, they're actually over scheduling stuff for them to do.

Michelle: Yes, yes,

Adam: Makes sense. Yeah. Good to know. What is your take on minivans? Are we pro or con, Minivan? Anti.

Trae: Big no. Big no.

Adam: Fully aligned on that. Good to know. Okay. Trae, how many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?

Trae: So many. So many. I actually genuinely love dad jokes.

Adam: Do you have a favorite?

Trae: I have a lot of favorites. I'll give you a recent favorite. What do you call an average philosopher?

Adam: I do not know.

Trae: Mediocrities.

Adam: Oh that's a good one. That's a good one. Okay. What is your policy on snacks right before dinner time?

Michelle: If it's not had after school, then nothing until dinner, because it'll, I mean, they literally forget how to chew their food. If they have snacks close to dinner.

Adam: Trae, do you ever sneak a snack? Just cause no? Okay. Don't tell Michelle if you do.

Trae: I actually think most of the time they want a snack, they're actually just bored.

Adam: Yeah. It’s true.

Trae: It's not that they're hungry. They're just like, I'm not doing anything. I feel I should be eating.

Adam: It's also true of me. Yeah. Most embarrassing thing you've ever done in front of your kids?

Trae: I hate losing my temper with them. Like, and I don't mean like getting angry or correcting them, but actually like losing control and frustration. I hate doing that. And I always like find myself apologizing to them afterwards, even if it was the thing they did that triggered it all.

Adam: Yeah, that's a good lesson though. It happens and apologize, that's also a good thing for them to see Trae or Michelle have either of you ever pretended to be asleep in the middle of the night to avoid a kid visiting your bedside and getting you out of bed?

Trae: No. They would go to Michelle anyway, though. They wouldn't. They wouldn't come to me.

Adam: Michelle have you ever kept the eyes closed so that the kids just go away? No, okay.

Michelle: No. And I think I do this because I know that they're just going to, like, find a way otherwise. I'm not very good at faking it.

Adam: What is the most absurd thing that your kid has ever asked you to buy for them?

Michelle: Apple watch.

Adam: Apple Watch. Okay. All right.

Michelle: And it's like, you the kids have it at school. Or someone has it. Yeah, or he saw someone who has it that maybe looks his age.

Adam: Someone else always has it.

Trae: Yeah. It's not actually about the kid asking an absurd question, it's the absurdity of other parents that lead to these.

Adam: Yeah, what is the longest that you've gone without bathing your children?

Trae: Days. Yeah, a couple of days not actually that long. We were just at sleepaway camp last week and they still showered every day, so hygiene is important.

Michelle: Although, when they're an infant, it's actually best not to bathe them very much, better for their skin

Adam: Their skin gets dry.

Michelle: I'm sorry?

Adam: I said their skin gets dry if you bathe them too often.

Michelle: Yes!

 Adam: That's right. I learned something. How often do you lose in a game? To keep the peace?

Trae: No, you never lose on purpose. Full stop.

Adam: All right.

Michelle: I don't know if you all like, follow the Enneagram, but we are just like very strong types here, like strong type three, like strong type eight. So yeah, we don't try to lose.

Trae: Our oldest just beat me at Magic the Gathering for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he like, still brags about it. I'm not saying it's like a critique of it. It's actually, I think it's good, because he's like, no, it actually means something. When you beat dad, it actually means something.

Adam: I'm going to include links to these two Enneagram personality types in the show notes. So, okay. Just a few more. Most difficult kids TV show that you've ever had to sit through?

Michelle: I feel like you have an opinion on this.

Trae: I dislike most of them. I think I'd flip the question around and say Bluey is truly amazing. That is the exception to all of the misery.

Adam: Okay. Okay. Have you ever used your kids as an excuse to get out of social events?

Trae: As I said before, I hate social events so much that if I can use my kids as an excuse, I will gladly do that. I will use any excuse I can, in fact.

Adam: Awesome. Which Disney or Pixar film are you secretly a fan of?

Michelle: Mulan. 

Trae: Aladdin.

Adam: Oh, I know all the words to Aladdin. That is a fun fact about me.

Trae: Wow, that's incredible.

Michelle: He used to say early in our relationship. Like, “do you trust me?”

Adam: Have you ever finished off your kids homework?

Trae: No. Like I said, you, we don't pretend to lose. If they're gonna be losers, they will earn the ability to be a loser, not me.

Adam: Have you broken the no pets rule in the family? Is there a pet?

Michelle: Yes. But Etsy was our first before Thad, and he will be our last.

Adam: Okay. I feel like there's a story there somewhere.

Trae: We have a King Charles Spaniel. He's lovely and dogs are complicated.

Adam: okay. Yep. Have you accidentally mixed up your kids names?

Trae: On occasion, probably not that much. My brother's name is Trent. And so there was a lot of Trent and Trae going on when I was a kid. And I feel like those two are closer than Solomon and Thaddeus. So it doesn't happen as much.

Adam: Okay, Trae, when was the last time that you fixed something and it actually worked?

Trae: Fixed. Fixed as in... Hiring someone to fix something. Cause if that's the answer all the time, it's incredible. 

Adam: It's a good strategy. What is the most absurd thing that you've ever done to make your child stop crying?

Trae: Usually I'll just like start fake crying just to like confuse them and then they'll stop.

Adam: Yep. I love that.

Michelle: It's definitely louder and more ridiculous than that.

Adam: I'm sure it is. Have you ever eaten something off the floor using the five second rule?

Trae: All the time. Never get sick either. It's a miracle.

Adam: Awesome. What is your favorite terrible dad movie?

Trae: Monty Python and the Holy grail.

Adam: Okay. How many times, Trae, have you said, go ask your mother this week?

Trae: Yesterday, you mean? Multiple times. Multiple times.

Adam: Okay, and my final question, Trae, what was the instant messenger handle from college that you used to talk to Michelle on?

Trae: How about this? For anyone who is not a friend of mine from high school or college, if you DM me the answer to this question from doing some research, I will send you a swag pack of gear from Founders Fund, Anduril, and Sol.

Adam: Wow, the gauntlet has been thrown down. I love a good challenge. That's going in the show notes too. Okay. And on that note Michelle, Trae, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a ton of fun. I appreciated the laughs and the candor and the advice. This is going to be a great episode. Thank you.

Trae: Thanks so much, Adam.

Michelle: Yeah, thank you, Adam.

Adam: Thank you for listening to today's conversation with Trae and Michelle Stephens. 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, parenting, and product by subscribing to the Fishman AF newsletter at www.fishmanafnewsletter.com. Thanks for listening.

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