Name: Brainstorm Tech 2023: Why We Should Talk About Mental Health
Uploaded: 2023-07-11
Duration: 18 min 54 s
Description: Andy Dunn, Co-founder, Bonobos Kirsten Green, Founder and Managing Partner, Forerunner Ventures In conversation with: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

Andy Dunn, Co-founder, Bonobos Kirsten Green, Founder and Managing Partner, Forerunner Ventures In conversation with: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

Brainstorm Tech 2023: Why We Should Talk About Mental Health 

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Why We Should Talk About Mental Health 

So earlier this year, more than 250 leaders from the health care industry met at Fortune Brains from Health in LA. And one of the key takeaways from that event was that the consequences of ignoring mental health has a detrimental impact on just about everything. Not a big surprise there, addressing mental health in the workplace as well has become really critical and yet within the startup community, there's still a lot of stigma and remains somewhat taboo. So joining us next is Andy Dunn. He's a seasoned entrepreneur who has experienced a fair share of wins, selling his first company Bonobos to Wal Mart. Recently, Andy wrote a book called Burn Rate, launching a start up and losing my mind. And he's here today to talk about his personal journey with mental health. Plus his current venture which aims to detoxify digital culture and reduce burnout rates. And also joining us is Kirsten Green, the founder of Foreigner Ventures. She's an investor known for prioritizing consumer centric companies that enhance user experience, reshape human behavior and culture. Notably, Kirsten was one of Andy's top investors and top sources of support as he opened up about his disorder and she's an investor in his new company as well. So please join me in welcoming both Andy and Kirsten to the stage for this important conversation. Um Show of hands how many of you have read Andy's book? Ok. OK. All right. Um We may have some more copies floating around by the way. Um So in, in light of that Andy, if I could have you not to, to overly simplify, of course, because it's incredibly complex. Um But maybe as a way of just boiling down in succinct forms what the book is about. Like give us a little bit of the rock bottom summary and we can go from there. Yeah. So my story is I was diagnosed with bipolar I when I was 20 just a quick show of hands if you're familiar with bipolar disorder, OK. So generally we have a sense it's a disorder of mood, the really high highs, the really low lows. Vincent Van Gogh being our, the, the proudest member of the, of the bipolar club. And as we all know, the not everybody cuts their ear off though. No, no, not not everybody. The entrepreneurial journey we talk about as what a roller coaster. And so when you have an underlying mood disorder and you're an entrepreneur, it might amplify the highs and the lows. And so I was in denial of it for 16 years. It came raging back from when I was initially diagnosed when I was 20 in 2016, I had a team of 500 people had raised over 100 million in capital. We were nine years in building into building the business and I was institutionalized at Bellevue Hospital in New York. I spent a week there coming down from a manic psychotic episode and I was finally ready to deal with this illness that we had collectively buried as a family. My mom's family are Punjabi Indian immigrants. My dad's family are Scandinavian midwesterner, very different cultures, but with one incredible common thread which is we never talk about mental illness or mental health. And so this was, this was buried and it came back up and I walked out, finally ready to deal with it. And I walked out straight into handcuffs and I was arrested for felony and misdemeanor assault and that's a cliffhanger for reading the book. And it's about how I put my life back together after that. And it wasn't because I did it. It was because of my family. It was because of my now wife. It was because of a great doctor. It was because of a supportive board that Kirsten Green was on and I was so fortunate to get through it and like only 25 people knew about it. And then the next year we sold Bonobos for $300 million. We had the 10 year anniversary of the company. Uh I converted to Judaism. I got married and the Cubs won the World Series. And so it was like the most magical year after the most hellish year and almost no one knew. And so writing burn rate was people deserve to know the real story of what goes on behind the scenes with an entrepreneur who's battling mental illness. Well, I really want to make a lot of like Jewish and neurosis jokes because I'm Jewish. So it's ok but, but I won't bore everybody with that. I want to hear Kirsten just how did you enter the picture, you know, early on as an investor and then let's, let's get to sort of Andy disclosing his disorder to you. I met Andy early on in the Bonobos journey even before I was investing with Forerunner, which is the firm that I, that I run. And I was, you know, totally turned on by his passion, his ambition, his vision to be daring and bold and do something new and different and joined as an angel investor. And I think from the earliest stages, Andy and I formed a friendship and a bond. Um and you know, it, it grew over time and mhm And, and tell us about the, you're actually, you're in the book um multiple times um take us back to uh when Andy disclosed the disorder to you and how, you know, I wanna hear from both of you. Why, how uh and, and what was your reaction? I think that you know, II, I think it was shocking, but I don't think that was what we focused on. We focused on Andy who we knew as a person, who we knew as a good person, as a person who had shown up in so many ways for so long, over time and immediately felt like our friend, our colleague is in trouble. How do we help him? How do we support him? That was, you know, the only thing that was on my mind when I first, you know, learned of the situation that had, you know, propelled the conversation and the disclosure of the bipolar disorder, we hadn't talked about that before. And Andy, why did you ultimately disclose it to your board? I had to because I had been arrested and while the case was ultimately dismissed, expunged, sealed, partly because my now wife and my mother in law who I had, who I had struck during my psychosis were like, this is a mental health issue. And my mother in law was amazing. She basically said, imagine that the last time you saw your mother in law, you were naked and pushed her to the ground and kicked her. Just try to picture the next time you see her, which it turns out, I recommend lunch at ABC kitchen and I sat down with her, I assumed it would be the last time I would see her and she put her hand on my hand and she said Andy, this is just like any physical illness, all you have to do is see your doctor and take your medication. And if you do and if Manuela wants to stay with you, then you have my blessing and just like water works like the tears coming down my face from being accepted by not my family but by another family. And that's how I felt about our board. That's how I felt about Kirsten and the people on the board is they, they met my disclosure with acceptance and concern more for, are you OK. There was a question on the call is Manuela. OK. And how, what are you doing to get healthy? And so the focus was on and how can we help you do that? 100%? And so the focus was on my health rather than on the company and that just meant the world to me and it actually freed me up to spend my energy getting better so that I could get back to making sure our company was on track. So this was obviously a really uh kind of unique and extreme case. Um You were arrested, you had to disclose it. You didn't have much choice over when. But um it's interesting, we, we had Andy speak in front of our group of founders yesterday. And one of the things that you shared was that um you, you, yes, you should disclose and um and you should open up about it but that you should disclose strategically. So can you explain what your advice is from the founders today who might be grappling with similar issues? And I'm curious to hear both of your perspectives as investors. You invest as well as being a founder today. Yeah. So entrepreneurs ask me now. Well, if I have this mental health issue, if I have a mental illness, when do I tell my investors? And I say six weeks after you've closed your series A which is to say it's not necessarily appropriate to disclose something right away. I think Renee Brown talks about vulnerability as strategic vulnerable disclosure is the most powerful force for human connection in the universe because it's basically saying here's something about my life that's hard and that is invite and activate what your empathy for me. And it's going to invite mutual disclosure, which is one of the two ingredients in platonic friendship formation. So it's powerful, but you have to pick your moment. And I would say the worst way to do it is the way that I did it, which is to disclose in a crisis because now people are getting fresh information also while the shit is hitting the fan in parallel, it's so much better if we disclose prior to that. And that way when something does come up, folks are ready to help because they have that information on background. I, I think that's true. I mean, I think that when Andy, when I learned of Andy's challenge in the context of that emergency situation, one thing I thought was did I fail him as a partner and a friend that we had a 9, 10, whatever plus year friendship and business relationship where he hadn't told me that before. Um, and, you know, I totally your fault. I do think that, um, I have other people in my life that have suffered from mental illness. Um I have a, an empathy and an understanding for that. And while he and I never had that conversation, I think under, you know, the current underneath of some of the ups and downs and the reaction to those. Um I think I was able to like navigate and hang in there with Andy through some of that because of that. But I can't help but think how much more I might have been able to show up or how much more the whole board might have been able to do to support you in some of those times if we had had more open conversations about it and understandable, you can't tell someone on a first date. You can't someone tell someone in a fundraise process. It's not that you're, you know, holding back some information that you should share, but it takes time to build trust and to reveal yourself. And I think, you know, what I'd like to share for founders is, is to be brave and do put yourself out there and create the opportunity to build those relationships. Because if you do like, it can be very powerful to support you have. And similarly, as investors to create a space and an openness in a relationship where you can invite that in, in a way where you give a signal that you won't be met with judgment, but that you'll be met with being constructive. Um By the way, show show of hands how many of you have been impacted by mental illness? Directly, indirectly, family, friends, workplace. OK. Um Speaking of de stigmatizing, um you know, I think just having the vocabulary, like it's interesting you say, um you were talking earlier, it's, it's like a physical illness, right? And yet we have all this, this, this taboo. Um And at the same time, it's a part of you, but it doesn't define you. How do you speak about it? What's the vocabulary to you? Yeah. Well, the one of the ones that struck me is I was told that I was bipolar and I spent a long time feeling a deep sense of shame like I was this bad thing. I was personally a disorder. I was maybe a disorderly person. And then at some point it dawned on me. This is absurd. We would never say someone is cancer, we would say they have it and it's hard enough to have cancer to be, it would be another level. We may say once in a while someone is cancerous to the culture, right? But that is a very aggressively negative thing to say. And yet with mental illness, it is the norm, it is the norm to say my dad is bipolar, my brother is bipolar. No, your brother is not bipolar, your brother has it. And so if we can separate the identity from the illness and not conflate those two things, we give that individual the freedom to be someone that then has to then go cope with that illness and get it treated and fear, not that it is some type of denigration of their character or their humanity. Thank you. Um I wanna talk about Pie, the company formerly known as Pumpkin Pie. Um But but before we do that, I wanna make sure to also get to any audience questions. If you have a question for Andy and Kirsten, please raise your hand. We'll bring a microphone. Got one back there. Hello, Steven Wolf at studios. Uh Annie. Thank you for just your bravery. Happy be nobles customer, by the way. Um But I actually have a question for Kristen. I'm so curious, how does this impact your other investors? I feel like you are brave and you are certainly unique in an outlier. Maybe you are a unicorn. But do you feel like your colleagues in the venture community would be as brave and as empathetic as you have been? I think that like in general as a society we're on a journey to be more accepting of mental illness and mental health and acknowledge it. And the reality is is that on some level, whether you have a mental illness or whether you have, you know, mental health and acute challenge at some point in time, probably includes everybody. And I think when you think about startup communities in particular, it's a pressure cooker. Like one of the reasons that the stats around depression, anxiety and mental health challenges are so high right now is as a society, we live in a world that like is moving so fast that has so much visibility and so much pressure and competition. And at the same time, loneliness and it's exasperated, it's even more exponential in the startup ecosystem. You take a founder who comes with all these ambitions, all this like hope to change and to and to build something new and to do it fast and to do it in different ways. And then you put them in the context of that society, you put them in an ecosystem where everybody else is doing that and competing, it is just a giant pressure cooker. And I think it behooves everybody to realize that the risk that comes with that. And this creates a space for an understanding and empathy that like you might be able to meet the challenges, you know, one way in some days but but but but not always and that there that needs to be OK that we need to be first and foremost thinking about people's well being because if you're not healthy, you know, physically and mentally, it's impossible to be the leader that you want to be. So, I mean, I think it's in like everybody's best interests for as people to support each other in this regard, but as business people too, to, you know, ensure that the founders that we back feel like they're set up for success. And part of it is understanding this and I'm going to take the next question over there. But real quick, I think this is a good part of the interview for you to share your joke about founders and mental illness. Yeah. Well, it's funny because when I was writing the book, my editor's boss was suggesting that we call the book. Here's to the crazy ones. Then you remember that Steve Jobs Apple commercial when he came back. And I remember being like, uh I don't think a subliminal comparison to Steve Jobs is a good look for someone that just sold pants for the last 13 years, pants are important. Pants are important. We all need to wear them. But the cool thing is we now have data. So the University of California San Francisco has a center where they study entrepreneurship and mental illness. And here's the data, 2% of American American adults will experience bipolar in their lifetimes for entrepreneurs. It's 11%. So it indexes 5 to 1 ADHD index is 3 to 1 anxiety indexes 2 to 1 OCD index is 5 to 1. High functioning Asperger's index is 3 to 1 and on and on. And so what I tell founders who have a nerd of our stripe is you're actually more likely to be successful, right? A venture capitalists should meet an entrepreneur who has bipolar and think, you know what, there's a five X chance this person is to build a big company. And I think we implicitly understand this about entrepreneurs. And then there's one mental illness that all entrepreneurs have, whether they've been diagnosed or not, which is narcissistic personality disorder, right? And I, I'm, I'm, I'm half joking, but you have to have a over indexed degree of narcissism to think that you of all people are going to go build this thing, right? So I believe we need more venture capitalists like Kirsten who appreciate that. This is part of the human condition and that it's likely to be even more the case for entrepreneurs. And I will add one quick thing, which is even if you don't have a diagnosis at some point, you face an acute issue of mental health in your life, you just don't make it to 40 without being thrown on your ass by something, the loss of a loved one, financial stress, physical ailments, aging parents issues with your Children, all of these things are acute mental health crises. And so if we can all belong to this challenge of mental health versus just the guy over there who is bipolar. Oh, wait, has it, then we can all be included in that conversation and be honest with each other about it. And I know I'm sorry, I know we had some other great questions. I do want to give you like 10 seconds to give us the elevator pitch for pie since we did not get to it. Can you do that very briefly and hopefully you'll stick around to be able to speak to everybody after really quick. So we know this, I think it's been talked about on stage earlier today, but social isolation is now a pandemic. We spend 20 fewer hours per month with other people than we did in 2003. So working on a new, a new company called Pie, I've got Kirsten in my corner again. Much more medication now. So hopefully it'll be smoother, smoother sailing. But the goal of Pie is to bring people together in small groups, kind of 3 to 15 people with a higher frequency and help reverse some of that social isolation trend. Thank you so much, Andy Kirsten, really appreciate you both coming here and speaking about this important topic and like I said, please come, I know everybody always comes up to you after our interviews and shares a lot of personal stories too. Um But please please come up to both of them and, and uh ask more questions. Thank you so much. Thanks ma.