But You mentioned that journey and getting through there, but give us a little peek behind the curtain of that journey to get to the show at 26, the work that went in, and then obviously the joy, as you allude to, that's in this memoir of yours.

Yeah, I mean, we kind of started the book at my lowest point.

And the lowest point was when I was in AAA.

You know, I was never a big enough name for any of the coaches to truly talk to me.

So I just did.

I was just me.

And I get to play and there was a coach that wanted to put his name on my back.

I got to ask, do you have any Vlad Jr. as a child stories around that? Oh, yes, I do.

Tell us a little bit, uh, David, about how this came about, the event, but also the books and just the whole project.

Yes.

The, um, [clears throat] excuse me, the, the books came about, it was something that Ash had been telling me.

As soon as I stopped playing, she was like, "You need to write a memoir." So it's been about 15 years in the works, because I needed to be able to find the right person that could capture my voice.

And it's kind of funny.

I found a gentleman by the name of Jake Gronski, and it was actually, I met him when he was playing in the minor league system with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Um, I got a phone call saying that, um, there's this, this m- this guy, um, my friend knows, and I was his favorite player, would I mind talking with him? I was like, "Of course I would talk with him." And before you know it, he was coming to my house, staying at my house.

... you're a big inspiration for him doing the book.

When you hear stuff like that, what do you think for somebody who has played here?

It is so funny because, um, probably about, it was probably about an hour ago, I, I saw Wainwright's response.

I hadn't even heard of it.

And then I saw it and I was like, "Why is Wainwright doing a video?" And I, and I listened to it, and I was like, "Oh, man." Um, well, the thing about it, and I think Waino hit, hit, hit the nail on the head.

It's the sense of like, um, you know, th- they don't go around saying they're the best fans in baseball when you- but you, when you've played there, um, you know that they are.

Like the, the understanding of the game that they have.

And, and it's just, it's one of those things, like you have, you know, with the new stadium, I mean, the new stadium is, I think is beautiful.

... what are you thinking about the direction the Cardinals are in now?

This has been, I think, one of your hallmarks, even at like later big growth stage rounds, right? You've not involved a banker.

Never, never.

And this maybe goes back, you know, I keep doing these circular references, but this goes back to loyalty.

I think in life, everything that you do is you build a foundation and then you build on top of that foundation.

And so you kind of carry all those relationships forward with you.

Um, There is an individual named John Wolf who's at Insight Venture Partners.

But back in 2010, he was an associate at Goldman Sachs doing equity capital markets.

what gave you the conviction to leave a steady company most would say right and you were involved with you said the investing stuff so you probably have a good sense of what's happening in the marketplace but for you to leave that and go you know what i'm going to take a bet on a swedish company that seems to be going really well but who knows take me inside that decision making process how do you reach a decision like that

Tell me about the story about how you moved out to Silicon Valley.

So I've always been very entrepreneurial.

I tried to start a number of companies when I was in college at Washington University in St. Louis.

I ended up graduating in three years, getting my master's in finance, going down a path towards investment banking.

And I ended up graduating, going to Barclays in New York.

I did that for a number of years, but I felt despite being a great technical butt-kicking, somewhat monotonous, and it wasn't as fulfilling as I wanted it to be.

Uh, and I had a desire to combine my love of entrepreneurism with investment banking.

What was the markup on that?

for baseball.

I didn't know that.

So basically, you know, the game was changing towards the end of my career and stuff, and it was going, you know, definitely more on the on the analytics side.

And so it was one of those things that you see the business side of the game and the business side of the game is not what you were born with as a little kid because you just see the passion of the game.

the love of the game and you show up and play.

But as you play in the game and, you know, you see that side of it.

And so, you know, no one really knew.

lot of guys'

for baseball.

I didn't know that.

So basically, you know, the game was changing towards the end of my career and stuff.

And it was going, you know, definitely more on the on the analytics side.

And so it was one of those things that you see the business side of the game.

And the business side of the game is not what you were born with as a little kid because you just see the passion of the game, the love of the game, and you show up and play.

But as you play in the game and, you know, you see that side of it.

didn't know a lot of guys' names.