Lance Armstrong: Training, Wearables and Investing

• Lance Armstrong started his athletic journey in swimming, joining a swim team at 12, which was considered late for the sport.
• He turned professional in cycling at just 21, despite finishing last in his first professional race in San Sebastian.
• Armstrong highlights the transformative impact of the power meter on training and racing strategies.
• He shares insights on the evolution of athlete monitoring, from basic scales to advanced wearables like the Whoop band.
• Armstrong's collaboration with Dr. Michele Ferrari marked a turning point in optimizing his training through rigorous testing and data analysis.

In this podcast with Kyriakos the CEO of Terra, Lance Armstrong delves into his journey from a young swimmer in Texas to a professional cyclist. He shares how technology, like power meters, revolutionized training and racing. Armstrong also reflects on his early career challenges and the pivotal moments that shaped his path in professional cycling. Tune in to hear about the evolution of sports technology and the mindset that drove his success.

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42,000 Tickets and Zero Ad Spend

Kyriakos: Hi, the following is a discussion with Lance Armstrong, one of the most well-known athletes of our times. We got to discuss with him about training, nutrition, and wearables. I'm Kyriakos, founder and CEO of Terra, and I started this podcast with my co-founder, Ralph, to speak about wearables, fitness, and health. Terra is an API that makes it easy for apps to connect to wearables.

It's funny, I got a question today on our weekly Zwift group rides. While I'm doing it, I also do a Discord channel where people can basically ask anything. One of the people today asked, someone who clearly follows the sport, what one piece of technology would we want to have back then that all of these guys and gals have now? It was a great question. I've never been asked that question, but it's in line with what we're going to talk about today. So many different changes. We came from a time when I started racing, Polar had not come out with a heart rate monitor yet. Think about that.

Training,: Yeah, my first one as well. And they were about the size of a small car. I mean, they were huge.

Kyriakos: Oh, wow. And then, of course, things evolved. The biggest change or advancement was the power meter. When SRM came out with the power meter, that changed training, racing, recovery, everything. Now it's just continuing to evolve with everything from the Oura ring or Whoop band to all the CGMs out there. These guys, and I think the connection also, when we raced, we were paid to train and race, but it was sort of our responsibility. Like they said, okay, do well in the races, show up and be ready. We did whatever we wanted. I think now the connection between the athlete and the team and the trainer and all of the training staff is much closer. They're probably dictating the training programs. Their ability to analyze and truly cover these athletes is totally different.

The Photo That Built a Flywheel

Kyriakos: Lance, before we go into this, we wanted to have a brief introduction from you in terms of what gave you the motivation to start. Tell us more about how you started when you were young.

Lance: You know, I started a lot like you, Ralph. My first serious sport was swimming. As a young kid in Texas, the big sports were football, baseball, basketball. I tried all those sports and was just not very good. My coordination is not great. I like to joke that I have two left feet. My mom said, you have to play one sport. I had a couple of friends on the swim team, but I'd never done the swim team. I could kind of dog paddle. I said, maybe I'll try to join the swim team. This was when I was right around 11 or 12, which is late for swimming. A lot of swimmers start when they are four or five, six years old, seriously. I started as a 12-year-old kid swimming with six-year-olds. I thought, man, I don't know if I can do this. It was totally embarrassing. But I stuck with it, and I'm so glad that I did. It's still to this day my favorite sport. If some superpower of the world said, Lance, you can only do one sport for the rest of your life, it would be swimming.

By the time I was 15, I was third in the state of Texas in the 1500. I was a distance freestyler. Then I thought I'd run track and cross country in high school. So I had two of the three sports of the triathlon. The bike was the last one to come. I saw an ad for a kid's triathlon called Iron Kids. I thought, well, I'm already doing two of these three sports. Maybe I'll try to find a bike and do the triathlon. Got a bike, entered the race, and won my first triathlon. I turned pro less than a year after that, which is kind of wild to think about.

Kyriakos: At what age were you then?

Lance: I was almost 16 when I turned pro. I was still 15 years old. I just did that on a whim. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. At the time, the largest triathlon in the world, participation-wise, was in Dallas. It was called President's Triathlon. They had a big pro event too. The guy I trained with was like, you should sign up as a pro. I was just crazy enough. I was like, all right, I'll try that. Come out of the water with the lead group, come off the bike second with Mark Allen, and then I think ended up top 10. I couldn't run with those older guys, but I thought, wow. Then continued doing those for years and years. Loved it. Traveled all around. Made a little money. Made more money than my buddies were making working down at McDonald's. Had some sponsorship, prize money. It was great.

Kyriakos: Was there any specific turning point when you thought you could compete at a high level, if you remember?

Lance: In tris or in cycling?

Kyriakos: In cycling.

Lance: I turned pro after the Olympic Games in Barcelona. In 1992, I went and did my first professional cycling race a week after the Barcelona Games. It was the San Sebastian Classic. I got dead last. Last. Now, a lot of people, the weather turned. It was awful. Half the field dropped out. But of the people that finished, I got last place. That was certainly a point where I thought, oh no, I probably can't do this. As happens in cycling, the very next week, we had a small stage race in Galicia. Went over there and won one of the stages. Three days prior, I got last. I'm thinking, I should just go home. Three days later, win my first pro event. Then go to Zurich for the World Cup, which is the next World Cup after the one I got last in, and I get second in Zurich. I was like, okay. That's better. I think I can do it. But really, 1993 was my first full-time year as a pro. Of course, won a stage in the Tour, won the World Championships. Probably that, it's hard to go back and figure out which one was a light bulb moment for me, but hard to argue against the very first win at the Tour of Galicia, which is fond memories. I actually won it. The funny thing, I don't have a ton of fast twitch muscle. I'm much more slow twitch. I actually won a field sprint at that race for my first pro win. Then, of course, Zurich, the World Cup that I got second in, very difficult, very hilly. More my style. I was beat by the great Vyacheslav Ekimov, one of the greatest Russian riders of all time. Ended up being on postal with us and a key member of all those victories.

Optimizing Nutrition and Training: Then vs. Now

Kyriakos: Lance, in those days, at the beginning, how much were you actually optimizing? Were you optimizing your nutrition or your sleep and training?

Lance: No, no, totally no. To put it in perspective, I turned pro at 21 years old. Not only was I not doing it, there wasn't a lot of, outside of waking up in the morning and saying, oh, I felt like I got a good night's sleep. That was how we were tracking sleep at that time. Nutrition-wise, not very much. The name of the game is to be as light as possible, yet as strong as possible. In a funny way, for most of my career, since there wasn't a ton of innovation or a ton of things to help us along, one of the most important, if not the most important thing, was the scale that sat on the bathroom floor. We were married to that scale. The scale never lies. There's a lot of things out there that, not that they lie, but they may not be that accurate or inconsistent. The scale never lies.

Kyriakos: You know very much that psychology plays a very big role in the athlete's mind before going to competition. How was it in terms of psychological preparation?

Lance: Again, in the early days, right?

Kyriakos: Yeah, sure.

Lance: I never struggled with motivation or inspiration to go out on a six-hour training ride in the rain. I never struggled to motivate myself for the races.

Kyriakos: What was the mindset really? Were you thinking that I'm the best, I'm going to win? Was it about you? Was it about, I just want to beat that other competitor?

Lance: No, it was about beating the field. I could compete against myself in training or in testing, but you're paid not to do that. You're paid to go out and beat 200 other guys. But yes, the mindset was, I'll never forget. We hired a really fabulous Spanish rider, Chechu Rivera. I think he came on the team and his first year was probably 2001. So I had won 99, 2000. So two in a row, going for the third. We were at a training camp in January. It was his first time with the team. We were just talking on a ride one day. I said, I guarantee you, I'm going to win the tour. Chechu, who's the sweetest guy, very bright as well. I'll never forget. He looked at me like, nobody in the world guarantees you're going to win a three-week tour. Too many things can go wrong. Somebody can be better, you name it. But I was 100% sure. I looked at him, I said, no, I guarantee it. He about fell off his bike. It was amazing. Fortunately, I was able to back it up. We still laugh about it.

Kyriakos: In the question of nutrition earlier, do you know what the others were doing? Were people actually optimizing their nutrition and training in the early days?

Lance: I think it was, well, first of all, it's hard to say, because cycling, especially then, and I think even holds true today. Unless a rider switches teams and shares with the new team what methods or technology was going on in his previous team, you just don't hear a lot. You would just be guessing. Hard to say. Another important thing to keep in mind is now in cycling, at home, you can control your nutrition. You go to the grocery store, you cook your meal. You're in complete control. Now, also when they go to the races, they have a team chef. Everything is controlled. Back then, we're going back 30 years. We were staying in hotels. We ate what the hotel brought to the table. You couldn't say, in 1993 or four or whatever year, if they brought something, you say, excuse me, I'm plant-based or I'm keto. Could you take it back? They would have thrown it on the floor and walked away. There was no customizing. It was very old school.

Kyriakos: When did you actually start optimizing training? What was the plan really?

Lance: Good question. A lot of this is, and I want to make sure we, for the sake of this conversation and out of respect for you guys and out of respect for the audience, this needs to be a completely transparent conversation. I synced up with Dr. McKellie Ferrari in 96. I was diagnosed later that year and resumed working with him again in 1998 when I came back. Especially, we were optimized in 1996. In 98, 99, that's where he so closely followed me. Despite all of the controversy and all of the news, the man is brilliant. He knows training and physiology better than anybody on the planet. I'm pretty sure about that. It was at that point, very optimized. We spent a ton of time together. It was as optimized as we could be with the technology at hand. Everything power-based, obviously a huge emphasis on the weight, a lot of testing. Lactate, almost traditional lactate testing followed up by some-

Kyriakos: How did you test for lactate though?

Lance: Just with a finger prick, just the small mobile unit. The test that we used forever was the one-kilometer test. It's very basic. You find a one-kilometer climb that averages 10%. In Europe, those are everywhere. We would start at a very low level of watts. At the tour time, my threshold was 500 watts. We'd start at 250, then bump it to 275. Every time, he would be standing at the finish, or at the end of the kilometer, and take a lactate sample. You would obviously watch it creep up, but we would go up in 25-watt increments until we generally used four millimoles as lactate threshold, which I think most people either did then or maybe still do now. The point is we did it all the time. We started in January. We would do it two or three times a month, this series of tests. Once you figure out what your lactate threshold was, of course in January, it's a lot lower than July, then you would follow that up with some 30-minute effort at that prescribed lactate level and see if you could maintain it. Almost like a confirmation. Fun stuff.

The thing I loved about that testing, if I had to look at, you always look at your situation, what made me better than most of the other guys, right? Was it the body? Was it the mind? Was it the length of the femur? It sounds funny to say, but it's actually like a long femur is a long lever. That is better for cycling. Fact. But the one thing that I think anybody that was close to the numbers would say is I just had a really unique ability to buffer lactic acid. You'd see lactic acid numbers on some guys that were in the double digits. I've never seen double digits. Furthermore, my ability to clear the lactic acid, because keep in mind, a race, a bike race with 200 guys, isn't a marathon. It's not a steady state effort. This is a dynamic fluid organism. I'm at the mercy of all of these other guys. If they're attacking and I have to cover the move, lactate's gonna go up. Then you have to recover while the race is still going on. I just had this ability to get back down below four millimoles, maybe better than the others.

Kyriakos: I think I heard something about you similar from Joe Rogan's podcast, and he was referring to this. I think today there are some devices that actually measure lactate? Have you come across them?

Lance: I think the popularity of the CGM space has really inspired a lot of people to figure out, and the two big players there, Abbott and Dexcom, are miles ahead of anybody else. They have the budget, the technology, the experience, the bandwidth, the manpower, all of it. But the CGM popularity has inspired people to say, well, okay, if we can measure glucose, why wouldn't we be able to measure lactate, and why wouldn't we be able to measure hydration, ketones, all of these things? My hunch is that, yes, those devices are being developed, and it'll be fascinating. I don't know that, as you guys probably are well aware, the UCI, the International Federation for Cycling, has banned the use of the CGMs in races. I'm sure the athletes, as they should, are probably training with them to try to perfect nutrition on the bike. But it will, as cool as it sounds, athletes in the future will have some sort of a dashboard, which you guys know the space better than almost anybody. Now, that leads to the question of, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does that, I mean, cycling's very traditional. When race radios were invented, people said, oh, this is terrible, the riders are not thinking for themselves, they're not, they can't determine their own tactics, they're being told what to do, they're like robots, this is boring. So, you'll hear more and more about that, but they will be able to perfectly sort of pace themselves, if you had that dashboard with hydration, lactate, glucose, ketone, all of these things, hard to make a mistake.

Kyriakos: Apple, by the way, came out the other day and they announced all of those sensors, and they're like, by the next year, you're going to have a lactate one, the glucose they already have, and they have a lot of biomarkers that they are testing. But here's the whole point, you're probably the greatest athlete in this space, but by what you're saying in the early days, you weren't doing so much optimization, whereas think about the next 10 years, how this space is going to change by so much optimization.

Lance: So much, yeah. You're right, but we didn't, because it wasn't available. I mean, I don't, I think in any sport, I mean, you could look at American football, right? How did they train? They went into the weight room, they did bench press, they did some squats, they did some curls. Think about going back in the early 90s into American football, and you go into the weight room of the Dallas Cowboys, and you say, okay, guys, and again, 30 years ago, and I want us to think about flexibility and mobility. They would have laughed you out of there. They said, no, we're doing bench press. So the mindset, I mean, obviously, technology has evolved immensely, but the mindset has as well.

Wearables: From Polar to Power Meters

Kyriakos: When you remember the first days when the first wearables came to market, let's say Polar, for example, and you think, oh, that's cool. Was it, can you tell us more about it? Did you use it? Was it useful? Was it something that you were thinking of using its insights to optimize?

Lance: Yeah, so we did use it, fortunately, because I joined Team Motorola in 92, and we were actually sponsored by Polar. So yeah, we were one of the lucky ones. We had access to whatever we wanted, but we definitely, and I should preface this, a lot of this, and even when the power meter came along and revolutionized training, we didn't use it in races. So now they race with it. They watch their power constantly in the race. We would train with it. The early iteration of the SRM was very heavy, very bulky, so many things were different about the crank, the Q factor, for example, so the actual width of the crank, not to mention we had, like every team, you have a component manufacturer who sponsors the team, so they want you exclusively on their equipment. So we would use, early days, the heart rate monitor, just in training, not in the races. Early days, the power meter, in training, not in the races.

Kyriakos: It's very interesting, because if you now use a power meter constantly versus before, before it was much more based on feeling, much more based on how you trained, now it's actually, you just follow the power.

Lance: Exactly. You just follow the power meter. It's just so different. Go watch a pro bike race now. Watch how much they look at their head unit. They're not looking at what time of day it is or how fast they're going uphill, because they're not, you know, they are just constantly monitoring power. They know their limits, and they know at what point they go above threshold. And that is the argument, right, that sort of a traditionalist would say, oh, now the coach tells them in the radio what to do. Now they just stare at their power meter, and this is my point I was saying earlier, where the traditionalist thinks it's too robotic, and it's just not as artsy as it, you know, cycling is a very, it is a very, very traditional sport. I think some of that has faded, but, you know, you still have those purists out there.

Kyriakos: With that Polar HRM that you first used, what did you actually do with it? So you get the data, you get the metrics. I guess, was it like they had those devices? It wasn't connected to a phone, probably. Was it through the first watch they had, or was it like the screens they initially had? And how did you-

Lance: It was a watch, and like I said earlier, it was big. But we would, I mean, no matter what, guys had all different ways to attach it to the handlebars. You know, you could take a headband and wrap it around a few times, and it would fit on the handlebar. I mean, this is so primitive, but that's exactly what they did. Nobody was inputting zones, or, you know, you would just look at where your heart rate was, and over time, you start to learn, like, what affects my heart rate, just on a very, very basic level, right? So now I'm sitting here in Aspen at 8,000 feet. I know that my heart rate is gonna be completely different for a similar effort at sea level. It's just, we all know that now. But those days, you were just starting to learn these things, and if you felt like you were getting into the season and getting in better shape, you would see the heart rate come down quicker. You're like, oh, I'm getting in better shape. But not, and then obviously looking at max. I mean, I've seen some crazy, of course, it helps when you're in your 20s and not in your 50s, but I've seen 209. I've done a time trial for an hour above 200 the whole time.

Kyriakos: Oh, wow, one hour.

Lance: And that actually, so that tour, 2000, I did wear, so no power meter on the bike, but I did wear a heart rate monitor for the time trials. So the final TT in 2000, I came down the start ramp. Your heart rate's already high because you're on the start ramp. You're excited and you're nervous and all these things. And I came down the ramp, and it was almost immediately 190. After a K, it hit 200, and it never dropped below 200 for one hour.

Kyriakos: Wow.

Lance: I know. I just use it to go to the gym now, and I rarely hit 200. It's like for a second, not an hour. And you would think for 200 beats a minute over an hour, you would be falling. But I wasn't, and I was, I remember looking down and going, all right, let's go. Like I was in such a zone, it was obviously, it's a time trial. You have to go as hard as possible, but it's an effort that you know you can sustain just based on your experience for one hour. And yeah, it was wild. Like when I tell people that story, and even when I hear myself tell that story now, I'm like, geez, that's insane.

Kyriakos: When you think back in the days, Lance, what could have made a big difference in terms of tech solutions that would have made it better for you to race?

Lance: Well, that's to the person that asked the question on the Discord this morning. I mean, I think of, and by the way, they're still using crank-based power meters. And again, full disclosure, I mean, obviously we're large investors in Oura. I mean, the Oura ring, just with its accuracy, its simplicity, its consistency, like that would make a massive, I don't understand why every professional athlete is not wearing some form of, it doesn't have to be an Oura ring. Obviously we're biased, but either Oura or Whoop, incredibly important. I do think also the CGM stuff would have been really fascinating, just to think people's bodies react to a lot of things differently, but obviously nutrition, stress, the weather, all these things. So it would have been really fascinating to play around in that space as well. That's from a hardware perspective.

Kyriakos: So when you think about all those wearables that are being launched in the market now, when you think about it from a software perspective, what sort of solution do you think would have made a big difference in terms of being built on top of the hardware to get you up to another level?

Lance: Oh, God, that's a good question. Strava doesn't count? I don't know. I'd have to think about that one. I'd have to think about that. I am a big, as most people know, I am a big fan of Strava.

Kyriakos: In, just in your previous one, like what specifically from Oura do you like? Is it the heart rate variability or is it that you can see your deep sleep levels, for example?

Lance: Well, and I also like to see, and I think it's been obviously amplified with COVID, but core temp is really important and just resting heart rate. You know, I know, you know, in so many, obviously so many things affect that. And if you're a finely tuned professional athlete, you're taking away a lot of these variables. But when you're not, when you're just a 50-year-old guy who trains part-time and drinks red wine at dinner and, you know, doesn't really care what he eats, you notice a big difference. So I, you know, HRV, I would go crazy if I stared at my HRV every morning. I just don't. But I do like checking my core temp and just resting heart rate.

Kyriakos: Well, as you know, I am a-

Lance: The only other thing I would add to that is, and, you know, half the world sleeps well, the other half sleeps like shit. And so I'm of that half that's been blessed with an ability to sleep. Like I see a pillow and I go to sleep. So when it comes to really getting into sleep cycles and movement, like my average latency on the Oura Ring is about three or four minutes. I just, yeah, I just fall asleep immediately. And my wife, who I obviously sleep next to every night, she's a terrible sleeper. So she's over there just pissed off at me.

Kyriakos: You know, I usually measure, I was like, I'm just wearing a Garmin device and I'm measuring my data for like five years or something. And I had COVID about a year ago. And my usual, like my resting heart rate, since you mentioned resting heart rate, my usual resting is around 50. I had COVID and for six months after COVID, my resting heart rate was 58, 58, 59. And it went back to normal after like month seven or something.

Lance: Wow.

Kyriakos: Yeah, I think, you know, I was fortunate to make it two years without getting COVID. And I thought I had all these things figured out.

Lance: How did you manage to do it?

Kyriakos: I don't know. I don't know. I had a lot of things that I dreamed up. My blood type, you know, I'm invincible out of some bullshit but we ended up getting it finally in early December. And we were, when they test here in Aspen, they send it off to the state. And then like two weeks later, they called us. So we were early cases of Omicron. But I think, you know, as this thing is, let's call it matured over time and morphed and done what it's done, it seems like, I mean, I was sick for a day. For one day, I felt really bad. And then I really was fine. And I haven't noticed any difference. Of course, I had a huge spike in core temp on the ring, the Oura ring, but no lasting effects. I did, I will say, I did try to take it easy for several weeks afterwards. So I would go to the gym, light gym work, no aerobic and especially no anaerobic activity. Just talked to too many people that thought there was enough data out there that showed some sort of long-term effects, which I don't want. And so, yeah, I don't know how we avoided it for so long, but when we finally got it, it kind of came and went.

Kyriakos: And then in your, in the cycling that you do now, do you actually measure the same? Like before COVID, it's like if you measure your power, if you measure your heart rate, is it the same?

Lance: So here's the thing. So I never ride with a power meter and I never ride with a heart rate monitor, ever. I am purely a recreational cyclist now. I know that you guys are like, oh, the bad answer, bad answer. I still go hard. You know, if I'm out with buddies that are a lot weaker than me, I will just chill. But I have a lot of guys around here that love to hammer and we will go out and go as hard as we possibly can. And I just consider that. I'm like, okay, great, that was a great day. But I can't tell you the last time I had an SRM on my bike.

Lance: Yeah, going back to Kyriakos' point, I think it's super interesting to see like when you measured, when you got COVID, Kyriakos, and the change in your resting heart rate was a determination of if with, and that's the whole point of what we actually are building with Kyriakos, the ability to have this infrastructure where if there are so many use cases where you can get the ability to detect cases like COVID or other diseases using devices that could be used in many ways. And this is like, this is one element of the use case of the resting heart rate for the case of COVID. So are there any use cases that you can think of, Lance?

Lance: I mean, outside of, and I think Aura really benefited in like in a sadistic way, they did benefit from the pandemic, right? This was people noticing this tremendous spike. I mean, we all have fluctuation in our core temp, but tremendous differences that we're alerting people, either of an impending diagnosis or whatever. So that's, I mean, I think that's the best, and I should give a shout out to Whoop. I mean, obviously they can measure these things as well.

Kyriakos: I mean, back to this point, it's something we are always saying, right? If you have an API that makes it super easy for apps to connect to all the wearable data, you can really build any solution. One of it is the example of COVID. So if, obviously, if I have COVID and my resting heart rate is increased, and also my respiration is higher, and my pulse oxidation is higher, this is a pattern change. And if you have people with like five years of data, this is a big pattern change for an app to come and build on top of it, right? And then it's like, it's not only COVID, it's, we can't speak for hours on what type of customers, what type of apps are building on top of that, but it's like, think like a sleep mattress company aggregating your deep sleep levels and then optimizing the temperature of the bed in order to create better recommendations and optimize your sleep, or food delivery. It's like, think about like food delivery. So it's like, you're an athlete, you do all your activities, you check your calories, but at the same time, you get full food delivery to your house, the actual nutrients you need to eat, right? And from the consumer, and then you go to the telemedicine space, and a doctor can see your heart rate, they can see your respiration, they can see, it's like real time data and historical data continuously. So it's literally changing the way that this works. And obviously, all the apps that are building on top of the CGMs, solutions for nutrition and sleep and fitness and all that, so.

Lance: Well, it's not dissimilar from what we talked about earlier. I mean, that's, when I was talking about the difference between a professional cyclist or any professional athlete today versus 30 years ago, and now how these guys and gals are constantly being monitored by paid staff, paid doctors, paid trainers, paid physios, everything. So what you just laid out is a democratization of that. So you're taking that from the tip of the spear, which you would expect that the best athletes in the world would have, but you just let it trickle all the way down through the marathon field, the peloton, whatever it is, that then, as you lay it out, and whether we're a month away or 10 years away, I don't know, but you are making that accessible for the everyday warrior.

Kyriakos: Yeah, and it's like, when Apple came to the game and they made it more of a consumer play, and everybody's just buying wearables today, and they're measuring the data and they're getting more interested. It's like, you can see solutions like, things like Spotify. Spotify using your heart rate to create song recommendations. Or like your Netflix to create, to take your HRV measure your stress and create movie recommendations. So it moves not only inside of the athletes, but it's much more of a consumer-oriented solution as well.

Lance: Yeah. Exactly.

Investing in the Future of Fitness

Kyriakos: Speaking about this, Lance, we know that now with your fund Next Ventures, which we are fortunate enough to raise investments from you. What's the, how, when you think about the past investments that you made, what's, can you give us a few examples of companies that you're excited about and what's the future like in this space?

Lance: Yeah, I think it's, obviously you, and I, you know, in the zone of full transparency, you guys are so frigging smart. And Julian, who you guys work with all the time on our team is so frigging smart. Like when you guys start talking about what you're building, you're like, there is a point, and it's early on where you lose me. I'm like, wow, man, these dudes. Like, I'm like, guys, this sounds amazing. I'm not sure what, but good luck. So it's, for me, it's super inspiring to be around just super smart men and women. And so, and of course, you know, we've made 13 investments so far, you guys being one of them, just closed a transaction with Hammerhead. So two exits after PowerDot and now Hammerhead. Almost all of them get me excited, right? I mean, and again, just trying to keep up with you guys and Julian as you spin through this stuff, that's inspiring to me. Obviously an investment, a bit of a moonshot, but in Humane, which is setting out to sort of recreate this relationship between a human and this thing. Robin Thurston at Outside, I think he's a fantastic entrepreneur, just kind of a serial entrepreneur. What he's building at Outside is incredible. Even Kinetics, I really geek out on what Kinetics has built. You know, I'd love to see that thing come to fruition and obviously for you guys as well. I think the foot is a really important part of this whole story and us as athletes, and not even just as athletes. If you're a delivery driver for UPS, you know, that touch point is really critical. So it's, the thing I've seen as we've sort of gotten down the road here of the fund and deployed capital, a couple of things. One, I think COVID actually accelerated people's interest in this space. I think it forced people to step back and say, wait a minute, am I not even optimized, but am I healthy? Am I making the best choices? Am I, you know, is the end near? And so I think in a weird way, that was good for us all. I also think that young people today care more about health and wellness and longevity and optimization and performance on the physical and mental side more than any other generation. And so it's just been cool to see opportunities, right? And we've talked a lot about what it was like 30 years ago. Imagine having this fund or having Next Ventures 30 years ago, what would you possibly have invested in? Not many choices. So it's, and obviously it goes without saying, Aura has built an incredible platform and brand and an incredible business. So, yeah, I think, sorry, go ahead.

Kyriakos: When you think about the future, so I'm sure there will be a lot of tech entrepreneurs listening to this podcast and is there, what's the, and I'm sure there are a lot of them who would love to raise from you. So when you think about how the future of the fitness industry would go, what kind of solutions do you want to see there? And what are you interested in now from an investment perspective?

Lance: Well, I'll tell you what, what Kyriakos just laid out, I mean, that got my plums tickling. I mean, like just the ability for, and we just sort of walked through it, but this, again, to repeat it, this democratization of, or just the access to that level of, call it care, call it coverage, call it whatever you want, because I think most of that stuff is so just aspirational for most people, right? They watch the Superbowl, they watch the tour, but that's, people could believe that they have access to that. I think that's, it may not be the holy grail, but I think it's close.

Kyriakos: Does the direction of, if I give an example here, the direction of looking at the biomarkers of an athlete while they are doing an activity and the people in the crowd are looking at it, do you think it would be interesting?

Lance: So I, yes, I think it would be interesting. Now, and I talk a lot about this because, and I use cycling as an example, because think about it, cycling is, the Tour de France is three weeks long. Most days are four to six hours long. Five or six of the days in the mountains, those are very exciting, but most of the other days, they're riding through the French countryside, and it's, let's just be honest, it's boring. So as the purist would always say, or the traditionalist, no race radios, no power meters, no, let's stop the innovation. I said, let's use that as content, exactly to your point, Kyriakos. Like these days where they're just riding through the sunflowers, like how about we are seeing this stuff as content? We are listening, if you listen to an F1 race or a NASCAR race, you are listening to the driver speak to the crew chief and speak to the engineers. How fascinating is that? It's amazing. If you were then able, I mean, yes, if we had an inside look at this dashboard, any athlete's dashboard, it would be completely fascinating. Now, here's the problem. As fast as fans, like the three of us sitting here as fans would like that, the athletes don't like that, right? They know that if that data is published real time, then the competition is looking at that, the competition's trainers, everybody's looking at that in real time and seeing a weakness that they could exploit. I think it would be very difficult to get, you know, in cycling, to get any of that stuff done. I just don't think, I think they, I think, and I think they're too insecure about it. And I think they should be. I mean, if I was racing today and somebody said, look, we're gonna, this is all gonna be on the bottom of the TV screen while people sit at home and watch. I said, no way. It's too, it's too privileged. But as a fan, it'd be kind of cool.

Kyriakos: Yeah, I mean, it's, if you look at Lebron or Dedogumbo, while they're throwing like a three pointer or something, and you actually see they are very stressed from it, you can understand them so much better. But if you are on the opposite coach, you can exploit it.

Lance: Of course. And you can exploit it so badly.

Kyriakos: Right, no, I think it would, I don't think that will ever happen. But it's kind of a fun thing to think about or talk about.

Lance: I think that the, I've seen from the whoop guys posting in, they have that ability to post in Instagram. They have the heart rate of athletes and all that. We see it when they sponsor a lot of golfers. So they're showing, and here's golf, right? Not cycling, not a marathon, not even tennis or the NBA. I mean, it's golf. They are walking and hitting a white ball. By the way, I love golf. I'm not knocking it. But they're publishing real time heart rate numbers for these guys. You'd be surprised. It's standing on a par three. And of course, a lot of them are sponsored by whoop, but they're standing on a par three that's over water. It's 190 yard carry. The difference

Heart Rates and High Stakes: The Stress of Professional Golf

Between second place and fifth place is $750,000. To see their real-time heart rates playing golf, I mean, that's stress. I've got to give it to them. It's fascinating. I'm even thinking now, like even having like feather, that you think that he's so calm during the most stressful moments, and you actually see that he's very stressed. You have a very different opinion about it.

He does appear calm, as always.

Kyriakos: The Investment Journey Begins

Lance, actually, what got you into investments in the first place?

Lance: Really just going back. I mean, I've been at it for 30 years. I started dabbling either in direct investments or through funds or through the public markets. Really, from the first minute, I started making any money, which goes back 30 plus years. So, always fascinated by that. And then, not even in a true sense of the word, to me, it's a competition. When I think about what we're building in Next Ventures, obviously, we want to be good stewards of other people's money. But we want to look around the competition in the field and see how we did relative to the other funds. And so, most things in my life have a scoreboard. This one does, for sure.

Kyriakos: And then, in the beginning, did you have, I listen to many investors, whenever we speak with them, they always say that the very first investments they made, they were very wrong in their predictions, whereas they get it a bit better when it comes to after they invest a number of times. Did you have something similar? Was it that you did investments that you thought they would be great, and then they ended up not being so?

Lance: Not so much on the direct investing side. And maybe I've just been really lucky. And even the way I look at, or the way I approach investing is really people first. I mean, I lean hard on, just like, I mean, frankly and candidly, but talking to you guys, you guys lose me when we start talking about the true depths of what you're building, right? But that doesn't stop me from, and of course, we've all communicated over Zoom, but that doesn't stop me from just looking through the screen and just trying to make a call on a person. So whether direct investments in the past, or even through funds, you're betting on people, right? And so I've always, now, you don't always make the right bet. And by the way, what's even worse is the ones you pass on, that you say, ah, and all of a sudden, that ends up being an amazing person. Think about all the people that passed on, the Steve Jobses and the Sergeys of the world and the Zuckerbergs. And I mean, they're kicking themselves. So, but I think the main takeaway for me is just really believing in the team.

Kyriakos: Exactly, especially when it's a very early stage, when you have nothing proven, you have no models, you have no financial statements, you have nothing. So the only people, the only thing you can bet on is the team.

Lance: Which is what I think YC does really well, is picking the right people to build businesses.

Kyriakos: Right, yeah. Yeah, this is the usual Paul Graham's advice, which is usually invest in the people, not the idea. And to be very honest, from our experience in Europe versus the US, that's exactly the difference we've seen. The people in the US are looking to invest, and the best, I would say the best investors in the world are usually looking to invest in people. Whereas in Europe, it's much more about the ideas.

Lance: Yeah, I saw there was a, he's been wildly successful venture capitalist named Brad Feld, actually based here in Colorado, started the Foundry Group down in Boulder. But I went to a speech he gave once and he was talking about their investment, sort of their investment approach. And he said, they have four criteria, and they never deviate. Number one, the people. Number two, the people. Number three, the people. Number four, the idea. And it was one of the most important things. I mean, I think I always knew that I had to make a call on a person, but to hear it from somebody that's been so successful, I mean, talk about a light bulb moment.

Kyriakos: Exactly, that's the whole point. Even when it comes to the idea, even when they start with the wrong idea, it's good founders by definition would know when a bad idea is bad, and then turn it into a good idea. So the starting point is not a determination of the future life of the startup.

Lance: Right. So I think from a betting perspective, you have nothing to bet on apart from people. So that's spot on.

Kyriakos: Yeah.

Lance: Yeah, fantastic.

Kyriakos: Cycling's Future: A Vision for the Next Decade

Lance, to close this, I wanted to take your thoughts on if we just go 10 years in the future, what is cycling going to look like?

Lance: Ooh. What is it gonna look like, or what would I like for it to look like? Maybe both. I think the sport needs, and I speak about this all the time on my shows, but I think the sport should not, it should not be modeled, or it should not be, its aspiration should not be to be an Olympic sport. Its aspiration should be to become a major professional sport, right? So whether it's Formula One, tennis, of course, a lot of these sports are Olympic sports, but that is not their goal. Their goal is to be the most successful, profitable, professional sport. So NFL here in the USA, obviously, incredible success story. Formula One, we've seen what has happened with the re-imagining of Formula One the last three years since Liberty bought it. Cycling should adopt that model, right? You should not be beholden to the IOC, or the USOC, or any Olympic committee. You should be out trying to build the next premiership. And with that, obviously, athletes should have a better representation. Cycling right now, there's no representation. I think, I do think in 10 years time, cycling, back up a second. Cycling is about one event, right? The Tour de France is 99% of the sport. I know people don't like to hear that. I may be a little off on the numbers. I'm not much off. So I think in 10 years time, and of course, it's been owned by the same family forever, I think in 10 years time, it will be owned by somebody else, and they will not be French. So with that comes a new set of eyes, a new in ears and perspectives that will hopefully look to evolve and grow and professionalize the sport of cycling. I mean, I could talk on this for hours. And I think, although the number will be big, I think it will be bought for us. I think it'll be a steal. If you truly optimized that event, which optimizes the sport, because you buy one event, you buy the whole sport. I think that happens. I think if we have this conversation in 10 years, it's in different hands. And I think that's probably in its best interest.

Kyriakos: Yeah, the fact that it's not going to be French, it means that you will have a very bright future. Look at all of the money going into, to sports, okay? We're talking about, you know, investing in certain segments and sectors of sport, but the amount of private equity going in just to buy, you know, they're going in and buying half of a division C team in Holland. Like this is like, there is so much money because sport is never, ever going away. And these old systems can be optimized and made into huge empires. And so there is a ton of interest in buying the Tour de France, just because, like I said, you buy the Tour, you buy the sport. But the reality is the family has never even entertained an offer, never even sat down to have a conversation. So for the time being, it is where it is.

Kyriakos: A Fond Farewell and Future Plans

Fantastic. Lance, it's been a pleasure as always. 

Lance: Thank you. Let's get together. But you guys were just in San Francisco and I missed you guys by a couple of days, but you get back over this way. Let's get together.

Kyriakos: Love it. It's the best location to meet you. We can come. If you join San Francisco, you can be there.

Lance: Yeah, San Francisco. We got the team, we're out there, you know, we're starting to move. We're moving around. Next month we're doing South Florida for our get together, but it's normally San Fran, so let's meet there. 

Lance: Yeah. It's the best swimming experience I've ever had. It's incredible. That's the Mecca of swimming. Pools, multiple pools, great athletes, great coaches, outdoors. You can come over there and kick my ass. Let's do it.

Kyriakos: All right, thanks guys.

Lance: Thanks so much, Lance.

Kyriakos: Yeah, you all have a great day.