Will sees "a very strong correlation between professional athlete and founders" — traits like ultra endurance, "dealing with situations that you might not be able to control," and "working almost delusively focus on something your entire life." His cancelled championship race left a chip: "I still got something to prove."
More from this episode
Will was an ultra endurance cyclist whose shortest finished race is "300 miles ridden without sleep," and before that a cross country skier at the highest level of US college sports who qualified for the national championship — only for the race to be cancelled in his senior year, his last chance to make it. "It felt like unfinished business," he says; "that was just completely taken from me." It put "a chip on my shoulder" — "I still got something to prove" — "and that chip is carried into what we're doing today."