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Language: en
Everybody, welcome to another episode of
Impact Theory. You are here, my friends,
because you believe, like I do, that
human potential is nearly limitless. But
you know that having potential is not
the same as actually doing something
with it. So, our goal with the show and
company is to introduce you to the
people and ideas that will help you
actually execute on your dreams. All
right. Today's guest is a freakishly
accomplished entrepreneur who started
his insanely storied career by inventing
airport kiosks and music-based video
games. You know, NVD. And that is just a
tip of a very large iceberg. I assure
you, even if I speedread his full list
of accomplishments, it would take me an
hour. It's nuts. So, let me just say
this. He's built and sold many of his
own companies, held senior management
positions at Sony, EMI, and Universal
Pictures, taken an equity stake in 80
plus companies, raised roughly $800
million for startups, helped grow
multi-billion dollar juggernauts such as
LinkedIn and eBay before they even
IPOed, and helped transform entire
industries and revamp governments.
Because of his unprecedented track
record of success, everyone from the
Pope to the President have called on him
for advice on how to harness the power
of positive change and his recent book,
Disrupt You. Grab the hold of my brain
and refuse to let go. Not only are the
ideas brilliant, but his words drip with
the credibility that only comes when
you've been a soldier on the front
lines. And his success on the front
lines has made him one of the most
soughtafter advisers and speakers on the
planet. He's a contributor to the Wall
Street Journal and host of its
documentary series Wall Street Journal
Startup of the Year. And he frequently
appears on ABC, NBC, Bloomberg, and many
others, as well as teaching innovation
at the largest engineering school in the
country. He's also helped develop
disruptive solutions for such global
brands as Coca-Cola, Disney, and
Microsoft. So, please, my friends, help
me in welcoming the best-selling author
and monolithic entrepreneur who started
his first company because no one would
hire him, the dyslexic master of
disruption, Jay Samut.
Yeah, thanks for having me. What a
pleasure. Too kind. The words are too
nice. Um, so thank you for saying that.
It's very humble. Uh, but honestly, your
book really freaked me out and it
stopped me in my tracks. had ended up
changing the whole way that we do our
book reviews now because I was freaking
out to everybody about your book that
every entrepreneur needs to read it. I
have a list of the 25 books you have to
read. It's going on that list. And so
when I did the book review, people were
like, "You didn't capture that same
sense of like enthusiasm." So now
they're all freewheel and just me sort
of going into the meat because your book
is transformative. Truly, I mean that.
Um, we'll get into some of the details,
but the one thing I want to start with,
you grew up dyslexic. Yeah. And you when
you graduate from college, it's like one
of the worst job markets ever. And this
is probably my favorite story. You
instead of going and um just giving up,
you start your own company, but you do
it in a super unique way. So um it was
the time when Star Wars had just come
out, changed Hollywood, special effects,
this new great stuff. So, what I went to
when I got out of college was I wanted
to make special effects and movies like
that. And a couple minor problems. I
knew no one in Hollywood. I knew nothing
about how to make special effects. And I
was broke. Um, but I realized no one's
going to hire somebody that doesn't have
experience. You're competing against
people that do this for a lifetime,
whatever. So, I printed business cards
for a dollar and I made up a fake
company, Jasmine Productions, Jen
Salmon, and it's mine. But I didn't make
myself head of the company. I just made
myself a low lowly job. See, that's the
that's the part that freaks me out. What
how did you get that insight? That's so
smart. Well, the other thing that I'd
done at the same time is I knew where I
wanted to work, but I didn't know how
you got a foot in the door. So, I ran an
ad back when there used to be newspapers
you ran, you know, physical ad
describing the job that I wanted and it
was a blind ad. It didn't say what the
company was. And then I got a bunch of
resumes in and that told me a bunch of
data. One, it told me what type of
resume could get that job. So what would
I have to do? Two, it told me people
that work somewhere that had one foot
out the door. So I now knew a list of
companies that would have openings.
Yeah. And then I regurgitated how to
frame what I could do in that language
and applied to these people who didn't
have jobs yet. And that's how you get a
job. So let me put you in my shoes now
for a second. I pick your book up. I
have no idea where it's going to go.
Good reviews. Thought, okay, let me give
this a shot. I start reading and we get
on to that story about how not only did
you not just give up that you make a
business card. Not only did you do that,
but you were smart enough to make
yourself a low-level employee. Not only
did you do that, but you had run an ad
to identify people that were leaving
their job. I mean, it's just like there
are few people that make me go, I'm just
not smart enough to be this person.
Like, it's not smart. It's Here's the
thing. Everybody and probably what draws
people to your show and why your show is
so valuable is people have problems in
their lives. And most people sit there
and dwell on the problems or they relive
yesterday. Every day you spent living
yesterday's problem, you're giving up
your future. It makes no sense. But if
you say, "I have problems
or am I unique? Am I the only one that
has these problems?" And the answer
probably is no. Okay? So find a problem
that a lot of people have. Solve it. And
that's all that being an entrepreneur
is. That's all the business person is.
The more problems you have in your life,
the more successful you'll be.
So, I had problems. I, you know, I had
two sons very early and I'm like, they
got to eat. I got to eat. I got to, you
know, I got to, you know, provide for my
family. How do you solve the things?
What pieces of information do I need?
So, let's let's do the modern version of
the whole thing. There's no more
newspapers. What do you do? And I tell
the story that that a young man wisely
did. It's a guy who got his job out of
college at the bottom of one of these
multinational ad agencies. Layers and
layers of stuff. He's doing mindless
stuff. He hates every day in his
cubicle. He wanted to do creative stuff.
So he realizes there's some big famous
creative directors at the tops of these
agencies and he's googling one day and
he realized nobody bought their names as
keywords.
So he just put, you know, I want to work
for you with a link to his his portfolio
and bought the keywords of these five
most famous guys in the industry. Three
out of five called them. Yeah. Because
they're googling themselves, right?
Everybody Googles themselves. Got job
offers. Okay. And yeah, accelerate about
20 years of his career. It's that easy.
Oh, by the way, his investment was more
than mine. He spent about $9. Wow. So,
he really went broke doing it. Yeah.
Yeah. So, investment. So, I've been very
lucky. I mean, you wake up your kid of
of normal means and dozens of your
friends become billionaires. We weren't
brighter. We didn't go to the right
schools. We didn't do anything. What
happened? The world changed. Well, the
world's continuing to change. We have
self-made billionaires in their 20s
happening almost monthly. They have the
same 24 hours in the day that you and I
do. What are they doing differently?
What are they doing that can be learned
from and copied and emulated to solve a
different problem? And if you're not
motivated by money, how do you use these
same tools to change the world? Because
the world's got problems. Yeah. No
question. So, you said that it takes
nothing more than insight and drive to
be successful. And then the the question
that like screamed out of my mind was,
can you train to be more insightful?
Absolutely. All right. How do you do
that? So, here's a simple exercise for
everybody watching, and I guarantee you
that 30 days from today, from when you
watch this, you will have more deal flow
than any venture capital firm in Silicon
Valley.
Take a piece of paper and today write
three problems in your life.
I trafficked this morning. You know, I
forgot to take my medicine. Whatever it
might be, but do this every day for a
month because what you're going to find
is the first day it's kind of easy.
Maybe the second day, but after that,
you're like, "Okay, I wrote down my
problems. So, what else is a problem
that you aren't identifying because
you've accepted that's the way it is,
that's the way it's always been that,
you know, you work at a big corporation.
Well, this is the way we do it." Well,
you're going to go out of business doing
that.
And then when you have those 90 ideas,
what are you passionate about and what
affects the most people and the
intersection of those two in your life?
You were passionate about nutrition that
it could change people's lives. Okay?
And you saw a way that you could
financially impact them
with a healthy bar, right? And those
intersections led to success. Your
insight got you there and you solved for
a whole bunch of people. No one sells a
product. No one buys something. You
know, you know, no one went into a store
and bought a quarterinch drill bit
because they wanted a quarterinch drill
bit. They wanted a quarterinch hole.
Right. Right. Very well said. Yeah.
Somebody made the drill bit because you
wanted a hole. Okay. So, fill those
holes. That's all that's as simple as it
can be. Do you still do that today? Like
do you keep a list of problems that you
encounter? Oh, all all the time. I'll
give you examples of of ones that I'm
working on right now for for clients. Um
I'm obsessed with augmented reality and
virtual reality and it solves problems
that couldn't be solved before. It can
connect people in the field to experts
somewhere else where they can see what
I'm seeing and all that. uh working with
an overnight package delivery company
that just adding augmented reality
glasses can save them 30% of their jet
fuel.
Wow. So, there's a whole bunch of people
who have the job. You ever sit on a
plane, you see the metal container that
they slide in that curve thing? Well,
there's people whose jobs are to throw
packages into that container. It's high
turnover job. It's not a fun job. And if
you're not good at it, about a third of
that container is going to be air. If
you've been doing it a bunch of years,
you can pack it tighter. Well, if a
third of each container is air, that
means one out of three planes is flying
empty. That's a ton of jet fuel. That's
billions of dollars a year. What if you
can turn it into 3D Tetris? What if it's
a fun game and you can bonus people
based on performance and doing well and
doing it now? You save the environment.
You make the company more profitable.
You make the job more fun. And you allow
those that take pride in their work to
take home more money. So, it's a
fascinating approach. I love that. But
coming back out for a second. So, this
comes down to the game that my partner
and I were playing that ended up leading
to Quest. The same game that I played
that ended up in Impact Theory is no
[ __ ] What would it take? Right? So,
no [ __ ] What does it take to in the
case of um Quest, it was no [ __ ]
what would it take to help my family be
happy? I wanted to see them happy. And I
just knew that the body was part of that
equation. Um at Impact Theory, the
question was no [ __ ] What would it
take to end what I call generational
poverty, which is about mindset. it's
not about money. Um, and the answer was
very clear. I want to leverage behavior.
I don't want to change it. So, the
behavior that we need to leverage is if
narrative and and this is my stance. If
narrative is the way that people
assimilate truly disruptive information,
then we know that we're going to be
dealing with narrative. I think you've
got uh books, comic books, movies,
television, video games. That's sort of
your the arena that you're playing in.
So, how do we leverage that to actually
inform the next generation of
entrepreneurs? So that because I think
commerce at the end of the day is the
way that you're going to bring into the
real world the change that you're having
people assimilate. So that is that loop.
That was us playing that game. And it
sounds very similar. So if you've got
these, you know, all the problems that
you have every day and let's take one
that you've talked about before and the
problem is traffic. I don't want to sit
in traffic anymore, right? You play the
no [ __ ] What would it take? Okay, I
need to know where cars are actually
going. I need to um be able to dictate
where they go so that you can basically
distribute the traffic which ended up
being ways essentially right but but the
the insight that they had was wait I'm
sitting in traffic phone company knows
that my phone's here and your phone's
there if they can tell your phone to go
left and mine to go right there's no
traffic that was the insight and a lot
of people go well you're talking about
tech stuff I'm not an engineer how many
lines of code did Steve Jobs write in
his career building the world's biggest
tech company zero. Yeah. So, we all live
with technology, but you bring up a a
bigger point.
What's what's driving me right now is
our world is changing at a pace that
most people can't grasp. Governments
definitely can't grasp it right now. And
that is if we go back a 100 years ago,
half the people worked on farms and half
the people worked in cities. and two
pieces of technology, irrigation and the
tractor.
Today we have 2% of the people making
food for all the US and exporting right
so that means half the people lost their
jobs on farms but they were absorbed by
the industrial revolution. So we lived
during a century where we saw half of
the jobs disappear. Now we're living in
a time where over the next 10 years half
of all jobs will disappear. So robotics
are replacing unskilled labor. You raise
minimum wage to assemble a burger. A
robot will assemble a burger. A robot
will make a pizza. A an app will take
your order. Okay. White collar jobs.
Half of middle management jobs over the
next 5 years are going to disappear.
Number one job on on tax returns is
truck driver. 8% of the population
drives a vehicle. Wow. Autonomous
vehicles, those are gone. Autonomous
boats, everything. 3D printing, etc.,
etc. So even your professionals, AI
systems and and machine learning get rid
of a lot of lawyers, a lot of doctors, a
lot of accounting. What do you do with
all those people? What makes life
enjoyable is a stable middle class? So
they no [ __ ] How do you solve that?
How do you build a big middle class?
Well, the same technology that is
automating away those things that were
mundane and and don't need to be
repeated connects us to billions of
other people. So you can now solve
problems that scale much quicker. From
2008 in the recession, all of the job
gains globally
have come from entrepreneurs. They
haven't come from big business. So how
do you teach people to start companies?
How do you get people to replicate your
journey? And it can be in almost any
field. If you have a life with no
problems, yeah, there's nothing to do.
And let me So let me ask a question
that's going to draw a line for people.
So, do you plan to monetize that or is
this purely philanthropic for you? Um,
if if if it's the goal isn't for me to
monetize. I've been very lucky and
life's good and the kids are good. I
didn't write the book to make money. I
did it to scale. I I I was teaching how
to build a high-tech startup. And I I I
taught I had most successful was two
students did 150 million in topline
their first year. Yeah. word makes you
really feel like a failure. Brilliant
idea. One of the best pitches I've ever
heard. And and I judge hackathons around
the world and I'm turning the hackathon
experience into a TV show to teach
people how to do this. Because let's go
from the selfish standpoint.
If all that an entrepreneur does is
solve problems, who are they solving
them for? Everybody else. I have
problems. I would like a better world. M
so the more people that are solving
problems the better life is for
everybody. It's not We were taught that
there was like only so many slices of
pie and it's mine or yours a zero sum
game. That isn't how the world really
works. That isn't how capital is
created. You know, you create a new
company and somebody buys stock for $10
and somebody else buys stock for 20.
You've now created a whole bunch of
money that didn't exist in the system.
People don't realize money isn't all
printed by a government. entrepreneurs
actually create money. Bitcoin created a
new currency, right, that may end up
being more trustworthy than any nation
state currency. So, it's an amazing time
to be on the planet. And so, if I can
help other people achieve that success,
I mean, take it on the simples. We love
going to movie that cost $200 million to
make, you know, back to the Star Wars
thing. I love living in a world where
somebody's willing to spend $200 million
to entertain my ass for two hours. I
mean, it doesn't get better than that.
The the reason I ask you about the path
to monetization is I think one of the
things so it's the middle ground that
people get lost in, right? So, you can
show people that, hey, I used to be um
what I say I used to have a slave
mentality. I kept my head down, did as
little work as possible, and avoided
punishment at all costs. And then I can
show you that I was very, very
successful. And it's like, but people
don't get to see that in between. And
what I think you're doing just amazingly
well and what people will get in the
book are literally the things you have
to do to your mind, the ways you have to
think, the um sort of baseline belief
systems you have to bring on to your own
life that are going to allow you to to
take this grand idea of I want to build
a massive middle class and maybe you're
not thinking of that particular problem
this way, but you can take whatever your
grand problem is and say and then how do
I create an ecosystem around it that's
financially self- sustaining and getting
um allowing people the things that they
need to do to their mind to create a
real business. So, when you read disrupt
you, yeah, and I'm putting you on the
spot, was there anything that I said or
laid out in those chapters that after
the light bulb went out and you go,
"Wow, I never saw it that way that you
didn't instantly absorb and say, "Oh,
yeah, this makes sense." It I kind of
know what you're asking. So, yes, there
were things that that were watershed
moments for me, which is why I think the
book is so important, but they were in
hindsight self-evident. And that's the
point. None of this stuff is not common
sense. It's just we were pushed down a
path of blinders our whole lives for
well-intentioned reasons in many cases.
But the educational system was designed
to have you work at a factory. The IQ
test was invented to let the army know
which people were cannon fodder and you
could just let them, you know, get
killed and which people had potential
when in fact we all have potential.
What we have to do is figure out where
to channel it and what are those steps.
There's no gatekeepers to capital
anymore. There's no exclusive
country club or college or this or that
and we're all interconnected. So it
doesn't matter whether you're in a big
city or in Batswana, you can still reach
6 billion consumers. So what's stopping
you?
That fear of failure that, oh, if I
fail, what will people say? Failing is a
great thing. Failing teaches you what
doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the
towel. So you take that job to be
secure. You go for that big Fortune 500
company. and most of the Fortune 500
companies go out of business. There's
less than 10% of them left. That's
amazing statement of the original list.
So, it's not the security that's robbing
ambition. It's the illusion of security
that robs ambition. So, the biggest risk
you can take in life is not taking one.
If you're at that point where you're in
the middle of your career and you lost
your job or you're just out of college
and starting or just out of high school,
go talk to a senior citizen about what
they really regret about their lives.
And it's not what they failed at, it's
what they didn't try. It's the regrets
of why didn't I? So, if you try
something and you fail, you learn a
skill set for something else. Uh Steve
Jobs, you know, a great entrepreneur,
college wasn't for him. He he bounced
around but he audited and took a class
in calligraphies. It's like it's
useless. Why what's the point of that?
But when it came in the time of the
birth of the PC and IBM had all the
rational ways to make a good machine. He
remembered that calligraphy course and
said we're going to have fonts on our
machine. Now one divergent of we got a
few fonts here and these guys only have
one. Graphic artists started using this
machine. Mhm. Adobe, the whole future,
you know, music, the iPod, the iPhone,
all come from one calligraphy class.
What's one of the most important things
you hope people take away from the book?
That all the big famous people that you
hear about, you know, Richard Branson
and Steve Jobs and and and Zuckerberg
and everyone, they're no different than
you are, right? 70s something percent of
the world's billionaires are self-made.
So you can achieve this. Now it's not
going to be easy. You don't just wake up
on Tuesday and become rich on Wednesday.
But it doesn't take any more effort than
going to a job that you hate. And unless
you believe in reincarnation, you got
one shot on this planet.
One shot. So don't you want to make a
difference? Don't you want to leave
something behind and make the planet
better than you found it? Why are you
here? What do you want to accomplish
with your life? And it doesn't have to
be being re and it doesn't have to be
money oriented. The same principles and
disrupt you. You can change the
educational system. You can change
healthcare. I mean I am humbled by what
I'm seeing people create around the
world with so little. But we are on this
ball together. We can solve problems
together. We can make a better future
together. You know, it's an optimistic
story that you get to write your piece
of the the story. I mean, why wouldn't
people want to
push their potential? So, aim for the
stars if you didn't make it all the way.
You made it to the moon, you know, not
bad.
That notion of solving these problems
together, I think, is exactly what I
took away from the book, or at least
problem solving in general. And that's
one of the things I think people when
they read the book, they're going to
find example after example that will
light them on fire. And I'll give you a
few of my favorites. I'd love some more
color or how you how people can get
better at this. So when you first start,
you think, "Oh man, no brainer. I've got
this device that's uh it was for the
lottery, right? So you've got the old
school lottery thing. It's like those
ugly sort of green one color uh dot
matrixy looking thing." And then you had
like this display panel. It was
beautiful. It could talk if I'm not
mistaken. Yeah. So, so got to go back
before we all had PCs, before computers
were everywhere. I'm that old. Yes. Um,
and lotteryies were coming out to
different states. Uh, and they had a
little thing with a little just green
numbers that you type in and then it
prints your ticket. And there was a
contract and for California and we had a
6ft tall machine, big color screen, a
motion detector. Again, this is 1980s.
You walk by in the supermarkets. What
would you do with a million dollars? and
you're looking around because nobody had
ever talked to you before and and this
machine and we could show the the cars
and the yachts and all this stuff and
you could touch Oh, and by the way, it
said touch me in six different languages
if I remember correctly, right? So, if
you only spoke Vietnamese, boom, now the
machine does it. And you could make your
own things and I'm now going to go for
the biggest contract of my life. I'm in
my early 20s, okay? I I every penny I
have is into into this. And I'm up
against a company that has this little
green thing, right? Like I'm as cocky as
could be. Like this is it. You know, I
go to this meeting, I win the contract,
I'll be a millionaire, life is good. Da
da da. Two fun things that uh uh maybe I
didn't elaborate in the book, but uh
didn't get the contract. Now, it turns
out the FBI had a secret camera videoing
in a hotel room where somebody, a state
senator named Alan Robbins, took a
suitcase of $50,000 to vote for the
other guys. So, even though the FBI sent
him to prison, and that's all true and
fact, they didn't invalidate the
awarding of the contract to my
competition.
So, now I'm flying back to LA.
I didn't know how to raise money for my
first company. So, I had like 10 credit
cards all maxed out. I can't pay him. I
can't I I I I don't know what I'm going
to do. I don't even have enough money to
take a cab home from LAX. I'm trying to
figure out the bus system in Los
Angeles. All right. Public
transportation not our strong suit.
And they used to have back in the 80s
these nice counters manned by volunteer
little old ladies that would tell you
how to get a bus or a cab or a van or
hotel or anything. And of course by the
time I get back there's nobody there.
And then I go, "Wait a second. If she
was there, she could only speak English.
She would only know a certain amount of
information. There's visitors from tons
of languages.
Why don't you put a kiosk here? Why
don't you let people get all the
information, have liveness before the
internet, before smartphones, before any
of that. And today, when you go through
an airport, everything you do is with a
kiosk.
My back was against the wall. I didn't
set out to do a kiosk there. And most of
my early successes were somebody else
developed a piece of technology that
didn't hit its market. And I'm going,
"Wow, they got $100 million into making
those laser discs and nobody's buying
them for the home. They're interactive.
That'd be good for corporate training.
Let me go sell that to Ford. Let me go
sell that to to to this one and that
one." So, I started realizing that it
wasn't the inventors of technology. It
was the people that brought them to
market.
I have the skill set to do that. I just
have to figure out what's something and
move it somewhere else. And so that was
the genesis of a whole life where I
suddenly went look back one day and go,
"Wow, I came how far?" Doing what? Yeah.
I had this sense. So I'm reading the
book and I have this sense that
I started to envision myself walking
through the world pushing like piles of
cash out of the way to like get to
whatever stupid thing it was that I was
trying to do. Because every story you
would tell would start with like that
one where it was abject failure. You're
in the airport and now no longer have
enough money to get home, but from that
comes your first massive success. Yeah.
And then there was um another story
where you're doing music, you've got
this whole great idea for launching this
new digital service, nobody's going for
it, and you come up with the idea of the
concert in the sky. Yeah. Oh. Well, so
um didn't come up with the idea for
Concert in the Sky. back to failure. So,
Richard Branson, who's launched $8
billion companies, he's launched about
300 companies. The most genius thing
that that Richard ever did in hindsight
was his brand is virgin. Mhm. Which
means you're a newbie. You don't know
what you're doing. So, every company of
his that fails only strengthens the
brand. He's not afraid to try. Virgin
Cola. Oh, the other guys have every
piece of distribution on earth and a
Virgin Co. So anyway, he had had this
idea of uh doing for Virgin Airlines a
concert in the sky, but it's against FAA
rules to play an instrument on an
airplane. Really? Yeah. There used to be
an airline called MGM that in the
upstairs of the 747 had a piano bar and
the other people couldn't compete. So
they banned so that you can't play an
instrument uh because they could
interfere with the electronics and
everything else. So anyway, I have to
launch something up against iTunes.
I don't have the same budget. They're
spending $100 million a year
advertising. And so I go, "Okay, who's
got problems? Let me look and see who's
got problems." And there were two two
companies that had bad years. United,
one of the biggest carriers, was in
bankruptcy and was trying to come out of
bankruptcy. And Spurlock had just
unsupersized me and McDonald's sales
were down. Great. Now I've got my
partners. Now I just have to figure out
how to make what I want to do their
priority and spend their money to launch
my store. That's the way I think. That's
brilliant. You've said that there's no
such thing as not having money or
running out of money. OPM other people's
money. There's somebody else who wants
to reach the same audience that you do.
Most likely they don't have a new fresh
idea. If you bring a fresh idea, they
already have it budgeted. So for
McDonald's, we did uh uh buy a Big Mac,
get a free track. a secret code on every
Big Mac package and you get a free
download for my store, but you have to
register my new store to get it. So, 20
million customers register the first
week because nobody does marketing, TV
commercials, instore signage and I held
out on the contract for the tray liner.
So, when the kids are playing in Happy
Meal land, mom and dad are reading every
line of, "Oh, I can get free music." Um,
amazing marketing partner, amazing
company. And by the way, because I know
you're into health and nutrition, if
America wanted to eat tofu, McDonald's
be the number one seller of tofu. They
know marketing. Okay. Um, and then I
went to United and said, "Wow, you have
all these people that used to fly with
you that have enough miles, it turned
out, to go back and forth to Pluto nine
times. Let's let them use their frequent
flyer miles to get music in the store
and to announce this, we'll do this
concert." So, I took out of my back
pocket somebody else's idea that they
didn't execute. and Cheryl Crowe 30,000
ft and then we filled the plane with
nothing but journalists
shot a nine camera shoot edited on bio
laptops in in first class. So when they
got off the plane they had an edited
piece that could lead the evening news.
Wow. They painted the outside of the
plane. This whole thing cost nothing.
Not a penny. Did it earn you like $3
million before it even started? Yeah.
So, one of the punchlines of it was
McDonald's had done this great promotion
for the Olympics that was in Los Angeles
when that if you every time the US got a
gold medal, you got free French fries or
free burger or something and Russia
pulled out. So, we won all the medals
and McDonald's lost millions and
millions of dollars of promotion. So,
they took out insurance on all their
other promotions in case freak things
happen. What if everybody redeemed and
the price of this music was outrageous?
So after I got this signed off to do
this whole thing, McDonald's says,
"Okay, you know, we have to get
insurance for this." I go, "Oh yeah, you
know, I mean, everything's printed,
done. I've told everybody it's about to
lo and the insurance is $6 million, so
you got to pitch in three.
I don't have 3 million. I can't go to my
boss and oops, I made a $3 million
mistake." That's called career ending.
So I'm like, I'm screwed. This is This
is over. I'm like, I got into something
I don't understand. I didn't know. And
then I went through how do you solve a
problem? So the problem wasn't 3
million. The problem was insurance.
Said, wait a second. What if we insured
McDonald's?
They said, "Yeah." So we insured
McDonald's. So they wrote me a check for
3 million. So then I went to the board
and said, "Yep, we just launched this
thing and uh we haven't sold a single
song yet, but we are $3 million in
profits."
That's amazing. I wanted to punch myself
in the mouth when I read that story. And
then no, no, for real. And this is one
of those things that like I really want
to know like I want there to be a
process that I can use like write like a
here are the three things you have to
ask yourself at any moment of failure or
something. That would be so useful cuz
reading reading that and this I think is
your superpower. It's unbelievable
the way that Yes. It's it is how it felt
to read it that when so in the book he's
telling the story like it's happening in
real time right I'm going to be the hero
in the company and then oh [ __ ] like the
night before nope sorry you owe $3
million. That's where most people tap
out and they have a story where they
tell their friends, "I did this whole
thing. I lost my job because what am I
going to do? It's $3 million." Like like
I I hate the modern version of the dog
ate my homework is when an entrepreneur
says, "Our company was really going
well, but we couldn't raise any more
money." Yes. No. That's like you failed
at raising money. You don't know how to
raise money. You didn't go to people
that could raise your money. You didn't
tap everything. You didn't try
crowdfunding. You didn't I mean, don't
say, "Oh, well there we ran out of
money.
So, do you immediately go to I I need
money, but I don't yet know where I'm
going to get it, but I know that I have
a problem. Somebody else shares the
problem, and the solution would help us
both. I'll get them to pay for it. Is it
that sort of simple? Well, so the other
example was um when I wanted to sell
training to Ford Motor, I'm 20some years
old. To shorten the story, I had a
solution would save them a couple
hundred million. I know nothing about
cars. I know nothing about Detroit,
Ford, the old auto industry. And I'm in
California and I'm in my 20s and it's a
very conservative old-fashioned big
manufacturing da da and I'm trying to
solve for how do you connect the dots?
So, put yourself in the other person's
perspective. So, I'm trying to think who
does that executive that I want to
figure out who to meet, what's their day
like? What motivates them? What would
get them excited? You know, what what
would they spend time on? And so I'm
thinking this is middle America. This is
corporate America. This is Americana.
This is America, you know, the old, you
know, hot dog Chevrolet and football
type thing. You know, this is Ford
football. Well, I looked. There's a
football coach from Michigan State,
famous coach, award-winning coach who
just retired.
Easy to find him, call him up. You're my
new head of sales.
He knows nothing about technology. All
we have to do is go and get the meeting.
They talk about the football game of
such and such when the guy did the thing
with the thing and d what's the kid here
for? Okay, he's got some business. I kid
you not. It's that easy. And LinkedIn
was was was the Reed's way of turning
that into data.
You know somebody that knows somebody.
Mhm.
Right. We're all connected. So, how do
you say he's the smartest person you've
ever met? Oh, he's absolutely the
smartest person. Um, if you look at his
original business plan for LinkedIn,
there's there's 10 key pieces of data.
Number of users for the first 5 years
and revenue for the first 5 years. And
if you overlay the actual, it looks like
a glove. I mean, he sees things in a way
that's farther ahead than everybody
else. Um, uh, Reed Hoffen was one of the
first people to mention me this Airbnb
idea. Really? I'm going to let people
stay in my house? I don't think so. I'm
gonna stay at their house. I don't think
so. Oh, I should have paused and say a
Reed's smarter than me and B, it's not
about me. I'm not the demographic for
every case. Um, so Reed has invested and
started so many successful things since
since PayPal and LinkedIn and KA and
Zingga and you know the first money into
Facebook and connecting you know um uh
the first investors just one of those
type of people and everyone should spend
their time trying to be around people
that you feel are smarter than you that
doesn't necessarily mean more educated
right I'm no longer in the young
whippers snapper generation. So I have
to spend a lot of time with millennials
to understand the world from their point
of view because they have a huge
advantage over me. And do you do that
because you have younger kids or is
there a way to systematize that? So
that's one of the reasons I teach at
universities and and volunteer at at
hackathons and and and try to work
because we calcify a as humans. What we
do is we develop habits to free our mind
to do other things. So we don't have to
think about everything. A great example
was when one of my sons was looking for
an apartment. We're driving around. Oh,
write down that that that phone number.
We'll we'll call. That's a good
building. He takes his phone and goes
like this. Wouldn't have occurred to me.
Yes, I have a phone. Yes, I know it
takes pictures. Yes, I take pictures.
But I have a habit that says, you know,
grab a piece of paper. So if you can
break past the habits, you'll find that
there are problems that young people are
looking for that app because they assume
somebody must have already solved this.
And when they don't find it, they then
stop as opposed to you may have been the
first person to think about solving
traffic with an app, right? And when you
have a new field, AI, 3D printing, um,
augmented reality, it's virgin turf. You
don't have to be the best. So, here's
the takeaway. Be the best at what you do
or the only one doing it. Because if
you're the only one doing it, you're the
best. Yeah. And that's a lot better than
competing. What are some classic
mistakes you think entrepreneurs make?
Um,
not delegating is the first one really.
So, the biggest problem people have is
the second person you hire is not going
to be as good as you are at whatever it
was. And so what I try to explain to
first-time entrepreneurs is you're an A
student at whatever that is, you're
going to have to hire C students. So an
A student gets a 90 on a test, a C
student gets a 60, but two of them get
120. That's a great point. Okay. So
three of them are outdoing guaranteed
and you have to then figure out the
systems. Um the second one is I was
guilty of this for at least a decade if
not longer. I would leave meetings so
frustrated when to the older generation
why don't they get it I am right I'm so
right what don't they see I had this
meeting at a major corporation with the
CEO that I got into and I'm walking down
the long hallway in Armach New York past
IBM selects and IBM selectrics uh
typewriters on all the desks realizing
nobody in the seauite was on PCs I'm
going like oh this meeting is not going
to go well because I'm living in a
digital age and they're in
hieroglyphics. M and what I realized was
their job isn't to get it. They're
successful.
Their future may be in doubt, but
they're successful. You have to learn
how to explain the future
in a way the people living in the past
can embrace. And that's where change
happens. Going in there, you're wrong,
you're stupid, you know, you don't get
it. I when I came across that part in
the book, I stopped and wrote it down
verbatim. Um I'll paraphrase it here. um
their job isn't to get it. Your job is
to become so good at communication that
you can convince them of it. It was
something like that. And I was like, "Oh
man, those are words to live by."
Because it's so easy like you're saying
when people the classic excuse is, "Oh,
I ran out of money. Business was right
there, but I ran out of money." The same
thing is uh I've seen it countless times
in larger companies where people are
like, you know, I have this brilliant
idea, but they they don't get it like
you were saying. And when you take the
ownership yourself and you put yourself
in the driver's seat, I think you get a
step closer to what I think really has
made you so great and so successful and
is certainly what turned me on so much
about your book, which is basically Ryan
Holidayiday's concept of the obstacle is
the way. And it's really amazing when
you come up with a big hairy audacious
idea, goal, something, you know, you
want to get me motivated, there's only
one thing you have to say to me. You
can't. That's it. Right. Like it's you.
I'm like, you know, and it was funny.
Um, my editor of my book said, you know,
you're very competitive. And because I
never played sports, I go, I'm not
competitive. I just have to win. I mean,
I I never thought of myself as that. And
then her other takeaway was, you know,
this is really a story about resilience.
And I'm going, I'm not resilient. You
just don't have any other choice. The
projects and and the changes that I'm
working on around the world, the
governments that I'm working with to to
change their culture because we have an
advantage. We actually embrace failure
more than any other country. So my
generation it was I love Lucy or Jackie
Gleason would have a get-richqu theme.
You know uh your generation it was Homer
Simpson. You know he's got this
get-richqu scheme. It all fails and then
life goes on. In the rest of the world
that life goes on part isn't part of the
the dialogue. So, we're a country that
was made up of people that came here
overcoming odds
for something better. Well, that's that
basic, you know, pioneer spirit, right?
And then at some point, we become a
national settlers that just settle for
the way it is. We got to get more of
that pioneer thing because there's so
much abundance and it's not an us versus
them.
everybody can benefit.
Why wouldn't you want that? Talk to me
about education because you said that we
educate our youth like um it's a it's a
scarcity mindset. Well, it's it's it's
fill in the blank, you know, measure
measure measure that which can be
measured, right? So, I'll I'll I'll I'll
do something I've never done on camera.
I cheated myself out of a good college
education. I went to great university
UCLA. Okay. But I was so focused on
getting into graduate school that the
goal of those four years was how do you
get all A's? So the easiest way to get
all A's is to take the easiest courses.
So I worked with the athletic department
and helped their athletes and in
exchange I got to take the classes that
were set aside for them which
instant a um but I never took the
classes of what I wanted to learn and
what would have challenged me and what
would have grown and so I took that
approach and I'll embarrass one of my
sons went to Brown and when he came to
me and said Brown has no required
courses and no no grades I'm going like
oh I thought of myself I go oh four
years apart and then I looked at it and
it's market economy. So, think of it for
a second. The English department only
gets funded if kids take the English
courses. Geology only gets funded. No
one's required to take any of them. So,
you're only going to take the classes
and there's no grades. So, no risk that
you hear are the most stimulating, most
interesting, greatest classes. So all
the course and the quality of those
courses go up as opposed to me taking
rocks for jocks or whatever simplistic
thing that the person teaching it hated
teaching it and the students hated
taking it but it was just a tick box. So
if you can get out of that tickbox
mentality. So Brown's completely changed
the dynamic and made it a buyer markets
where students are the ones deciding
which professors keep a job because if
nobody takes the class it's over and how
important do you think a traditional
college education is today? So I teach
at a university and one of the you know
telling telling my students to drop out
is you know not good for the university
and not the right thing
for most people getting into lifelong
debt.
It will not be a financial advantage.
So that's the truth. you know, um I I
have another son that did Princeton
undergrad and my kids are going to hate
me for this and and and uh Harvard MBA
and basically it was, "Dad, no matter
what I do in life, I'll never starve
because somebody will hire that." You're
right. Okay. So, it's two lines that get
you through the the sorting process. But
that's an individual choice. Not every
path requires that. And by the way, some
of the most educated, brightest people I
know didn't get a formal education.
Khan Academy, everything. You can sit in
front of that computer and watch cats on
a piano or the latest meme or learn to
program, learn a new language, be a
master of some discipline. You're
connected to mankind's complete history
of thought. So you can self-educate, but
for some jobs and some of that filter,
you won't get in the door unless they
see that college degree. And we actually
have a a gap right now with several
million openings of jobs in the US that
require a college degree that there
aren't applicants for the whole sharing
economy. Genius. Okay. A car spends most
of its time parked.
Why own something that sits there? I I
in in my speeches around the world, the
one thing that gets people is I ask
everybody, "How many people own electric
drill? Do you own an electric drill?"
Yes. So, in your lifetime, according to
the drill makers association, whatever,
you'll drill for like 12 minutes. That's
high for me, but you know, you got the
new bookshelf. Do you know that's it?
Now, if a drone could deliver it in the
morning, you do your thing and pick it
up. You just, you know, rent it. Rent
it. Well, Rent the Runway was renting
fashion. You know, a woman had to face
this horrible choice. Spend all her
money to get that one beautiful dress
and then be known as the girl in the
pink dress for the next 20 events. Okay.
Or you could rent a different designer
account and now that changes what's
being manufactured and all that. So,
there's so much opportunity. I'm like a
kid in a candy store. And what path do
you plan to go down? What are things
you're pursuing? Is it AR, VR? So, um
I'm super passionate about AR and VR. I
I think it transforms the the workplace.
I'll give you a new way to think of of
of of how much automation is going to
change things. Have you ever sat like
we're all little boys inside and watch
the big cranes on construction sites? Of
course, that's a scary job. Some guy
goes up there in the morning, sits there
with his coffee, reading or whatever,
and at 10:00, you know, he's got to move
the thing from here to there and then,
you know, at noon he moves another
thing. I mean, I'm making fun of the
job. It's but and they blow over and
they die. Um, but if you think about it,
he's not looking out the window moving
the thing. He's looking at screens and
there's cameras. Why can't he be sitting
in a studio like this like a drone
operator? Yeah, great point. Working on
a crane in New York. Oh, they need to
move something in Dubai. No problem. Oh,
need to move something in Shanghai.
Doesn't have to be there. Yeah,
teleresence is what VR and AR is all
about. Do you know the X-P prize? Yeah.
So, they actually have an X-P prize
coming out called the Avatar X-P Prize.
Exactly. for that kind of thing. ANA
Airlines, I think, is the sponsor of
Yes. So, so yeah, Peter and I Peter's a
fan of the book and I'm a fan of his. We
do a a lot of a lot of the same uh
things, but uh yeah, and what a great
way, you know, the whole concept of the
X-P prize of of dangle
a a bunch of money for something that
seems impossible and the more money you
dangle, the more possible it becomes.
Yeah. That's it goes back to what I
think is your central thesis which there
are all these problems. These problems
are ultimately solvable a and b
monetizable. That was the thing that
drew me to the X-P prize is really
looking for the huge opportunities in
the world's greatest challenges. I mean
it's really an incredible model. All
right. I have one uh before we get to
the final question. I have one random
question for you. Do I understand
correctly that you're into like magic?
Uh yes. And how did you get into magic?
Why are you into magic? Um, everybody
has a hobby. Uh, uh, at 4 years old, I
saw a magician. I thought it was the
most amazing thing I ever saw. Um, both
from the tricks that he did and the
power that that person standing on a
stage had over everybody else. You know,
it was the first time that I got to see
adults not understand their world.
Something as a kid that you're used to
and go, "Oh, they can't figure out what
he's doing." Um, turns out as an
entrepreneur, it's probably the greatest
form of training that you could have as
a magician. And it's because when you go
to see a singer, you want to see them
sing their best. When you go to see a
dancer, you want to see them dance their
best. When you go to see a magician, you
want to see them [ __ ] up. Okay? So, it's
the only art form where the audience is
against them. They're trying to figure
it out. Right? If you can overcome that,
right, convincing somebody to put a song
in a burger or sing at 35,000 ft is
pretty easy. Magicians were used to win
World War II. Magicians were used in the
Iraq war. We still, you know, call Yeah.
Are there examples? Oh, yeah. Lots of
great stuff. So, uh um the Nazis wanted
to bomb the Suez Canal and before fancy
radar and stuff, you would eyeball it.
Okay. They knew where Cairo was. They
knew where it was. So they would go out
every night to bomb Cairo and they wake
up the next day and they have spies in
the city and go, "He didn't bomb Cairo."
And they come out the next day. What
they did is they mapped out from aerial
where all the lights of Cairo were. Go
out in the desert, do the same thing.
Shuts off all the lights on the city at
night