Becoming Part of the Solution | Troy Downing

About Troy Downing

Troy is a strong supporter of smaller government, the 2nd Amendment, and economic prosperity for all through lower taxes. An avid outdoorsman and huntsman, Troy firmly believes that we need true political outsiders in Washington to stand up for Montana against the federal government whenever necessary.

Troy started as a Research Scientist, went on to launch a technology startup that merged with Yahoo!, then enlisted and served 2 tours in Afghanistan, and now has a successful career in commercial real estate, but Troy once again heard the call to serve his state and country and is seeking the Republican nomination to serve in the US Senate representing the Great State of Montana.

Bio courtesy of troydowning.com

Episode Transcript of: Becoming Part of the Solution | Troy Downing

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Troy Downing Troy, welcome to today’s show.

Troy
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Alan
So it’s really you, you lived an absolutely remarkable life. You’ve done a lot of different things throughout your life. So for the listeners, can we get to know Troy? Maybe where did you grow up and school and yeah,

Troy
I kind of somewhat austere beginnings I, I was born in the Los Angeles area, but I grew up in the desert in Indio, California near the Salton Sea. And, you know, I was, well, here’s the plain truth I was I was a high school accident. So my, my parents were never married. And my mom, she eventually married a man who, who adopted me and I took his name, Michael Downing. And he was in and out of our family and had two siblings from him. With him and my mother, and it was, it was an interesting childhood growing up in the desert, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t have much. My parents eventually divorced. And my mom, you know, who I’m incredibly proud of, you know, was able to raise three kids on her own and started out as a checker in a grocery store, and then eventually was working in the deli in a grocery store. But you know, very, very austere beginning. And, you know, one of the things that I realized early on in my life is I needed to be somewhere else in something more, and I needed to, I needed to get out of the desert. And when I did get out of the desert, when I graduated high school, I left and eventually ended up on the other coast in New York, and ran out of dirt. So I couldn’t get any farther away from there. And after a brief, brief career in the arts, I went to school out there to New York University in the current Institute of Mathematical Sciences. And that started a real different journey in my life. I eventually was hired as a research scientist in the Media Research Lab, that was one of the founding members of the media research lab. And at that time, in my life, in my early 20s, I was surrounded by just really smart people trying to do neat things. And we were well funded, we had, you know, grants from the Defense Department, from Microsoft, from Apple, from Silicon Graphics, all this money just pouring into this lab. And all we had to do were neat things and write papers about it. And it was at the time, at that time in our life, it was just, it was just an amazing place to be just just very, very exciting. And eventually, it NYU, somebody in the lab and introduced me to this thing that these particle physicists were doing out in Switzerland that they called a browser. And at the time, I was really interested in it, but I had no idea the profound effect it was going to have on my life. Because I started, I started playing with that, and trying to build it in building, you know, this was the beginnings of what we now know as the as the internet. And when I started building ways of expanding that, I eventually was approached by a publisher to write a book about it. And I wrote a book that, you know, did a couple of emergency read printings. And like anybody that writes a book on, you know, technology, I took that book down to the dean of the Information Technology Department at NYU and said, You need to use this as a textbook. And his response was, yes, and I need you to teach the course. And so that started my teaching career. And it’s really interesting at this point, because I don’t have an undergraduate degree yet. I’m still a, you know, undergraduate student in the computer science department. And all sudden, I’m putting together curriculum and hiring teachers for a certificate program and Internet technologies. And kind of fast forward there, I had this this experience where I used to write a lot of sample code, little little programs to teach, and I’d give the CODEL so that students could use it and expand or steal it to, you know, build bigger and better things. And one of the things that I did is I built this little Troy’s magic eight ball. And it was really simple programming asked questions, and they would give you random answers. And actually, as an aside, one of the interesting things they used to log all the questions and the number one question was one form of is there a God, which I thought was kind of interesting? The number two question I don’t know if I can say on this program, but it was something about, you know, finding a partner, I’ll say to put it loosely and I was it was always kind of interesting to watch how those trends would come in. But anyway, I digress a little bit. So one day, I’m going to teach my class and I’m served a cease and desist letter from Tyco industry. Is because magic eight ball is a trademark of Tyco. And I was so excited. I walked into my class with a cease and desist letter. And they’re all wondering why I’m so excited. I’m being sued. And I explained to him that, you know, this to have when I started out in technology, anybody who was connected to the internet was military or education or a few technology companies, to have a toy company doing trademark protection on the internet. When there’s going to change the world it’s going to change how we communicate is going to change how we do business is gonna change everything. I was so excited about it and this light bulb went off. And so I resigned after that semester for my research position and my teaching position. And of course, my mom yelled at me, and I started a one man technology company called webcal. And what I did was internet based groupware. So calendaring and scheduling for companies. And the first company that called me and asked for a site license was Schlumberger well services out in Austin, Texas, and they wanted a 55,000 seat site license. I didn’t know what I was doing so I made up a number and they FedExed me a check and I said okay, that was probably not enough.

Alan
Troy I need to take a quick break. Here do Troy Downing and in Troy when we come back he did something really special moving into the revolutionize the Internet as we know it today, and they will we’ll get into that right after these messages right.

Alan
Welcome back visit here today with Troy Downing and Troy, In the first segment, we looked at, you know, what brought you up in your life here, your your history through school research assistant, and then you left and you started into the entrepreneurial world, right? webcal. Right 55,000 seat licenses. Schlumberger, right. But you went on from that to do something really special and what was

Troy
Right. Well, after that, you know, it’s interesting, because I got a bunch of other larger contracts, Schlumberger, introduced me to Exxon, and then a TNT and then US West, and I realized that it was bigger than me. And so I built out the company and brought some colleagues I’d worked with at NYU, and some other friends from the industry. And we started out that company for real. And we started doing hosted services and started to make a footprint, you know, people started calling us, New York Times, called and interviewed me at one point. And as things started progress, we started getting the interest of other companies. And the first one was, Microsoft called us and they were interested in buying us. Again, you know, this was my first real foray into a business like that. And so I got, we had, you know, counsel dealing with them going back and forth on term sheets. And then I got a call from another company, a telecom company out of Atlanta, they wanted to buy us, and then a company that did synchronization software for Palm Pilots, if you remember that they wanted to buy us, so all this is going back and forth. And it was, it was exciting, but it was scary. You know, you have this, you know, this fear that they’re gonna figure out how to do it on their own and put you out of business or, you know, they’re just just the fear of the unknown. And so we’re going down the path of that. And then another company called us that I wasn’t really interested in talking to at the firt in the first place, it was out of California, you know, started out with some Stanford grad students, and they built this directory that, you know, I wasn’t really that keen on in the beginning. And they started talking to us and I flew out to California. I was actually used to run marathons back then I was flying out to run the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon and right after that the next day, limping a little bit, I flew up to Silicon Valley and met with the guys from Yahoo. I met with Jerry Yang and David Philo and Tim Kugel and those guys and started talking to them about where they were going with Yahoo and what they wanted to do with it. And I love the team. I love the ideas seemed like a good synergy. And so everything else was pushed aside. And we ended up shortly after doing a pooling of interest merger with Yahoo back in I was 98. And it was a very, very exciting time and we were masters the universe back then we were the 800 pound gorilla that was Solving all these problems that had never been solved before, and really creating a new type of media and it was a, again, the same thing I had back at the Media Research Lab surrounded by smart people doing neat things. And it was just a very exciting time. I ended up staying in technology, doing some technology venture, and I was with Yahoo for for a number of years until I just got out of technology in 2001. I’d kind of gotten what I wanted out of that I had, you know, been more successful than I ever

Alan
been in 2001. Something happened there after 911. What was that?

Troy
Well, what happened after 911 is, you know, as I said, I’d have had a life changing experience in technology. And I was up hunting in Alaska. And that was moose hunting, and I noticed towards the end of the trip, that plane stopped flying. And, you know, no, contrails no bush pilots. And I knew something had happened. I had no idea what until the bush pilot finally came and picked us up and landed on the lake and this Grumman goose tailed into shore, turn the engines off, opened his window and stuck his head out, oh, sticks out the window and just shouted, you know, guess what, what? They blew up the World Trade Center. Who, and he used a derogatory term, I’m not gonna repeat. And I’m just confused. I’m like, both of them. Yeah, took them both down. And I’m picturing these towers just falling over and taking out Lower Manhattan, because I haven’t seen it on TV. And it really had a profound effect on me. And, you know, I talk to you a little bit about my, you know, somewhat austere beginnings. And now I’m out in Alaska, I’ve got my I’m a pilot, I got my airplane parked a couple 100 miles away. And I’ve been very successful, and my nation was under attack. And

Alan
Troy, I want to hold that. From there, it was a life changing moment. But I do need to take this break. Okay, visiting here. They are Troy Downing. And we’ve been talking about his life path in 2001. After 911, he does something really, really special. And we’ll get into that right after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back and busy here today with Troy Downing. And we’ve been visiting about, you know, your career path and your early, early stages to Yahoo. And in 2001, you’re sitting in the you know, left the technology and you’re sitting in the bush remotely in Alaska, you get this announcement that World Trade Centers have blown up and I want to pick it up from there. What were you feeling?

Troy
You know, like most Americans, I mean, the first thing is, you know, I’m not ashamed to admit I just cried. I mean, I had never, I mean, none of us never really expected to be hurt that deeply on our own shores. And my next emotion really was was shame. You know, I’d been very successful. And I felt that I had taken advantage of all the opportunities that I had as an American and really built, you know, my own version of the American dream. And I’m sitting there in Alaska, on a moose hunting trip, with my plane parked a few 100 miles away. You know, I’ve been basically retired trying to figure out what, what’s next. And I was ashamed that I had never done anything meaningful to be part of a solution to help to give back for everything I’d taken advantage of, and I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know what I had little time to think about it because the bush pilot got me to Dillingham, which is where my plane was parked. And I flew that down to Ketchikan, which is on the Canadian border, because the borders hadn’t opened yet. I couldn’t fly over Canada. And shortly after they opened the borders, I flew down so I had a little bit of time to think about it. And I walked into a recruiters office and said, You know, I used to teach at NYU, I’ve got a pilot’s license, what can you do with me? And they said, go take the ASVAB. I was non prior military. I didn’t know what it was at the time. They say what’s a Vocational Aptitude Battery? So I went took the ASVAB. I came back to the recruiter, and he looked at my score and scored pretty pretty high. You might as Boser was a 9990. And so the recruiter said, Well, you know, you qualify for any any job that I offer. And so So, so embarrassing to say, but he. So I said, Well, that’s that’s the point, I want to be part of a solution what? What can you use me for where I have something to offer? And he asked if I thought about going into Intel? And I said, I’ve never thought about going into anything but you know, what would that entail? And he described Intel, you know, following troop movements, weapons, you know, that sort of stuff. And I just come out of a very long career from, you know, teaching to startup company to Yahoo to technology and, and I said, you know, I don’t think I’m going to be effective sitting in a dark room staring at a computer. So he said, Well, I want you to talk to chief Rhodes and he brought this guy in, who told me the story says, We fly these, you know, 22,000 pound helicopters and formation 50 feet off the deck in the middle of the night with night vision goggles on, we go out in the desert, we find busted up kids, and we bring them home. I raised my hand and I got sworn in and went off to basic went to sere school, went to fly school and in Albuquerque and ended up doing two tours to Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as hh 60, page Hawk, helicopter, flight engineer, and I got, I got to say that it was one of the best things I’ve done in my life. You know, one of the things I like to joke about is, is nobody’s ever upset when search and rescue shows up. But just the you know, first of all, it always makes your heart kind of go on your throat a little bit, when you do see who’s in the back of the helicopter, you know, when you’re out and picking somebody up, but it makes you feel so good, that you got them home, you know that you got them out of there.

Alan
You know, it’s interesting, Troy here, you had a remarkable your work can be successful in the technology sector. You don’t have to do this. But, you know, there you put your life on the line, you know, to bring others home,

Troy
Well, you know, I have to disagree on one thing, you say I didn’t have to do it. But I had to do it, I had to do something. And that was a very personal thing. And one of the things that made me kind of realize, you know, the little bit of selfishness in that is the first time I got deployed to Afghanistan, and I’ve got my young daughter who was probably 10 or 11, at the time asking me if I was gonna get killed. And all sudden, it hit me that, you know, I’d really dragged so many other people into this. And I remember having that conversation with my daughter saying, you know, there’s going to be bad guys over there trying to hurt me. But I’m pretty tough. And I’m pretty smart. And I’m pretty honoree and I think I don’t think they’re going to be successful. But there are going to be people trying to hurt me. But my plan is to come back and see you when I’m done. But I have to do this. And again, like my mom yelled at me when I left it left NYU, she yelled at me again. And she said, Well, you don’t have to go, do you? And I said, No, I do have to go. Yes, I probably could get out of this if I if I really didn’t want to deploy but I didn’t come here as a vacation or field trip. I did this because I needed to be part of a solution.

Alan
Where we had to deal with this country.

Troy
Oh so much. You know, that’s a loaded and then long question. I don’t know if we have enough time on your program. But

Alan
Yeah, but you’ve moved into dislike at the 911. Now you now you’re on a platform where you’re, you’re seeking to turn some things around, right, right?

Troy
Well, I’m tired of the dysfunction. I’m tired of there not being adults in the room, I’m tired of just the friction that we’re saying, I’m tired of career politicians deciding what happens in this country, I’m tired of the central government, sticking their tendrils farther and farther into our lives wasn’t designed to be that way. I want to just beat them back with a stick and get back to the point where the government is there for basic protection and infrastructure and you’re free to live your life, I want to get to a point where they’re not trying to tell you what you can or can’t do, I want you to be able to make your own decisions and reach for the brass ring. And if you catch it bask in the glory of your success. If you don’t catch it, you fall and you have to lick your own wounds, but nobody is regulating or telling or trying to make you conform to something that doesn’t allow that to thrive. And one of the things that you know, is really kind of gone off a little bit on on a second On a sidenote there. But one of the things that I’m really frustrated with is where I’m tired of the career politician. I’m tired of sending lawyers and career politicians to Washington to stay there for 20 3040 years after you’ve been there that Tom that long, you’re institutionalized. You’re not You’re not relevant to modern America, you haven’t built something you haven’t experienced what it’s like in a non political life. And I want to get back to the point where you take members of your community you send them to represent you. They do the work of the people and they go home and you send the next generation of have ideas and company builders and, and service members and people who have lives that are outside of politics. And I want to be part of that change, right?

Alan
One thing that you and I have in common is Montana. Right. And that is Montana play in this change.

Troy
Last best place. You know, I, I like told you I grew up in California, and was not happy where I grew up, moved as far away as I could and ran out of dirt in New York. And when I did my deal with Yahoo, that obviously brought me back to California. And I needed to find something different. I wanted someplace in the mountains, someplace where I could hunt, and fish and hike and have my kids run around amongst trees. And I heard something about this place in Montana, and I’d never been there before. And this is winter of 98. And I flew out there and instantly fell in love with it with the wildness, the majesty, the people, the attitude, everything. I just loved it. And so I bought some land. And the next year, I built a house. And so that’s gone 19 years ago now, and they just can’t get rid of me now. I mean, I love the state. Obviously, my work, you know, kept a connection with California for longer than I wish it did. But you know, my heart’s always been in Montana. And I just don’t know what to say about if you like to be outside, if you’d like to be free. If you like the this amazing world that God has given us, you should visit Montana.

Alan
And recently recently, you failed to go against the incumbent for for the Senate seat.

Troy
Yes, I did. I am. I’m a candidate for US Senate. I’m running in the 2018 midterms against the Democrat incumbent John tester.

Alan
And how do you feel it things are going so far? You know,

Troy
It’s interesting, because I’ve got a lot of friends. I mean, I’ve been involved in politics, even though I haven’t run for office. And, you know, I’ve been I’ve been warned about certain things you know, about Montanans or, especially, you know, the party in Montana, not, not given me a warm welcome. And my experience has been the opposite. You know, I have had a lot of very positive feedback. You know, I addressed the officers convention for the Montana GOP in Billings about a month ago, and was very well received. A lot of people came up to me afterwards, and they were inviting me to their, to their counties for their, for their meetings and inviting me to their festivals and their fares. And, you know, it’s been, it’s actually makes me feel really good. I know, the opposition’s coming, and I know they’re about to, you know, any day they’re gonna start trying to find what’s wrong with Troy Downing. But I have to say right now it’s been or up to this point. It’s been it’s been very positive. And I feel very good about it. I think one of the things is, is I think I resonate with Montanans because I didn’t come there to change it. I came there to preserve it. I love the state. I love the people. And I think they see that and I think they also see that I care about my country that I have served in Montana, being, you know, one of the largest percentage of veterans in the population there. You know, I think that that resonate. That story resonates with them the most, but one of the things that I want to be really clear on is yes, I’ve done a lot of things in my life. But I want my message to resonate with Montanans and I want them to see that I am trying to preserve what’s great about I’m sorry, I know you’re not you’re from there, you know, another but the greatest state in the union, and that’s my goal.

Alan
Absolutely. Pull up. Troy. We’re out of time today. Appreciate you being on today’s show. Thanks.

We hope you enjoyed this interview; “Becoming Part of the Solution | Troy Downing”.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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