From High School Dropout To $952 Million At 33

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
All right, this is going to be a special episode. I think that the best episodes we do are the ones where we highlight a business or a person who is amazing that you've never heard of. And that's what today's episode is. The person that we have on Jess Mah, she has built herself, I don't know, 10 companies that have combined, they're worth $950 million. She, and not only just has she made a bunch of money or been successful with business, but she's just a force of nature. People that I respect think she's one of the best entrepreneurs in the world. And that's kind of amazing for somebody who you don't know her name, you've never really seen her do interviews. Paul Graham, when he met her and she was at YC, put her on the very short list of a couple of people, with Sam Altman and a few others, as the most impressive people. The people that he thought 30 years from now will have done the most and gone the furthest.
I was at a dinner, that's how I met her, and a friend of mine pointed out, he goes, that woman over there is the best entrepreneur I've ever met.
And he's lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years, and to say that, that's high praise.
So I had to have her on the podcast to talk about everything from her beginning, where she was basically a loser amongst losers in school. She talks about like, not only was she not cool, even in the computer club, she got bullied and didn't really fit into school, didn't get good grades, really like was just kind of like school wasn't for her. She ended up dropping out of high school because school wasn't for her.
But she started a business and it started off as a very, and when she was a teenager, she ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this little server business that she was creating, just paying for her own video games. We talk about that all the way to where she is today, building these biotech companies that are doing crazy stuff.
And I asked her, I was like, were you like a science genius? How did you know to go with this? How did you have the confidence to go into a space like that? Like I think we all, I think there's a part of all of us that wants to go do the big, bold, crazy, change the world thing, but we're afraid. Like who am I to go do that? At least that's a thought I've had.
And it was kind of amazing to hear her talk about, she felt the same way. Like she's like, I got a C-minus in biology and now I have like a nine figure, you know, a hundred million dollar plus biocompany. Like that's crazy to do that. And how she approached that, how did she meet these scientists? How did she get the funding? How did she actually talk herself into doing that from rock bottom where she was completely depressed and didn't know what she wanted to do with her life to now, you know, living the kind of life she wants. The other thing that's in this episode that I think you're going to like is she talks a lot about the lifestyle and financial stuff that come from people who are already really successful. So she, you know, like, I'm going to give you a trigger warning now.
She talks about like, you know, yeah, I just like, I hop on my jet, like, you know, and I bought this jet. I bought it for this reason. Here's the tax write-off that I got. She's very open and very clear about this stuff. And I think for some people who are at the very beginning, it's going to feel unrelatable or it's going to feel like, oh yeah, you know, the classic YouTube comment guy, who's like, easy for you to say you're already rich. But I think the important thing to figure out is she successful because she always thinks this way. She talks about her mindset and that's why she was able to do this. And also I love when people talk about money stuff. I love when they're open and honest. I hate the billionaire who downplays it and pretends like, they're a flying coach and money is no big deal. And I don't really do anything with my taxes. No, I like to hear what people actually do, how they use money to improve their life, how they architect their businesses. She does that. She's very open about it. So that's all this episode. I think you're going to enjoy it. This is an episode with Jessica Mah.