Episode 140 - From Pro Athlete to Investor with Jeremy Lin and Robert Kim
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Can finances lead to a more loving world?
Former NBA star Jeremy Lin and his business partner, Robert Kim believe so. The two of them, along with Patricia Sun, lead JLIN LLC, an organization dedicated to redefining love through entrepreneurship and investing.
In this special episode of Faith Driven Investor, Jeremy and Robert join Henry Kaestner and Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa host, Wen Li Lim, for a compelling conversation about their passion to use capital for good and why they chose to use investing in addition to philanthropy.
You can also hear more about Jeremy’s entrepreneurial efforts on the most recent episode Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast.
Don’t forget to follow both shows on your favorite podcast streaming platform.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. When Jeremy Lin rose to Linsanity fame back in February of 2012, his name became associated with the fastest growing athlete brand in the world. But the buzzing fanfare of his success came with a cost. Jeremy experienced the immense pressure of having to measure up to Linsanity heroics. In this episode, Jeremy shares with the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Asia team how he has navigated these challenges and why he has since focused his energy on faith driven investing. We'll also hear from Robert Kim, the managing director of JLIN LLC. Let's dive in. Hey, everyone. All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Hosted guests may maintain positions in the companies of securities discussed. And this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization. Thanks for listening.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome to a special edition of the Faith Driven Investor podcast. This is what I've been looking forward to for a long time. For lots of reasons. We've got Jeremy Lin in the house. We have Robert Kim, great friend of mine, a great encouragement to the Faith Driven Investor movement for a long time. And I have Wen with me, Wen and I have never done a Faith Driven Investor podcast together. But for those of you within the Faith Driven Investor community, Wen is awesome. Wen is in Singapore. Wen is a regional coordinator for Faith Driven Entrepreneur, an investor in Asia out of Singapore and my co-host on Faith Driven Entrepreneur Asia Wen. Good morning. Good evening.
Wen Li Lim: We do this all the time. Good evening. Good morning. We are on the other side of the world from each other.
Henry Kaestner: And most of the time is on different days. And we also have Robert Kim before I introduce Jeremy. Robert and I have known each other since almost the week I moved to California seven and a half years ago. And he struck me as a person who he is, is somebody who completely gets this movement, a wealth advisor, somebody who has really thought through the theology and studied this about what is God doing as we look to start investment assets? And, you know, C.S. Lewis talks about friendship being when you meet somebody and you say, gosh, I thought I was the only person who fill in the blanks. Well, Robert is that type of person who really gets in, leans into driven investing, and he's got a special friendship and relationship with Jeremy and introduced us to Jeremy three or four years ago. But Robert, before we meet Jeremy. Good morning.
Robert Kim: Morning. How you doing? Or good evening for.
Henry Kaestner: That's right. It's in Korea, too?
Henry Kaestner: Yes, and you're in Korea. So you just moved back to Korea, right?
Robert Kim: Yeah, three months ago.
Henry Kaestner: So for those of you can see this on video which is not most of you. You can see that Robert has wasted no time in decorating his apartment. He's just getting right into the mission field is making it happen. We need to, Wen we need to send him something like some sort of like a movie poster or something. Right
Wen Li Lim: Ok, to anyone who's in a zoom with Henry. He'll look at every single thing in your background and he will comment on it, just like Robert's background that has nothing. So, listen, Henry's actually poking fun at Robert's blank.
Robert Kim: Next time you come over to bring something, I'll put it on my wall.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. And we need to bring something for Jeremy, too, because Jeremy is on Zoom right now, and Jeremy's maybe feeling a little self-conscious as well. Jeremy, good morning.
Jeremy Lin: Good morning. Good evening. I am definitely extremely self-conscious at this point, but I feel a little bit better because I'm you know, I'm in a hotel and this is just the hotel room. I guess I can just put this Faith Driven Entrepreneur book right behind me and have it kind of be the beautiful you wallpaper.
Henry Kaestner: There's never been a better wallpaper. Major, major props, so Jeremy welcome to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. Prior to this episode, of course, we had a really, really great conversation with you and Patricia, Faith Driven Entrepreneurship and your identity as a basketball player, your identity as a human and your identity as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, really one of the favorite episodes that I've ever done. You just got on the concept of identity, motive, joy, gratitude, Sabbath, rest, and that was awesome. I want to encourage our listeners to go back and listen to that. That was really special as we talked about Jeremy's career and journey through Faith driven entrepreneurship and this conversation. As you may have gathered, we're going to be talking about investing and what does it look like to steward the investment capital that God has given us all. And then you in particular, as you've done this in partnership with Robert, as he's sought to provide sound counsel to you as you think about again stewarding that investment capital, on whether participates in the work that God is doing. So thank you for joining.
Jeremy Lin: I'm excited. Thanks for having me and this is really cool to be on. I'm excited for this one as well.
Henry Kaestner: Cool. Okay. So as we start out, give us some backstory. So you're launched in the spotlight in 2011 in a big, big way, an incredible documentary called Linsanity. And maybe I'll just a personal anecdote on this. I guess three or four years ago when we met, the kids were just off of school. That morning, we watched the documentary Linsanity. And my boys were probably, I don't know, ten, 12, 14 at the time. And then I got a chance to say, hey, guess who I'm having lunch with, like the guy who is just in this documentary. And then we met and had this great lunch. And then you're just incredibly gracious with your time and and spent time that evening with a group of faith driven entrepreneurs sharing about identity. But it was all about this identity as you are thrust into the limelight as a really young person in 2011. And what follows from that is these big, big time million dollar contracts. God gave you a lot of success on that with different teams in the years that followed that. But when did you start viewing investing the money that you're earning? When did you start viewing investing as a tool for impact?
Jeremy Lin: Yeah, I mean, this was definitely a journey as well. And I think, you know, for a little bit of backstory, Robert Kim, before coming on, you know, he's here a part of JLIN LLC now and we're able to start this capital initiative. But before that he was with Caprock and he was my financial advisor for Robert. How long?
Robert Kim: Eight years. Yeah.
Jeremy Lin: And I just remember, you know, he saw the way that I was kind of going about my finances. And he would always kind of mention, like, you know, like investing is a really powerful way to, like, build God's kingdom where you can really think about it. And for me, I was always so focused on philanthropy and I always knew, like from a young age, like, oh, philanthropic work foundation, where this is like where my heart is, is what I'm going to do. And Robert kept giving me different anecdotes, challenging my paradigm, saying, like, look, the nonprofit sector is great and it can help. There's also a ceiling and there's the nonprofit and the for profit sectors don't merge together. You know, there are certain limitations to how much you can help somebody. And he gave this great anecdote about somebody who might be, you know, an NGO or a nonprofit, would be working with the child, getting him to a great place. They make it to college and want to attend and there's no loans available or the for profit space has nothing available for him to be able to get to that next level of higher education to continue down this path, among other anecdotes. And that's when I realized, wow, I really think that God has uniquely positioned our company and our brand to be able to touch and potentially connect and bridge both sides. And so that's when we started really looking more deeply into investing as a huge vehicle to be able to build God's kingdom. And honestly, like I didn't even know that existed. You know, for me it was like it was so far out of the realm of what I could understand. And Robert continually over time, was able to, you know, develop that conviction within my heart. And now we get the chance to work together.
Henry Kaestner: [...] so Robert. So let's back up a little bit, because you came to this realization a long time ago. You and I remember talking about it, and now, as soon as I moved out here seven, half years ago. How did you come to that understanding that investments can participate in God's kingdom with such conviction that you're able to take this really high profile client and then boldly go in and suggest the same to him.
Robert Kim: Yeah. Really good question. I think for me, it wasn't an understanding that it started really. It was more of a conviction that in my mind. So backing up a little bit in my twenties. I was working in New York City management consulting firm, working with some of the large tech companies in New York City. And at the same time, I was doing these short term global missions, right? I would go to Mongolia, I would go to different parts of Central America, Europe. And I just really kind of became friends with these people because I would go back, you know, every year. And these are like amazing people, super talented, super resilient, yet like they just didn't have the access to the resources that I was enjoying. And I remember thinking I was living on Wall Street. I'm like, why isn't the capital markets looking at this community? And I think that's when I started praying, God, I want to invest your resources into communities like that. And I didn't have enough means to do that on my own. But I think God was faithful. He just listened to that and he gave me an opportunity to learn how to invest, he gives opportunity to meet amazing people like Jeremy. And so I think it was more of like just a desire really and understanding sort of came after. And I think like I met Jeremy and as you can tell, you know, Jeremy, as authentic as it gets and I sense a deep desire to really meaningfully impact the communities through his platform. And I felt like God really knitted us together. I had a sense of that and that kind of sense developed over several years. And I started talking to him about, Hey, what about this area? You can do a lot here. It's new, but you can do a lot here. And and I think naturally our friendships sort of got formed and it was more comfortable to share also. And as the ecosystem also matured, there were more investible projects they could actually place capital into as well.
Wen Li Lim: Right. And part of the mission of JLIN LLC is to impact culture and redefine love. And at Faith Driven Investor, we talk a lot about the idea that all investing is actually impact investing. And we believe that our capital has the power to shape cultures, communities, cities and even nations and Christians especially can use the capital to work for good. What do you hope JLIN has on the rest of the world through the impact investing that you do?
Jeremy Lin: I mean, I think wow, I didn't think I was going to do this, but I'm like almost plugging the other the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast because Patricia had, you know, she was just on me like, you know, JLIN LLC needs this big long term goal. And she made me sit through like hours of meetings and asked me and picked the card everything I said and was like, I need more specifics. I need more like I need more. And I had to think for a year, literally like 12 months. And that's when we kind of came up with this concept of redefining love. And we're like, Man, if we could redefine love for the next generation, I think that's what I would. That's what I would want to go for. And it was just so divine because me and Patricia had talked about for so long. Like, we would love to work with Robert, but we don't want to poach. And so we never mentioned to Robert like I mean, for four years. For four years we never mentioned anything. And then all of a sudden, Robert came to us and was like, Hey, what do you think about this and this? And me and Patrica we're like, Oh, my goodness, like, what a divine.
Jeremy Lin: Like. I mean, the whole how we even got here was just really amazing. And so I think, you know, that's when we started on this concept of can we redefine love and impact investing or investing in general is just one of those ways that we think we can do that. Can we start to view our investments, our wealth, our network, everything that within that realm? Can we view that as an opportunity to, you know, redefine love, give the next generation more opportunities to be there for ourselves and to be able to do it in ways that are really like dignifying and humanizing for each individual person, not just the people that are being affected by the company or the product or whatever that is. But also the the founders, the employees, the fund managers, like everybody across the board. Can we approach it from a way where we're humanizing and really loving deeply on those people, as well as obviously bringing this new level of radical love through how we use our wealth or how we even view our wealth. I think, you know, Robert can go more into this because this is something that he is working a lot on right now and thinking a lot more on, but that is kind of the birth of it all.
Henry Kaestner: That's amazing. So you and Patricia work on this loftier, bigger purpose about why are we doing all of this and what does success look like? And over the course of 12 months of going back and forth and her challenging you, you come up with something pretty ethereal. I mean, it's pretty big, like redefining love. And I'd love to hear what that means in terms of like how you invest differently. So, Robert. You're constructing a portfolio for a friend and a client that's saying, I want my finances to be involved in the redefinition of love. What does that mean? What do you do with that?
Robert Kim: Yeah, that exact reaction that you have right now was and so is my reaction till today. You know, we talk a lot about this topic, but when I first heard Jeremy and Patricia kind of talk about redefining love and can we talk about what does that mean in the world of investing? Honestly, as somebody who has been deep into impact investing for a while, I was very shocked. I was like, I don't know. I don't even know what that means. And so I moved on from Caprock and joined JLIN LLC at the beginning of 2022. And so over the last nine months or so, I've been really thinking intentionally about what does that mean? Right? And I think we're not quite there yet in terms of clearly defining what that means. But we know the following. We think that one is really around this notion that impact happens in the context of a relationship. I think the impact that we want to see really happens at dinner meals, in a coffee chats, right. And when we think about the founders that just face immense level of pressure, when we think about first time high impact potential fund manager, they're starting out. They're putting their life on the line. Right. And they go through incredible journey of highs and lows. What does it mean to really redefine love in that context as we invest in them? I think it's spending time with them, I think is really creating an atmosphere for founders to be themselves without the sort of pressure to put up sort of this persona that, well, for the next fundraising, we've got to look like this. Right? And so we've been thinking really deeply about post investments. How do we create an environment or an atmosphere where founders can come freely and just really experience the love that we experienced personally? And same thing for the first time, general partners or fund managers as well. And so we're working on that right now. And so that's kind of first piece. The second piece I won't really go into too much is really investing to improve access for the marginalized communities throughout Asia in the US. And so when I think about GDP per capita in Southeast Asia and a lot of it coming out of service sectors, the innovation happening on the technology side I think can really multiply that in the coming decade. And I think the impact that can happen in the context of that growth is going to be pretty special. So we're pretty excited about that. So I would say like the relationship with the people we invest, how do we thoughtfully forge relationships and then improving access through the technology and business models that we invest in?
Henry Kaestner: So you guys have worked together for a while first, as you know, a client relationship with Caprock and then of course, now with JLIN. But you have made some investments together, of course, in the past. Can you speak to some that you've done that you think are good exemplars of the type of stewardship that you want to do that you've done?
Robert Kim: Yeah, definitely. The most recent one is a company called Ascent Funding. They're based in the US and they're in a education financing industry. So typically in the US and then also in Southeast Asia, if you want to get a student loan, really it depends on your parents credit score, how wealthy your parents are. And I think what that does is it immediately excludes people; one without parents or people with parents without too much means or wealth, because as soon as you don't have a credit score, you know, you just started to build credit. And so this company called ascent funding created a, in our mind, relatively new way to underwrite a loan based on the student's academic ability. And so they spent a lot of time understanding, you know, their academic ability and therefore that student's ability to find a job post-graduation. And they really take a look at that sort of factor. And if they have a high sort of academic potential, regardless of your background, you know, regardless of whether you come from a, you know, high income or low income, you can get a loan. And that is really special because we care a lot about access, as we talked about. And that company is tremendously improving access to education through new financing structure. So I would say that's the most recent one that we really love and that sort of exemplifies the type of companies we are looking to invest into.
Wen Li Lim: I'm going to ask Jeremy, earlier you were just talking about like philanthropy and then really then moving along and doing impact investing. Is there a particular project or even issue that is really close to your heart that you started out to kind of doing philanthropic work and just through, you know, talking to Robert and learning more that you've kind of moved into looking at impact investing in that specific area.
Jeremy Lin: That's the unique part about this is I am extremely excited about my foundation and the stuff that we're doing, the Jeremy Lin foundation we center around really empowering, overlooked API. And then at the same time, you know, when we think about investments and different things like that, we're looking at different companies that will also provide, you know, and the thing that Robert will talk a lot about is access and mental health. I think those are two of the primary drivers that we're looking at. And when we think about the pandemic, when we think about, you know, what I'm learning from everything on the foundation side and all the work that we're doing, so much of it centers around mental health and what the kids have been going through. And, you know, even when I'm doing my UNICEF stuff, like it's all about mental health. And when we talk to Congress, congressman and congresswoman and public officials, they talk about bullying and mental health. And these are things that we are trying to also provide. Can we provide more access to mental health resources? Can we invest in companies? Can we even approach the mental health of founders in a way that is able to help them get there? And I think that's something that's really unique, is, you know, when I think about a great coach, she helps me, all my great coaches in my life. That helped me become better basketball players, but they haven't redefined love. Right? Like the coaches that have really redefined love for me are the ones who became mentors and lifelong friends because they cared more than just the results and what I was able to bring, right? Like it wasn't just the profit or the numbers or it was being willing to walk through life with me and being able to meet me in my highs, in my lows, and to be able to care about me outside of my performance on the court. And, you know, these are the things that we want to bring to the people that we invest in because we won't be the ones coming up with the product. But if we can meet them where they're at and then even just to challenge them a little bit or to give them almost like a different perspective or to give ideas, maybe the product changes. And maybe because of that small tweak, it affects an entire territory of children, whether it's mental health or access to education. But I know I'm a little bit all over the place right now, but it's kind of just a snapshot into what we're trying to do. And we talk about like what is Redefining Love look like. It definitely requires more radical love, being willing to grind it out and go through the rougher parts of the process that maybe other people wouldn't be willing to go through and then caring more beyond just what the final result and the statistic shows.
Henry Kaestner: So either of you can answer this for listeners on this. Can you illustrate where you are and the spectrum between and maybe you have investments all across the spectrum, but between philanthropy through to social impact, which might have a patient or concessionary return all the way to market return. Do you look at the portfolio holistically that way, guided by this principle of love, guided by issues like community, which I know is big in mental health, which you just mentioned, but can you talk about and maybe even represent investments that might represent philanthropy, impact investing, which connotes that there's going to be some sort of a financial return as well as a social return, and then also where you might make an investment that might be consistent with your ethos and what your call to that might be. More on the market return side.
Robert Kim: I can take a crack at it first and then Jeremy can obviously add on to that, I think. So across that spectrum, my good friend calls it One Pocket Investing. Right. So most investors have for profit pocket and then invest in pocket. So from a sort of a Jeremy Lin family office perspective, right. There's a Jeremy Lin foundation that does the grantmaking right around underserved API communities with a theme of cross-racial solidarity. So we definitely have a focus there. Jeremy also does quite a bit of philanthropic activity or has some philanthropic activities over in Asia as well. And so we have that. We also have market rate sort of traditional investments and market rate impact investments they are right in the middle of sort of what you laid out Henry of like the lower return impact investments such as like program related investments, things like that. We have not done a ton of that there in sort of that middle category. So most of our impact investments have actually achieved market rate, whether that was a venture strategy or a real estate strategy or a private credit strategies. And so that's kind of been sort of how we've been positioning the overall.
Henry Kaestner: Can you do those? Can you do a real estate strategy? Can you do a private credit strategy in a way that is different than the way the world might invest in it? That's driven by your faith and just drawn to that a little bit.
Robert Kim: Yeah. So I think example always helps. So in real estate we invest in a bunch of properties and it was affordable housing. So because it goes back to access, you know, access to housing near the workplaces have a tremendous impact on the quality of life for the family and the kids. So we care a lot about affordable housing. So we invest in properties that are affordable to low to moderate income households, but driven out of our faith. And we're not you know, I'm sure there's more to be done. We are always learning honestly. But one of the things we sough out to do is can we serve the tenants a little bit more meaningfully? Right. I totally get that. They can live there at a lower rent free. What else they need? Right. Can we provide certain services at the properties? Around medical care, around budgeting? So what the property owner and the property management team did is they invited local churches and local nonprofits to deliver those services. So it was like, hey, free blood exam from 2 to 4 p.m.. Or you can learn how to manage financials, learn how to do budgeting, come and learn at this sort of hallway. Right? And for the kids before the school week, they would have like donation right coming from churches and other places. And you know that these churches. Right. And local churches like the big why of the reason they're doing this is to share the gospel. And so they don't explicitly say that to the property management teams, but that's the motive. And we try to scan, you know, the local churches and local nonprofits and I think like driven out of our continue to seek out sort of like redefining what love means. I think there's no limit there. But one expression of it is always asking what else they need? What else can we do? And I think that's an example. And in terms of the financial return achieved what it was supposed to from when we were initially reviewing the opportunity.
Henry Kaestner: So this is market rate, so guided by your principles of loving on communities. This is actually an investment vehicle where you're actually able to get a market rate return.
Robert Kim: Correct. Correct. And when I say market rate, market rate for these types of properties and I won't go into like the difference between sort of a market rate properties versus affordable housing, but within the category of the properties definitely achieved what we expected.
Wen Li Lim: Jeremy, would you like to add to that?
Robert Kim: No, I mean, I think that's a great example. I mean, there was, you know, even earlier well, I'm not going to add too much on to it, but there's another company that we invested in a while back that also turned just plots of land into affordable housing, but then also targeted or tried to be more intentional about who we were renting out to whether it was, you know, widows or single parents or different, you know. And so these are all different ways that, you know, I think maybe you could just view things a little bit differently beyond just what has been the status quo. So those are just small examples of what we try to, you know, target, I guess.
Wen Li Lim: Well, I'm super excited that Robert's out here in Asia, and I mean even before Robert moved over was to started chatting about the impact investment seen here and the kind of projects and the people that are on the ground working. So really glad to I mean, Jeremy, you're in Asia as well, so just really glad to have you guys doing the work over here and really looking forward to see what it looks like to see. I know Robert's coming to Singapore and we're meaning a bunch of people together as well, just exchanging stories and learning from each other. So really exciting days ahead. But usually part of the episode we do this like Rapid Fire Round. So I ask a question something light, you got 30 seconds to answer, so I'm going to go to Robert first. Let's start with you, what's the favorite place you ever vacationed at?
Robert Kim: I think there's a small island south of Korea called Jeju.
Wen Li Lim: Oh, I've been there.
Robert Kim: Oh, okay. So, yeah, it's like the Hawaii of Korea. And every summer growing up in Korea, during my childhood, we went there. And so I think that stays with me pretty deep. And I would say that's the spot for me.
Wen Li Lim: Well, I went there because it's Winter Sonata, that Korean drama that came up like 15, 20 years ago.
Robert Kim: Right? Right. Right.
Wen Li Lim: Now, this is I know this is Henry's favorite topic, dessert. So you're both of Northern Californian. Where is the best place that you go to for dessert? And then I know Henry Henry's going to chime in as well. Jeremy
Jeremy Lin: Well, I. If I want a nice desert, I usually go to Sundance Steakhouse in Palo Alto. Then I get the mud pie, which is a coffee ice cream pie with an Oreo crust. And I get no whipped cream, extra fudge. And they got the candied pecans on there. Oh, it's a coffee Oreo chocolate blend of goodness.
Wen Li Lim: It's like every ingredient you could think of Henry gone.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I tell you, we're overindexed for listeners from Silicon Valley, so I fully expect that that advertising plug is going to result in Jeremy never having to pay for another mud pie ever again. I'm trying to figure out if I can kind of get in on that deal. For me, it's got to be Dolce Spazio unless gosh it's just incredible, incredible gelato. But the way that Jeremy described it, at first I thought I was going to say no whipped cream because he's like watching his, you know, you know, he's a professional athlete. But then he said, well, then extra hot fudge. And I'm like, Well, I guess that's probably not the motive, but that sounds really good.
Wen Li Lim: Robert, what's your favorite dessert up there?
Robert Kim: I don't think I can be very top. Henry or Jeremy is honestly like I'm pretty simple when it comes to dessert. I just like anything chocolate. It's a little bit more anything like dark chocolate, anything above 70%. I love as any dessert place that has that in there.
Wen Li Lim: I kind of feel anything above 80% taste like cardboard. So I'm with you there. Okay, my last question. So we've got an athlete here with us and so let's go into that direction. If you could be excellent at one spot that you currently are not good at, what would it be and why? Neither one.
Jeremy Lin: I would say, MMA, because then I would feel really like I can protect people around me and myself in the majority of situations. It's also like it's pretty wild. I mean, you never know when you're going to need some type of survival skills.
Wen Li Lim: Very practical. Robert
Robert Kim: I don't know what the name is, but you know, like people like jump off a cliff with a little like sort of wings that they have and they kind of like videotape, like the mountains and the cliffs and whatever that is. I want to be really good at that.
Wen Li Lim: Is that handgliding.
Robert Kim: They'll be like, really cool.
Henry Kaestner: No, no, no.
Robert Kim: It's like, it's not like it's a suit they wear.
Wen Li Lim: Yeah, it's like a squirrel jumping out.
Henry Kaestner: Squirrelsuit, that's what it is.
Robert Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That one.
Henry Kaestner: Robert, I would not have picked that for you. That's amazing. I just got a glimpse into your personality that I didn't know. That's unbelievable.
Wen Li Lim: Well, over to you, Henry.
Henry Kaestner: To me, this first lightning round I've ever been involved, I don't think anybody cares what I think. But I'll throw in I throw in basketball from basketball because I had three boys, all of whom can beat me, on one and one handily. And I'd like to kind of throw down on them. I mean, I just I have had the fantasy that God would give me just for 5 seconds, the ability to dunk, and I'd go in with a 360 dunk. And then I just looked at the boys like, Yeah, what do you got now? And I'd only need to do it once, and it would only need to be in front of my three boys. We need to be in front of anybody else. And it's okay if the film wasn't on, but it would be awesome if it was. And then then that be done. Then that would be my [...] moment God could take me up to heaven.
Wen Li Lim: It's my job. Okay. Well, thanks, everyone. I love this part, but. Yeah, over to you, Henry, to close this out.
Henry Kaestner: Well, this has been awesome. And Jeremy has been really gracious with his time because we spent time on Faith Driven Entrepreneur, which, again, I hope that you all get a chance to listen to that because he talks so much, so eloquently about his identity as a Christ follower. But we finish out every one of our episodes across faith driven entrepreneur and all the different reasons we've got Africa now, Asia, and Global Podcast, and then of course FDI with endeavoring to understand what God is speaking to our guest about through His Word. And it doesn't need to be this morning necessarily. It can be within the last week or last month, but a time in which you feel that God is just saying, here's a message I have for you through the Bible. So, Jeremy, we'll start with you.
Jeremy Lin: I shared one on the other podcast, but a different one is Exodus 14:14, where the Lord will fight for you and you have only to be still. And I think about when Moses and the Israelites were surrounded on three sides by water and Pharaoh's army on the other side. And there's a cloud separating them. And they're. Going to basically like, okay, we're trapped that we're going to die. And this concept that God tells Moses, like, I will fight for you only to be still. And I never knew this. I never knew this until recently. But the Red Sea, when it parted, it did not happen right away. Like in some of the movies, it was An East Wind that took all night. And I think that's, you know, very relevant to investing to entrepreneurship. But that sometimes when God moves, he doesn't move right away. It takes him some time. He'll use you know, it was an east wind that it took all night. And I'm imagining what those like seven, 8 hours would feel like for, you know, being trapped and thinking that this army is going to just come and slaughter me. Right. And knowing that God will sometimes take longer than you expect. But if we're faithful, if we stayed true and connected to him, he will move and he will fight. And we have only to be still sometimes. And I think that was something that's really encouraging to me.
Henry Kaestner: That's a very, very good word. I've never read the passage that way. That's really encouraging.
Henry Kaestner: Robert.
Robert Kim: For me, it's Romans 8:38, very famous passage, neither death nor life, neither angels and demons. And it goes on, you know, neither hide nor death or anything else and all creation will be able to separate us from the love of Christ. I think that's a really, really powerful message for me. Like as God reminds me, like, man I love you and nothing else matters. And he reminds me of that on multiple fronts, multiple parts of my life every day and truly blessed. And I almost feel like tying it to kind of what we're doing here at JLIN. And it's like, I love you so abundantly. Go share that. Go share that with people you co-invest with, go share that with people you invest in. You know, go share just the love in ways that you can. And it's a privilege to do this with Patricia to do this with Jeremy. It's a real privilege. And, you know, another sign of God's love. It's like, man, like God put amazing people around me that are just truly, truly special. Right. And so, you know, when Henry and Luke you know, all the other people in the Bay Area also just like amazing people working toward a collective mission, it's it's a great reminder that God blessed me abundantly. So this message means it means a lot.
Henry Kaestner: It does, Robert. He does. And you, Jeremy and you Wen, Patricia team awesome being with you, Jeremy. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership, your humility, your candor, and your partnership in the gospel.
Jeremy Lin: I appreciate thank you guys so much for having me. We'll talk soon.