We got very, very close very, very quickly, I think in large part because we were running so much together. He brought double meat Quiznos and like 64-ounce Diet Mountain Dew. I was like, I'm in heaven, I want to marry this man. We got to work together at Twitter, which was kind of fun. I think the assumption was like brother and sister. I used to tell her we should just like start making out in the middle of all hands, vandalize everybody because they think we're siblings. Having three kids definitely convinces you that it's all nature and very little nurture. I think we will have failed, and by we I mean like AGI, the industry in general, if it isn't true that every kid growing up all over the world has a basically free, one-on-one, personalized tutor. I can't tell you, even through like how busy we are these days, and now we're three kids later and at home and two big jobs, like if you at least have those shared weird little things, like it means if nothing else we eat a sandwich on a Saturday together.
Today on Modern Relationships, I'm joined by Kevin Weil, the Chief Product Officer at OpenAI, and Elizabeth Weil, founder and partner at Scribble Ventures. Together for nearly 20 years, Kevin and Elizabeth met while training for a marathon and have since built intertwining careers in Silicon Valley. Up ahead, you'll hear them talk about navigating work transitions, their parenting philosophy, and strengthening their relationship through every chapter, from carefree grad students to juggling demanding careers as parents of three. Kevin, Elizabeth, welcome to Modern Relationships. Thanks so much for coming on.
So the conceit of the show is we bring on amazing, successful, aspirational couples like you guys on the show and hear your stories and draw out lessons that other people can learn in terms of how to pick great partners, how to make marriage great, how to balance relationships and work. And maybe we'll just start with your story, how you guys met, how you came together.
Okay, I get to go. I'll tell the true story in a nutshell version. So I came out to the Valley 25 years ago for Stanford, undergrad, and then a Master's in engineering. And well, so during my Master's, I joined the triathlon team because for $30 a quarter you could swim in a decent time, like 7:00, not at 5:00 AM. That man had done his undergrad at Harvard, came out for his physics PhD at Stanford in theoretical particle physics, I think. So I wasn't in that lab much, but fortunately he was also on the triathlon team. And I went to practice one day and told the coach I was going to miss the next day, I was running a marathon. And she said, 'Oh, that guy in lane three in the green cap, he's running the same marathon.' So the rest is history. We'll spare all the details, but that was the meeting site. And then we were very quickly together.
Then you know, well, it took a few months.
Well, it took a few months, that's still pretty quick. And then we moved two months after that, and then we were engaged three months after that, and then we bought our house three months after that. So we kind of got it done. And we've been in Portola Valley like old people since we bought before we even married. The marathon story is kind of fun, though. We met up beforehand at like the race expo, and she kind of showed me around because it was her hometown marathon. This was after he hadn't responded to two emails from me about, 'Hey, I hear you're going to be running the same marathon.'
No, he hadn't, because all he wanted to do is see if I was fast. So I got this like old email of like, 'That's cool, I'm going to do this fast.' I don't... I said that. Use proof. So where it was like the second marathon I'd ever run, but it was the first one I'd really like prepped for, and I wanted to try and hit a certain time. And I knew the way that I was going to hit this time was if I hedged off of this group of elite female runners, which I wasn't as fast as, but like then slowly fell off that pace because they were going to run consistent, and I wanted to figure out how I could run, you know, consistent pace. So we start the race and we're like 10K in, you know, a quarter of the way, and one of these elite women falls off the pace. And you're taught when you run to never watch the person who's falling back, you like keep your eyes on the people that are up there. So I'm like slowly catching this person, and as I catch and pass, you know, I'm eyes ahead, not looking. She goes, 'Go Kevin, look!' And I'm like, 'Elizabeth, what are you... oh, like how are you?' You know, she's like, 'Oh, I'm just feeling good, see you later, have a good race.' And I knew what she was trying to run, she was way under her pace, and I'm thinking in my head like, 'You are effed.' But you know, I was like, 'Hey, have a good race, see you at the end.' And so she actually did end up having a good race. And then at the end of the thing, we're like walking around together, just friends, and I met your brother-in-law, I met your mom, I met like your sister. There are all these photos of you know me and her with her parents in the background. It's crazy. We knew each other for a day and a half at that point.
Well, who knows. Yeah, rest is history. I put up with him now for... that was in 2005, so that's a long time.
Wow. And so what explains the why you guys moved so fast? Is it kind of just like when you know, you know? Or like because you're still pretty young?
Sorry, I know the answer to this question.
Yeah, you did know, you know, we fight about that all the time too. So part of the story, so on two days after that marathon, we said, he said, 'Let's get lunch.' So we went to Pluto's. So whoever knows Palo, I dearly miss Pluto's, but hot date for lunch for salads. And during that time, I was on my last quarter of Stanford, and I had basically like 20 units to the unit, so I didn't have to do a whole lot. And I told him over that lunch I was thinking of going to Australia for the quarter. And right there at that lunch, mind you, this is like fourth day we've ever like known each other.
No, no, no, you're like months off.
So anyway, well, kind of you are, it's okay. Yeah, okay, fine. Fast forward a few months, we didn't speak for a couple months, and now go on our second lunch ever at Pluto's, and I say I'm gonna go and go to Australia. And he says, 'Oh, I've always wanted to go to Australia. Like, could you wait until after graduation?' Mind you, like we're not even dating yet, like this is a second lunch ever. And I was like, 'That's presumptuous.' And I had my all lined up at Menlo Ventures, and I'm like, 'I can't ask Menlo to start late.' But anyway, I got the guts to ask, and they said fine. And then I said, 'Dude, we've had to put our money where the mouth is. If he's really serious, I want to see us buy our tickets, like not this like oh we should go someday.' So we planned a night for him to come over and buy our tickets. And he came over, he was armed with, bring dinner, he brought double meat Quiznos and like 64-ounce Diet Mountain Dew. Two grand. I was like, 'I'm in heaven, I want to marry this man.' So he had me at the Quiznos, the Diet Mountain Dew.
One other thing that I actually think, there's all that, and we were running together all the time back then, almost every morning we were running together. And there's something about having an hour together where you know you're going to fill the conversation or fill the gaps with conversation, and also you're not staring at each other from across the dinner table or something. Somehow there's something, it's easier to talk to people I think when you're both staring ahead. And I don't know, we got very, very close very, very quickly. I think in large part because we were running so much together.
Fascinating. And did you have a sense for like what you were looking for in a partner, or were you just like living your life and you guys just became close?
No, I mean, I'll take the first one, you can weigh in. But the reason I was saying like the months in the previous story were important because I was dating somebody when we ran a marathon, and we broke up in the middle. So I didn't want to get that timeline mixed up. But he's honest, very honest. But I had dated that person for a long time, like since high school. And when we broke up, I was like, 'This is great, I'm in grad school, I got to like write a bunch of papers and do a bunch of physics, and I don't need any women in my life. I'm just gonna like work out a ton and do a lot of physics, and it's going to be great.' So I wasn't looking for anything.
Yeah, and I didn't have like a serious boyfriend all through Stanford, which just kind of like, you know, yeah, it wasn't a premeditated thing for me at all. I was not like out for a husband or out for a... and honestly, it happened way earlier than I thought because I've always been so independent. I was just kind of living my own life. And I'm like, I wake up at five or six every morning and I run, and I've never wanted to be that one that like sleeps in and goes to brunch. It's like I do my very own thing. And for some reason, our weird very own things merged up. So I think it was easier to say, 'Yeah, this is faster than I thought, but it sure works.'
It did happen really fast once it started, though. Like, we started dating in April and we were engaged in January.
Well, yeah, there was that. But then also we'd set, you came to meet my parents like three weeks later, just not because we were trying to introduce to each other's parents, but there was a trip we wanted to go on. So you met my parents, I met yours. My dad happened to be driving by Sacramento where her mom is, so we actually set them up to meet and they had dinner together. I don't know what they were thinking. If our kids do that to us, we're going to be like, 'These weirdos.' Somehow it made sense. And I know at least my parents were like, after you came to visit, my parents were like, 'Okay, that was a different Kevin, I guess we should get used to this now. We like her.'
So when you see couples that are together, you know, who are about the same age, you guys were together for three years, five years, and not married, are you guys like, 'Shit or get off the pot,' or what are you guys doing?
No, I'm just one of those that's like, life's too short to not be with a person that like brings out all the good things and you get to be you around. And so I've never been a fan of like trying to architect the meeting. It's like, go do what you love. If you love yoga, if you love running, if you love going to bars, like just do what you like to do. And I can't tell you, even through like how busy we are these days, and now we're three kids later and a home and two big jobs, like if you at least have those shared weird little things, like it means if nothing else we eat a sandwich on a Saturday together. And I just think there's something like, find the little stuff, because the little stuff after you know those first few hot years is what really matters. So just be you.
And is it, if you're thinking about like, you know, you guys have been together 20 years, it seems, do you think about the chapters of your... is it basically like pre-kids, post-kids, or like how do you think about the chapters of your relationship?
That is a good question. So we bought our home right away, so I feel like that first chapter was this amazing like nesting, but acting like old people where we threw dinner parties every night and I cooked like six nights a week. We made an outdoor cinema and we invited friends over. I threw like clam bakes because it was like Wednesday, you know. And we had this like fun adulting time where all you had to do was wake up and go to work in the morning and be selfish and think of you. And our weekend phase, where how long of a run can we go on, four or five hours, and then which sandwich do we want to go eat and how much Diet Mountain Dew do we want. Those were the days, it was heaven. And an extra bike ride in the afternoon just because, heaven. And we also got to run every morning together, talk about our days. And then there was yes, the kid phase and the baby phase, and that was a big wide awakening. And then there's no going back, so kid phase turns into toddler phase, which turns into now tomorrow is three sporting events, two sleepovers, a pickup, like a play date. And now that, there's no going back. That genie does not go back in the bottle. But they're fun.
Yeah. And how do you guys make it all work? Or maybe we start on the women's, like when Elizabeth, when you're talking to women who are younger and they're trying to say, 'Hey, you know, I want to have kids but I also want to have a career, but I'm also like kind of unsure,' like let me hear about your story to help me sort of make sense for how I should think about how my 30s are going to be. What do you tell them?
And I do talk to a lot of women about this because first thing I would highlight, which is like the truth, it's never a good time. And you're probably going to pick the worst time, so don't try to architect it. And I have my two pregnancies, because I have twins, were worst times in their own, you know, interesting weird ways. But we even were like, neither of us were like, 'Oh, I just woke up and I'm in my baby phase and I want to be cuddling someone right now.' It was like, no, it's very well we envisioned being parents and having children. So if said children are going to exist, something has to happen to make that happen. And we knew we wanted a family. So I got pregnant. I was actually the first pregnancy at every place I worked. I was the first pregnancy at Andreessen Horowitz and didn't tell anyone until I was six months pregnant. They were great, but we had to put a policy in place, there'd never been one before. Our first one was a wild surprise. Again, like you can't pick it, you can't time it. He was three months in the NICU. We were very much wide awakening to parenting, spending more time in the hospital than at home. And then with the twins, again, a high-risk pregnancy. I found out I was pregnant the day after I started a brand new job. Again, worst timing. They're nine months later, you're going to be very out. And so it's never a good time, but I think, and parents probably very much feel this, you're never going to be more efficient until after you have that kid. So just own it, do it, and it all works.
Call her parents when she was telling me about the twins before I officially knew, I figured that. So I went to see my parents and I took our at that time two-year-old, and she was like, 'Oh, I'm gonna come down a couple days later,' which was not normal. So I was like, 'Huh, something must be up,' but whatever, you know, we're pretty independent, so she wants to stay an extra couple days at home, whatever, sure. So two days, I go pick her up at the airport, and she as we're driving, she's like, 'Hey, you should pull over.' Like, 'What do you mean?' She's like, 'No, just pull over.' And so she pulls out an ultrasound and she's like, 'Hey, look, we're pregnant.' Amazing, so cool, like, you know, getting all excited. And she goes, 'With twins.' Like it folded over and there's another kid in there. So that was not the best time. And it was like the day after I started at 137 Ventures. And again, those guys weren't even married at the time. I'm getting ready to have twins, and it just, it was entirely different vibe. Like, I pumped in my Uber on the way to the office, like meeting doesn't stop when you need to just go pump. Remember wearing like that over my stuff and being at the table and me just go with it. So fortunately I just like didn't care all that much, but you make it work.
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Did you think about taking any like years off, or is it just like, no, that's just more than let's just do it all?
No, I think there's always been times you're like, 'Why am I doing this? This is nuts.' But I know how much work is important to me and how I want to be. I mean, I have big three criteria that I've held since I started working. It's like: one, work with the people you want to be around; two, do it in the location that you thrive and you don't have a long commute; and three is, am I learning? And whenever those are out of whack, like then you make a move. Why I think being at Scribble now, like I'm the chooser of those things, and so I'm never going to have to get another job in my life, I hope. But with those three, it's just, it's like very orienting. I don't know, that's... I don't know.
Whenever you've even said anything about it, I've always encouraged her to stay in the game because I think she is happier when she's working and there's like something bigger than her that she's fighting for and getting to, you know, work with portfolio companies. And you just, and I think you're a happier human when you have that.
And you guys need to work together a bit. Yeah, and I tell young women this too, you just need to really be vocal about your non-negotiables. And those can happen even throughout having careers. And you pick what is important. And if it's going to the 11:00 story time, that's your thing, and you do that. And I also got this advice from a great friend, we did a calendar coding and color-coded. And so it was, you know, the work bucket, the kid bucket, maybe the health. And you shouldn't look at it every day and see like pure balance, but instead extract to the week and then to the month. And if your month looks good, you might have had crazy travel and not seen that baby, but then when you extract, you have, you know, more of that. And I think it just helps put it in perspective. And then also the thing that every parent tells every younger parent is it goes so fast. I can't believe I have a 10-year-old and eight-year-old twins right now. It feels like yesterday, like I still have some of their baby clothes. But now we're looking toward, wow, in six years we're gonna have a 16-year-old, and I'm going to be so thrilled that I have an orienting job to go to that I love and things that keep my brain moving, because it happens so fast. And I'm glad I won't have to be trying to get back in. So it's hard, right? And now that they're eight and 10 and they start to kind of get what it is to work, they look and they go, 'Mommy's the boss of Scribble.' Yeah, and I think that's, you know, everyone's work decision is personal, so there's no judgment in any direction, but I just think that's awesome for them growing up. They know I make $100 a day. So yeah, they're starting to get really curious about money, but they kind of don't understand how it works. You make a day.
Yeah. You've also had, you know, different career paths from Twitter to Instagram to Planet to OpenAI and others before that, of course, you know, others have mentioned. So her three principles, what has guided you in terms of your transitions?
Actually, they're remarkably similar. Probably the one that isn't there for me is location, in the sense that I've been commuting to the city for like most of my jobs for a long time. So I'm kind of an idiot on that front. I very much am jealous of Elizabeth's commute, but at the same time, like I love what I have gotten to do. So I always, I want to work with people that I love. I think you become more like the people you spend your time around, so spend your time, you know, work with people that are going to make you a better version of yourself. I want to work on something that's bigger than me. You know, work on something that when I'm 80 years old and I've got a grandkid on my knee that I'm going to be proud to say that I contributed to. And I want to be learning just like Elizabeth. Yeah, I'm happiest if I feel like I half know what I'm doing and half have no idea what I'm doing and need to constantly like catch up. You know, I'm competitive. If I feel like I'm falling behind or I'm not able to contribute in the way that I want to, that's what makes me work the hardest, and that's kind of what I'm the happiest. So I've been really lucky in my career to get to do that and also to work at a bunch of places that, you know, everywhere I've worked is long hours and all that, but they've also been flexible. If I want to go to something in the middle of the day, I can make that work. I'll make it up in another, you know, weird hours in the evening or something. But I feel very lucky, the tech industry as a whole is pretty good like that, and just means I can spend more time with my kids maybe than I otherwise would have been able to.
One thing that's really cool is you guys came up together, you know, having met sort of before your career started. It's cool that you guys got to see each other and support each other on the way up. Um, one because it's cool itself, but two because it gets harder as people get locked into their careers to make time to meet other people, or they, you know, the dynamics just change a little bit once you're already on the way up. And we all have friends who are in that situation.
Yeah, we were super fortunate. I mean, when I met him, I thought I was gonna be marrying like a middle-of-the-country physics professor, had no idea. And again, it's like if you stick to what you like, it's still your story. It was that, you know, when I was at IVP, made the investment in Twitter and heard about them needing to hire somebody for their analytics team. And Kevin's like one of those weird people, he's like, 'I could learn that,' and he got that job on the spot. And then started, and I realized six months in how much fun he was having, and I joined him at Twitter. But it was to your point of we grew up together. Like at that point, no kids, we had a tiny apartment on the same block as Twitter. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner was spent with Twitter peers in those early days, in those building days. And those were the weddings you were going to, those were, you know, the vacations you were going on. And it was really fun to go through that, you know, that progression together. And again, like being able to say yes to travel and stuff like that. So it is, but yeah, did not think I was... yeah, just again, stick to your principles that are important and who knows what you're going to end up with.
Choose well. About going in, all jobs actually came through her.
I just tell people I write her coattails. He's pretty good.
How do you guys like work together, collaborate together? We'll get into like divide and conquer, but what is it like to sort of have been in the same industry and have a lot of...
We got to work together at Twitter, which was kind of fun. Yeah, and in the early days, like he started at 30 people and I was about 50. In the early days, like people knew because we were super small, but we scaled so fast. So we scaled from 50 to 300 people in less than a year, and then to 2,500 in less than four years from my time. And so once we started expanding floors, like sometimes we'd meet in the kitchen to leave together, and people are like, 'You guys are married?' And I think the natural assumption was like brother and sister. I used to tell her we should just like start making out in the middle of all hands, vandalize everybody because they think we're siblings. So we were on different teams, so we never... but there was one hot second he was PM and I was the PMM on some initiative. And for so long...
Was that Twitter Commerce?
Yeah, formerly known as Twitter Commerce. Former Twitter Commerce, yeah. Yeah, how many times can you try that? So it was back in the fun, fun days there. And then I went on to Andreessen Horowitz from there, and then Kevin stayed at Twitter longer, and then went over to Instagram. And where was I during that phase? I don't even... 137, yeah. Now we're here. And now it's just divide and conquer on all the things. But we still have kind of that shared tech language. I'm glad we're not like in the exact same thing, but it... I was talking to somebody this morning about this, that even at the worst of times when we really are two ships in the night, you at least have like some shared language of what the other one's kind of shipping in the night doing. So it helps.
When let's say, you know, a couple like 10 years younger than you, you know, just starting the parenting journey, but similar background in terms of both professionally successful, comes to you and you're like, 'Hey, I want a mental model of how to think about like divide and conquer.' You know, some people are, it's really important to be equal across everything. Some people are like, 'Hey, you're more skilled in this area, you handle this. I'm more skilled or doing this better, I handle this.' What would you tell them?
I think we've done a few things well, and like some you learn from too, and some that we haven't done well. But I think kind of owning your zones, like being upfront about like what you hate doing. Like Kevin hates unloading the dishwasher of the Tupperware, and so it's always wet little things. And I don't like to take out the garbage. And Kevin, and as our kids have grown, he's kind of owned sports. That means like signing up for sports, he's going to be the main driver, he's going to meet like the... and I do so much more at school. And I'm the teacher conferences, I teach art on certain days. Like so we have some of those like broader zones where you kind of know. I think there's something that is inevitable about the motherload, and I will fight till my death on that. There is, you know, I have this working plan in my head every day of like which meals do I have to go, what do I have to get, and oh wait, Matthew eats bagels and this has to get picked up as a prescription. Like there's just something about it. So I don't think it's equal, but I think you respect some of those big pieces. So one of the things I say about Kevin, like he's so busy, but he's not like going and getting beers after work. He's doing what he needs to do and then having a last cycle maybe with the kids and then barely with us at this point. And also on weekends he needs work time, but it's not like, 'I need the whole day, I'm going to go sit in my man cave.' It's like he's going to work that in between a basketball game, in between a soccer game. So I really respect that. I think we're good at...
are perfectly fine being solo with all the kids, which I think matters. That evolves as they age, but always, I mean, because we both had work travel and I don't know, I found like that frees us up. It means if she's got friends that are going to go do something cool for a weekend or something, it's totally fine. We talk about it. I don't know, both of us are happy doing that. It actually is interesting too because you get a different slice of the kids when you're solo with them versus when both parents are around. So I don't know, I just think that leaves us a little more freedom and independence.
And then the other thing, my sister gave me this advice early was if you leave for a day, don't be that white mom who puts out like 14 Cheerios at this time, then a half a cup of goldfish. Like, don't do that. Let each do its own. So it might mean that they have a ridiculous lunch when they're on dad's watch and they do what you're talking about, but that's all fine. And it means I have the freedom I can leave without having that oh, I have to over-architect this.
And then the other advice on the when you have kids in school age things and volunteering, I got the other great advice that only volunteer where the kids can see you. So yesterday I was working in the classroom, I'll go for the Valentine's party and cupcake decorating, but don't just like send the back marshmallows. And I think I've gotten a lot more mileage out of the volunteering and work I do with my kids because they see that. So yeah, there's no panacea for all of it.
And then also I think it's we're very independent, but have your own friends, have your own hobbies. Like I have a ridiculous Lego habit as you can probably see, and that's something I do totally solo, not with the kids, not like, so totally me. I walk with a lot of my friends and talk. I have great running buddies. So have that thing that you don't need your partner for that'll boost you and that's helped keep me sane too, especially through momhood.
You know, people who are listening to this podcast are very smart and thus very successful and thus can afford help, which I just say as a segue to how do you, how have you guys thought about what you can delegate versus what's not worth delegating or just infrastructure?
Right, slice of life in our house too. Go for it. So first of all, I grew up in Sacramento, single mom, divorced, a second-grade teacher.
