As Kami finds meaning in faith and motherhood, Josh builds his charm offensive. He's winning friends and money, but for how long? Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Infamous show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. To connect with Infamous's creative team, plus access behind the scenes content, join the community at Campsidemedia.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What role do Bar and Bat Mitzvahs play in Josh and Kami's life?
If you grew up around the main line or anywhere with a lot of money and a lot of Jews, you probably know about bar mitzvah season or bat mitzvahs if you're a girl. It all starts off with a lovely service at the synagogue and then a big party. There's specialty drinks, maybe even sushi. Girls are wearing too tight short dresses and the crowd is dancing to pop hits.
Sometimes someone throws out hoodies, pajama pants, neon sunglasses into the crowd. It's all very middle school, but also sort of Vegas.
These bat mitzvahs for sure are ridiculous, right? Like, they are ridiculous. They are over the top. They are expensive. I loved throwing them. I loved thinking about it. I loved planning them. I loved the whole thing.
Here's Elisa Verney, Josh's sister.
If you have means, like you... throw these huge parties for the bar bat mitzvah child. And it's not just celebrating them, it's celebrating family and life and everything else.
At the bat mitzvahs for Josh and Kami's daughters, it was about love too. Josh choreographed a full dance routine and he sort of sweat through his shirt. Kami even had t-shirts printed up that said Josh's sweatshirt because he sweat a lot.
Everything is calculated to the minute. They are productions. They are lavish, like they're at a country club and they're creative and decorated great. I loved these parties. They're super fun to throw. The paper keeps on mentioning about the bat mitzvah. They do point to the bat mitzvahs, which I agree with. They were happy memories that are no longer happy memories, for sure.
From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous from Con to Cupid, Episode 2. I'm Vanessa Gregoriotis. So Josh Verney, and a reminder, he didn't talk to us for this podcast, is living in a super she-she community. And he and Kami are pillars of that community, too.
You're talking about titans of the industry. You're talking about, you know, people who are inventors of tech. You name it. Like, you know, lots of real estate money in my area. Just, you're in a very prestigious pool.
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Chapter 2: How did faith influence Kami's journey?
And I just thought of my own refrigerator at home where like every one of my kids like stupid artwork or like whatever, like the pride I felt of all of the things on my refrigerator. I just never thought that God, I've never thought of it that way. Like I only knew God as like you fast on Yom Kippur. I didn't really think about it. So I wrote her a note afterwards that I was deeply moved.
And Kami wanted to share what she felt with other people.
I would love for you to come to my house and speak to my friends. And I started to go to the, and she already had a group set up where I went, someone else graciously invited me to their house to learn. And we would just learn about all kinds of things. And there were these intimate circles of women
that were no longer talking about this teacher at school sucks and you know my husband you know was like a schlub it was women talking about like what does it mean to honor your parents what does it mean to not gossip this height like holds me to a higher level And being in the company of women who also want to hold themselves to a higher level is very inspiring.
So I started having classes at my house. And I would have women like sitting on the steps. Like I could have 50 women in my house just we were learning. And it was one of the happiest things I was ever a part of. I loved it, loved it, loved it. And I felt like I was part of this like sweet space all the time.
And I had these amazing teachers and we did a lot of stuff about parenting because we had young kids. You know, what's our purpose of a parent? Like what, you know, you know, like my teacher nearly would say, like, we all wish that our kids came with a washing label.
Like, you know, if you had Michael Phelps as your son, you know, you would say swim lessons, swim lessons, swim lessons, more swim lessons, right? Like. And if they don't come with exact lessons of who they are, then try to find something in your kids. What are they good at? What do they excel at? How do you help them be that? So if they're not good at math, who cares?
They weren't meant to be a mathematician. But if they're a good dancer, your job as a parent is to be that diving board. Propel them into something else. And it upped my parenting game.
Judaism became more and more part of Cami's life and also helped her gain status in a way.
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Chapter 3: What was Josh's approach to business and community involvement?
Josh was a force and you kind of wanted to get on his train. So I'll have what he's having kind of thing. Like he was such a force, like why, you know, you would want to invest in him because he was so charismatic and devoted and passionate.
Being around someone successful can be really powerful, as we all know.
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She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.
She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't.
I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real?
Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh.
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Chapter 4: How did Josh's business practices raise questions?
But it was part of the whole charm, the Mensch-Josh thing. He charmed everyone with flattery. They were the open-door family, everybody invited to the party. I mean, Josh even invited his co-workers' parents to the bat mitzvah.
They were just like, holy cow, everything was so extravagant. There were, you know, these performers and this huge venue and just, it was very extravagant.
That was Umang Shah, who was in the C-suite in another company Josh started named Flock U. It was a play on Flock U and it was an online community for college students. Umang was the CMO.
I had just left a full-time job and the last thing I wanted was a full-time job, yet he was good enough to convince me to take on a full-time job. But Josh is quite good at selling. Umang did notice how extravagant everything was. We would go out on sales calls. We'd often either fly first class or we would take a private jet. Josh insisted on kind of compensating
people very much more with salaries and less with equity, which is kind of the opposite of most startups. And so most of the people were paid a kind of a reasonable market rate.
Umang says that Josh wanted to be the one managing the books, but he would be sort of cagey about how the budgets were shaking out.
I consider myself to be a fairly logical person. maybe even smart person. And I could not always understand how the math worked out. Like, how did, you know, how did we get paid? How did we do all that?
That stuff was odd, but it also wasn't totally out of the ordinary. A lot of entrepreneurs splurge if that's the lifestyle they've become accustomed to, and they're just scrappy when it comes to business.
But over time, the weirdness added up. I remember for certain investor pitches or sales pitches, I would lay out an interesting way to present the information and the facts to show growth numbers, right? Hey, look, we saw growth month over month at this rate, which is great for a startup. You're tracking on a higher frequency. He would often kind of encourage us to exaggerate that even more.
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