Javier Saade: Serial Investor Betting on Seattle

[00:00:00] Javier Saade: We wanted to live and work where we played. So we actually did a spreadsheet on the horizontal. We had things that mattered to us like, are we gonna run outta water a good airport? We had world class outdoors. We had all this stuff in places we loved. Was Jackson, Wyoming, Santa Fe, New Mexico Park City.

[00:00:17] Park City Scores really well on some others airports, but Seattle scored. Eight or above on everything.

[00:00:31] Jonathan Sposato: Hello everyone and welcome to Seattle Magazine’s podcast. I’m Jonathan Sato, and today we’re honored to speak with Javier Saade, a seasoned investor, former government leader, educator. And the creator and host of his own podcast, top of the game, Javier’s Journey spans founding companies shaping innovation policy in the Obama administration, and now guiding impact focused ventures.

[00:00:58] Here are just some examples, Fenway. Is a venture capital firm that has backed 120 plus companies innovating in technology and finance. Presidio is a leading private equity firm that acquires technology, media and financial services companies. Impact master works with invests in and governs enterprises creating values driven.

[00:01:21] He serves as chairman of the only agency. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about that. Chairman of the Board of GP funding, he’s a member of the Board of Directors of V Check, global member of the Board of Directors of Hennessy Capital Investment. A member of the Board of Directors, Providence, Swedish and Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School.

[00:01:42] Javier frequently writes and speaks about technology, financial services, digital inclusion, venture capital, and private equity. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MS in Operations and Tech from Illinois Institute of Technology and a BS in Industrial Management from Purdue University. But you know, something most important of all, when I first met Javier.

[00:02:01] Which was merely six months ago. I thought he was the coolest cat, and I thought, man, I have got to get this guy on my podcast. So everyone, please welcome Javier Saade. 

[00:02:16] Javier Saade: Javier, welcome. I don’t even know who you’re talking about, but on paper I sound much better than I am in real life. That’s for damn sure.

[00:02:22] Jonathan Sposato: Well, you know, to be honest with you, one of the things that I thought was so compelling about you was that you are a polymath and that you don’t seem like someone with limits about your capacity limits, about your functional capabilities, and, and I love that about you. I think that is so cool. Maybe we’ll just kind of launch off of that really quickly, like how did you get into so many things and how do you keep it all together?

[00:02:47] Javier Saade: I guess I’m blessed and cursed with a short attention span. Oh, uh um, and I think. The trajectory of my life. I’m multicultural. I grew up in Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States, but not the United States. So it’s kind of this duality. 

[00:03:06] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:03:07] Javier Saade: Went to college in the Midwest, which is very different than a Caribbean island and.

[00:03:12] I guess the thing that puts it all together is, besides the fact that I’m always searching for something that excites me, is the fact that I’m willing to just try things. ’cause the worst thing that can happen is that either people tell, well, you know, and when they tell you no, you just take door number two, or you fail.

[00:03:30] And as you know, Jonathan, because you yourself are a polymath and a very successful person. Oh, thank you. Failure is a precondition 

[00:03:39] Jonathan Sposato: to success for sure. For sure. We have some lightning round questions, but Uhoh, um, off the top of your head, don’t think about it too much. Favorite book or podcast? 

[00:03:50] Javier Saade: I’m reading a book now called The Man Who Would Be King.

[00:03:52] Oh, it’s about MBS and Saudi Arabia and what he’s doing to transform Saudi Arabia. 

[00:03:56] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Amazing book. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. Favorite thing about Seattle? 

[00:04:01] Javier Saade: It’s a world class urban city. Hmm. And has world class outdoors. There’s very few places in the world like this. Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:12] Jonathan Sposato: One habit that fuels your productivity 

[00:04:15] Javier Saade: Exercise.

[00:04:16] Specifically running. 

[00:04:17] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Here, here. Current Seattle innovation or leader you find very, very inspiring. 

[00:04:24] Javier Saade: Recently, I went to Seattle Tech Week. It was in the middle of the, of the summer. That’s right. Yeah. And it was my first Seattle Tech Week, so I went to a lot of, very tiring. Mm-hmm. Takes a lot of energy.

[00:04:35] Yeah. But I, a lot of events. Tons and ton. Yeah. Lots of events. Ton and ton of people. But there was one specific one. Hmm. That I really liked. It’s a sports tech company. Mm-hmm. That’s being started by two ex-professional athletes from an unnamed team based in Seattle. 

[00:04:51] Jonathan Sposato: Mm. Cool. Yeah. Very good. One of my favorite questions, kind of an interesting insight into people’s personalities.

[00:04:59] Best movie you saw this year. 

[00:05:02] Javier Saade: Hmm. I’m gonna go with a very recent one I saw called Weapons. Oh, I hadn’t heard about that. And I went to the movie theater. You remember those things? Yeah, I do. You, I do. You like sit in the dark I know. With a bunch of strangers. Yeah. Yeah. You’re, you’re not on your couch and stuff.

[00:05:16] If you have to go to the 

[00:05:16] Jonathan Sposato: bathroom too bad. 

[00:05:18] Javier Saade: You can’t pause it. You, you’re gonna, you can’t pause it. That’s Uhhuh. That’s a movie theater. Yeah. Um, weapons. Check it out. It’s just. Crazy. It’s a horror f flick and it was nuts. Oh, I see. 

[00:05:26] Jonathan Sposato: Okay, cool. Cool. I thought you were gonna say like, you know, Superman or something.

[00:05:30] I love Superman. Is that, is that like a make, it makes me really like an earnest guy. I just, I just thought that was so cool. No. Yeah. Okay. So here’s one of the most fascinating things about you that I know I’ve shared with you before, and now we’ll share with our listeners, which is. When I met you and your lovely wife and I found a little bit about you and what you guys did and where you guys moved from Manhattan, most recently, about a little less than two years ago.

[00:05:56] As a child of East Coasters who moved here and I would hear my parents complain about how parochial Seattle was. And of course I grew up, you know, denying this. It’s like, no, Seattle’s so great and decades later, you know, here I am the owner and publisher of Seattle Magazine. Right. I’m I, I’d like to think of myself as Seattle’s biggest cheerleader, but I couldn’t help but.

[00:06:17] The question came up in my mind when I met, first met you. Why did you guys move to Seattle? You have the, the world is your oyster. You are such, you and your wife both are such worldly traveled people. You’ve done all these things. You’ve, you’ve lived all over, but you decided to come to Seattle. Why is that?

[00:06:37] Javier Saade: That is a very good question, and, and yet, like I, as I mentioned earlier, I grew up in San Juan. Mm-hmm. From their college and then Chicago and, 

[00:06:47] Jonathan Sposato: and by the way, for our readers, we don’t mean the San Juan Islands up here in the Pacific Northwest. Oh, thank, named San Juan. San Juan. San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is named 

[00:06:54] Javier Saade: after the same, yeah.

[00:06:55] St. John’s. That’s right. For those that can’t figure out that San Juan is actually St. John in English. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, Chicago, Buenos Aires, a Paulo Boston, New York, DC with a sprinkling of Hong Kong. 

[00:07:08] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:09] Javier Saade: So you’re like, what the hell are you doing in a place like Seattle, which is kind of your question, rephrased.

[00:07:14] The people that know me and know my wife know that our happy place is. To be outside and getting dirty. Mm-hmm. And playing. We’re hikers. We’re divers, we’re bikers, we’re runners. Mm. And like you said, we’ve been all over, all over the world. When we go all over the world, it’s not necessarily to Roman Paris, it’s to Raja pat in Indonesia.

[00:07:35] I see. So. We were looking for something and we are lucky, both of us to have seen a a lot of the world and lived in a lot of incredible places, of which Seattle is one. And what we wanted was a place that had a very clear urban core with anchor tenants. In the case of Seattle, you got Amazon, you got Microsoft, you got Costco.

[00:07:57] Mm-hmm. Born. I don’t have to tell you. Starbucks. Yeah, Starbucks. On and on and on. A very vibrant. Texting because of those. Mm-hmm. Anchor tenants endowed significantly with natural resources. And on top of that, when you look west, this world class, mountains, the Olympics. Yeah. When you look east, the Cascades, I guess longwinded way to answer your question is that we were looking for.

[00:08:24] A very incredible world class city. Mm-hmm. With world class outdoors. And there’s really only two places in the US that have that. Is that right? Denver? Mm. And Seattle. I see. The thing that Seattle has, that Denver does not have, and I love Denver. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. In Colorado, we used to rent a place in Vail.

[00:08:44] Is that, for instance, I think it’s the only place in the United States where the city is anchored by the ocean, the Puget Sound, the Pacific Ocean. And this massive lake fed by another Lake, lake Washington f. Fed by Samish and Lake Washington, and is connected by this thing called Lake Union. Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:04] Jonathan Sposato: Which 

[00:09:04] Javier Saade: looks like a river.

[00:09:05] Mm-hmm. We live in Lake Union. 

[00:09:06] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:07] Javier Saade: Like we, we actually decided we’re gonna do the whole thing and we have, the property we have has access to a houseboat. 

[00:09:14] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. Which, 

[00:09:14] Javier Saade: if you saw to the people that listen to this that are not from Seattle, but they may have seen sleepless in Seattle Uhhuh. That’s right.

[00:09:20] Yeah. Tom Hanks and his kid lived in a houseboat. Yeah. So. We love everything about it, but if you’re looking for, you know, there’s, I don’t think there’s any city that compares to New York City specifically. Manhattan. Yeah. Um, if you really want world class outdoors, but you don’t necessarily want the city, there’s other places, but mm-hmm.

[00:09:36] This place is just a great melting pot of things. That suits us. 

[00:09:42] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, no, that’s really heartening to hear because by accident that’s exactly how what I concluded about Seattle, you know, having it been, um, um, sort of raised here my whole life. If you’re lucky enough to do business and travel the world and all of that stuff, you realize how, how good we have it here.

[00:09:57] I’m curious to know, did you and your wife go through a very rigorous process of choosing Seattle? Like was there a spreadsheet? I’m curious to know what the other cities were besides Denver. 

[00:10:08] Javier Saade: I’m laughing because. We did, and I think a lot of people’s, well, everybody. Went through COVID and during COVID, I guess one of the, it was a very dark time, but one of the silver linings in the dark clouds were that any technology that enabled you to learn, work, interact from anywhere.

[00:10:29] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:30] Javier Saade: The first summer of COVID, which is 2020, we zigzagged around the country to all these remote places. North Dakota, Montana. We came all the way to Washington. Second summer of COVID we spent in the, in the Florida Keys. Mm-hmm. By the third summer of COVID, there was, COVID was under control by then.

[00:10:48] Mm-hmm. But we had concluded that we wanted to live and work where we played. So you would think that the, the NBA guy was the one that came up with the spreadsheet, but my wife literally 

[00:11:02] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:11:02] Javier Saade: Created a spreadsheet of all the places we’d seen. Yeah. And I had come to Seattle as a, in college. Mm-hmm. When my parents, we were doing a, yeah.

[00:11:09] I trip in Alaska. Uhhuh, 

[00:11:10] Jonathan Sposato: was that your first impression of Seattle? If I, if, if I could just interrupt for second. Well, my first impression 

[00:11:14] Javier Saade: of Seattle was, um, singles. The movie. Oh, yes. And what, uh, okay. I, and I’m a big fan of grunge still. Yeah. Okay. So my first impression of Seattle is like, holy shit, I want to go see all this stuff.

[00:11:25] You’re kidding. Uh, I’m not kidding. Matt, Dylan and Bridgette Fonda did it for you. Amazing. Yeah. And the and they, I believe the house or the, the facade Yeah. That serves as the movie thing is right around where we’re filming. That’s exactly right. Or recording this. Yeah. Uh, 

[00:11:38] Jonathan Sposato: yeah, that’s exactly right. Hill.

[00:11:39] It’s still there. Mm-hmm. Um, I’ve seen before and after pictures and the building itself is still. The same, although everything around it is different. So yes, you were a fan of grunge, saw singles. You thought this was a hip and happening place. Is that 

[00:11:54] Javier Saade: right? Hip and happening place and I mean, it goes, I mean, the music, the outsized influence in music mm-hmm.

[00:11:59] That Seattle has is. 

[00:12:00] Jonathan Sposato: Remarkable. This is a thing that I hear over and over again and for the benefit of our listeners, I, I have the most like bonafide cosmopolitan, in some cases famous kind of celebrity type folks who have told me, Jonathan, you don’t realize how cool we think Seattle is. I mean, I mean, I’m talking someone who was like.

[00:12:24] The creative director at Vogue or like the editor in chief of like, you know, some major national magazine or newspaper, you know, in a, in a major city. Tell me these things. Like I think Seattle is like the coolest city. You guys have it so good. And I think sometimes it takes outsiders who are very smart and sophisticated and have traveled the world to sort of circle back and reinforce.

[00:12:49] How lucky we are. So you are lucky. 

[00:12:51] Javier Saade: I think the picture, uh, you had, I know recently you had the, the new president of the Seattle Art Museum. Mm-hmm. And you guys were talking in that scotton. Yeah. Scott and you guys were talking about, you know, his, you know what, what got him interested in art and what gets you.

[00:13:05] Your creative juices running is being around, create other creative people. Uh, back to your original question. Mm-hmm. My first visit to Seattle was we were going to Alaska and we spent like a couple days here. And what did you think? I loved it. 

[00:13:17] Jonathan Sposato: Mm. 

[00:13:18] Javier Saade: It was a summer though, Uhhuh. And then after college I had a couple friends that moved to Seattle.

[00:13:24] And we, I think it was the summer of 95. Mm-hmm. We, he lived in GreenLake, which is an amazing neighborhood here, which is fun. 

[00:13:29] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:13:30] Javier Saade: And we spent a week here, Uhhuh, and he, we did everything. We did the Bain Bridge and a boat and we went up to Tiger Mountain and we did all this stuff and I’m like, oh my, it was also July Uhhuh.

[00:13:42] Um, and then through business and stuff. And I ended up, you know, fast forward to not so long ago, I was involved in a company that went public here. I was the lead independent director of the company after we went public. 

[00:13:53] Jonathan Sposato: Hmm. 

[00:13:53] Javier Saade: The, another company’s porch based here in Seattle, Minnesota, no, yeah. Porch Uhhuh.

[00:13:57] Yeah. And we came here like, you know, it was five, six years ago. Mm-hmm. And we spent, we went camping to the Olympics and we’re like, it was always top of mind. But back to your question about the spreadsheet. So we actually did a spreadsheet and it had across the vertical cities that we thought would work cities and towns.

[00:14:15] Mm-hmm. I would say. Mm-hmm. It wasn’t just major cities. And on the horizontal we had things that mattered to us, like, you know, are we gonna run outta water? Um, oh, interesting. Climate change change. How, 

[00:14:25] Jonathan Sposato: how long, uh, that you took a long view. Yeah. With regards to global warming as whether water shortage is gonna be an issue.

[00:14:31] You 

[00:14:31] Javier Saade: can argue it’s not urgent, but it is happening in front of our eyes and it’s, you know, it’s kind of like the, the slow, regardless of what you think, and I know it’s been politicized, but. We do have a warming planet. I come from a place that has more and more hurricanes. 

[00:14:45] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:14:45] Javier Saade: Seattle is sort of a beneficiary.

[00:14:47] The state of Washington. Uh, the water table, I think is what they call the, the rainy area. Yeah. It’s sort of a beneficiary of all this stuff because it’s longer summers mm-hmm. Less rain. 

[00:14:57] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:57] Javier Saade: But overall not good. Mm-hmm. ’cause Antarctica’s melting and all this stuff. That’s right. Yeah. But we, we had that, we had a good airport.

[00:15:05] Mm-hmm. We had world class outdoors. We had all this stuff and you know, one of the places we loved was Jackson. Jackson, Wyoming, Santa Fe, New Mexico, park City. This was the, the stuff that was in the mix. Jackson, for example, scores 10 out of 10 in outdoors ’cause the Tetons and Yellowstone and all that stuff.

[00:15:23] Park City scores really well on some others airports. But Seattle scored. Eight or above on everything. Mm-hmm. And we, you know, and, and, and if you’re looking for CC, I like that 

[00:15:34] Jonathan Sposato: granularity that it was a 10 point scale, not just like low, medium, high or something that you did. Again, it wasn’t me. There were fine differences between a six versus a a a seven.

[00:15:43] I don’t know what they 

[00:15:44] Javier Saade: were, but Lori does my beautiful and very smart wife. And when we got here as we were doing, uh, uh, another one of our cross country trips. It was also July. 

[00:15:55] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:56] Javier Saade: And we’re like, okay, we’re, we’re done. Yeah. And that was it. Yeah. Um, and because I have essentially 10 part-time jobs, not a full-time thing, and then they’re all over the place.

[00:16:10] Yeah. I’m lucky and I am, and I understand the privilege I have to be able to do, to earn a living, living wherever I want. And then Lori owns her own thing. Mm-hmm. And also can live wherever she wants. So we decided to, to move here. And amazing. Decision so far. 

[00:16:27] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Thank you for letting me go deep into that.

[00:16:29] Um, you are probably the first guest that we’ve had who is able to lend that perspective, the fact that you’ve been so, sort of thoughtful and methodical in your approach to selecting based on frankly, a, a, a, a larger than usual sample size of other cities that you’ve lived in or considered and visited.

[00:16:49] So that’s makes your data more meaningful in my opinion. So. To go a little bit further on that. How did you choose the neighborhood? Uh, I mean, you mentioned that where you live is because you wanted to be near to water and mm-hmm. And there’s like an access to a houseboat, which is very, very nowadays in the cannon of what, what is a, what is iconic about Seattle.

[00:17:08] But, but overall, like, did you, did you kind of go through machinations or did friends tell you like, no, you gotta live on the east side? Yeah, you gotta, if you’re gonna be near to water, you wanna be Lake Washington, not like you. I mean, how did you. Narrow it down to where you are now. 

[00:17:21] Javier Saade: I mean, I don’t have to tell you that.

[00:17:22] There’s a little bit of, uh, some people call it the Seattle Chill. We have not experienced the Seattle Chill. We found people here amazingly open, which by the 

[00:17:29] Jonathan Sposato: way is a, if I can, and I hope that I don’t say this to, it doesn’t offend anybody who’s listening, but I think the Seattle Chill thing is a little bit of a, you as a person have the ability to affect that.

[00:17:42] Yep. I think it, having have met you and Lori, it is not at all a surprise. You have not been on the receiving end of the Seattle show. I think you’re just, you’re both so dynamic and effervescent and interesting and positive that, that, that people are just gonna be drawn to you and be like, oh yeah, let’s have coffee with that guy.

[00:18:01] Or, or, you know, those two, 

[00:18:03] Javier Saade: there’s two sides to the coin and everything. Some people view New York as New Yorkers as rude or whatever, and. Having lived many years in New York, I don’t. Yeah, well I, it’s efficiency and currentness. Yeah. Just direct. You are infuse with rudeness. Right. So to me, I mean, New York has some of the friendliest, most amazing people.

[00:18:23] I agree. But they get to the point. Fast. Mm-hmm. Because you got it, it’s like, it’s like 10,000 things happening at any given point. 

[00:18:30] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:18:31] Javier Saade: So we didn’t experience the Seattle children. In fact, the exact opposite. And yes, it, there’s a little, a little bit of parochialism, and I think this happens in every city.

[00:18:40] Like if you talk to somebody from LA there’s like, oh. You gotta live like north of the 1 0 5, or you gotta be by the by Santa Monica or you Oh no. You gotta be in the Hollywood Hills. I think in New York there’s the Upper West siders and there’s a whatever in Seattle. There’s people that go, oh, you gotta be here, you gotta be there.

[00:18:57] So we took a lot of input. Mm-hmm. But just like we did the cross country. Thing. We also did kind of a cross Seattle thing. So the first place we landed was a month in Woodinville, which for people not familiar with Seattle, it’s kind of what they call it, the east side, because it’s on the east of Lake Washington.

[00:19:15] But there’s Bellevue, Bothell, Redmond, all this stuff kind of on the east side. And Woodinville made the cut because Lori, my wife, loves. She’s trying to become ma sommelier. Yeah. 

[00:19:24] Jonathan Sposato: So we’re 

[00:19:24] Javier Saade: like, wow, that sounds like a really cool place. And it is a really cool place where we’re like, no. I mean, the reason we didn’t choose Jackson is because we didn’t wanna live in a small town or whatever.

[00:19:33] Mm-hmm. So then we went from there, we went to Green Lake, spent a month there. Then a friend of ours, we luckily ended up in a situation where we ended up in a, a gorgeous house at the top of the hill of Queen Anne. Mm-hmm. And we knew we wanted water, so we just. Narrowed our thing to anywhere along Lake Washington or Lake Union, and that’s where we ended up.

[00:19:55] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. That I love hearing that. You know, at fact of the matter is, is that, um, you’re reminding me of throughout the nineties when I was a, at, at Microsoft, uh, I was a hiring manager, that we ended up hiring a lot of people from New York, like from Manhattan. Mm-hmm. And we let them choose. And almost always they ended up on Capitol Hill or Queen Ann.

[00:20:17] That makes sense. ’cause I think that was to them relative to wherever they were, whether they were Hell’s Kitchen or Chelsea or, or even in some cases, like, you know, like Upper West Side, those places seemed like the perfect balance of being close to the things that they wanted, but also like they would maybe have a place where there was like a view, you know?

[00:20:35] And it’s not like you, yeah. Certainly back then you didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for a view, and now you do. This place is not cheap, it’s not Manhattan, 

[00:20:43] Javier Saade: but price per foot is very high. Right? Yep. But in, again, you, you really can’t compare New York to, I would say any, anywhere. True London. Nothing, let alone Seattle.

[00:20:53] You don’t think 

[00:20:53] Jonathan Sposato: London? London or, or London. Clum comes close. You think London comes close? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:20:58] Javier Saade: The edge I think in New York is I think the newness. Mm-hmm. True. And that newness creates. Churn and that churn creates ideas. I mean things that you are very well aware of, but if you want some of that cosmopolitan, hip, brooklyny, lower East Side thing.

[00:21:16] Yeah, yeah. In Seattle, in my humble opinion as a relative newcomer, Capitol Hill at the top of the list is where we are right now. Mm-hmm. Capitol Hill, Ballard. Mm-hmm. Fremont. Mm-hmm. Lots of restaurants, cool places. Very Seattle Central District. I guess to some extent sodo. So there are some neighborhoods here where if you want really the super urban mm-hmm.

[00:21:40] You know, hipster thing, like you can find it, but I walked here from my house. Mm-hmm. Which feels I have grass in, in my house. Mm-hmm. Uhhuh in New York, nobody has grass. Right. You, you live in buildings? Yeah. So like I live in a normal house, you know, traditional, but people picture a house. Mm-hmm. But I walk to like.

[00:21:58] I feel like I’m in, you know, Williamsburg right now. 

[00:22:00] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more. And I, and I love that much fresher perspective, you know? Now I, you know, a fact is that, that, that my mother and I, uh, when we were, when I was a kid, uh, lived in, um, Brooklyn, lived in Brooklyn Heights back when it was kind of still very working class and it was not mm-hmm.

[00:22:15] Gentrified and cool. And I have family in New York. I, we visit, you know, at least once a year. I have friends in New York. I probably go back actually net, net twice a year. But you’re sort of a victim of the, of your. Past framework. Mm-hmm. And so I love hearing a, your yours and Lori’s perspective on sort of the comparison between New York and Seattle because it’s a very, very fresh perspective.

[00:22:37] Born out of, again, you guys having have done a lot of things and seen a lot of different neighborhoods. So really appreciate that. Okay. Now let’s go to something that is always the $10,000 question for new transplants. How do you manage through the winters? Or do you, or is it a non-issue? 

[00:22:55] Javier Saade: I think it a non-issue.

[00:22:56] I mean, my first winters, and again, I grew up in the Caribbean. 

[00:22:59] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:00] Javier Saade: So my first winters were in Lafayette, Indiana. 

[00:23:02] Jonathan Sposato: Mm. 

[00:23:03] Javier Saade: Lafayette, Indiana, followed by Chicago, which was where my first job out college was. That’s winter. 

[00:23:10] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:23:11] Javier Saade: What you have here, they’re winter, but I, I literally only saw it snow once in two winters.

[00:23:18] We’ve been here. 

[00:23:18] Jonathan Sposato: That’s right. Everything. And it’s not even a lot of snow 

[00:23:20] Javier Saade: and it’s not, no, it’s like a little blanketing. And then on the rain thing, almost every single place I lived in has, in fact, actually more rainfall. What makes this place quote unquote difficult? 

[00:23:32] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:32] Javier Saade: Is that because we’re so far north, I think we’re 49 degrees that days.

[00:23:37] Short. Mm-hmm. And hands, it’s dark. And then because we are surrounded by water and mountains, there’s a lot of mist all the time. Mm-hmm. So, um, but to your point, it is not easy. Mm. Um, but we are both lucky that we’re able to travel and I’ve noticed a lot of people here, and I don’t think you need, you need to have a lot of resources.

[00:24:00] No. You can just drive. East 50 miles. That’s right. And it’s sunny. Most being Yakima. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or Walla Walla. And if you wanna get on Alaska Airlines, it’s one of the hidden jewels of the world. Yeah. You, there’s direct flights to a lot of people go to Santa Rosa for one country. Mm-hmm. Or mm-hmm.

[00:24:17] You know, people here, you know, like Palm New York, it’s the Hamptons or Miami here, it’s like Palm Springs, Scottsdale, or you know, that area around Phoenix, Cabo is huge here. Like a lot of people just go to Cabo and these are like, Alaska has a lot of cheap mm-hmm. Flights. So if you need a dose of vitamin D, not too hard to get it.

[00:24:36] And actually you don’t need to drive even that drive. Mm-hmm. I’m not talking fly. Mm-hmm. Drive that far to get a dose of vitamin D. But. On the flip side of that, and I’ve seen a lot of places in the world, the summer’s here. Are incredible. 

[00:24:49] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:49] Javier Saade: Truly spectacular. Truly 

[00:24:51] Jonathan Sposato: incredible. Yeah. Absolutely. Every time we go on a summer vacation elsewhere, and we just got back from Singapore.

[00:24:58] Mm-hmm. Truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. In fact, I think Singapore, there was some World health organization, uh, study Mm. About, you know, which are the happiest countries or cities in the world. And Singapore was at the very top. Recently, like a few years ago, I believe it, like the happiest place because they, they have great healthcare.

[00:25:14] The standard of living’s really high. People don’t really fall out the bottom. There’s no homelessness and there’s, they take care of their old folks, you know? Uh, the culture kind of reveres. 

[00:25:24] Javier Saade: It’s like Scandinavia, almost like, 

[00:25:25] Jonathan Sposato: yeah, right. Like a good social 

[00:25:26] Javier Saade: safety net, good social, yeah. Safety 

[00:25:28] Jonathan Sposato: and exit, all of those things.

[00:25:29] And the environment is actually, um, objectively speaking. Beautiful. Beautiful. I mean, it’s, it’s the most lush and well. Architecturally and civically planned City I’ve ever visited. Like it’s, it’s like they, they just were so smart about how they thought about the, the layout and streets and all of that stuff, and it was nice weather, a little hot.

[00:25:50] I came back and we were like, oh my God, the city’s gorgeous. Yeah. Like the moment the plane was landing and you get out and you’re. Yeah, Rainier. Then you’re driving into the city and, and then you see the water on the left and the cityscape. It, it was just really, truly, uh, something that again, like, like this very conversation with you Javier.

[00:26:12] It underscores why Seattle’s a world class city. All right. Now let’s get to some specifics about some of the work that you do. Your podcast is called Top of the Game. Can you tell us more about it? 

[00:26:25] Javier Saade: It was born out of a whim. I listen to either music or podcasts when I run, and maybe podcasts are like hours and hours long.

[00:26:31] Mm-hmm. And I, you know, I have to cut ’em up and stuff, and I’m like, what if you were to do a podcast that was very short? Mm-hmm. And by short, I mean 15 minutes. Mm-hmm. 15 to 20 minutes. With amazing people from all walks of life. 

[00:26:43] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. And 

[00:26:43] Javier Saade: that’s what I did. Mm-hmm. Like on a whim, I’m like, okay. Yeah. I started calling people I knew and now I’ve released 90 some episodes, five of them.

[00:26:51] I used AI to produce them completely, which was incredible. Really, besides giving me an excuse. 

[00:26:57] Jonathan Sposato: Nick, I will never leave you. Yeah. 

[00:26:59] Javier Saade: Nick. Nick, 

[00:27:00] Jonathan Sposato: I will never replace. He’s a beautiful man. Replace you with ai. He’s a beautiful man. Yeah. Yes. Beautiful man. 

[00:27:04] Javier Saade: Um, it has been a very cathartic experience. Yeah. And what.

[00:27:07] More than the outlet that it gives some of my energy is that I wanted to do right. Kind of right brain, left brain. Mm-hmm. I do everything in the podcast. Mm-hmm. I book my own guest. Mm mm I produce it, I edit it. Mm-hmm. This is gonna be much better. Nick. I compose the music. Mm-hmm. Uh, my wife does the, the intro and the outro.

[00:27:28] So it is literally like how podcasts are, they were like very gritty and stuff. I. Purposely kept it that way. Mm-hmm. But I love it. 

[00:27:34] Jonathan Sposato: That’s cool. That’s cool. Bravo. So now when, when people do multiple things, when they’re a polymath like you, what’s interesting to me is what they lead with, and I remember when I first met you, the first thing that you sort of led with was, oh, I have this thing called the only agency.

[00:27:51] Mm-hmm. Tell us more about that. What, what is it and what are you hoping you’ll accomplish? 

[00:27:57] Javier Saade: It is the largest and most, one of the most prolific agencies in the world. That represents, when you think about agents, Hollywood agents, you think about, you know, somebody representing Tom Cruise to get a movie.

[00:28:09] Mm-hmm. Or a sports agent. Mm-hmm. Somebody to get them a contract. We represent stylists, manicures, hair people. Yeah. Like literally all the people that put together. Those A-listers. Mm-hmm. And by consequence, end up shaping the looks and the fashions of 

[00:28:27] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. No, I get it. You name it. So it’s like, 

[00:28:29] Javier Saade: like I’ll give you some specifics.

[00:28:30] Like Beyonce. Mm-hmm. I’m flying to Puerto Rico tomorrow. Mm-hmm. To see Bad Bunny. Mm-hmm. Who’s one of our clients? Nice. Mm-hmm. Shakira Uhhuh. We saw a lot of the New York Liberty, WNB. So it’s like this. Huge roster of amazing talent. Yeah. Which in turn, style image architect. Yeah. Other talent. 

[00:28:49] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. No, that’s great.

[00:28:51] Um, super interesting. I have to, I, I, I sort of have some touches with that world. I’m familiar with the wall group. Yeah. You know, Brooke Wall, it’s like the wall group. I think that sounds like it’s similar to that. Exactly like that. I’m friends with Allison Edmond, who’s, um, creative director at the, um, Hollywood Reporter.

[00:29:05] My friend Jennifer Dorn is also similar creative director at the mm-hmm. Variety. They are always working with, um, a lot of stylists, you know, hair, makeup, and have to sort of, in some ways beat a talent whisperer to Yeah. To kinda make sure everything’s gonna be going smooth and, and that you get the most incredible results.

[00:29:22] So, so my point is that I have the utmost respect for, for the work that you are doing at the only agency because these things don’t happen by themselves. 

[00:29:30] Javier Saade: I, I’m learning a lot. The CEO is like a, a very remarkable person, Ken Belden, and he mm-hmm. Started, he’s an entrepreneur. He started the company. He started as a music, as a rock star.

[00:29:40] I see. And he like represented rock stars and he saw this white space. And, you know, obviously with influencers and sports have become so important to the, the media and entertainment world because it’s one of the only things that it’s consumed live. And Travis Kelsey for his exhibit one mm-hmm. We just actually did travel the, the day after he did the podcast with, uh.

[00:30:03] Taylor Swift. Mm-hmm. When she was releasing her to a album, we did a spread on gq. So, but it’s like this, I happen to be chairman of the board of the company. Mm-hmm. Um, it’s a really interesting world because purely from a, from a business perspective, think about like you getting a haircut. Mm-hmm. Do you change your barber or hairstylist?

[00:30:23] Probably not that much. Mm-hmm. Imagine if your job is to look good. Mm-hmm. Like. You’re an actress. Mm-hmm. Or a musician. Mm-hmm. You are never, ever changing your style. That’s right. So they’re very sticky relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And because you’re the ones typically dressing or suggesting they dress with a specific thing, the access for brands to dress ’em.

[00:30:42] So yeah, we do some click to buys, but like, you know, if Bulgari wants to put a Netflix on Zendaya Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you get paid. Yeah. Because, you know, it is our stylist that puts the necklace on Zaya. 

[00:30:53] Jonathan Sposato: Right, right, right. Yeah, it’s really 

[00:30:54] Javier Saade: interesting 

[00:30:54] Jonathan Sposato: business. Yeah. Managing your brand and managing your persona, if that’s, you know, you make your living doing that is, um, I can understand the, the need to get all of that.

[00:31:04] Right. Exactly. Okay, so let now we’re gonna tack and talk about something that’s really. From your past working in the Obama administration and you worked at the crossroads of policy and innovation and what was your title? Uh, during 

[00:31:17] Javier Saade: they’re very long titles in the government. 

[00:31:18] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. 

[00:31:18] Javier Saade: Yeah. The president appointed me to be associate Administrator and Chief of Investment and Innovation.

[00:31:25] That’s right. At the Small Business administration. That’s 

[00:31:27] Jonathan Sposato: right. What lessons from Washington DC could help Seattle leaders better? Partner with government, work with government, and vice versa? 

[00:31:35] Javier Saade: It’s probably worthwhile telling you how I ended up there. Yeah. Yeah. So most of my career until then, about 20 years had been spent either investing and starting.

[00:31:45] Or running companies or line. Mm-hmm. You know, line management and sort of a random set of events. I was, I worked at a private equity firm that also had a hedge fund, and we bought companies all over the world in emerging markets and we were taking like a sabbatical, Laurie and I, it was like the, my 20 year mark and we were taking like a few months sabbatical and I randomly got reached out by somebody.

[00:32:07] That told me that, hey, in the second term of Obama, they’re looking for, you know, different people for high level positions. And I never ever consider, I never donated to a political party of any sort. I never done anything in politics. And because of the point in time I was in, I was like, interesting. Well, 13 vetting cycles later, I ended up in this incredible role that was essentially all about.

[00:32:32] Investing. So it was like a fund of funds that had tens of billions of dollars. Mm-hmm. And I was the head of this program called the Small Business Innovation Research Program, which is $4 or $5 billion a year into very cutting edge technologies. So think I’ll give you a, a very vivid example, Rituxan, which is kind of the therapy of choice for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

[00:32:55] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:55] Javier Saade: It was Biogen. Mm-hmm. Which is now part of Roche. 

[00:32:58] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. That 

[00:32:59] Javier Saade: was born in a beaker in a lab from, not from money, from a venture capitalist, but money from the cancer institute inside the NIH. So this is very, very, very, very long horizon money. It’s this remarkable program that has had trillions of dollars of economic impact because it de-risk a lot of this technology.

[00:33:20] We don’t really have to go into what’s happening now to some of those programs. There’s a retrenchment in in federal spending, but the content of my job was very related to what I did. In my private sector, which was create jobs, investing in companies, start companies, and the lens is what changed. So the lens was just to use our euphemism.

[00:33:43] And how do you export the Silicon Valley ethos to Memphis, Tennessee? 

[00:33:47] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:48] Javier Saade: Some of the things that were visceral to me and I spent two, two and a half years in a role. Those are usually a political appointments are pretty shortlived and, and high churn, but like. At this simultaneously, I also sat in a committee at this Securities and Exchange Commission.

[00:34:02] Mm-hmm. Which dealt with small and emerging companies. So companies that have had less than 2 billion in market cap or were private, which is Reg D and RED 1 44. And people that know about private capital in the United States mm-hmm. Is most private equity venture capital firms. But what was being born then was crowdfunding.

[00:34:19] And now regulation CF for companies to actually avail themselves of funds through crowdfunding. Mm-hmm. Which doesn’t sound like a big innovation now, but basically the interesting thing was that what I, what I discovered was that opportunity. Is not as well distributed as talent in the United States.

[00:34:41] So there’s a reason why Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley, Seattle is Seattle. New York is New York. there’s these mega centers of economic activity. Seattle, by far is one. I think the Pacific Northwest as a whole is like a trillion dollar regional economy. Is that you have all these ingredients.

[00:34:57] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:58] Javier Saade: And some, places like. I mentioned Memphis, but San Juan where I’m from, or Albany or right down the street, TA Tacoma, which is 30 miles away south of here. They don’t have all the ingredients. So how do you. Expand the aperture. And part of the job of the government is not ha I don’t view it as a handout.

[00:35:18] I don’t view it as a social good. But how do you expand access to these programs? So this program I was talking about the SBIR, which gave birth to the I robot, which is this thing that cleans you. The Roomba. Mm-hmm. The Roomba. Yeah. That was born, that was born originally John out of the DLD research for Minesweepers.

[00:35:38] Jonathan Sposato: Interesting. Oh wow. Yeah. And 

[00:35:39] Javier Saade: when they decided to do a dual use, meaning that, yeah. Well, actually GPS is a, yeah, is a, the classic example of a, originally a military. Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:46] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:35:47] Javier Saade: Innovation that, you know, obviously we all use now every day and all these amazing companies. Usually they were developed around large universities, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, all these places, but they’re scientists in all universities.

[00:36:03] So how do I, without changing anything, try to get. The university to avail themselves of this program. So it was a super eye-opening experience. I ended up, after that, years later, I worked in the transition team between Trump and Biden. So this would’ve been in 2020. 2021. Mm-hmm. Talk about Intenses. It’s 77 days between election day and inauguration Day.

[00:36:28] In between there we had January 6th, which is mm-hmm. All whole other thing. And then it was all virtual ’cause COVID. But you’re basically changing a $6 trillion company known as the United States of America that employs 4 million people in 77 days. I was in the treasury team. 

[00:36:47] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:48] Javier Saade: Most of the people that were in the team, Gary Gensler, ended up as the chairman of the Security of the Exchange Commission.

[00:36:54] Michael Barr ended up as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Don Graves ended up as Deputy Secretary of Commerce. I ended up doing like, uh, something part-time for just to give back, but I am. Eyes wide open, and I’m a beneficiary of this in my early years, that while you never really see them all the time in front of you, public private partnerships are extremely important to the social welfare of citizens.

[00:37:25] And economic activity. One example I’ll give you, when you get on a plane, you don’t think about how many millions of tests they did to the wings. Mm-hmm. And literally, it’s. Thousands of pages of regulation. Before that plane is able to carry passenger one. 

[00:37:39] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:40] Javier Saade: The only reason we have this amazing.

[00:37:43] Ecosystem in America for thousands of airports and all this stuff is because behind the scenes the government sets the stage for flying to be safe. And flying in the United States is extremely safe. 

[00:37:54] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:55] Javier Saade: But until you are inside, you don’t realize how important, and the question between Republicans and Democrats is how hard or how heavy The hand of the government is. But I’ll tell you something, even you can be as right of center as humanly possible. It’s pretty heavy because without it. Nothing functions. 

[00:38:12] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah, that’s right. You know what I think would be a fascinating conversation is almost like a council of you and several others in our city of other leaders and we can, we can actually have kind of a round table discussion.

[00:38:24] Maybe that’ll be part two. 

[00:38:25] Javier Saade: Look forward to it. 

[00:38:26] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s end on something hopeful, future facing. When you think about Seattle 10 years from now, what do you hope this city will be known for? 

[00:38:39] Javier Saade: I think the cities, mega or otherwise, that really succeed, really invest in their strengths. I think Nashville is a really interesting example.

[00:38:51] Mm-hmm. The capital of Texas, Austin. 

[00:38:53] Jonathan Sposato: Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:54] Javier Saade: Seattle was a little bit ahead of those, of both of those cities just because they’re such a specific gravity and inertia of all these massive companies being here. But that proximity to world class. Outdoors Asia, everybody talks about Europe and whatever, but the center of gravity, for many reasons, and I know you know this viscerally is Asia.

[00:39:17] Mm-hmm. We are very close to Asia. Mm-hmm. And those strengths need to be invested in the city is becoming, it’s not, it’s not even as close to diverse as in New York or, or whatever. Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:28] Jonathan Sposato: But 

[00:39:28] Javier Saade: it’s, it is very diverse and that diversity. Gives you strength. Mm-hmm. So you invest in that diversity. I think, uh, the last thing I’ll say is that, you know, even though my, my short stint in the government was at the federal, at the national level, like state and local governments have.

[00:39:46] As much as not more, right? ’cause you’re all setting stages at different, uh, levels in a federal democracy is get involved. I would tell citizens, get involved, vote to the politicians that policy makers make policy by listening to constituents. And the more they listen, I think the better the policy. But, you know, call me crazy.

[00:40:07] Jonathan Sposato: Yeah. Very good. You know, Javier, I could go on for another. Many hours with you. It’s been amazing hearing your thoughts. I wanna thank you, Javier, for this inspiring conversation and, and actually just as importantly, a great deal of validation for why a worldly and sophisticated, educated, smart couple like you and Lori have chosen of all of the cities in the world.

[00:40:34] Put through a spreadsheet, you know, ranked on a number of, uh, amazing attributes that Seattle came up as the winner of where you wanna lay down your roots moving forward. We are so lucky to have you in our community. As I’ve said, I’m, I wanna be Seattle’s biggest cheerleader. Part of that cheerleading is not just telling the world about how great the city is, but inviting.

[00:40:58] Others, you know, really amazing people into our city to integrate into our fabric because we can all be better together. So to our listeners, stay tuned for more insights. From Seattle’s Change Makers,

[00:41:17] a special thank you to the entire Seattle Magazine staff and to podcast producer Nick Patri. Until next time, let’s keep celebrating Seattle.