September 27, 2024 • 20 mins
A fitness fanatic, a knowledge wielder, and travel connoisseur, Jordi Pujol promises to broaden your understanding of the health tech industry and his journey into it.
In this insightful episode, Jordi dives into the intriguing world of valuation and sales in the biotech and health tech sectors of modern-day society. He shares his unique journey from growing up in Costa Rica, and later on, thriving in the tech landscape of Southern California and beyond. As the Managing Director at Objective, an Investment Banking and Valuation Firm, he provides us with extensive knowledge of local networks, tax challenges, and the active influence between technology and healthcare.
What are some of his invaluable insights? What is he passionate about outside of work? Where did he study? Where is he traveling to next?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
From Los Angeles.
This is the Echelon RadioNetwork.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:04):
Hi. This is Jerri Hemsworth, and this is the
Echelon radio podcast. And todayI'm sitting with Jordi Pujol.
how you doing Jordi?
Jordi Pujol (00:21):
good, doing great.
Thank you so much for having me.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:23):
Oh, I'm so happy. I know we had a couple
false starts, but I'm so I'vebeen looking forward to
interviewing you, because I wantto know more about what you do.
So you're with Objective, right?
Jordi Pujol (00:33):
That's right. So objective is our company, and we
do two things. We make it prettysimple for everyone. One is
valuation, and the other one issales M&A so we help sell
companies and we help valuecompanies, and that's the,
that's the message that I wantto send out, and that's what we
do.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:51):
Yeah, and you're now the managing director
there, correct?
Jordi Pujol (00:55):
I'm a managing director, yes
Jerri Hemsworth (00:57):
Okay.
Jordi Pujol (00:57):
We have a few, and everybody has a slightly
different specialty. A lot ofthe time it's going to be
industry related. But I, like Isaid, I said more on the
valuation side, and some of somy colleagues sit a little bit
more on the investment bankingside, where everybody does a
little bit of similar things,like financial modeling,
assistance with pricing,assistance with understanding
(01:20):
the market, and I guess theother situations that help price
a company. But I do it from amuch more technical standpoint,
a much more theoreticalstandpoint, in a way, and they
do it much more from a marketstandpoint.
Jerri Hemsworth (01:35):
Gotcha, do you have an industry specialty?
Jordi Pujol (01:39):
I do. Yes, I spent a lot of my former years working
in the technology space. And Ialways used to have a major,
minor combination with my majorbeing Software as a Service, and
my minor being life sciences,kind of biotech, med tech. And
then I made a switch and made mybiotech kind of my main focus,
health tech. A lot of thetechnology companies were
(02:00):
seeking to apply it in thehealthcare industry, and so I
made a little bit of a switchwith a lot more focus in that
area. But obviously I keep myhardware, software, kind of
skills as much as I can.
Jerri Hemsworth (02:13):
Was that a conscious switch, or was it just
the way that the clients andeverything happened?
Jordi Pujol (02:20):
A little bit of both. I think there was a
natural transition, like I said,of software moving into the
healthcare space, more companiesopening cloud, more companies
opening up services that involvetechnology. And I saw an
opportunity there to potentiallybecome a partner at UI. And so
that became kind of my focus.
Obviously, shortly after Idecided to make a move to to
(02:40):
objective, but I've tried tokeep my focus as much as
possible. Obviously, being inLA, you get to experience
everything, right? Media andentertainment companies. You get
to see manufacturing, you get tosee industrials, you get to see
all kinds of different ecommerce and retail companies.
Yeah, so it's a, it's anexciting city to be in. I think,
Jerri Hemsworth (03:02):
yeah, it's kind of a trip. I think it's almost
like you can pick and choose.
Oh, let's try this, you know, orlet's, let's go after that. But
do you get, do you tend to getleads from all over the place,
or are they pretty much centralto the med tech area?
Jordi Pujol (03:20):
So I feel like it's definitely a hodgepodge of
industries, with a lot of themore technical work being in
that kind of biotech space, inthat technology space, I do a
lot of software companies withdifferent applications. Some can
be to the healthcare world, buta lot of them are just primarily
enterprise software companies.
And the reason for that is Iused to do valuations for
(03:40):
portfolio companies, and a lotof the big investors from San
Francisco and Los Angeles focuson those industries. So 70, 80%
of their portfolios would reallybe technology companies, or, I
guess, retail companiespretending to be technology
companies. But that that's kindof how the focus kept, kept
going, because I always workedwith these asset managers that
(04:02):
worked with private companies,and now primarily what I do is
value private companies.
Jerri Hemsworth (04:08):
And do you find a lot of your clients are local,
or they tend to go upstate oracross the states?
Jordi Pujol (04:15):
We do a lot of work in Southern California and San
Francisco. Obviously, that'swhere a lot of our contacts are,
right are our referral partnersreally are the CPAs, the MNA
lawyers, the estate attorneysthat are in the SoCal area, but
we have a person in Denver. Alot of us have connections to
the East Coast, so we'll getreferrals from the East Coast.
(04:37):
And we used to have a practicein Dallas, and that's how we
keep some of our Texas clients,but it's it's a much more local
market, and so we tend to focusin solving California,
Jerri Hemsworth (04:46):
with the with California and the economy and
everything. Here are you seeingmany clients moving out of
state, or have intentions toleave the state?
Unknown (04:57):
And we've seen some transitions, and there's always.
Tax considerations. But I thinkwhen when the markets are in
California, you always want tobe here yourself, right? Just
just like we have a focus onreferral partners and clients
and being local and seeing themface to face, a lot of our
clients have the same focus,right? So they tend to be
(05:18):
California companies, familyowned companies, and they've
built networks in the city for,you know, 50 years, 40 years, 60
years, depending on the companyand and that's the way they want
to keep it. Like I said, the taxsituation is always enticing to
move out of state. And a lot ofcompanies are growing really
fast, and they're finding thatthe national markets really, are
(05:39):
really receptive to theirservices and to their products?
Jerri Hemsworth (05:42):
Yeah, I bet, I bet. So you mentioned that a lot
of your referral partners beingM&A folks, attorneys,
accountants. Is it pretty equalacross the board, or is there
one specifically that you tendto get more?
Unknown (06:02):
It's it's, well, split a lot of the time. There are
attorneys that do M&A functions,but also do corporate functions,
and those tend to be a lot morein touch, I guess, with the
needs of the companies. Sothey'll call us for financial
reporting, they'll call us fortax situations, they'll call us
for personal planning from theside of the founders and of the
(06:23):
owners, but it tends to bepretty split, right. CPAs
sometimes have a betterconnection to the business,
especially on the financialreporting side, and because
that's a big part of what we do,we also tend to get a lot of
referrals from them. So that'stypically how it works in the
startup space. You know, theirattorney is a really important
(06:43):
touch point. Whoever made theformation documents, whoever's
helping them with the race, youknow, commercial contract, and
so they'll call us to value IP,to value the company for any
type of pre race purpose, oreven for the foreign ace post
race so that they can issueequity to their employees.
Jerri Hemsworth (07:03):
Gotcha, what really lights your fire about
what you do?
Unknown (07:08):
So, you know, I I got asked the question of how I got
into valuation, and part of itis circumstantial, and part of
it is kind of really diggingdeep to try and see where it all
came from. And I was thinkingabout when I was a kid, and my
grandma used to kind of put usto bed, I guess, and tell us
stories. It was a huge thingthat it's like, oh, I want my
grandma to sit on the bed withme and tell me a story. And she
(07:32):
always used to talk about herhorses, her prior marriage, and
Jerri Hemsworth (07:39):
her bedtime story, exactly.
Unknown (07:41):
It's fine, because I grew up hearing about my
grandfather in a good way. Shewasn't, she wasn't that mean,
but she always talked a lotabout her rings, too. And to me
as a kid, you know, this littlerocks on someone's finger don't
really mean much, like, youknow, it's hard to understand
money at that age. And, youknow, some some stones, and you
don't think much of it. Sowhatever, they're shiny, I kind
(08:03):
of understand that they'resomehow valuable. So I realized
that, okay, maybe I should startcollecting these. So I go out
into the garden, and she used tohave these kind of like quartz
rocks that now are like $20 attheir local fair market because
they have powers and they'recrystals. But at the time, there
were just quartz stones on theground. And so obviously, got a
(08:24):
little bag, and I collected abunch, and I went and told my
dad, like, Hey, I think we'rerich, I got a bag full of these
guys. And he kind of said, like,No, those are not really the
valuable ones, right. And again,as a kid, you're so confused. Of
well, she's telling me, thesetiny ones that look pretty much
exactly like these other onesare so much more valuable. And
(08:44):
with that, there were so manysituations that always, always
confused me. And I think thatdrive to figure out, why does
the stock market change soquickly? Why is Tesla one day
the most valuable company, butthen it's Microsoft the next
day, and then Amazon thefollowing day, understanding
these big jumps in the marketand these crashes, right? I
think it would all always, italways drew me in. And I studied
(09:09):
economics to try and understandthe macroeconomic world. I then
studied finance to try andunderstand the microeconomic
world. And ultimately, I closedeverything up with an MBA, which
helped me understand thebusiness world, yeah, so I feel
like I have a good, goodunderstanding now, but I'm often
shocked about valuation. So I'lltell
Jerri Hemsworth (09:28):
you that much I can only imagine, like, some of
the stuff that you see, and itgoes up and down depending on
what's hot or what's not, youknow, and, and it's with, you
know what used to be five yearsago, very valuable today, could
be squat or vice versa. What wassquat then is, like, incredibly
(09:50):
valuable now.
Unknown (09:50):
That's exactly right.
And the velocity of change, Ithink, has, has increased a lot,
and so. So to me, I always tryto separate what's price and
what's value. And. And, and Ithink that's the hardest thing,
because the premise aroundvaluation is a price that you
would get today in an actualtransaction, right? So even the
premise is a little bit flawedin that sense. But the idea is
(10:11):
that you're, you're trulylooking for the value, not not
the price, right,
Jerri Hemsworth (10:16):
right? Hey, Jordy, Where'd you grow up?
Oh did you?
Unknown (10:19):
Um, so I was telling you about my grandma. So my
So yet, yet, anotherforeign country, but I spent
grandma used to live in Mexico,and I used to spend a lot of my
most of my childhood there. Itwas a really fun place to grow
summers there, but I actuallygrew up in Costa Rica.
up. It was just as beautifulback then, except it had no
(10:42):
roads, and it's a lot harder toget to places, and obviously no
GPS. But it was super fun, supersafe. I still have a lot of good
friends there and a lot of goodmemories from from growing up
there.
Jerri Hemsworth (10:53):
Yeah, it's that's a beautiful place. We've
been there, and we want to goback, because it's just one of
the coolest places we've been.
Unknown (11:01):
Oh, that's great to hear. Yeah, I'm surprised that
the first time that I came tocollege, so a long time ago, I
won't say I won't age myself,but a long time ago,
Jerri Hemsworth (11:12):
It couldn't be older than me.
Unknown (11:14):
That's fair. A little bit a little bit younger, yeah,
but Yeah, nobody really knewabout it, right? I would still
getting the question of, like,but do you guys have, like,
McDonald's? You guys have, youknow, like, standard stuff and
interactive and I'd be like, ofcourse, like, if you drive down
the road to get to my house,there's a Tony Roma's, and there
was a TGI Fridays. McDonald'swas on the left, yeah, you know,
(11:37):
standard place. And, and noweverybody that I meet is like,
Oh my God, I want to go there. Ialready went there. My parents
went there. I have a friend whojust got back from there. It's
amazing to see the the tourismand the growth, and I'm glad
that that it's going that way.
It's brought a lot of goodthings to the country.
Jerri Hemsworth (11:55):
I've I've often said if somebody offered me a
vacation to Hawaii or CostaRica. Which would I pick? And it
would be Costa Rica every time.
Unknown (12:05):
That's a tough one.
That is a tough one. I've hadsome fantastic trips to Hawaii
as well.
Jerri Hemsworth (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, but they don't have the monkeys.
Jordi Pujol (12:13):
That's true, that's true.
Jerri Hemsworth (12:14):
or the iguanas on the beach,
Jordi Pujol (12:16):
that's true. It's, it's amazing. Every time I go, I
just seen all the animals runwild. It's, it's a really, it's
a really big shock that it stillhappens with like, mega resorts
behind them, right?
Jerri Hemsworth (12:27):
Yeah, for sure.
So then, how did you make yourway up to Pennsylvania?
Jordi Pujol (12:33):
So, yeah, I had an interesting college counselor
that was very east coast biased,and she told us, don't go to the
west coast. It's a terribleplace. And now I obviously
regret it, because I think mypersonality is a lot more
California than it is New York.
But at the time, you know, Itook, I took her advice, and I
(12:53):
decided to make my way toPennsylvania, and I think it was
a great decision. I had a greattime. I was able to live in the
winter, which was a novelty.
Jerri Hemsworth (13:04):
I was gonna say, How did you adjust it?
Jordi Pujol (13:06):
You know, I went from a 30 person graduating high
school class to a 300 personcollege class, but all of my
friends graduated from like,3000 person high schools, right?
So to me, the scale was 10x tothem, it was 10, 10x smaller,
but it was, it was a reallybeautiful college. It's a
National Arboretum. You know, Ihad a great time in
(13:28):
Philadelphia. It's a reallyawesome city, and made a lot of
a lot of good friends. Andstudying liberal arts allows you
the opportunity to really takefrom many subjects. And as much
as I learned from mathematics, Ilearned from statistics, I
learned from economics, but Ialso learned it from English
literature and Spanishliterature and art history. And
so I feel like in your lateryears, a lot of that seemingly
(13:52):
useless knowledge really comestogether in the way that you are
able to abstract and the waythat you're able to talk about
problems and solve problems,because you have a lot more to
pick from. So liberal arts wasreally a fantastic education, in
my opinion.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:04):
Yeah. And you went to Swarthmore, right?
Jordi Pujol (14:07):
That's right, yeah.
So very unique college with avery unique student population.
But you know, some of my best,best years are obviously back in
that time.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:18):
And then did you know right away you wanted
to get your MBA, or did youwait?
Jordi Pujol (14:22):
I did. I knew pretty much right away that
that's what I wanted to do. Istill went a little bit more the
economics route at first, anddid a few internships in in that
world and in the research world,thinking maybe I would be able
to explain the world to folks,and then decided that I'd rather
play the game than try tounderstand the game. And that's
(14:43):
how I got into business.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:45):
And where did you get your MBA?
Jordi Pujol (14:48):
I went to Wharton at the University of
Pennsylvania, so kind of closeto to my college, but I did a
lot of the classes in SanFrancisco, just having that
connection to the technologyworld. And. And yeah, great,
great decision to to be so closeto Silicon Valley, and a lot of
the entrepreneurship classesthat I was able to take really
(15:08):
opened my eyes to how difficultbusiness can be. Honestly, I'm
amazed at how our clientshandled their growth years, how
they handled the tough years,how they handled situations back
in 2008 and when covid hit. Andso being in that kind of
driver's seat of being the fakeentrepreneur, because we do a
lot of kind of like fakebusinesses that we start and we
(15:30):
take out into the real world, Ilearned at least a little bit of
what it is, it is to be on theirside.
Jerri Hemsworth (15:36):
Yeah, I bet.
How did you get to SanFrancisco? Was it internships,
like you said, or was it?
Jordi Pujol (15:43):
No. So a lot of my clients, I guess, were in San
Francisco, and I've always, likeI said, been connected to the
technology world, and so I usedto spend a lot of time in San
Jose and Milpitas and MountainView and all these random places
at client sites. And honestly,it was a great time, because
(16:03):
they always have amazing food,they have beautiful campuses and
really great people. I think thetechnology world attracted
really smart but really down toearth people and so, yeah, it
was just a great time to be ableto spend so much time in the Bay
Area.
Jerri Hemsworth (16:22):
So your college counselor said, Don't go west
coast.
Jordi Pujol (16:26):
That's right.
Jerri Hemsworth (16:27):
Yeah, and you ended up there. Are you still in
contact with that collegecounselor?
Unknown (16:33):
You don't know, but I should reach out again. I think
she guided us in the rightdirection. Funny enough, my best
friend went to USC. My wife didher PhD at USC. She's, She's
worked at SDSU, at UCLA, and sonow we have so many West Coast
connections, and I'm reallyhappy to have established that
(16:54):
that connection here. So it'salways difficult to think that
at one point this was not even apossibility. And I'm just, I'm
happy that I'm here now.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:05):
There's no mistakes. You know
Jordi Pujol (17:07):
exactly
Jerri Hemsworth (17:07):
You had to go east coast for a reason, but you
ended up, I mean, you get, youget where you're supposed to be,
Jordi Pujol (17:13):
fair enough, exactly west coast, best coast.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:16):
Yeah, most of the time.
Jordi Pujol (17:19):
most of the time, you're right most of the time.
It's not without its issues.
Yeah, exactly.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:22):
And it doesn't have the winters like PA and,
you know.
Jordi Pujol (17:27):
I can deal with that going to class in, you
know, six feet of snow, the kindof like old tales that parents
tell you, it's actually true anddifficult. The snow gets dirty
Jerri Hemsworth (17:38):
And cold.
Jordi Pujol (17:39):
and it's cold and it's, you know, 7am trying to
get to class, not not as fun asit looks in the movies,
Jerri Hemsworth (17:47):
especially a kid from Costa Rica.
Jordi Pujol (17:50):
Exactly. Idid have a gigantic down jacket, so that
at least saved me from the realcold.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:58):
Jordi. What do you do when you're not working?
What do you love? What are yourhobbies?
Jordi Pujol (18:01):
So, I always try to stay fed. It's always been a
really big part of my myjourney, and it started in
college. We were forced to takePE classes. So I took golf, I
took squash, I took tennis, andthen I think the final year was
like, weightlifting, and gotreally into it. And I've always
(18:24):
tried to get out into the gym. Ialways try to run until my knees
hurt and then I back down alittle bit. But I've always been
really, really into fitness andtraining, and, yeah, just stay,
stay inactive. My wife reallylikes to hike, so I go along
very beautiful hikes in LosAngeles and San Diego areas. But
(18:44):
I don't know if I would do thatevery weekend, but definitely
something really nice.
Jerri Hemsworth (18:48):
It's not asaction packed to some of the
other sports.
Jordi Pujol (18:51):
Exactly.
Jerri Hemsworth (18:54):
And then, do you have siblings?
Jordi Pujol (18:57):
I do. Yeah. My brother lives in Toledo, not
Ohio in Toledo, Spain. Yeah,he's an onocologist. Today is
his birthday,
Jerri Hemsworth (19:06):
Happy Birthday.
Jordi Pujol (19:07):
so, yeah, got, got to talk to him right at midnight
before he went to bed.
Jerri Hemsworth (19:12):
Wow, do you guys travel much?
Jordi Pujol (19:14):
We try to, I made a joke in this meeting the other
day that in New York people,after being there for a while,
they learn to speak conductor,right? They finally understand
what the conductors are sayingin the subway, because it just
sounds like exactly and we'vegotten really good at speaking
immigration officer, so nevergotten into trouble, always able
(19:37):
to get into the countries. We'vehad some interesting run ins of
not having visas, having thewrong passport, but we always
seem to to get through. So yeah,definitely love traveling, and
if I can keep doing that for forthe next few years, I'm always
going to try and prioritize it.
Jerri Hemsworth (19:54):
That's so cool.
Well, Jordi, thank you so muchfor sitting down with me, and I
love learning more about whatyou do and who you are. It's
been a real pleasure.
Jordi Pujol (20:04):
Yeah. Thank you so much for this opportunity, and
hopefully, hopefully otherpeople can ask me about my
childhood in Costa Rica, orgrowing up and doing sports. I
always love to talk about thosethings and connect with people
through fitness and throughother fun things. You
Jerri Hemsworth (20:20):
You got it.
Thanks so much. Take care.
Jordi Pujol (20:23):
Thank you. Bye.
Jerri Hemsworth (20:24):
Bye
Announcer (20:35):
Presented by Echelon Business Development. More than
just networking. Way more.
From Los Angeles.
This is the Echelon RadioNetwork.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:04):
Hi. This is Jerri Hemsworth, and this is the
Echelon radio podcast. And todayI'm sitting with Jordi Pujol.
how you doing Jordi?
Jordi Pujol (00:21):
good, doing great.
Thank you so much for having me.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:23):
Oh, I'm so happy. I know we had a couple
false starts, but I'm so I'vebeen looking forward to
interviewing you, because I wantto know more about what you do.
So you're with Objective, right?
Jordi Pujol (00:33):
That's right. So objective is our company, and we
do two things. We make it prettysimple for everyone. One is
valuation, and the other one issales M&A so we help sell
companies and we help valuecompanies, and that's the,
that's the message that I wantto send out, and that's what we
do.
Jerri Hemsworth (00:51):
Yeah, and you're now the managing director
there, correct?
Jordi Pujol (00:55):
I'm a managing director, yes
Jerri Hemsworth (00:57):
Okay.
Jordi Pujol (00:57):
We have a few, and everybody has a slightly
different specialty. A lot ofthe time it's going to be
industry related. But I, like Isaid, I said more on the
valuation side, and some of somy colleagues sit a little bit
more on the investment bankingside, where everybody does a
little bit of similar things,like financial modeling,
assistance with pricing,assistance with understanding
(01:20):
the market, and I guess theother situations that help price
a company. But I do it from amuch more technical standpoint,
a much more theoreticalstandpoint, in a way, and they
do it much more from a marketstandpoint.
Jerri Hemsworth (01:35):
Gotcha, do you have an industry specialty?
Jordi Pujol (01:39):
I do. Yes, I spent a lot of my former years working
in the technology space. And Ialways used to have a major,
minor combination with my majorbeing Software as a Service, and
my minor being life sciences,kind of biotech, med tech. And
then I made a switch and made mybiotech kind of my main focus,
health tech. A lot of thetechnology companies were
(02:00):
seeking to apply it in thehealthcare industry, and so I
made a little bit of a switchwith a lot more focus in that
area. But obviously I keep myhardware, software, kind of
skills as much as I can.
Jerri Hemsworth (02:13):
Was that a conscious switch, or was it just
the way that the clients andeverything happened?
Jordi Pujol (02:20):
A little bit of both. I think there was a
natural transition, like I said,of software moving into the
healthcare space, more companiesopening cloud, more companies
opening up services that involvetechnology. And I saw an
opportunity there to potentiallybecome a partner at UI. And so
that became kind of my focus.
Obviously, shortly after Idecided to make a move to to
(02:40):
objective, but I've tried tokeep my focus as much as
possible. Obviously, being inLA, you get to experience
everything, right? Media andentertainment companies. You get
to see manufacturing, you get tosee industrials, you get to see
all kinds of different ecommerce and retail companies.
Yeah, so it's a, it's anexciting city to be in. I think,
Jerri Hemsworth (03:02):
yeah, it's kind of a trip. I think it's almost
like you can pick and choose.
Oh, let's try this, you know, orlet's, let's go after that. But
do you get, do you tend to getleads from all over the place,
or are they pretty much centralto the med tech area?
Jordi Pujol (03:20):
So I feel like it's definitely a hodgepodge of
industries, with a lot of themore technical work being in
that kind of biotech space, inthat technology space, I do a
lot of software companies withdifferent applications. Some can
be to the healthcare world, buta lot of them are just primarily
enterprise software companies.
And the reason for that is Iused to do valuations for
(03:40):
portfolio companies, and a lotof the big investors from San
Francisco and Los Angeles focuson those industries. So 70, 80%
of their portfolios would reallybe technology companies, or, I
guess, retail companiespretending to be technology
companies. But that that's kindof how the focus kept, kept
going, because I always workedwith these asset managers that
(04:02):
worked with private companies,and now primarily what I do is
value private companies.
Jerri Hemsworth (04:08):
And do you find a lot of your clients are local,
or they tend to go upstate oracross the states?
Jordi Pujol (04:15):
We do a lot of work in Southern California and San
Francisco. Obviously, that'swhere a lot of our contacts are,
right are our referral partnersreally are the CPAs, the MNA
lawyers, the estate attorneysthat are in the SoCal area, but
we have a person in Denver. Alot of us have connections to
the East Coast, so we'll getreferrals from the East Coast.
(04:37):
And we used to have a practicein Dallas, and that's how we
keep some of our Texas clients,but it's it's a much more local
market, and so we tend to focusin solving California,
Jerri Hemsworth (04:46):
with the with California and the economy and
everything. Here are you seeingmany clients moving out of
state, or have intentions toleave the state?
Unknown (04:57):
And we've seen some transitions, and there's always.
Tax considerations. But I thinkwhen when the markets are in
California, you always want tobe here yourself, right? Just
just like we have a focus onreferral partners and clients
and being local and seeing themface to face, a lot of our
clients have the same focus,right? So they tend to be
(05:18):
California companies, familyowned companies, and they've
built networks in the city for,you know, 50 years, 40 years, 60
years, depending on the companyand and that's the way they want
to keep it. Like I said, the taxsituation is always enticing to
move out of state. And a lot ofcompanies are growing really
fast, and they're finding thatthe national markets really, are
(05:39):
really receptive to theirservices and to their products?
Jerri Hemsworth (05:42):
Yeah, I bet, I bet. So you mentioned that a lot
of your referral partners beingM&A folks, attorneys,
accountants. Is it pretty equalacross the board, or is there
one specifically that you tendto get more?
Unknown (06:02):
It's it's, well, split a lot of the time. There are
attorneys that do M&A functions,but also do corporate functions,
and those tend to be a lot morein touch, I guess, with the
needs of the companies. Sothey'll call us for financial
reporting, they'll call us fortax situations, they'll call us
for personal planning from theside of the founders and of the
(06:23):
owners, but it tends to bepretty split, right. CPAs
sometimes have a betterconnection to the business,
especially on the financialreporting side, and because
that's a big part of what we do,we also tend to get a lot of
referrals from them. So that'stypically how it works in the
startup space. You know, theirattorney is a really important
(06:43):
touch point. Whoever made theformation documents, whoever's
helping them with the race, youknow, commercial contract, and
so they'll call us to value IP,to value the company for any
type of pre race purpose, oreven for the foreign ace post
race so that they can issueequity to their employees.
Jerri Hemsworth (07:03):
Gotcha, what really lights your fire about
what you do?
Unknown (07:08):
So, you know, I I got asked the question of how I got
into valuation, and part of itis circumstantial, and part of
it is kind of really diggingdeep to try and see where it all
came from. And I was thinkingabout when I was a kid, and my
grandma used to kind of put usto bed, I guess, and tell us
stories. It was a huge thingthat it's like, oh, I want my
grandma to sit on the bed withme and tell me a story. And she
(07:32):
always used to talk about herhorses, her prior marriage, and
Jerri Hemsworth (07:39):
her bedtime story, exactly.
Unknown (07:41):
It's fine, because I grew up hearing about my
grandfather in a good way. Shewasn't, she wasn't that mean,
but she always talked a lotabout her rings, too. And to me
as a kid, you know, this littlerocks on someone's finger don't
really mean much, like, youknow, it's hard to understand
money at that age. And, youknow, some some stones, and you
don't think much of it. Sowhatever, they're shiny, I kind
(08:03):
of understand that they'resomehow valuable. So I realized
that, okay, maybe I should startcollecting these. So I go out
into the garden, and she used tohave these kind of like quartz
rocks that now are like $20 attheir local fair market because
they have powers and they'recrystals. But at the time, there
were just quartz stones on theground. And so obviously, got a
(08:24):
little bag, and I collected abunch, and I went and told my
dad, like, Hey, I think we'rerich, I got a bag full of these
guys. And he kind of said, like,No, those are not really the
valuable ones, right. And again,as a kid, you're so confused. Of
well, she's telling me, thesetiny ones that look pretty much
exactly like these other onesare so much more valuable. And
(08:44):
with that, there were so manysituations that always, always
confused me. And I think thatdrive to figure out, why does
the stock market change soquickly? Why is Tesla one day
the most valuable company, butthen it's Microsoft the next
day, and then Amazon thefollowing day, understanding
these big jumps in the marketand these crashes, right? I
think it would all always, italways drew me in. And I studied
(09:09):
economics to try and understandthe macroeconomic world. I then
studied finance to try andunderstand the microeconomic
world. And ultimately, I closedeverything up with an MBA, which
helped me understand thebusiness world, yeah, so I feel
like I have a good, goodunderstanding now, but I'm often
shocked about valuation. So I'lltell
Jerri Hemsworth (09:28):
you that much I can only imagine, like, some of
the stuff that you see, and itgoes up and down depending on
what's hot or what's not, youknow, and, and it's with, you
know what used to be five yearsago, very valuable today, could
be squat or vice versa. What wassquat then is, like, incredibly
(09:50):
valuable now.
Unknown (09:50):
That's exactly right.
And the velocity of change, Ithink, has, has increased a lot,
and so. So to me, I always tryto separate what's price and
what's value. And. And, and Ithink that's the hardest thing,
because the premise aroundvaluation is a price that you
would get today in an actualtransaction, right? So even the
premise is a little bit flawedin that sense. But the idea is
(10:11):
that you're, you're trulylooking for the value, not not
the price, right,
Jerri Hemsworth (10:16):
right? Hey, Jordy, Where'd you grow up?
Oh did you?
Unknown (10:19):
Um, so I was telling you about my grandma. So my
So yet, yet, anotherforeign country, but I spent
grandma used to live in Mexico,and I used to spend a lot of my
most of my childhood there. Itwas a really fun place to grow
summers there, but I actuallygrew up in Costa Rica.
up. It was just as beautifulback then, except it had no
(10:42):
roads, and it's a lot harder toget to places, and obviously no
GPS. But it was super fun, supersafe. I still have a lot of good
friends there and a lot of goodmemories from from growing up
there.
Jerri Hemsworth (10:53):
Yeah, it's that's a beautiful place. We've
been there, and we want to goback, because it's just one of
the coolest places we've been.
Unknown (11:01):
Oh, that's great to hear. Yeah, I'm surprised that
the first time that I came tocollege, so a long time ago, I
won't say I won't age myself,but a long time ago,
Jerri Hemsworth (11:12):
It couldn't be older than me.
Unknown (11:14):
That's fair. A little bit a little bit younger, yeah,
but Yeah, nobody really knewabout it, right? I would still
getting the question of, like,but do you guys have, like,
McDonald's? You guys have, youknow, like, standard stuff and
interactive and I'd be like, ofcourse, like, if you drive down
the road to get to my house,there's a Tony Roma's, and there
was a TGI Fridays. McDonald'swas on the left, yeah, you know,
(11:37):
standard place. And, and noweverybody that I meet is like,
Oh my God, I want to go there. Ialready went there. My parents
went there. I have a friend whojust got back from there. It's
amazing to see the the tourismand the growth, and I'm glad
that that it's going that way.
It's brought a lot of goodthings to the country.
Jerri Hemsworth (11:55):
I've I've often said if somebody offered me a
vacation to Hawaii or CostaRica. Which would I pick? And it
would be Costa Rica every time.
Unknown (12:05):
That's a tough one.
That is a tough one. I've hadsome fantastic trips to Hawaii
as well.
Jerri Hemsworth (12:10):
Yeah, yeah, but they don't have the monkeys.
Jordi Pujol (12:13):
That's true, that's true.
Jerri Hemsworth (12:14):
or the iguanas on the beach,
Jordi Pujol (12:16):
that's true. It's, it's amazing. Every time I go, I
just seen all the animals runwild. It's, it's a really, it's
a really big shock that it stillhappens with like, mega resorts
behind them, right?
Jerri Hemsworth (12:27):
Yeah, for sure.
So then, how did you make yourway up to Pennsylvania?
Jordi Pujol (12:33):
So, yeah, I had an interesting college counselor
that was very east coast biased,and she told us, don't go to the
west coast. It's a terribleplace. And now I obviously
regret it, because I think mypersonality is a lot more
California than it is New York.
But at the time, you know, Itook, I took her advice, and I
(12:53):
decided to make my way toPennsylvania, and I think it was
a great decision. I had a greattime. I was able to live in the
winter, which was a novelty.
Jerri Hemsworth (13:04):
I was gonna say, How did you adjust it?
Jordi Pujol (13:06):
You know, I went from a 30 person graduating high
school class to a 300 personcollege class, but all of my
friends graduated from like,3000 person high schools, right?
So to me, the scale was 10x tothem, it was 10, 10x smaller,
but it was, it was a reallybeautiful college. It's a
National Arboretum. You know, Ihad a great time in
(13:28):
Philadelphia. It's a reallyawesome city, and made a lot of
a lot of good friends. Andstudying liberal arts allows you
the opportunity to really takefrom many subjects. And as much
as I learned from mathematics, Ilearned from statistics, I
learned from economics, but Ialso learned it from English
literature and Spanishliterature and art history. And
so I feel like in your lateryears, a lot of that seemingly
(13:52):
useless knowledge really comestogether in the way that you are
able to abstract and the waythat you're able to talk about
problems and solve problems,because you have a lot more to
pick from. So liberal arts wasreally a fantastic education, in
my opinion.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:04):
Yeah. And you went to Swarthmore, right?
Jordi Pujol (14:07):
That's right, yeah.
So very unique college with avery unique student population.
But you know, some of my best,best years are obviously back in
that time.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:18):
And then did you know right away you wanted
to get your MBA, or did youwait?
Jordi Pujol (14:22):
I did. I knew pretty much right away that
that's what I wanted to do. Istill went a little bit more the
economics route at first, anddid a few internships in in that
world and in the research world,thinking maybe I would be able
to explain the world to folks,and then decided that I'd rather
play the game than try tounderstand the game. And that's
(14:43):
how I got into business.
Jerri Hemsworth (14:45):
And where did you get your MBA?
Jordi Pujol (14:48):
I went to Wharton at the University of
Pennsylvania, so kind of closeto to my college, but I did a
lot of the classes in SanFrancisco, just having that
connection to the technologyworld. And. And yeah, great,
great decision to to be so closeto Silicon Valley, and a lot of
the entrepreneurship classesthat I was able to take really
(15:08):
opened my eyes to how difficultbusiness can be. Honestly, I'm
amazed at how our clientshandled their growth years, how
they handled the tough years,how they handled situations back
in 2008 and when covid hit. Andso being in that kind of
driver's seat of being the fakeentrepreneur, because we do a
lot of kind of like fakebusinesses that we start and we
(15:30):
take out into the real world, Ilearned at least a little bit of
what it is, it is to be on theirside.
Jerri Hemsworth (15:36):
Yeah, I bet.
How did you get to SanFrancisco? Was it internships,
like you said, or was it?
Jordi Pujol (15:43):
No. So a lot of my clients, I guess, were in San
Francisco, and I've always, likeI said, been connected to the
technology world, and so I usedto spend a lot of time in San
Jose and Milpitas and MountainView and all these random places
at client sites. And honestly,it was a great time, because
(16:03):
they always have amazing food,they have beautiful campuses and
really great people. I think thetechnology world attracted
really smart but really down toearth people and so, yeah, it
was just a great time to be ableto spend so much time in the Bay
Area.
Jerri Hemsworth (16:22):
So your college counselor said, Don't go west
coast.
Jordi Pujol (16:26):
That's right.
Jerri Hemsworth (16:27):
Yeah, and you ended up there. Are you still in
contact with that collegecounselor?
Unknown (16:33):
You don't know, but I should reach out again. I think
she guided us in the rightdirection. Funny enough, my best
friend went to USC. My wife didher PhD at USC. She's, She's
worked at SDSU, at UCLA, and sonow we have so many West Coast
connections, and I'm reallyhappy to have established that
(16:54):
that connection here. So it'salways difficult to think that
at one point this was not even apossibility. And I'm just, I'm
happy that I'm here now.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:05):
There's no mistakes. You know
Jordi Pujol (17:07):
exactly
Jerri Hemsworth (17:07):
You had to go east coast for a reason, but you
ended up, I mean, you get, youget where you're supposed to be,
Jordi Pujol (17:13):
fair enough, exactly west coast, best coast.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:16):
Yeah, most of the time.
Jordi Pujol (17:19):
most of the time, you're right most of the time.
It's not without its issues.
Yeah, exactly.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:22):
And it doesn't have the winters like PA and,
you know.
Jordi Pujol (17:27):
I can deal with that going to class in, you
know, six feet of snow, the kindof like old tales that parents
tell you, it's actually true anddifficult. The snow gets dirty
Jerri Hemsworth (17:38):
And cold.
Jordi Pujol (17:39):
and it's cold and it's, you know, 7am trying to
get to class, not not as fun asit looks in the movies,
Jerri Hemsworth (17:47):
especially a kid from Costa Rica.
Jordi Pujol (17:50):
Exactly. Idid have a gigantic down jacket, so that
at least saved me from the realcold.
Jerri Hemsworth (17:58):
Jordi. What do you do when you're not working?
What do you love? What are yourhobbies?
Jordi Pujol (18:01):
So, I always try to stay fed. It's always been a
really big part of my myjourney, and it started in
college. We were forced to takePE classes. So I took golf, I
took squash, I took tennis, andthen I think the final year was
like, weightlifting, and gotreally into it. And I've always
(18:24):
tried to get out into the gym. Ialways try to run until my knees
hurt and then I back down alittle bit. But I've always been
really, really into fitness andtraining, and, yeah, just stay,
stay inactive. My wife reallylikes to hike, so I go along
very beautiful hikes in LosAngeles and San Diego areas. But
(18:44):
I don't know if I would do thatevery weekend, but definitely
something really nice.
Jerri Hemsworth (18:48):
It's not asaction packed to some of the
other sports.
Jordi Pujol (18:51):
Exactly.
Jerri Hemsworth (18:54):
And then, do you have siblings?
Jordi Pujol (18:57):
I do. Yeah. My brother lives in Toledo, not
Ohio in Toledo, Spain. Yeah,he's an onocologist. Today is
his birthday,
Jerri Hemsworth (19:06):
Happy Birthday.
Jordi Pujol (19:07):
so, yeah, got, got to talk to him right at midnight
before he went to bed.
Jerri Hemsworth (19:12):
Wow, do you guys travel much?
Jordi Pujol (19:14):
We try to, I made a joke in this meeting the other
day that in New York people,after being there for a while,
they learn to speak conductor,right? They finally understand
what the conductors are sayingin the subway, because it just
sounds like exactly and we'vegotten really good at speaking
immigration officer, so nevergotten into trouble, always able
(19:37):
to get into the countries. We'vehad some interesting run ins of
not having visas, having thewrong passport, but we always
seem to to get through. So yeah,definitely love traveling, and
if I can keep doing that for forthe next few years, I'm always
going to try and prioritize it.
Jerri Hemsworth (19:54):
That's so cool.
Well, Jordi, thank you so muchfor sitting down with me, and I
love learning more about whatyou do and who you are. It's
been a real pleasure.
Jordi Pujol (20:04):
Yeah. Thank you so much for this opportunity, and
hopefully, hopefully otherpeople can ask me about my
childhood in Costa Rica, orgrowing up and doing sports. I
always love to talk about thosethings and connect with people
through fitness and throughother fun things. You
Jerri Hemsworth (20:20):
You got it.
Thanks so much. Take care.
Jordi Pujol (20:23):
Thank you. Bye.
Jerri Hemsworth (20:24):
Bye
Announcer (20:35):
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