The Dreamers and I

- [Narrator] "The Dreamers and I" was made possible by the Independent Television Service and the following funders.

(upbeat music) (engine turning over) (upbeat music) - [Kenji] I started working in Silicon Valley 40 years ago.

I was there when Steve Jobs came up in his black turtleneck, introducing the iPhone.

Wow, that was pretty cool.

And as an editor, I was there editing the introduction of the Apple Watch.

That was pretty cool, too.

But as a kid, I always thought I would be an artist, and on my own, taught myself how to edit films.

But artists have two jobs.

One is doing the artistic things and the other is supporting yourself.

And that's how I ended up working in Silicon Valley.

There was one story I never heard about in Silicon Valley.

For every Steve Jobs there were thousands of entrepreneurs who came to Silicon Valley to be, well, just like him.

They would come from every corner of the world, and they would spend all their time and money, maybe just for an idea.

During this time when I was working with these high tech companies, it became such a boom that traffic was impossible.

So I started to look for a hotel and, ugh, the price of hotels, they were just unbelievable.

So then I looked into Airbnb and I found a place that was 40 bucks a night, pretty cheap.

Guess why?

Eight bunks to a bedroom.

I wanted to stay only one night.

I never heard of this before, but I was staying in a hacker house.

- The word "hacker" is a very weird term to apply to us, specifically.

The media portrays as like someone that's trying to hack into a computer system or steal information or something like that, which is not at all what we do.

You know, we're engineers, we're builders.

So I think like hackers is like a cool way of saying it just to generate some interest and like, "Oh, I'm living in a hacker house."

You know, it's sexier saying that than saying, "Oh, I live in like an engineering house," you know?

(hacker laughs) I mean, I don't even have a job right now.

I mean, you know, 'cause I'm running my own business.

I guess that's like the entrepreneur in me.

I just, you know, I cannot be confined to that, a normal eight to five job and a lot of people are doing that.

You know, they're taking risks and exploring new projects.

(upbeat music) - [Kenji] I want to do that too.

I realized working for these high tech companies, I was just part of this machinery.

I wanted to escape and fly and be free to be me.

(upbeat music) But I was intimidated with all this freedom because I've never done anything in my own voice.

I wanted to be like these young hackers.

I wanted to make a film about them.

So I asked the manager of this house, "Hey, can I shoot here?"

And he said, "Oh, no, are you kidding?

We're not a legal operation."

So I contacted seven other houses and they all said no.

But the last one said, "You know what?

You might talk to Carlos."

And Carlos's way of saying yes was, "I'll cook for you."

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) - [Carlos] By the way, did I show you this?

- [Kenji] What's that?

- That's the first dollar that I earned and it's signed by the first customer.

I don't like to call them "customers."

It's just guests, right?

And it says "Everything."

No.

And it just reminds me how difficult it is to just get $1.

(keyboard clacking) (upbeat music) (camera clicking) Turkey is a Muslim society, it's harder there.

If you want to do something in United States, you can just talk to people and they will be open-minded.

They will believe you no matter what.

"Okay, try that."

- Okay, I'll try it.

After 40 years of editing films, I never shot with a movie camera.

So I called a friend of mine and asked, "Hey, can I borrow your camera?"

And he said, "Sure, but give it back when you're done."

Hm.

(keyboard clacking) After I shot a little bit of film, I started to write a grant proposal to this very prestigious granting agency.

And I got some money.

(bell chiming) I felt like I was a startup.

- Wow, my first startup.

I would just rather fail in Silicon Valley.

And that was the reason why I came.

It was so naive.

...we had $20,000.

(mellow music) (vehicles rumbling) So this is Sebastian, he is from Colombia.

- Hi.

- Hi, I'm Faye.

Nice to meet you.

- How are you?

- [Faye] Good.

- [Carlos] So, welcome to the house.

- Thank you.

It's a lovely space.

- So you were saying that you are from China, right?

- Yeah, Beijing.

I'm based in Beijing.

- So look, these are the pictures.

I hope I can hang you on the wall one day, right?

- Lovely.

- But we don't take pictures of the people until they- - Okay, sure.

- Feel like this is their home, right?

So let me just show you around.

Their job is not to allow foreigners to get inside of the country.

Run out of toilet paper- And I guess you will cook, right?

- Yeah, I do.

- So I will give you space in the fridge, right?

But let's do it.

The thing is that we have the system that it's not where it should be, I just take it out and put it there to share.

That's the open source food.

So you can take anything there.

And that's it.

- Perfect.

- Welcome.

- Thanks, Carlos.

(upbeat music) - People hear success stories, so entrepreneurs come here.

The first thing that an entrepreneur from outside says, "We're in Silicon Valley, right?"

And they think Silicon Valley is a city, which it's not.

Because people expect flying cars, so they come to Silicon Valley, they expect, you know, high tech and everything and then they just come and say, "This is just a neighborhood.

What is this?

Where is Silicon Valley?"

- Are you kidding me?

- What?

- Habibe.

- Mama's here.

- [Hacker] I didn't mean "Mama's here."

- Hi, guys.

- Hi.

(mellow music) - When I came here, I called a friend, Arda, and I asked, "Hey, where did you stay?"

Like, I was expecting a hostel or like something.

And he told me, "Oh, there's a place called Startup Embassy."

That they're building a company.

You can contact those people because they are helping other entrepreneurs for free.

- Yeah.

- So at the end, eventually they will help you.

- Yeah, I contacted a few and- - [Lucas] If you want my help with your pitch or whatever- - Yes, please.

- Yeah?

- I'm very stressed out, to be honest.

- [Lucas] Yeah, don't worry.

I remember the day that I was touching that.

I was reading every paragraph, like, more than once.

265.

- I need to, like, wait until it gets hot.

Being a woman in science, it taught me a lot.

It taught me how to be powerful.

No!

Where's my screw?

Yay, it worked!

See?

I fixed my phone by baking.

It's the most amazing thing about United States.

I know if I fail in this company, 90% of the startups fail.

It's okay here - They say 10% of startups succeed.

No, that's not true.

It's maybe 0.1% of them.

But it's possible.

I've seen it.

(mellow music) (Lucas speaking Spanish) (mellow music) How do you pronounce?

Deal?

The big deal.

- [Kenji] The first time I met Lucas, it was four in the morning.

He explained to me that he is making an AI application that would create new apps and it doesn't require any coding.

And I said, "Can you show me?"

- I'm going to build an app for the company Nothing on one hand, nothing in the other hand.

Some music, of course, this is important.

(upbeat music) - [Kenji] I didn't understand a word he was talking about when he showed me what his app would do.

But I was assured that anyone could use his application and save tons of money.

He's been working on this for 10 years.

- The thing is, there is a lot of competition around this idea.

And the good news is that we have a very large customer that is using my product right now and we're about to sign an agreement.

(Lucas laughs) So, I have to take a shower.

(laughs) (mellow music) - [Kenji] I followed Lucas as he went off to make his private call.

And he didn't want anyone from Startup Embassy to be part of his conversation, including me.

But I persisted because I thought, "If he makes it, this could be part of my big deal."

He told me... And then he told me, "Let's talk about in two hours."

To be honest, I don't trust, you know?

(laughs) - [Kenji] I am amazed that he can take the craziness so easily.

I wish I could be like that.

(mellow music) - The story of my company.

I was thinking about doing something about fire, but like, it wasn't so obvious, you know, it was just like an idea.

Then there was a fire in Turkey.

(siren wailing) (mellow vocal music) As a material scientist, "Can I solve this problem?"

I think I wanted to prove myself, like, to myself, not to someone else.

After failing, after failing, you know, you should see my laboratory.

I have, like, hundreds of different samples.

Then I did my first prototypes and I was, like, screaming all over the lab.

I'm glad it was night and no one was there.

(upbeat music) - [Kenji] Yeah, this is pretty awesome.

Y Combinator is one of the best known startup accelerators in the world.

YC propelled Airbnb, DoorDash, Instacart to incredible success.

They accept only about 2% of applicants.

- Yeah.

- How did you- - No, I didn't.

- So it was interview?

- Yeah, just interview.

- And what happened?

Why do you think you weren't selected?

- [Habibe] They thought I'm too early stage and- - Okay.

But you know you can apply many times, right?

- Yeah.

and I pitched first time and it went amazing.

They're helping me because they believed me.

- So what did they say?

- Tesla?

- Yes.

What?

- My Tesla guy got fired.

- [Carlos] Oh, no, really?

- Yeah, Mark.

for making the product real.

To take the next steps, I should be in Turkey.

(mellow music) I just finished college.

I was wearing a hijab.

I got a job interview and I was like, "Okay, Habibe, this is start of a new life.

Who do you want to be?"

I went to that job interview without a scarf.

That was it, I never looked back.

(mellow music) In Turkey, if a more religious person, girl, woman decides to change their beliefs, they generally become outcasts.

I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by family and friends to accept me who I am.

(Habibe speaking foreign language) (Gulbahar speaking foreign language) (Habibe speaking foreign language) (Gulbahar speaking foreign language) - [Habibe] It doesn't matter being a single mom, 'cause she's such a strong, such a powerful woman.

She's my role model (Gulbahar speaking foreign language) (Habibe speaking foreign language) (group chattering) - Guys, guys, just stop it.

Guys, guys.

- Barbecue?

Barbecue?

- I say barbecue.

- Okay, barbecue.

(upbeat music) I have two different lives.

One in Spain and one here because there I have my family, I have my good friends, but I have really good friends here that I made, that I feel like they're part of my family.

(upbeat music) Nice smell.

- [Kenji] I shouldn't enjoy this as much as Carlos was enjoying it.

I was right there with him because I love these geeky people.

My wife complained that she was lonely and she wanted my company and I ignored her.

I shouldn't have done that.

- What?

- That everyone say talk like Spanish, okay.

(all laughing) (all laughing) (bottles clinking) (upbeat music) (gavel thumping) (mellow music) - I'd like to thank the council for hearing me.

And what I want to do with you is share an Airbnb nightmare, which I personally live through.

Groups of 10 or more live in a single house, partying until three and four o'clock in the morning.

- We call the police, we call the police again, and we call the police again.

- It's no mystery that it's illegal.

There's no reason why we could keep it happening.

Stop it now.

(mellow music) (birds chirping) Okay, so what do we do?

And I said, "What?

Does that even exist?"

I didn't know there was someone that is a hotel freak.

And well, we decided to do it together.

- And so when Carlos called that he wants to close Startup Embassy, but then he wants to open a hotel and really have the big vision, I was like, "Carlos, where have you been?

And why haven't you told me before?"

(upbeat music) So some people are easy to get, for example, Daisy.

- Yeah, great, but- - But we can upload that.

But the challenge here is essentially just finding that place.

We've been spending a lot of time together, going for breakfast, cooking dinner together, going for movies.

It's, you know, something I imagine, like, founders do.

- [Carlos] Oh-oh.

Wait, wait just one second, one second.

There's a switch in my room that affects this.

Oh, so.

Okay, now we have the second problem.

(Carlos sighs) - [Kenji] Well, I couldn't believe that Lucas's deal came through, $15 million.

At the same time we run out of cash, so this is like the startup life.

You know, we are living on the edge.

- [Kenji] I follow Lucas on his way to Seville because the American company wanted to see his staff before finalizing the deal.

I spent the rest of my grant money to go there.

to jump to this crazy thing.

But you have to be enough smart to keep doing this.

(Lucas speaking Spanish) (child speaking Spanish) (mellow music) - Hello?

Thank you.

Do we have a present?

Oh, look at that, "Daddy's Girl."

- [Daughter] Bye-bye.

- [Carlos] (gasps) Did you see what she said?

- Bye-bye.

- She said, "bye."

Bye-bye.

I'm missing those moments in which my daughter, she's starting to speak, I'm not teaching her.

Oscar, this is taking forever.

And some days I'm thinking, and that's one of the worst things that can happen to an entrepreneur.

Guess.

And I was about to cry when I was looking at it and I said, I had this feeling, which I said, "You know what?

I just want to close everything now, take a plane and go back."

(mellow music) (mellow music) This is three years.

- [Lady] Isn't it more?

- No, three years and two months.

(mellow music) (Lucas speaking Spanish) "You know what, Lucas, we are not moving forward anymore with this."

Oh man, he sold nothing, okay?

He sold nothing.

It was a total, total failure.

My wife, my kids, we were separated, okay?

And it was all happening at the same time.

Company, family, kids.

(all speaking Spanish) - It was all just explodes.

- Oh, God.

I was hoping Lucas would be my success story.

But here he is, his life is destroyed.

My heart went out to him.

Now both Lucas and Carlos are gone.

(mellow music) (torch clicks on) I am going to disappear too.

I haven't raised another dollar since that incredible grant I got.

And I forfeited all this paying work.

I went on a bike ride with my wife, so I can decide what to do now.

That didn't go well.

My heart stopped.

(ECG machine beeping) (eerie music) I was rushed to the nearest trauma center.

It was a Catholic hospital, and I don't remember anything that happened during this time when I was in a coma.

But my wife told me that when I was in that coma, I pointed to the crucifix on the wall and I said, "That bothers me."

- Are you okay?

- I really didn't like that cross.

It really did bother me because I was raised Buddhist.

So the nurse, she put a piece of paper on that crucifix and she covered it up best as she could.

I would've never asked for that if I was conscious.

(somber music) And the reason why is because I'm a nice guy, and I don't speak up.

But something deep inside me emerged and spoke.

(somber music) So later on, after I was leaving the hospital, the doctor said, "Take it easy."

And my wife agreed, but I didn't want to take it easy after everything I'd been through.

I can't let this be my reality.

I don't want to disappear.

I need to keep shooting.

- Now, Carlos is not away so long.

"No, I don't want that.

I want him here, not on the screen."

- [Carlos] Vamos!

Uno, dos, si, tres!

- He used to be out for months.

The longest was six months, but that was too much.

It's hard, it's very hard.

You cry a lot.

Since I met him when I was 30, I was saying I wanted kids.

He didn't say "No, never.

But you are with me or without me."

- I want to have family, but I was so obsessed about the goal of my startup.

And one day she just breaks up with me.

- And I said, "Carlos, you know what?

I'm 38, I can't wait anymore."

- "So what are you going to do?

Are you going to give yourself some time to find someone and form a family?"

I said, "I don't want a husband, I want a son."

- "I go to one of these clinics and I will have my own kid."

- And I said, "Wow."

- And I had my job so I could be a single mother.

I didn't have any problem.

I have the support of my family.

So I said, "Carlos, I'm sorry, that is my dream.

You've got yours."

- It was really weird, but we did it.

And I thought, "She has 20% chance of getting pregnant."

So she probably will try two or three times, so I would have time to see how my startup goes and then decide.

But she got pregnant the first time.

(laughs) So, suddenly, you start seeing her belly grow, and one day you look at the thing and you fall in love immediately.

The only difference is that I didn't do the baby.

- So I signed the papers for the adoption, but he wasn't prepared, he wasn't ready.

And I think he wasn't ready till I said, "I want a second one."

(laughs) - (laughs) How do you manage to have a daughter if you're not there, right?

(laughs) Yes, I had to give my wife a cup so that she could get inseminated and that's how I made it, because we said, I mean, you have to be, how do you say?

Pragmatic, right?

(mellow music) (daughter laughs) - [Rocia] Hey, you guys, come on.

(Rocia laughs) Ola, venga.

(all speaking Spanish and laughing) (all laughing) (man speaking Spanish) (all cheering) and then decide if it's worth it or not.

(mellow music) How you doing?

- [Sergey] Look how tanned you are.

(mellow music) Activate certificate, scroll down.

I'm returning my laptop, my badge, and my old CP.

my view of our partnership and meaning has been evolving.

- Wow!

This is so awesome.

Well, I can see it.

Can you see it?

I totally see it.

- [Mike] How are you doing?

I'm Mike.

- [Holly] Hi, how are you?

I think we're going to propose this, having three to six months free so we can do the retrofit.

- I think it needs to be north of seven probably.

- Okay.

- For them to consider- - Okay.

- Having an option today.

- Yeah, let's do it.

- Let's do it.

- You're getting a very valuable asset because of the location.

- That means that we do have some time to raise the money.

How much?

How long is that for?

Thank you.

In my mind, right now, one month is not enough.

- 90 days.

(mellow music) - [Kenji] When I saw his expression, I knew Carlos was never going to raise any money, and he never did.

- My conclusion for us to take a commercial area and even put 2 million in that area.

A, we don't know how much we're willing to spend.

B, we don't have money.

- Maybe we're going to find a way to run a few other hacker houses.

We open that just to have a cash flow.

- That would be ideal.

Then we could actually end up opening like five houses in six months and you make money.

And it's going to be scalable enough for us to be stable and to prove we have a scale, right?

- It's doable.

- I find it a little bit still funny that we closed it and now we are reopening and it seems so natural to reopen it again.

- I'm feeling like the energy's just flowing again now.

Oh!

(upbeat music) (guests clamoring) If you cut, my blood, it's blue.

(upbeat music) Hello, hello, hello, hello!

(glass clinking) Everything that we do is based on the community, and, well, you're part of the family.

Thank you for coming and let's make it bigger.

(all cheering) Thank you, guys.

(all applauding) I'm really excited about it because this meeting is not an investor meeting.

This is something different.

This is more like a partnership meeting.

That's what's good about San Francisco.

It's not American dream, it's San Francisco dream.

(upbeat music) (all clamoring) I am Habibe.

- [Shirley] Hello.

- This is fire extinguisher stickers for electrical panel.

We sold our first products to a battery company in England.

They paid 5,000 pounds for one square meter.

This is a sticker that you can apply in an electrical box and this will release a gas to put out fire without need of any sensor.

- So as soon as I saw that, I thought, "Okay, electrical transformers."

- We have huge customer possibilities.

- Yeah.

- Do you have a business plan in place?

- [Habibe] We have some but, of course, I don't know if it is ready for some period.

- So those guys are huge.

You must have done some work on that.

- Yeah.

- What do you estimate?

- [Habibe] Okay, thanks a lot.

- Nice to meet you.

- Great to meet you too.

- We're going to have a great future in this.

- I hope so, I hope so.

Great.

- When I saw the list of the companies, you were one of the very first ones that I wanted to talk to, so.

- Okay, then another one.

- Yeah.

- After seeing Habibe doing so well, I thought, "Wow, I should check in on Lucas."

In the past 18 months, I've texted him 20 or 30 times and got nowhere.

I'll try it again.

(Skype chiming) The reason why I do not have enough money is because I put it all the money in the company.

The reason why I did that is because at that time, we were about to sell the company.

We are going to be rich, you're going to have everything.

But if I could have $40,000 in my pocket right now, I will put it again in the same bank account to help Icenetic, my company.

Which is crazy because two months after, I'm pretty sure, I will be needing milk for my kids.

Crazy, huh?

- Yeah, that's kind of crazy.

Lucas has no place to talk to anyone about his dire situation since he doesn't want to reveal any of this to his wife or his employees.

I call these interviews taxi cab confessions.

And I have a confession, too.

I spent most of our savings to record Lucas in Spain because I ran out of grant money.

My wife was really upset, but I convinced her that this was the right choice, and our marriage was still number one.

Phew!

- Here we go!

We are going to the bank to see if they can give us money in advance.

- [Kenji] And the bank said no.

Rich friends, sounds good.

(somber music) And then we have- (somber music) This is Claudia.

My wishes are to have money and to enjoy life with my wife, my kids.

But I think I will be doing the same thing I've been doing right now forever.

Yes, working with the startups.

(Eli speaking Spanish) (children speaking Spanish) (mellow music) Then I go back to the office, working like crazy.

(Lucas and children speaking Spanish) (all speaking Spanish) - Keep recording.

My friend is going to have good or bad news.

This is a magic moment.

So my friend in Canada, which, you know, I'm working with them, they just got a big, big deal approved right now.

"We are a go, man."

(Lucas laughs) So it's good for them, good for the family and also for everybody.

(somber music) - We didn't get our lease renewed, and we were closing on September 1st.

And well, that's the reason why I came here, to close the house and also to decide with Sergey, we should do something.

So what do we want?

We money or we want something else?

- Here's what we are proposing.

Startup Embassy offers you this thing.

- So I was just trying to struggle how the heck I was going to find the money?

- So this- - That day, we were talking about ideas.

Sergey says, "Okay, what if we have less people in the house, have them pay more?"

And I says, "Careful."

Like, "Pay more?"

You cannot ask an entrepreneur to pay more than $1,200 per month.

This is already a lot.

And he said, "Okay, we can have some people working for a company like Google and Facebook."

The moment you are saying something that is not in the DNA of Startup Embassy, then it's no way for me, no.

- People go to events and they connect with a lot of diverse people.

They come to Silicon Valley because it has people from Google, Facebook.

- Then you do events and you have them meet those people in events.

- But why it's not better to have them stay with you and cook dinner together- - I vomit.

- And get to know them?

- I vomit.

- If you're so stubborn that you just- - That's not being stubborn, that's being, like, clear on what your vision is and what the type of people you're catering.

(somber music) Oh, no.

(drill whirring) (somber music) - So many different paths to success.

There is plenty of other examples where people who have much better balance in life and they still build great companies.

Maybe we just don't know them because they don't make stories like Steve Jobs do.

The mission of Startup Embassy is put as little filters as possible for people to come and call themselves an entrepreneur.

But at the same time, are we actually inviting more people to fail?

- We knew that this day was going to come at some point.

(somber music) (seagulls cawing) - The fire extinguishing product is great, but it's really hard to sell it.

Because of my background, I have done similar stuff a lot in my career and I was like, "Wait a minute.

If there is someone who is going to do this, it should be like us basically."

- So my dad built HB and then he partnered with Bob, who has a background as a car dealer too, but operating a large, large auto group.

My prior career in the retail automotive industry revealed this problem to me, and that was no one wants to buy a car that smells heavily like smoke.

I keep seeing the problem.

It's a pattern that I'm exposed to over and over and over again.

I realized, "Well, what if there's a way that we could solve that?"

Habibe is probably one of half a dozen people across the world that could solve this problem.

- The company name that we started with Nathan is Knowsmoke.

It detects cigarette smoke residue.

- [Nathan] Habibe invented a new way that is 10 times better than anything else that exists.

(mellow music) - In order to create one last product, It basically washes the interior of your car with additives.

It gives you like a positive or negative result for cigarette smoke residue.

We will have- - When that happened, we sat down and had a serious chat about, "Hey, it's time to start selling it to dealerships."

One of the consequences of COVID is the cost to freight has gone up 7X, so it's not practical for us to ship them by boat or by plane, so we're taking 'em on the plane.

(mellow music) Are these ready to go?

I'm nervous they might break.

Me, Lane and Tarik all looked at it.

I think we're doing the best technique possible, but if they throw the luggage- - Mm.

- It is what it is.

(mellow music) The moment of reckoning.

- Guys, let's hit it.

(mellow music) - [Kenji] Nathan got through security just fine, but most of the Knowsmoke devices failed.

(somber music) But that's not the end of Knowsmoke.

- Four years ago, yes, there are a lot of uncertainties.

Right now there are more uncertainties.

There are bigger uncertainties, you just get better at dealing with them.

We are dreaming big.

Of course we have to continue our dreams.

And, yes, finally, it happened.

(mellow music) - One thing I could do is I could continue with Startup Embassy with some ideas that I'm having.

If I continue now, in six months to one year, I would fail, and I would fail the people around me.

But then the moment I closed Startup Embassy, people were writing things like, I don't know.

"Startup Embassy was an amazing place where people from anywhere in the world could come together and build something amazing.

There's so many of us who are grateful that we had the opportunity to be there."

Like things like "help," "family."

"You've made such a difference in so many lives, Carlos, and such big impact on the people so highly involved."

This is the type of feelings that people have, right?

So is that failing?

No, I don't think so.

(mellow music) - You know, making art is a time consuming and costly torture that doesn't have any guarantees.

But making films, it's the only skill I have.

And I have to share these stories with you.

When I first met these hackers, they made me want to fly.

(mellow music) And now I'm one of them.

(mellow music) (mellow music) (mellow music continues) - [Narrator] "The Dreamers and I" was made possible by the Independent Television Service and the following funders.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)