My Perfect Path

1. Eden Warner (Founding Principal at Treever, Ex-CFO of Fandango)

• Daniel Koo • Season 1 • Episode 1

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My Purposeful Path. Engineer to CFO

Unlock the secrets to a successful career with Eden Warner, whose inspiring journey spans engineering, finance, and entrepreneurship. From his early days at Northrop Grumman to leading a cutting-edge mobile marketing startup, Eden shares invaluable insights on making purposeful career decisions. Learn how strategic choices and adaptability can shape your professional path, as Eden recounts his transition from aerospace engineering to obtaining an MBA and tackling significant roles at Intel and ARCO.

Join us as Eden reveals the pivotal moments that defined his career, including a high-stakes decision between Intel and ARCO, managing international projects, and navigating the intricacies of the finance sector. Discover how Eden balanced financial considerations with long-term goals, leveraging his background in engineering to excel in business. His story offers a compelling look at the importance of initiative and ownership in career development, providing practical advice for professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs alike.

Finally, dive into the entrepreneurial world with Eden as he outlines the traits necessary for startup success. From the importance of extreme ownership to the dangers of rapid expansion, Eden's insights are a must-hear for anyone looking to thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. Hear firsthand how adaptability and strategic hiring have propelled his ventures forward, and gain a balanced perspective on maintaining a fulfilling career. This episode is packed with lessons, anecdotes, and strategies that will inspire and guide you on your own career journey.

Feel free to leave comments here!

Daniel Koo:

Welcome to my Perfect Path, where we dive deep into the lives of high achievers, exploring their early years and pivotal decisions that have shaped their unique paths to success. Get ready to unravel the secret of how they braved career shifts and made daring decisions with limited knowledge and resources. If you've ever wondered how to navigate your life and career best, you're in the right place. Today's episode, my Purposeful Path, features a very special guest, eden Warner. Eden's career journey is nothing short of inspiring. He has worn many hats, from engineering to business to finance, across multiple industries. Before launching his own startup, eden worked at Intel, northrop Grumman, arco, fandango, which are just some of his career highlights. Now he's building his own startup as CEO.

Daniel Koo:

I'm really excited to share today's episode to learn how we can make our own career decisions after listening to Eden's stories on the twists and turns in his career. I hope you enjoy the episode. Welcome to my Perfect Path, the podcast where we uncover the unique journeys of adults who are shaping their own definitions of success. I'm your host, daniel, and today we have a truly inspiring guest joining us, eden. Welcome to my Perfect Path. I'm thrilled to have you here.

Eden Warner:

Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Daniel Koo:

Would this be your first time on a podcast? Yes, it is. This is my inaugural podcast. I've seen that you've actually done interviews with other organizations as well. I've seen Bridge. How was your experience there?

Eden Warner:

No, it was good. I mean, it was just a typical kind of interview and it was a little free-flowing, but it was good and it served its purpose in terms of helping to guide him.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, I think it'll be pretty similar today. My first question to kick us off would be from a high level, what were some of the roles that you've had in the past? I understand that you've had many, so I want to kind of set up context for the listeners.

Eden Warner:

Okay, sounds good. So I was a trained engineer. I did management in the engineering field, then I got my MBA, came out and had a finance degree, went into finance as an analyst, then did management roles in finance, was the head of a plant, which I can go into detail later, was the head of investor relations for a Fortune 50 company, then went to a startup as a CFO, another startup as a CFO, slash COO and then lots of independent consulting around that and I'm doing another startup as a CEO.

Daniel Koo:

Wow, I mean that's a very big, big breath rolls there. I think that's like. Mainly. The reason I want to have this episode with you is that we want to learn from how you make those decisions and how you're advancing your career Right. So the episode today is called my Purposeful Path. Could you share with us why you chose that adjective?

Eden Warner:

specifically. Yeah, sure, in every one of my steps that I've taken, there's been a point where I had to stop and really think of what I wanted next, and sometimes there were things that looked like they were much better and they could be more lucrative. It might seem in the short term, but they didn't fit in line with the purpose of what I wanted to do long term. And so because of that is the reason I chose Purposeful, because it's not one path, but each time there were decision points I used my purpose and where I thought I wanted to go to help make those decisions. I see.

Daniel Koo:

To kind of also tell the listeners what you're currently doing, what are you working on recently and what's your role right now.

Eden Warner:

I'm doing another startup. It's a mobile marketing platform that uses video music clips and native texting to create vignettes, but the vignettes are driven by an AI backend, so it allows you to quickly create this vignette and send it to a friend. And it's a marketing tool because you can use a piece of content that's sent to you, wrap it with music or pictures that is useful for the friend and give it something more meaning than it would have otherwise. So it allows it folks both for acquisition of new phone numbers and acquisition of people. So we're working on that now, where we have a beta that's already built, we're working on funding to do our production back end and, just because I like to be busy, I'm also training to be a coach, an executive coach.

Daniel Koo:

Oh, I see, Wow, I think I've also saw like you were doing some consulting as well.

Eden Warner:

Is that related to the coaching or is that something else? Now the consulting has really morphed into the company's called Trever, so Trever is where my consulting work is really focused now. I mean, I've done other consulting. That was around mobile marketing, around many different pieces, around finance and helping small companies mainly around small and emergent companies but now most of that effort is in.

Daniel Koo:

Trever, I see Is your role kind of like the CEO or the CFO. It's the CEO. Oh, I see Gotcha.

Eden Warner:

So I have a business partner for Trever. He actually thought up the idea, but he's much more of a creative and he is someone that was much more of a business person to make this something real and tangible. So I work as a CEO and he has a role as a creative lead as we move forward to build this out. Gotcha.

Daniel Koo:

I think for the listeners that are kind of focusing on entrepreneurship actually me too so I think we're going to learn a lot today. One of the questions that I want to ask you from your early influences is can you share a little bit about where you grew up and what your childhood was like Maybe your background? We just want to know if we can relate to any of these things. Some people might come from different places, right?

Eden Warner:

Right, so I'm first generation American. Both of my parents are from Barbados in the West Indies. It's an interesting track and I'll touch on this later on because we'll probably talk about schooling at some point. But all of my mom and her three main sisters all came to Cambridge, Massachusetts, because that's where the uncle that sent them brought them to the United States and then they moved from there to different places and my mom ended up in New Jersey. My parents split when I was very young and so my mom is who mainly raised me in New Jersey, and so I grew up in New Jersey, certainly not in the best of neighborhoods and the best of areas. But my mom put herself through school, became a registered nurse, moved us out of that neighborhood, moved us into better neighborhoods. My schooling was all public school until I got to 10th grade, and in 10th grade I went to a parochial school and I kind of changed my trajectory. I mean, I was always a really good student, but now I started to see what I could really do.

Daniel Koo:

I see Were there any particular experiences or individuals that influenced your direction at a young age?

Eden Warner:

I would say that was interesting. Age, I would say that was interesting. I started to play the clarinet when I was in seventh grade no, sixth grade and a year later I met a gentleman who played the sax and he got me into playing the sax and I would go to his house every day to practice the sax and he taught me what it was like to really commit to something, because I could play the clarinet decent. You know, I took classes at school and I would practice a little bit, but he made it a regimen, like I had to promise him I came every single day and I put time into playing the sax, sort of like an accountability partner.

Daniel Koo:

Yes.

Eden Warner:

And so I learned at a very young age if you want to do something well, you should be committed to putting the time in, and so for everything I did, I felt you just don't put your toe in the water. You know, if you really want to get the most out of it, you have to put real time in, and there's certain things that you might do easy, and so it's tempting to just go well, I can do this well easily, so I don't need to put that much effort in. But you'll always see this huge benefit when you truly commit to wanting to do something.

Daniel Koo:

So that was an important influence for me. You know that does remind me of, I think at one point in middle school or early middle school, I realized that actually studying for a test brings good results. Yes, it's kind of a revelation. It was a revelation for me, right, but I realized if I memorize these things, or if I understand these things well, I actually get a good score. I think that was a key moment, I think a lot of us have that kind of changes us.

Daniel Koo:

That's kind of interesting that you learned it from an instrument. Yes, exactly.

Eden Warner:

And I've used that with my children to tell them learning to get discipline is not necessarily because you are studying for a test. There's life outside of the academics that can teach you about discipline even better, and I've always thought music was the one, because you can never say I've practiced enough.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, that's very true, that's very true.

Eden Warner:

Those words don't, because it's not like you're doing a sport, even Even a sport. You need to practice more. But you could do it and suppose you want to dunk, and once you dunk you go okay, I can dunk, but there's never going to be a dunk playing an instrument. You just will be good and you could be better.

Daniel Koo:

It's always better. It's always better. It's one of those things, yeah, so maybe, and we can go into clarinet as well but was there anything that you were very passionate about ever since you were young? Maybe technology, I'm guessing. Yeah, I used to do models.

Eden Warner:

So I would build just regular plastic models, but it morphed into doing radio control models. So at a very young age for what this was I was in. Everything happened around seventh grade. I was in middle school and I had a really good friend of mine and both of us were really interested in models and we decided we were going to build N-scale ships. Oh, okay so that's one one-thirtieth scale, so that's a big size. If you're going to build something like a cruiser or a battleship, it's over five feet long.

Eden Warner:

Oh, wow, okay, so we both committed to building these boats, and so I literally started building my boat, which was a heavy cruiser called a Canberra. I started building this in seventh grade and I finished it in high school in 12th grade Wow. And I built it out of balsa wood buying little strips of balsa wood at the time and all of it from a small six-inch drawing in Jane's Fighting Ships. So I used that drawing and scaled it up and built this five-foot boat and finally put it in the water, fully working when I was a senior in high school.

Daniel Koo:

Oh, it was functional too. It was functional.

Eden Warner:

It was radio-controlled oh wow so it had full gearbox that geared the one motor into four propellers and it had two rudders and it had missiles that fired, that were bottle rockets and it had turning radar and all of these things.

Daniel Koo:

My question would be how did you find a body of water that you could fit this into?

Eden Warner:

Well, there were lakes in my area, which is not like Los Angeles, but in my area in New Jersey I grew up in New Jersey there were lots of lakes that were man-made and so there were lots of people that would do sailboats and stuff like that. But it was fun for us to bring out our boat. When I finally brought that boat out and put it in the water and see all these kids coming around and going oh my God, what is that? It was? But my I would be in the house for hours and hours and my mom's, like you need to get out of the house.

Eden Warner:

I said yes, but I'm trying to get this thing done. But I will tell you one quick story about that. So, like I said, I built the whole thing from a six inch drawing. What I didn't realize was that was a waterline drawing, so it didn't show what was underneath the waterline?

Eden Warner:

So I find a model of the boat and it has a hull and I go oh, I got how the hull is and I build it based on that hull. Later on I finally find real plans for it and find out the bottom of that model was completely wrong. It's nothing like what the boat is, it's flat bottom and the boat's not really flat bottom. And so I ripped the whole hull apart and rebuilt it. Oh my gosh.

Daniel Koo:

That's dedication right there.

Eden Warner:

It was a little crazy, but it was driving me crazy that it was not the right.

Daniel Koo:

It wasn't accurate. It wasn't accurate, so I had to fix it. Wow, I think that says a lot about you and I think it definitely shows what kind of tenacity you need for these things. Actually, that's a good segue to early 20s in your career. You went to MIT.

Eden Warner:

Yes.

Daniel Koo:

And what did you study there? I studied aerospace engineering. Do you think that came from that similar interest area?

Eden Warner:

Right, because I also did model planes, but I didn't fly them as much as I ran the boat. So when I got time to go to school I was thinking between naval architecture and aerospace engineering, and MIT is one of the few schools that actually had a major in naval architecture, in naval architecture. But I decided that aerospace made more sense for just opportunities and everything else. So at MIT it's not really called aerospace, it's aeronautics and astronautics, and so you can do air breathing, which is airplanes, or you can do non-air breathing, which is rockets and spacecraft, or you could just do a mixture of both, which is what.

Eden Warner:

I did I see.

Daniel Koo:

I want to ask you I guess early in your 20s were there some pivotal choices that you faced, Maybe what companies you wanted to apply to, what kind of role you wanted to transition into, Things like that.

Eden Warner:

So I obviously graduated, or was ready to graduate, to be an aerospace engineer. So the good thing about MIT is a ton of companies come to MIT, so it's not like you had to search a lot. There were a ton there. And the question was, what part of the country would I really want to be in? And I remember the first place that came was Goodyear Aerospace and they were in Ohio and I said there's no way I'm going to go work in Ohio, but this is a great company to go practice my interviewing on. So I practiced that.

Eden Warner:

But then later on the final three choices for me were Boeing in Seattle, northrop in LA and Martin Marietta in Florida. And I remember each one had their different pitches for why. But what I loved about Northrop this is one of the early times I had to make a decision like this right was that I was going to go to a research and development group and I felt if I was going to go someplace and really start to apply what I had learned, because I had mainly focused on control theory, so how to control vehicles and I'd done a lot in modern control theory and I said, if I go to these other places, if I go to Boeing and I work on some aircraft, or if I go to Martin Marietta and work on some missile. I'm not going to do state of the art modern control theory, but Northrop was promising me the opportunity to do that. The biggest issue was I lived in New Jersey. I'd never been west of Pennsylvania and now.

Eden Warner:

I was going to go to the West Coast.

Eden Warner:

I had no family there. I have no connection, no linkage. So that was a decision. Are you going to move that far away from family? Because the job makes sense?

Eden Warner:

And the way I convince myself which is something I will say I've done throughout my career is to recognize every decision has time as part of the decision, and the biggest mistake you make is not to think that time is also part of your decision, that you think when you make this decision, it's for all time. That's a mistake. People make all the time when, if you stop and go, what I said to myself is I'm going to do it for two years. As soon as I said that, it became easy to go, do it, and even if it wasn't going to be for two years, it allowed me to say, yeah, I could do it for two years, I can go anywhere for two years, and so make the decision, put it in a box and then make the best decision in that box. And the best decision in that box was to go to Northrop. So that's how I went to Northrop.

Daniel Koo:

I really liked that.

Eden Warner:

And.

Daniel Koo:

I agree with that because I think sometimes we put too much pressure and if you have the timeline that is permanent, it becomes a much heavier decision. And your apartment leases are. It's over in a year.

Eden Warner:

It's okay, you can move back.

Eden Warner:

And the good thing was you know, this is the glory of a big company they were going to move me. You know, take care of all my moving to move out there. Funny, quick story. So I had a car and they were going to move my car as well and I had my five-foot ship and I said I want to take my ship with me and they said, oh, that would take special crating and everything else. And then obviously the guy who was moving me goes don't you have a car? And I go, yeah, he goes. Well, you could just put it in the car and I went brilliant.

Eden Warner:

So, that's how my ship was moved was moved in the car. Because the car wasn't even put on a car carrier. They put it inside the biggest trailer I've ever seen. So they put all my belongings and my car in the trailer and it probably took up a third of the trailer. It was massive. So, anyway, and they moved me all the way out and I went. Well, if I find a company that will be back, I'll be fine.

Daniel Koo:

There we go. We have a moving tip as well. Just get a big enough box, just take everything.

Eden Warner:

So that ended up being, you know, one of the big first decisions thinking I was going to come to LA for two years and I literally never left, Right. I mean, there's all kinds of decisions in between there and other times I thought I was going to leave, but I've never left since. So the two-year decision became forever Right it came forever, but it was not the same forever. It was a ton of different pieces, but it still ended up being in LA, I see.

Daniel Koo:

When you made that decision specifically, did you feel a lot of uncertainty and fear, or was it more of an excitement? And they were both.

Eden Warner:

I mean cause it was. I'd never been that far away from family, and so there was always that, suppose something happens, there's no lifeline at all, because it's not like just anyone. I know that was in LA, it literally was me.

Daniel Koo:

And.

Eden Warner:

I'm like, well, you get to meet people and hopefully that'll be fine. But I will admit that when I got on that plane to fly out here, yes, there was a lot of trepidation, but once you get here and you start to meet people and, yeah, that starts to go away. But it was a fair amount.

Daniel Koo:

Was there something that you did specifically to meet more people and increase your network here?

Eden Warner:

Well, I started playing volleyball when I was a senior in college, and so when I came out here oh, I forgot, there was one. One person in my class came out to California as well and he played volleyball, and so he and I would start to get together. And so I at least had this one friend that I knew, and because of volleyball I would start to get together, and so I at least had this one friend that I knew, and because of volleyball I would go to classes and stuff like that. So I started meeting a ton of people around the circle of volleyball and that ended up being my main place for starting to really know folks out here in LA.

Daniel Koo:

I think volleyball is a great sport to do that. It's a very team dependent sport. You really have to rely on your teammates. I personally played in high school as well, so there's a bit of a connection point there. I guess we can kind of jump into more of what happened afterwards. So after your engineering career, I understand you went to UCLA Anderson for your MBA. How did you make that decision? And you also did it part-time, while working. Is that true?

Eden Warner:

No, I did it full-time while working part-time.

Daniel Koo:

Oh, wow, okay.

Eden Warner:

So you know you go to a company and you're going to do engineering. You don't really know what that means, you just know you're going to work in engineering. And so for the first two years I was there, I was in this research and development group, like I said, and I was the only person I knew of my friends and all that left MIT who actually landed someplace and was doing what he had done in school, so you mean doing something that you've studied very specifically?

Eden Warner:

Yes, so we were actually using modern control theory to try to control a fictitious vehicle. Took a vehicle, put a bunch of effectors on it and said can we control it better using modern control theory? And just so folks understand, the only thing modern control theory means is normally you have the latitude of a plane that you control and the longitude of a plane you control. So you move rudders up and down, you move ailerons to go to the side and those are just decoupled loops that you use to move the plane or the vehicle around. Modern control theory says when I move my stabilizer it also gives me a little bit of force in the latitude as well as longitude. So why don't we take advantage of that and make sure that we use that force when we're calculating how we're going to use other things to move in the lateral?

Eden Warner:

So it takes into consideration more factors Right right, and so that hadn't really been implemented before, and so we were trying to see could we do that with this vehicle that had a ton of different types of effectors that had different forces on it, and it was. The answer was somewhat One axis. You got more benefit from it. The other axis was unstable, and so we eventually had to just zero out all of the modern control pieces for that axis. But anyway, so I did get to do that and that was fun.

Eden Warner:

And then I was tapped and I had to move to this secret project and it was literally a place with no windows. And the funny thing is I now can say what it was, but for the longest time I couldn't even say a one hint of what it was at all. And if I traveled and I was going to a big city, I could say where I was going, but if I was going someplace that probably that's the only thing that could be there I couldn't tell it. Even I can tell my girlfriend where I was going. I couldn't say anything. I could tell my mom where I was going, I just had to just go.

Daniel Koo:

That would have looked really suspicious, though, with your family and friends.

Eden Warner:

Yes, exactly. So I went to that project and I went there as a flight control engineer. I went to a flight control group and when I got to the group they realized they had no one that could do a particular subsystem, which were the actuators for the vehicle. So I became an actuator expert quickly.

Eden Warner:

So I started working on that with the vendors and that's what tapped me to start thinking about something different. I kept thinking where is this going to go? Because engineers want you to get more and more specific as you go up. That didn't really feel like the right way for me. But when we were dealing with the subcontractor for actuation, I started dealing with contracts and when I started doing that I actually found myself kind of intrigued by it. I liked it, I liked the business terms around it. I liked setting those terms, setting those pieces of it. But I still was thinking what am I going to do? What do I do? And here comes another subsystem, which is navigation.

Eden Warner:

So I had a unique situation where it was this older gentleman who was a navigation expert, but he was a very surly gentleman. He couldn't communicate to anyone, he was very mean and I started working under him and it quickly became obvious to my manager that well, eden's the only one that can go into the meetings and actually have conversations, because Joe is just not a nice guy. But Joe liked me because I picked up on things quickly and his big thing is he had no tolerance for dumb people. That was his problem. So if anyone did anything that he thought was dumb. He was more than happy to tell you that was dumb which is not a great way to get people to do things.

Eden Warner:

And so I started working under his tutelage and became a navigation expert. But again I started working with our sub-vendor about the navigation system. And this was early GPS. This is when GPS was not even known and we were using it for our system. And it was. This was early GPS. This is when GPS was not even known and we were using it for our system. And again, setting the parameters, doing the business terms started to get me interested and that's when I started to decide business school would make sense for me. And decision around that was do I want to continue to stay in engineering or do I want to get out of engineering?

Eden Warner:

And I decided I wanted to get out of engineering, and that decision meant I couldn't go to business school and rack up a ton of debt and then make a decision just based on paying off the debt that I wanted this to be a change, and I wanted to be a change to what I wanted to do, not just what I needed to do, and so that's limited the space of the schools I would look at. I wanted a top 10 school because it's a business degree and you have no other way to prove that you're really good at it unless you go to a top 10 school. There's only two schools that really fit the bill in terms of not racking up a lot of debt, being a top 10 school, and then actually, I should say not racking up a lot of debt and being a top top 10 schools really only one, and that was UCLA, because it was top 10, it was in-state tuition, which was really cheap, and, as a bonus, if I could work at my old company, my living expenses would not cause me debt either.

Daniel Koo:

Right, so it would maybe like equal out or at least be sustainable to someone Exactly, and so that was why it became my number one choice.

Eden Warner:

So when I got in there, I was clear that I was going to go there. I wasn't going to go to Stanford because I would be in so much debt.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, I see that, I would only— it's a conscious decision, yes, yes.

Eden Warner:

So UCLA fit the bill and I worked 20 hours a week at Northrop. I didn't say that Northrop was the company I went to. I worked 20 hours a week at Northrop while I went full-time school at UCLA.

Daniel Koo:

So I have two questions. One is when you were working, were you always thinking about how you're going to craft your career Like? Were you always asking yourself constantly like what am I going to do after this? Were?

Eden Warner:

you that kind of person? No, I would periodically ask that question. My belief always was I can't get anywhere if I don't do what I'm doing well, so I wouldn't be constantly thinking about the next thing. I would be mostly thinking about doing what I was doing well. The thing that I learned as time went on was not only to do what I do well, but to keep my eyes open for other things that the company needs done, and doing it. I see that became such a powerful tool in a big company, because there's always gaps, there's always things that need to get done and people are trying to figure out who can do it. And if you just jump in and do it, people just love that, they love the initiative, they love the fact you do it and, quite frankly, it makes your job more interesting too, because it's new stuff. And so that's where my focus was, and I figured the what I do next would come when it needs to come, and then I would have laid the groundwork that makes it easy to go do that. That makes sense.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, I guess one thing that I also like in the company I work for is we focus a lot about ownership right, and there were some people actually even calling it extreme ownership right. So even if it's not your area of the code base, or even if you don't own that part of the service or something like that software, we would kind of dive into other people's code and go in and dive deep and find out what the issue is and cause it, even if it's not our responsibility technically Right. And I think that kind of looking for spaces that will increase your value is an important skill to have overall.

Eden Warner:

Yeah, indeed, indeed. So that's why I would say I wasn't constantly doing that, but I certainly was purposeful in thinking through, like my biggest thing was I don't want to do something too long. That's always my thought process. Now I might have not be thinking what's next, but I know I'm not doing this long. So at some point I'm going to have moments where I go, okay, since I know I'm not doing this wrong, what am I going to do next? So that's kind of how it was driven for me.

Eden Warner:

So when I was in business school they offered me this is an example of being purposeful, right? So after my first year I had a secret clearance. So if I left at all anytime, I would lose my clearance. So in the summer I knew I needed to get a job that was more in line with what I wanted to do next. So I got a summer internship and I went to my boss and I went you know, I've got a summer internship.

Eden Warner:

I guess that's the end of this working, because I'm going to be doing that for the summer and he said well, I would love to have you back in the fall. Is there any way that we could have you still work in the summer and I go. I'm working full time. I'm not spending my summer working a lot. I said I can give you eight hours a week and he goes. We could do that, wow. So for the summer I worked eight hours a week. I had a project. I built a C-state model for the vehicle we were doing, so we could use it for simulations, and I worked at ARCO as an intern for the summer.

Daniel Koo:

That's a perfect segue into what I wanted to ask. You worked at ARCO, and this time you weren't an engineer. No, this was after your MBA.

Eden Warner:

This is actually first as an intern, so it was between first and second year of my MBA. As a finance person, I see.

Daniel Koo:

We can actually start from there. I guess the beginning of your career at ARCO and how that's transformed over time.

Eden Warner:

Right, sure. So I came there as an intern. I worked in a small operating company within the transportation division. So ARCO had a division that did mainly pipelines and ships. They had like a big fleet of ships mainly to move oil from Alaska North Slope down to their two refineries on the West Coast and then the pipelines to move both crude and gasoline product wherever they needed to go. So this was a small pipeline company and I was put in that company and the main reason I wanted to take it was when I went and interviewed with the person. He had a stack on his desk and he goes if you come here, these are my projects that my analysts need to do and I'm just going to grab one of these and give it to you. So I'm not making up anything new for you, it's just going to be a project we need to do. So I love that. So I went there and he gave me one of those projects.

Daniel Koo:

Sorry to interrupt. No, so like the stack of projects. What do you mean? You liked what that was.

Eden Warner:

I liked the one he gave, that he chose for me, the one that he selected for me. I liked when he first said it. I liked the fact that these were projects that his analysts were actually going to do, that he wasn't making up something for the intern who's coming in.

Eden Warner:

Oh God, as an intern it was real business that they needed done, so I loved that. And then, once I got there and he told me what it was, I saw the value in it and they really didn't have an answer, and it required some real sleuth work, as well as some real statistical work, to figure out what was going on. And it was how to predict their main pipeline coming from the San Joaquin Valley, how much oil there would be on that, and sometimes it would be chock full, and other times it was barely empty and they really had no way to predict it, and so they were hoping someone could put together a model that would help them better predict it.

Daniel Koo:

So it sounds like you got a really good experience out of that internship.

Eden Warner:

Yes, so it ended up being great. What I actually felt from them taught them a lot about what was actually going on and in that process, I think what made them I think I would be great was that there's a gentleman who was like their crude oil expert at Arco and I tracked down who he was and went and interviewed him and then used that information and so one night my boss was like so I heard, you went downtown, what did you go downtown for? I said I got a meeting with Alan Murray and I met with Alan Murray.

Daniel Koo:

He goes you met with Alan Murray and I go yeah, well, I wanted to get a better understanding of flows.

Eden Warner:

He goes very good.

Eden Warner:

Very good so the project was great. They offered me a full-time position. At the end of the day, cut to the chase, my final decision was between Intel and Arco and as a gentleman I knew that from MIT and also knew at Anderson who had worked at Arco while I was making this decision. And while I was making this decision he got an offer to move to Intel and it just so happens Intel was trying to get me as well. And I remember because this is part of this decision process thought process In the middle of my interview at Intel, one of my interviews the CFO walks into the room and the controller who's giving me the interview kind of loses her train of thought.

Eden Warner:

Because the CFO walks in the room and he goes. Well, since she's having an issue, I'll just start asking you questions. So he starts asking me questions and I'm answering his questions and I guess he was impressed because he said he was really happy to meet me. He laughed whatever they made an offer for me and I told them that at the end of the day their offer was a lot less than Arco's. I said that's not going to be my only part of my decision process, but you should at least know that. So then they went on a hard sell to tell me why I should want to go to Intel instead, and because of the equity and the value equity, and everything.

Eden Warner:

I said, yeah, that might be true, but I don't know for certain if it is. And I remember the CFO called me one day and starts trying to explain to me why he knows Chevron. And that's just, it's old and it's stale, that's the oil companies. And I said I'm not here to defend Arco, but Arco's not Chevron, it's a very different beast. And so we've had a lot of talking. At one point he finally goes. I have a blank sheet of paper in front of me.

Daniel Koo:

What is it going to take for you to come to Intel? That's a very good position to be, yes.

Eden Warner:

And I went I don't believe you're doing this. And I said to him what was a fateful piece in terms of making being purposeful right? I said here's the problem I have. Intel used to be a company run by engineers. Now you're a company run by marketers. You're not a company run by finance people. I said I hate to say that to you as CFO, but you have at that time some ungodly amount of money on the cash on the balance sheet. I said finance is not the deciding factor for you. It's just where to spend the money is the deciding factor.

Daniel Koo:

I guess what you're saying is the most important, heavy and impactful part of the company is not the finance department. Finance is not.

Eden Warner:

I said, but at Arco, there's no decision that's made at ARCO that doesn't go through finance Because it's a long lead time. It's really important to make the right decisions based on what financial impact it is. And so, for that reason, I think for me because this gets at a point that you said, I think, early on which is, if you're going to work somewhere and you're going to work in a big company, work someplace where decisions are made, because you have to have a skill. You know, even if you want to rule the world, you need to rule the world starting from one place of expertise, and so have that expertise be someplace that's important in the company, because then you can get to places you want to get to.

Daniel Koo:

So by this point your internship gave you enough experience to know what finance is and I assume that you really liked it enough to really like delve into that career Right.

Eden Warner:

Finance was my focus. Finance was my main focus in business school, with operations being my secondary focus. So I was what I thought. So the internship I would say more validated than spurned, I mean, or started, sparked the thought process.

Daniel Koo:

Would you say that it was really like simply fun, or did you feel like it was very engaging?

Eden Warner:

It was I keep going back to that word impactful, because I just knew that the decisions I was making was important to the company. It wasn't ancillary, it was to the heart of the company and that drove it more than anything else.

Daniel Koo:

So what was your answer to Intel and everything?

Eden Warner:

So I told Intel, no, I obviously went to Arco. I remember when I told because Intel, I told them during the over the frost they recruited. Well, they put a senior person in charge of each candidate they were trying to get and I had the corporate controller, was my person and she would call me like almost every other day to see how I was doing. How was the decision process? Is there anything else she could tell me? Is there someone else I need to speak to? Whatever, and when I finally told her no, she goes she goes.

Daniel Koo:

I hate you. She goes. No, I'm kidding.

Eden Warner:

She goes, I'm going to, she goes. I understand your decision process. Obviously, I wish you were coming to Intel, but I'm going to tell you this she goes. We love you now, We'll love you later. So you have a year. If any time in the next year you decide, arco is not the right place, you have a job here. You don't have to wonder. You have a job at Intel and I was like that's really powerful.

Daniel Koo:

That's well done. Yeah, that's very good. That's a very good deal, that's well done.

Eden Warner:

But I went to ARCO. I went back to that same operating company. First. I worked there for a while doing the same kind of work. Then I moved from there to Treasury, which is the corporate entity for ARCO as a whole, and I managed a debt portfolio of ARCO which was at that time $67 billion. And whatever was going on, we had some environmental things around it that I had to deal with. I had to do some stuff around hedging. So I did a whole bunch of different things in that space and then half a year in a special project opened up. There was a gentleman who was assigned to efforts that ARCA was doing to open up in China and on the downstream parts so like the gasoline and other parts of the refining process, and he was leaving and they tapped me to take his spot, which is a big, big deal. So pack my bags, I'm going to go to China and the idea is you're going to be there probably two to one, so maybe four weeks there, two weeks back, and then it might increase after that, but it's a two year stint at least doing this and I went to do that and a quick story is within six months the deal fell apart. That was the end of that.

Eden Warner:

I came back to LA and then I got dispatched to Australia for a deal. So the state of Victoria was privatizing all of their power. Arco had a coal company in Brisbane, australia. They partnered with two energy companies from the US and they were bidding for power stations and they lost the first one and now this was the second one and I was the finance lead to come in in that process. And although I think it was crazy and it was way too expensive and I remember telling the treasurer this is crazy, we shouldn't even be in this he's like that's not your job, you just have to make sure that you support them as well as possible. Thank God we lost the bid because it was way, way overpriced. But it was a fun it was. I mean. It felt just like being an investment banker. You're sleeping on the floor in your suit, you're getting up at one in the morning having negotiations with folks about the trust agreements and everything else. It was exciting and we had some great meals. Melbourne has amazing food but at the end of the day, thank goodness we didn't get that and I came back to Treasury From there.

Eden Warner:

I wanted to manage stuff, so I went off and I managed in the finance. I'm going to run through this in the controllership in one division and while I was doing that it was an example of doing other people's work or doing other needs not people's work, but other things that they needed done. The people I did that for had the decision to who would run this important plant down in Wilmington. That is normally a job for engineers coming out of the refinery that they have high hopes for. I was the first finance guy coming down to run that project and it was a beautiful business. I mean, from $100 million in revenue it threw off $65 million in cash and for a manufacturing business, that's pretty amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, so I won't get into details of it, but I did that and then I was loving that so much that they tapped me on the shoulder and said come do investor relations for the company. And so I went kicking and screaming back to corporate and ran investor relations and that was my last job at Arco.

Daniel Koo:

I see. So it seems like even within Arco, you kept expanding your scope. Yeah, and they recognize that, they push you forward and it seems like you were able to get what you needed out of Arco. Yes, what was the next step and how was the transition and what I guess gave you the I don't want to say courage, but what gave you the push to move on from Arco Right, especially since they've, I guess, they treated you well and they recognize your talent.

Eden Warner:

So what was the decision there? Well, actually that's a big one, because I was the head of investor relations when ARCO agreed to be bought by BP. Bp had bought AdmoCo about six months before, and now they were buying ARCO and I'm the head of investor relations, and so I ended up flying to London to help prepare everything for the announcement for this and everything for it. But I'm the ultimate redundant, as they use their word. Position right.

Daniel Koo:

Because there's a head of investor relations for BP.

Eden Warner:

So I'm assuming I'm going to leave as part of this. But lo and behold, the CEO of BP takes a liking to me because he gets to work with me. I go on the roadshow to talk to investors, and so he offers me a special assistant job for him, working for him. Okay, and it's probably the best job that could have been offered, because you literally work hand in hand with the CEO of BP, of BP, and the idea is, after you do this almost like a training ground, for about 18 months to two years, you go off and run one of their biggest business units. But it would require me to now truly commit to being in the oil industry. I see, and so the way I looked at it was, this opportunity he was offering to me was amazing. It's world class.

Eden Warner:

But if I do that, then the next step is to do something else, to do industry, and unless I get there and hate the company, I'm not going to take that spot from someone, that development spot, just to take it, get that experience and leave the company. I won't do that. So I said I really don't want to be five years at an oil company anymore, because if I'm five more years. I'm an oil person, that's it. You can say I'm something else, but I'm not. I'm an oil person.

Eden Warner:

And so I turned it down. Wow, and I took the package, because I had the option to take the package, because my job was redundant, so I didn't have to take this other job Makes sense. And I took a vacation. That's amazing. I took a vacation and I said I'm not going to start looking for work until I'm ready to work, because I don't want to start looking saying I'm going to look in and find something and have to end my fun when I'm not ready for it yet, and I remember talking to someone and I said to them I said well, why don't you just do this now?

Eden Warner:

I said no, because the opportunity cost for me right now is my fun and my free time, so you're going to put a dollar amount on that. I don't think you got enough money.

Daniel Koo:

I think if there's any reason to have fun in the middle of your career, you should take it, especially if it's paid for Right, obviously. I feel like, from what we just talked about, you wouldn't have taken. Did you take the entire time, or did you feel like you wanted to get back in?

Eden Warner:

I took not the entire time. Entire time, or did you feel like you wanted to get back in? I took not the entire time. I gave myself a minimum. I said six months is my minimum. So after six months I will start looking, and that's what I did. But the beginning of it was a vacation already, because they needed me to go to Singapore for this event.

Daniel Koo:

And.

Eden Warner:

I said, okay, I'll do it, but my time ends while I'm in Singapore, so I'm just going to do some traveling around Southeast Asia and then I'll come back. And that's what I did. So my vacation started while I was in Singapore and then I went to Kuala Lumpur. It was great.

Daniel Koo:

It was a really good trip.

Eden Warner:

And then I came back and I said in September because whatever, yeah, it was March. I said in September will be when I start looking. But yeah, it was March. I said in September will be when I start looking. And lo and behold, as soon as I started looking in September, something came up from a place I didn't expect, which is a gentleman I had hired at Arco, who was from SC. When he left Arco he went and worked for Disney. The guy he worked for in Disney got tapped to be the first CEO for Fandango, the movie ticketer, that's it. So he was working there as an analyst and he calls me one day and he goes Eden, we need a CFO. You know, would you consider this? And I went no, it's 2001. And I'm going, I'm not going to go to an internet company.

Eden Warner:

You must be kidding me, right. But then he says, well, at least come and find out more. So I came and found out more and I was like, okay, this is different. You know, it's not just an Internet company selling its wares out there, where you can have infinite competition that drives down rents. They actually had exclusive relationships with the theaters so only they could sell for the theaters, so you didn't have competition that way. So that's a good model.

Daniel Koo:

I like that, like the advantages of having an early internet business, that you could get away with those things.

Eden Warner:

Yeah, and it's like having a brick and mortar. So the exhibitor was your brick and mortar and you were doing a service for them. That was an internet service, but it's for them and only for them.

Eden Warner:

So I said, okay, great, so you're not spending it. And I said they had deals where they had placement in all the theaters that they were wired in to sell. We didn't have to pay for that marketing. They just had to pay for the materials or production but not the placement. So I said so you have cheap advertising. That was another big thing with the Internet was people were blowing tons and millions of dollars on Internet advertising. And then the last thing was did they have kids running the company?

Daniel Koo:

or was it adults?

Eden Warner:

Actually there's two other things, and they had adults running the company, or was it adults? And actually there's two other things? And they had adults run the company. And the third was are the investors in this company trying to just quickly get something up and then try to sell it, or are they really trying to build a business? And Equity formed the company. Two VCs got together because they saw what had happened with AOL and Moviefone and said if we could pull together a consortium of exhibitors, we can create a real business, and so they actually wanted to create a business.

Daniel Koo:

So how was that process for you? Did you go and talk to these people before you joined? Yeah, how were you able to do that? I guess you.

Eden Warner:

They just reached out. They knew from the gentleman I knew he told the head of HR, he told the CEO and the head of HR, he told the CEO and he told this other guy that was a consultant for them, that was kind of doing the finance function for him temporarily, and so they reached out to me. But the funny thing is the CEO didn't want to reach out to me yet. I don't know what his issue was, but they're like we can't lose him. So they've secretly met with me and vetted me and then, once he realized that I made sense, then he was happy to talk to me as well. I see, it was interesting, because people say, how did you move from oil to selling movie tickets? And I told people, business is business and yeah, the scale was different and that's why I love finance. Right Finance was about knowing how to make good financial decisions. Good financial decisions are good financial decisions.

Eden Warner:

It doesn't make a difference if it's oil in the ground, or it's processed oil, or it's selling movie tickets.

Daniel Koo:

It's about making good financial decisions. It's a core skill. That kind of translates.

Eden Warner:

Right, exactly right, and it was that for me.

Daniel Koo:

So, from Fandango, did you feel like you enjoyed your time there? Did you feel like you grew a lot in that company?

Eden Warner:

Oh, I did. I grew a ton. I mean, it was my first startup, right? So it was a case of I thought I asked all the right questions. I knew how much cash they had, what their burn rate is, didn't know that as soon as I joined them they were going to quadruple their burn rate and spend a ton of money on advertising, which was insane. So within my first month I had to have this come to Jesus meeting, as I said, on a Saturday where I brought all the executives in and told them you're insane.

Eden Warner:

I said your plan will have you running out of money in three months and you think you're going to raise money and you've barely sold any ticket. And it's between now and March. And who sells movie tickets between December and March? No one. Tickets between December and March? No one. So I said the new plan is we have to be able to make it past the summer, because at least the summer is a better time that we can sell tickets and then raise money and prove that we can sell it. So I said so, given that this is our bogey, we've got to cut 40% out of our spend. The good thing is, most of the spend was what they were going to do, and they hadn't hired a bunch of people yet, and so we'd have to fire people. We just had to not spend the money they were going to spend, which is a lot easier decision to make, but they still were kicking, screaming, and we went through a lot. I learned about bankruptcy.

Daniel Koo:

I became almost like a bankruptcy attorney.

Eden Warner:

We won in bankruptcy court where no one thinks you could win, so there was a ton that I learned a ton.

Daniel Koo:

Do you feel like there's a certain type of person or, I guess, innate skill that you need to be in entrepreneurship and like startups? Yeah, I say a unique capability.

Eden Warner:

I used to always say startups need amoebas, not paramecium. Paramecium have a fixed shape, they know what they are and that's it. Amoebas change shape, they grow and they move and you need people who can fill gaps, because there always are going to be gaps and you might see someone just stick their finger in that dike for a little while and decide is that going to become a big hole or is that really just a little dike and we don't really need to do something about it? If it becomes a big hole, okay, maybe we need to hire someone to really do that. But in the first analysis, you're not going to run out and hire someone. You need someone who could just do something, and that's what I did at Fandango. I mean, I came in there as a finance guy and what did I end up doing? I ran sales for a while because we weren't going to sell. I said we don't need to hire a salesperson. Yet Until we wire enough theaters that we have a big enough footprint, we salesperson. Yet until we wire enough theaters that we have a big enough footprint, we're not going to sell advertising. What we need to do is I'll be the head of sales. We need to find a person who's got a great personality, that can just meet people and get to the place that when we actually have something, they can't say no to her. And we found the perfect person for that. She was just amazing.

Eden Warner:

And so by the time we started to sell, she would come in and she goes oh, just give me a $5,000 sale. And I said for you, shelby, of course we got to give you something right. And because that was her job and I said originally she won't have a commission, we'll pay her more in salary and once we start to get a real basis of what we could sell, then we'll reduce her salary and give her more on commission. And that worked out great. But I was a salesperson. I had never done sales. I was the head of sales for a year and all I kept saying to her is go, do what you do, and if you need me to come in, just to come in the meeting and go yes, I love you too. I'll come in and you tell me what to say and I'll say what to say and I'll tell you what you need to do to get to a certain level. And it worked out great. Makes sense, yeah.

Daniel Koo:

I think it kind of ties back to what we talked about of, you know, extreme ownership and also being or looking at where we can have more impact. Yes, and really like increasing your impact actually gives you growth at the same time, right, and it seems like it expands your scope and you're able to advance your career that way, right, I mean the old adage used to be for any company that especially a startup company is cash is king, and what is the number one thing?

Eden Warner:

you're spending cash on People. So for you to be judicious, you should be really, really. It should be a big deal for you to add a body, and so you should find every way you can to do it without adding a body, until you have to add a body. And today's world is easier because there's software as a service. There's a bunch of things that you can use to help you to do that. Before you decide OK, this has to be proprietary or I need someone who's always available, but it should be.

Eden Warner:

When you get to that point, as opposed to I have this little need, hire a person for it and hope that it grows into that. You can't afford that. That's the kind of stuff that forces people to do these big expanses and these painful contractions. But if you always make it hard to add a body, then you grow. Yeah, you're going to have pinch points at times. You're going to have capacity constraints. That's okay, that's just life. But it's way better to do that than to expect a huge growth and don't get that and then have to start cutting, because once you start a culture of cutting, you can never get away from it. People just expect it, and then they operate out of fear as opposed to operating out of what's best for the company.

Daniel Koo:

That makes sense, I think. I've heard something like hire slow and fire fast.

Eden Warner:

Yes, exactly, I think if you hire slow, you actually may not even need to fire fast, exactly, exactly, but that is your best hope for not having to fire fast.

Daniel Koo:

I kind of want to talk about. To whom would you not recommend this career? Right For people who are maybe dreaming about this entrepreneurship. I know people glorify it and romanticize it. To whom would you not recommend this career and say, maybe it's not for you?

Eden Warner:

That's a good question. Some of the quick thoughts are someone who thinks that they only do one thing, like, given what I just said, you think that's a natural thing. If there's just one thing that they're good at, and that's what they think that they're good at, and that's it, it's going to be a tough area for you. If you need constant praise, don't do it, because it's just not going to happen, right. If you need to always have wins, don't do it. If you think that this is a hard one, though, but if you think that your job is going to define who you are, don't do it, because when it goes down, you're going to go down.

Eden Warner:

So it needs to be. This serves a purpose, but it's not my core purpose, because if it becomes your core purpose, I know that. That's why I say it's a hard one, because a lot of people think you're supposed to live and breathe. I just believe it's just like having stock in your own company, right? I used to tell people, if your company matches, don't put your 401k in your stock, because when the company goes down, then your 401k goes down, right. So diversify, right, right, and I'm saying diversify joy, right. Diversify, right, and I'm saying diversify joy, right. Don't have your joy wrapped up in that same thing. Find other ways to have joy. So, if that's the only way you can find joy, I don't think it's a healthy thing for certain, and I still don't think it's the right thing for you as well.

Daniel Koo:

But those are the ones that come to mind. I see, and I guess the other side of that question would be to whom would you recommend this career? And maybe you can also tie it to what you? Were thinking when you began and what were the misconceptions and what were like the surprising good things about that you enjoyed.

Eden Warner:

So you have to certainly be a person who I always used to say that we are really good at seeing risks and not seeing uncertainty. So when we look at uncertainty as just human beings, uncertainty means that it could be positive, it could be negative, right, but we look at uncertainty and we're really good at seeing the downside and it's hard for us to see the upside. That's just kind of the way we're wired and I guess if you're in a cave and you're worried about going out and something might eat you, you shouldn't be worried about the risk, right? There's uncertainty that you might go out there and somebody might give you flowers, but there's a really good chance something might eat you. So I get why it's kind of wired into our DNA.

Eden Warner:

And so my thought is you really should be a person who sees uncertainty, that sees upside and downside, not just downside. Because if you're only looking at downside, downside, not just downside, because if you're only looking at downsides, it's not going to power you through the tough times you have to do. And for me, what was surprising to me was I just thought if you were in a startup and you screwed up once, that's it, you're dead. And I got to realize you know, you got a lot more leeway than you think you do.

Eden Warner:

That it's not as you make one mistake and you know you got a lot more leeway than you think you do that it's not as you make one mistake and you die, as I thought it was that not saying no, there's a whole bunch of stupid people and we all make dumb mistakes with startups, and it doesn't necessarily kill you. In fact, it usually doesn't. It's usually something much more macro or much more sustained, like when you hear the story of BlackBerry and how BlackBerry died, it was like years and years of doing the same wrong thing before they finally died.

Eden Warner:

You know it wasn't like they just made that one mistake and apples come on, it's like, oh, you're dead. No, they just kept going. They had multiple chances to change direction and they just never did. And that is a key thing that I've learned is that I don't say that to get sloppy. I'm just saying don't think a world is over because you made a mistake in a startup and in a big company. You know it's not going to kill the company, but you think it's going to kill your startup, and it's not. But just be willing to know it's not going to kill it, but you're going to have to put work in.

Daniel Koo:

I guess. To summarize, turbulence is guaranteed, but there's a lot more leeway than you think there is.

Eden Warner:

And always remember that uncertainty has upside and downside. Uncertainty does not necessarily mean only downside, which is what will come to your mind instantly.

Daniel Koo:

I like that. Yeah, that's a very hopeful message. I think a lot of people recommending startups. They always say, you know, if they knew what was going to happen, they wouldn't do it again, or something like that. I think the CEO of NVIDIA also said that at one point. And it's very daunting if you hear things like that. I have not experienced that in any of my startups and they've been painful moments.

Eden Warner:

There's no question it's been painful, but I never got to that place of saying I would never do this again. Now there's things like you might have a partner.

Daniel Koo:

that's difficult and that might be it.

Eden Warner:

But that's a separate thing than just doing a startup right? So no, I've never said that I would not do it because of that. And Fandango was wild, crazy. I go back I tell people I say I could write a million stories about it because it was such a wild ride. But there's nothing like going someplace and no one knows it and then you turn on the TV and you see Fandango as one of the apps in the app store or on the TV and whatever else you go. And you started from when that was. No one knew what it was. That's one of the apps in the app store or on the TV and whatever else you go. And you started from when that was. No one knew what it was. That's a beautiful feeling. That is hard to match that in anything. You can't get that anywhere else.

Daniel Koo:

No, you cannot, you cannot. No. So for one of our final questions, what's one piece of advice you would give someone starting to cover their own path? Kind of based on your experience, maybe to start a path similar to yours.

Eden Warner:

I'd say this is going to sound trite but find something you like doing. Really, I don't care if it's programming, if it's. Find something you like doing and then see how that might be a bridge to the next thing you want to do. But try your best not to do something just to hold space or just to get a paycheck. If your goal and there's nothing wrong with this right your goal might be I just want, I want to go hike, I want to climb, that's the main thing I want to do. And I just want to make enough money to pay for my rent, pay for my hiking equipment. If I have a family, pay for my family. But I don't. That's it. That's what I'm, that's what my job serves that purpose. There's zero wrong with that, that's great. So in that case you don't necessarily need to do a job you really love, because the love is financing your love. So that's why you feel comfortable, you go. I didn't put up with this because it's financing what I love. But if your goal is to build something, love has to be in there, not your whole thing, like I said earlier, not all of you, but there has to be something in there. You like to do that, you get up in the morning and you get jazzed about doing some aspect of it. So find something that, if you get to a point you have to pour yourself into it, you can see why you would do it. It's not a waste for you. That's important.

Eden Warner:

And then the other piece is while you're not, like I said, you want to do that, what you're doing. Well, you do want to keep in mind the prize. Where are you trying to get to? You don't necessarily have to map it out, because I can guarantee you if you map it out it'll be wrong. But I used to always say this if you keep in mind where you're trying to go in the moments you least expect it, your mind will tell you ways to get there. You don't have to overthink it, you just have to keep it as part of your, not like a drumbeat, but just in your consciousness. I know this is where I want to go, and there'll be moments you will be dreaming you will be riding a bike, you will be swimming, you'll be sitting on the beach, you'll be on vacation, you'll be on a flight and you will go. Oh, my goodness, yes.

Daniel Koo:

To kind of summarize what we learned today I think being purposeful with your decisions. I think searching for impact and increasing scope. I think also learning what you're passionate about and really finding the field that you want to work in. I think those are really important. Also, to have the courage to jump to a different company, jump to a different field.

Eden Warner:

But just have purpose in mind. Right, have purpose in mind, and know why you're doing it, and we talked about this earlier. Always remember time is part of the decision. Time is not an extraneous piece. Time will help you make a decision.

Daniel Koo:

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your time, oh thank you.

Eden Warner:

Thank you so much for joining us today, really appreciate your time and your insight.

Daniel Koo:

I think it's going to be a great episode and, yeah, we hope to have you on the podcast again at some point.

Eden Warner:

I know there's a lot more Defend Anger that we would like to get into, so yeah, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Daniel Koo:

I enjoyed it.

Eden Warner:

You made it easy.