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Optimal minimal.
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At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
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I'm a cybernetic organism living this year with a metal endoskeleton.
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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn's Hello Monday.
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Hello Monday is a podcast.
1:38
Hello Monday with Jessie Hempel is back for season 2 and the show is full of advice, practical tactical advice that you can start using today.
1:47
Each week Jessie sits down with featured guests to investigate the role work plays in their lives, how it can be integrated into your life, and how to make work work for you better.
1:56
This season one of the first episodes is Jerry Colonna who has been called the CEO Whisperer.
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I've actually done quite a bit of work with Jerry and he is one of the world's most in-demand executive coaches amongst the startup ecosystem.
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In the episode Jerry shares his approach to meetings, explains how to ask good open-ended questions, and he also goes through his approach to daily journaling among other things.
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Journaling can really create an incredible competitive advantage and also act as an emotional rebalancing tool of sorts.
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2:58
Well, hello boys and girls.
2:58
This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where it is my job every episode to attempt to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types to tease out the routines, favorite books, habits, and so on that you may apply to your own life.
3:15
My guest this episode is Ben Horowitz.
3:19
You can find him on Twitter @bhorowitz, h o r o w i t z.
3:24
Ben is a co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
3:28
He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Hard Thing About Hard Things and the brand new Harper Business Book What You Do Is Who You Are.
3:40
He also created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund.
3:43
If you are wondering what a16z stands for, just count the number of letters between the beginning and the end of Andreessen Horowitz.
3:51
So, he created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect cultural leaders to the best new technology companies and enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry.
4:02
Prior to a16z, that's Andreessen Horowitz, Ben was co-founder and CEO of Opsware, formerly known as Loudcloud, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1. 6 billion in 2007.
4:15
Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications including the widely acclaimed directory and security product line.
4:23
He has an MS and BA in computer science from UCLA and Columbia University respectively.
4:28
So, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with the one and only Ben Horowitz.
4:40
Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks, Tim. Very excited to be here.
4:44
And I have so many questions.
4:44
I have pages and pages of questions.
4:45
We'll try to get to as many as possible.
4:50
I thought I would start with a name that I know you're familiar with and that is Andy Grove.
4:56
That may not be a name that all people know, but could you please describe who Andy is, why he's interesting to you?
5:06
Yeah, so Andy was kind of one of the founders of Intel, which is kind of the foundational company of Silicon Valley if there was any.
5:15
And and foundational not only technologically but also culturally.
5:19
Um, I think importantly and just an amazing guy.
5:23
Probably, you know, for my money the best CEO we ever had out here.
5:28
Um, but you know, he started his life he was a refugee from Hungary from World War II and you know, he had to escape the Nazis and then the Communists.
5:38
Uh, and kind of came over on a boat and with I forgot they gave him like $27 when he got to New York and he taught himself English and he kind of went to school at CCNY and became a physicist and then, you know, eventually met up with um Bob Noyce.
5:58
He actually told me a very funny story towards the end of his life where Gordon Moore, who was the, you know, the famous Moore's Law and the founder, also a co-founder of Intel, um, when they brought Andy in to Fairchild Semiconductor, uh, the way they picked him out and Andy told me this very light.
6:21
He said, "He finished his PhD at Berkeley in 2 and 1/2 years and they and Gordon Moore had found that people who finished their PhD quickly correlate with high performers."
6:31
So, that's how he got the job.
6:36
Well, that's perfect jumping off point for about a half a dozen things that I was meaning to get to anyway, but let's I'll try to ratchet back my my caffeine enthusiasm and and focus on Andy for a bit longer. High Output Management.
6:55
You wrote the forward to a reprint of that book which when I lived in Silicon Valley I was able to observe the the the rebirth of sort of the resurgence of this book and its popularity and I know some incredible founders who have stacks of this book in their offices to give away.
7:15
Uh, why did you agree or offer to write the forward and what are some of the takeaways that people might find in that book or that you found of particular value?
7:27
Yeah, well, you know, it was my favorite management book by far.
7:30
In fact, I I think it might have been the only management book that I ever read that I liked.
7:34
that I liked. So, it was, you know, quite a thing for me when Andy called me and he said, "Ben, you know, I was watching you give this talk at Stanford and you know, in the talk I was talking about my book, my first book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and somebody asked me why I wrote it and I said, 'Well, you know, when I was a kid, um, I read this book High Output Management
7:56
and it like it was amazing cuz it was the CEO of Intel, which is like the most important company in technology, and he wrote this book and it wasn't to like, you know, say how great he was or like, you know, like all these books
8:08
that these guys write who, you know, run big companies and how like they here's what I learned the value of a dollar and then this is when I built a great big company and all this kind of thing they say. Um, but it was a book to teach like
8:18
Um, but it was a book to teach like young people like myself how to manage.
8:23
So, it was just a complete contribution back to the environment with really, you know, in a way nothing in it for him.
8:30
And you know, I always when I, you know, reading that book I said, "Well, if I ever make it, if I ever kind of become anybody that anybody wants to listen to, I'm going to write the sequel to High Output Management."
8:39
And that was I tried to do with The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
8:43
So, when he called me, you know, there was no question.
8:46
I was like, "100% I'll write the forward."
8:48
Um, but the reason it was such a great book is it was kind of the original hard thing about hard things in that most management books are like, "Here's all the obvious easy stuff."
8:58
And here's like eight like random steps to do the most easiest thing in the world that anybody could figure out like who, you know, wasn't like an idiot.
9:09
Uh, but Andy Grove it was like he went all the way like right to the worst, hardest, most messed up things that you'd have to do.
9:17
So, like, you know, one of the things I remember from the book is he goes, "Well, hey, like you're writing performance review and the rule of thumb is you never put anything in a performance review that you haven't already told the employee. Right?
9:29
Yeah, and then we reading like, "Yep, that's the rule that's what we do."
9:33
And he's like, "Okay, so now you're at the performance review and there's something that the employee needs to improve that you haven't told them, what do you do?"
9:41
And it's like, "Okay, that's a that's a real like thing."
9:43
And he's like, "Do you put it in the review or do you not put it in the review?"
9:46
And uh, you know, his thing is you got to put it in the review and like it's bad that you didn't tell him, but it's worse to not tell him now.
9:54
And, you know, and those kinds of difficult decisions like, you know, how you really do that or like, you know, it's like, "Okay, you know, people are late to meetings, you know, they're wasting everybody's time, so stealing money from the company."
10:07
Like, but like it's very awkward to deal with them.
10:09
And so, how do you deal with them on that? And that kind of thing.
10:12
Which is really what you need to know to put any of these management techniques into effect is like, how do you do it when there's real conflict?
10:22
And you know, that's why it's such a just just an amazing book.
10:24
Um So, you mentioned the the coming to meetings late.
10:29
And in in one of your blog posts, you have some you have some fantastic blog posts and excellent writing both of course on the web in this case and then in the books.
10:40
But that you you share an anecdote uh that begins with uh for example, we could talk about sort of wartime versus peacetime CEOs.
10:47
But a basic principle of most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee in a public setting.
10:53
But Andy Grove in the situation that you just mentioned once said to an employee who entered a meeting late, quote, "All I have in this world is time and you're wasting my time." End quote.
11:05
That's one of my favorite things.
11:07
And uh and we'll we'll we'll almost And you have to realize when he said that like he was like God.
11:10
So, it was like God you know, it's God of Intel.
11:13
And like you're walking into an Intel meeting.
11:14
So, it's like God telling you that you're wasting his time.
11:18
Uh so, I I suppose the the first question that I'd like to ask and we may end up getting into the wartime versus peacetime CEO differentiation.
11:27
But what occurs to me is that he has he has a scientific background.
11:31
He's an engineering and physics background.
11:33
You also have a computer science background.
11:35
How do you think about management?
11:39
What is And I know this is a very broad question, but do you think about management differently than many people?
11:48
I would seem to be that the answer is yes.
11:51
Also just based on the observation you had about most management books, which I would agree with.
11:56
How how has your experience uh your life experience maybe including computer science informed how you approach or think about management?
12:09
Well, I think it's you know, it's an interesting combination cuz there's a part of an engineering background that's extremely helpful, which is um you know, can you think about systems?
12:20
And can you think about like how like broad scale systems interactions occur and like what the implications are?
12:28
And then there's a different part, which is a very kind of I would say high EQ component, which is in order to make that system work, you have to be able to see the company through the eyes of the people who are doing the work, which are usually the people who are not in the room when you're making the decision.
12:49
And you have to understand how it's going to affect them, how it's going to change their behavior and so forth.
12:52
Um you know, just so for as an example of that like, you know, it's easy like if somebody comes to you and they say, "You know, Ben, I really deserve a raise."
13:02
And you could go, "Okay, well, you know, like I like you and I want you to like me, so I'll give you that raise."
13:08
But you have to think about, you know, if you're bad at at all, you go, "Okay, well, I how will it look to the people who are not here? Is that fair?
13:18
Have they gotten a chance at it?
13:20
Is this person just getting the raise cuz he came into my office?
13:24
Or like, you know, does he really deserve it?
13:26
So, do I have a systematic process to evaluate talent and allocate the money that we have?
13:30
Or do I run it like that because I'm not really thinking about it from everybody else's perspective?
13:37
And so, you kind of end up needing both to be good at it.
13:44
And I think you know, kind of going back to Andy screaming at that employee, that that's kind of a little bit in the balance, right?
13:49
Because, you know, that employee is definitely going to be like ashamed and horrified and maybe demotivated by him publicly embarrassing him.
13:59
But in that instance, what he was doing was something different, which was he was setting the culture and saying, "Look, culturally, fundamentally, like I'm going to teach everybody in this company a lesson by saying something that's so powerful and so colorful that it's going to spread like wildfire through my company.
14:16
And everybody's going to know that it's not okay to waste people's time by being late for a meeting.
14:21
And that's more important in this case than the individual.
14:25
So, it gets you know, it's kind of a Confucian approach.
14:27
The good of the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the whole.
14:32
And you have to do that as CEO from time to time.
14:35
Now, you don't want to do it gratuitously because that is definitely going to hurt somebody's feelings.
14:39
So, you know, and and maybe that's a a great employee or whatever, but you do, you know, and particularly if the culture is in place and they're kind of willfully ignoring the culture, which I you know, I I believe is the case in this case, um then you have to kind of value the system and value that above that person's feelings.
15:01
And these are kind of the tradeoffs that you make uh in management.
15:05
And that's why it is complicated to get it right.
15:06
Uh and why like it's not, you know, it's always like broken down in management books are often it's like you're talking to one person at a time.
15:16
And that's never the case.
15:16
You're always talking to everybody.
15:18
If this is a useful distinction, I'd love for you to to define the two terms for us or the differences between two terms.
15:26
And that is management and leadership.
15:28
How do you how do you distinguish between those two?
15:33
I know it seems like a stupid question maybe, but I I Yeah.
15:37
If I'd love for you to if if you're able to just comment on that for a second.
15:39
Or if it's a bad question, we can move on.
15:43
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of leadership is or the way I think about it.
15:47
And you know, they're kind of you know, you know, my own dictionary of it is you know, leadership there there there's kind of a is a lot of getting is the art of kind of getting people to follow you.
16:00
And as uh Colin Powell said, you know, if only out of curiosity.
16:07
Um And I think so that that involves kind of you know, having a vision, being able to articulate it, being inspiring, making, you know, creating a feeling uh among people that you that you care about them in a way and you care about uh you know, their goals and objectives and and you know, what they want out of life.
16:29
And people want to follow people who have, you know, some number of those attributes.
16:35
Um management gets more into, okay, you have this great vision, you've articulated everybody likes it.
16:40
But like how do you operationalize it?
16:42
How do you kind of break it down into its steps?
16:47
How do you make sure that people who need to communicate are communicating um in these kinds of things.
16:53
So, it's kind of you know, leader a lot of leadership is, you know, knowing what to do, getting people to follow you.
16:59
And then, you know, management involves getting people to do what you know.
17:07
And that's a kind of a little bit of a different part of your brain.
17:10
It's you know, leadership's a little more on the creative side.
17:13
Management's, you know, requires a little more discipline and systematization.
17:20
So, on the on the on the former, in the case of leadership, getting people to follow you if only out of curiosity.
17:26
And and this may may not be a fit, but in the course of doing research for this conversation, I I came across mention of a paper called Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager.
17:42
Yeah, I wrote that when I was a little kid.
17:44
Yeah, and it it seems like, at least the way it was phrased in this Fortune piece, uh it be it quote became a bible for the startups, in this case referring to Netscape, uh for the startups' unpolished young executives.
17:56
So, could you describe that paper and what impact it had on you and or the people around you when it came out?
18:11
Yeah, so you know, it's funny.
18:11
It was a it was a piece I wrote out of pure frustration.
18:15
So, turns out like product manager is a weird job in Silicon Valley in that in every single company it means something different.
18:25
Um you know, and so like what you do is that doesn't really translate well from one company to the next.
18:31
And many companies have just bad product management functions.
18:36
And so, you know, the people that I kind of inherited when I got the job to run the team, all had these like different and differing and weird views on what the job was.
18:48
And I you know, I always found myself like yelling at them going like, "Does that make any sense to you?" That kind of thing.
18:55
You know, like I was like at that level of frustration.
18:56
And then, you know, one day I was just like, you know, I have to train like the team on what I want.
19:02
And I was like, "But I I don't have time to put a training program together."
19:06
So, I sat down I just wrote this document, Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager.
19:11
And the thing I had in my you know, head was like and and it's a bad thought, but it was like, "This is going to be like dog training."
19:20
You know, like, "Bad bad dog. Good dog. Bad dog."
19:24
And so, that's where the name came from.
19:26
Uh But it was really just, you know, like like this is what good product managers do and this is what bad product managers do.
19:33
And just like let's just be clear on that.
19:35
So, like you'll know you can anticipate what I'm going to say if you do something bad.
19:39
And and we don't have to have that conversation all the time.
19:43
Um and so, that that's all it started out to be.
19:46
And then what happened was kind of as, you know, as you said is like people value just getting that information so much that not only did my team use it, but then everybody at Netscape started using it, and then like, you know, a huge number of people, you know, product managers in Silicon Valley still like refer to that thing which I wrote in 1995.
20:10
And what it taught me was like everybody, no matter how smart they are, no matter like they went to Stanford or Harvard or whatever, they can always use training in the job that you want them to do because the job that you need them to do is one these jobs are very complex, and they, uh, you know, and and they're different.
20:31
And, uh, and a lot of it is what do you expect as a manager?
20:34
And so, if you're manager who doesn't train your people, you probably I can't imagine you're a good at at your job.
20:40
Um, just cuz there's no way they're going to be able to read your mind on everything.
20:46
So, I'd like to talk, uh, about more lessons learned, and then I'm going to segue from that into how you might teach others because in a lot of ways you do teach others.
20:58
Uh, let's let's chat about Bill Campbell.
21:00
And, um, Bill Campbell has come up once before on this podcast when I had a conversation with Eric Schmidt.
21:07
Uh, legendary figure known throughout the Valley as coach, has has advised people like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and so on.
21:19
Uh, could you, uh, share what your relationship was like with Bill, and what, uh, some of the things or any of the things that you that you really absorbed from Bill?
21:35
Yeah, so, you know, I mean, he was just such a great help to me, um, as CEO.
21:42
And a lot of it was just, uh, you know, being able to have a conversation with somebody who knew what I was talking about, and, um, and who knew what they were talking about, you know, at the same time, which is when you're CEO, it's just very difficult to have those in a way, you know, that's kind of confidential and and like not with like somebody who could like remove you, uh, and that kind of thing.
22:09
And so, he was just, um, invaluable to me in that sense.
22:13
And and a lot of what was so great about him is, you know, we could So, on the one hand, like we could argue about whatever, and like he would have input, and like maybe I would, you know, listen to it, maybe I won't, but it would never whatever I did never affected the relationship, you know, it was it was just that kind of thing with him.
22:34
Um, but the thing that he did better than anybody that I've worked with is he could really see the company through the employee like through the eyes of every single employee.
22:45
He he knew how people would react to every single decision.
22:50
And, you know, and he wouldn't even running the company, he would just come in once in a while and so forth, he'd know enough people in it, he would But he had just like this incredible sense about that.
23:00
Um, and and then, you know, and then that just proved to be very valuable.
23:05
So, I'll give you an example.
23:07
So, uh, you know, we had done this giant deal with EDS to sell them kind of our old we had this, uh, business that was going to kind of basically make us bankrupt.
23:16
And by doing the transaction with EDS, we kind of escaped bankruptcy, and then kind of launched into this other business, the software business, which eventually became like worth like $1.
23:26
6 billion there, I think that was it.
23:29
Um, and, you know, so it's like the probably the most important deal we'd ever done as a company, and, you know, we do the deal, and I go, "Bill, like, you know, we got the deal done, I can't even believe it, you know, we're going to announce it, you know, I'm going to go to New York on Monday, and we're going to announce it."
23:46
And he's like, "No, no, no, you can't go."
23:49
And I was like, "Well, why can't I go?"
23:50
And he's like, "Well, like, when you do the deal, right, like this deal's going to involve selling some employees to them, laying some people off, and so forth.
23:58
As soon as that news hits, you got to be in person in the company talking to the employees and letting everybody know where they stand as quickly as possible."
24:06
And I was like, "Oh, of course, he's right."
24:09
You know, I I I hadn't even like thought that through.
24:12
And had I not done that, um, you know, I So, I did that, I sent Mark to New York to do the announcement.
24:18
But had I not done that, had I not kind of stayed back and had that conversation, I don't think we would have made it as a company because that day ended up being pivotal, you know, to reconstructing the trust that I needed to kind of run the company going forward.
24:33
And, you know, that that that's the kind of, uh, value that Bill added.
24:37
Um, but I, you know, I if you want to like know who he is, the the only person I've ever met who's like could do the thing that Bill could do, uh, is Oprah Winfrey. Hm.
24:46
Um, and I know it sounds probably weird in a way, but like Oprah Winfrey can like meet you and talk to you for 5 minutes, and she can know you as well as somebody's known you 10 years.
25:01
And Bill could do that, too. That's so wild.
25:04
yeah, and and you may have run into somebody like that, but it is amazing.
25:08
What what do you think is behind that?
25:10
Is it an ability to see behind the words and just deeply empathically sense more about your core personality and what's shaped it than other people?
25:23
What allows an Oprah, for instance, to do that?
25:26
Do you give have any any theories?
25:28
Yeah, so, I it's definitely a combination of things that I don't possess.
25:33
Um, so, it's a little hard to read it, but, you know, yeah, she kind of can read in every signal you're sending.
25:44
So, like the tone of your voice, the expression on your face, like the way you're holding your hands, everything like is complete high-fidelity information to her.
25:53
And then she knows the exact right question to ask to get to the deeper level of what's going on.
26:01
Um, and I, you know, like I've seen her do it, I've seen Bill do it, I learn from it, but like I've I like literally don't have the capacity to do it anywhere near their level.
26:11
Um, but yeah, it's some combination of like they're able to just process way, way more information about a person much, much faster, and then great retention on like the thousand people they've met before that might match to that.
26:27
And it is it's super impressive, though.
26:32
Yeah, there is, uh, it's it's I enjoy trying to deconstruct the secret sauce, but sometimes it is just impossible to do.
26:41
I mean, they're they're they're they're they're magic.
26:44
Yeah, there's certain people who are hardwired for, uh, a different spectrum of of perception.
26:51
Uh, on the other hand, there are a lot of coachable or teachable skills.
26:54
And if we're if we're looking at management, I'd like to shift from, in some respect, uh, student of Bill or advice receiver of Bill Campbell to advice giver.
27:06
And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has said that you are the management guru to all of the young entrepreneurs in the Valley, and I want to I want to dig into that for a second because, of course, you have much vaster experience than I do, but having spent almost 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving, spent a lot of time with first-time startup founders who, in some cases, have a real tiger by the tail.
27:31
And many of these CEOs are really great product people with no real management experience to speak of who have never had this type of, uh, game to lose, if that makes sense.
27:47
Uh, what would you teach or what do you teach or advise someone like that if you have, say, a first afternoon meeting with them or a few hours?
27:58
They're a new portfolio company, in walks this bewildered CEO who's entering deep waters.
28:09
Uh, how do how do you how do you begin to cultivate them or advise them as a manager in training, so to speak, or CEO in training?
28:18
Yeah, so, you know, they're all different, but there's things that are similar about them, you know, and some of them are good at some things and others about others.
28:25
So, I I don't know if there's a, uh, kind of thing that I would say to any of them, but, you know, one thing they all struggle with is how to build, uh, their team, you know, particularly their management team.
28:40
And and kind of when what you're speaking about, okay, like it's different if, you know, they're not succeeding or whatever, but if they're succeeding, and like the company's kind of degenerating cuz they don't know how to run it.
28:52
Um, then that usually kind of gets into, uh, this whole executive hiring, integrating, managing problem.
29:01
And this is First of all, none of them are good at it.
29:07
Like I we've never had a first-time CEO who is good at this, and I know I wasn't good at it when I started.
29:11
And the problem is, okay, you know, your board goes, "Hey, you you need to hire like a CFO.
29:16
Like, you know, somebody's got to keep track of this place. It's it's going crazy.
29:21
Like, what are you doing?"
29:21
You go, "Okay, I'm going to hire a CFO."
29:23
And you go, "Okay, uh, you know, and you go, "Well, I'm the CEO, so I must know how to do that."
29:28
But you don't know how to do that.
29:30
And not only that, like you've never worked in a finance organization, you don't even know what the CFO job is.
29:35
Like I always ask my It's like, you know, "What's a good control structure?
29:40
How would you distinguish a good one from a bad one?"
29:43
You know, like and they I no idea.
29:45
Like and so, like how are they going to interview a CFO?
29:47
It's sort of like interviewing a Japanese interpreter if you don't know Japanese.
29:52
They all sound wonderful, right?
29:54
Now, I'm going to I'm going to plead ignorance before we get too deep into the weeds.
29:57
What is a control structure in this context?
30:02
Yeah, so you know, just how does money get spent?
30:04
You know, like do you know every dollar that's getting spent?
30:08
You know, when money comes in, like do you account for it properly? These kinds of things.
30:12
And how do you do that systematically as the company grows and you know, people have budgets and all these kinds of things.
30:21
Uh so you get you know, so so it's just something that they don't know how to do and they don't know how to ask say that they don't know how to do it and they don't know how to kind of learn how to do it.
30:32
And so I always like to just start with okay, like let's talk about a process for learning how to you know, possibly at least get a criteria for your company for this position, not like a general like you know, the platonic form of a CFO cuz that doesn't exist.
30:52
But like a CFO for this company right now, like what do we need?
30:57
And then we you know, how do we do that?
30:59
Well, maybe we should talk to some CFOs, see what they would hire for, see if that matches us, you know, see how they would test for it in an interview and then you know, kind of get deeper into it.
31:08
But even as you go through all that, like you know, then you okay, once that CFO gets signed, how do you teach them about your company?
31:18
You know, what is day one like?
31:20
How do you integrate them? These kinds of things.
31:22
So it's you know, it really is kind of has to be a hand-over-hand instruction.
31:29
And then like you know, once they're in there, if you hire somebody, you know, a lot of times these CEOs will hire somebody who's so senior and so aggressive you know, cuz they went for the biggest resume they could find and the person wants doesn't want to be CFO, they want to be CEO.
31:46
Uh and then you know, that person will start you know, trying to grab territory from the CEO and all these kinds of things and you've got politics you've got to handle and and so you know, it's just a long I would say it's not a quick manual, it's a kind of ongoing conversation to understand where they are, what they have to do, how to retain their mojo, all that kind of thing. Mhm.
32:09
And well, I'll I'll start with saying that the hard thing about hard things, your book one of your books I should say is one of the most recommended books that has come up in the last handful of years on this podcast. I appreciate that.
32:26
By what I would consider certainly high performing founders and CEOs.
32:32
You you mentioned or we mentioned high output management earlier.
32:34
Are there any other books that you would give to a first-time founder who does have a tiger by the tail, who's who's doing well but clearly out of their depth in this in a in a new level of complexity with with running what it what is turning into a a company as opposed to just a a a good product?
33:00
Yeah, so you know, it's funny.
33:02
People always ask me like, what are the management books you'd recommend?
33:05
And I'd be like, I I don't know.
33:07
Um So I you know, I think that um you know, and and it depends a a little on the leader.
33:17
You know, one of the books that I have been recommending for years is a book written by C. L. R.
33:24
James in 1937 called uh The Black Jacobins, which is the story of the Haitian Revolution.
33:32
And you go, okay, what kind of leadership book is that?
33:37
But it turns out that the uh you know, that the Toussaint Louverture who kind of led that revolution was a basically a management and cultural genius.
33:52
Like better than anybody that I've ever kind of read about or or learned from.
33:58
And you know, it just ends up being a great leadership book.
34:00
I think Colin Powell's book his autobiography is very very interesting on leadership.
34:09
Uh and you know, there there is a bunch of I think you know, like if it's a little company, Eric Reese's book is great, you know, The Lean Startup.
34:19
Yeah, I mean amazing at teaching you things that you know, particularly if you've not built a new company before are just really fundamental lessons.
34:32
And we see I mean, you know, all there have been some things in the news you know, uh lately that you know, about kind of with fat startups which were kind of all the ones from my era, but uh you know, the the dangers of a fat
34:48
startup I think he really articulates amazingly well in that book and and that is one of the early traps you can fall into particularly in an environment like this where there's a lot of venture capital money running around. Mhm. Mhm.
35:02
And did the the job of CEO uh you know, I've enjoyed a lot of your writing and uh in one of your blog posts I think I think the title is making yourself a CEO.
35:13
At least that's Yeah, you talk about how the the job of CEO is a very unnatural job and that and I'm I'm cherry-picking here a couple of lines, but to be a good CEO in order to be liked in the long run, you must do many things that will upset people in the short run, unnatural things.
35:34
Uh how have you cultivated that ability in yourself or helped others to cultivate a willingness to be unpopular in the short run?
35:45
I think this at least strikes me as a real critical differentiator.
35:52
Uh could you speak to that?
35:54
Yeah, so no no, that is you know, you've hit on probably one of the most important kind of leadership skills.
36:02
And you know, the easiest way way to think about it is like if you make decisions that everybody likes all the time, then those are the decisions they would have made without you.
36:12
So you're not actually adding any value.
36:16
You know, it's so almost by definition, you know, a lot of the most important decisions end up being ones that you know, people don't agree with and don't like and are difficult and cause people not to like you at least for a while.
36:30
And you know, the way I generally work with CEOs on this is cuz it's very difficult cuz you know, there there there's so much emotional, psychological force pushing them to make kind of the wrong decision, the easy decision is going to be the people-pleasing decision.
36:47
And a lot of it is just pointing out what's going to happen, letting them make it and then when the pain comes, go, you remember we talked about this and this is what happens.
36:58
And you know, a lot of it is just you have to go through making those mistakes to train yourself to you know, it's kind of like it's running towards the darkness.
37:09
You know, like there's this pain and dark area where you know, like people aren't going to like you, you know, it's going to suck, you know, you like maybe you have to fire somebody, maybe you have to lay them off, maybe you have to make a very unpopular decision to cancel a project or whatever.
37:27
Um but if you run away from that, because then you always know you have to do it.
37:32
Like you can sense it when you run a company.
37:35
If you run away from that, that's you know, that's when you really get a huge raging fire and that you know, will potentially burn down your company.
37:42
potentially burn down your company. And seems to me and if I've never run a large company, but just in my interactions with various CEOs and founders that um coming back to the CEO position as a very unnatural job, that there are there
37:57
are certain maybe technical abilities or procedural abilities maybe that are are pretty easily trained or relatively straightforward and then there are others that are perhaps less explicitly taught and uh one that you've written about before is the ability to manage your own psychology. Um Yeah. What what tools or techniques Um Yeah.
38:24
What what tools or techniques have you personally found or routines, anything at all really, to be useful for cultivating an ability to manage your own psychology?
38:36
And and maybe you could just describe what that means.
38:41
Yeah, so I mean you know, like it's uh it is certainly the hardest part of the job because what happens is and you don't think about this when you're starting a company.
38:49
It's like one of these and I always talk to entrepreneurs about this.
38:54
I'm like, you know, if you knew what was involved when you started, you would never would have started.
38:57
They're like, absolutely right.
38:58
There's no way I would have done this.
38:59
You know, so it's kind of a blessing that you don't know cuz if you did know, then you know, nothing would ever happen.
39:06
Um but like the kind of thing that happens is okay, you have this idea to start a company and then if you just think about that socially, you know, like okay, so then you've got a lot of friends and relatives and like some of them are excited for you, some of them say that's never going to work and you da da da and you want to prove them wrong and all that.
39:26
But then you got to go out and you've got to sell people on the idea.
39:27
So you've got to hire people into this kind of vision that you have and then you've got to raise money behind it and like often like some of that money might even come from like your relatives or that kind of thing.
39:42
Um so got this money that people have entrusted you with, you've got careers that people have entrusted you with, and you start going, and um, then something goes wrong, and it looks like like the company may not work.
39:52
And so, you know, what's the consequence of that?
39:57
Well, like every relationship you have, you're going to violate, um, if it all goes down.
40:04
And that, uh, is super scary.
40:05
Um, like it couldn't be more scary.
40:08
And you know, to not let that thought, or that set of thoughts, paralyze you, is, you know, can be really difficult at times.
40:19
And, um, a lot of it, you know, first you know, one of the most important things, uh, which I wrote about is first thing is you you can't think in proba- you know, you got to not think the way investors think in probabilities.
40:30
You have to just think in terms of "How do I do this?"
40:35
Like, if there was a way out, like which way is out?
40:37
And train your mind in that direction, as opposed to, "Well, there's a 90% chance that like we're not going to get this deal, and if we don't get this deal, we're going to whiff the quarter, and if we whiff the quarter, we won't be able to raise money, if we won't be able to raise money, then I'm going to have to lay everybody off."
40:51
Like, once you start thinking like that, um, you know, you you literally can't function.
40:58
And so, kind of getting around to "Okay, I've got one bullet in the gun.
41:02
I have got to hit the target.
41:05
Um, so I'm going to get do whatever I can to get as close as possible, and then like we're going to shoot our best shot, and there's going to be no contingency plan, and no way out, and no, you know, like if somehow we don't make it, we don't make it, but like we're going to die trying."
41:21
And that, you know, getting to that mentality is really the key to being an effective entrepreneur, I think. Hm.
41:29
What's What have you found to be helpful for managing the stress of that type of, uh, sort of existential threat level, uh, one shot, one kill Yeah. uh, psychology?
41:50
Uh, are there any particular habits, or types of self-talk, or anything that you use or encourage that allow people, uh, to perform better under those types of of circumstances?
42:05
Well, you know, like I I don't want to exaggerate how good I was at it, because, uh, you know, like I was up at 2:00 in the morning, like in a cold sweat, with my guts boiling, like all that stuff.
42:16
Like, it's not like I I didn't have that, so. Right.
42:21
You know, I wasn't that great at it in in terms of kind of managing it in that way, but I think, I mean, the things that helped me were one, just always focusing on what I could do.
42:34
Like, there was so many things I couldn't do, so many things out of my control, so many things that, um, you know, I mean, like I was in the middle of the greatest technology equity meltdown in the history of the world, so like there was nothing I could do about that, um, although it was hurting me.
42:49
Um, but I just didn't make any sense to think about those things.
42:55
Um, so just, you know, really thinking about the things that you can do.
42:59
And then, you know, Bill Campbell was very is just very helpful to just be able to talk to him, and, uh, you know, it wasn't like he had any answers, either.
43:07
Um, but just to have somebody that, you know, I could at least get it off my chest.
43:12
I was like, "Look, you know, we're in a spiral."
43:16
Like, and he's like, "Yep, you're in a spiral." And I was like, "Okay."
43:19
Um, I was like, you know, and then here are the I think we have like two shots to get out, and here they are, or and, you know, and that just just at least talking it through, and not feeling like I was missing anything.
43:33
Um, but you know, I think a lot of people now they meditate and do other kinds of things, and so forth, and I, you know, I I I would rep to that, but I, you know, I that's, you know, that's not what I did at the time, so.
43:46
It's like sweated it out like and, uh, cut years off my life, and all that kind of thing.
43:50
It It strikes me that one of your superpowers may be running towards the scary things, and not away from the scary things.
43:59
Uh, which might result in a lot of, uh, acute short-term distress, but it it may ultimately result in less long-term distress.
44:06
Could you uh, explain the line "Sharpen your Sharpen the contradictions."
44:17
Ah, so yes, this is a line.
44:17
I think this was from, uh, actually originally Karl Marx, um, and he was speaking of, uh, the you know, sharpen the contradictions between capital and labor, uh, and you know, to basically accelerate the revolution.
44:35
Um, and, you know, and I definitely think Lenin used it, uh, because, you know, Lenin was like amazing with rhetoric and and, uh, that kind of thing.
44:45
He was definitely a rhetorical genius.
44:46
Um, also kind of wrong about everything, and had a horrible impact on the world, but like that's a different story.
44:58
Uh, but I like to use it in management, because it's a great, uh, kind of cue for the CEO, because what what happens in an organization is like you'll see like little disagreements between people, and like a lot of your inclination is to like smooth things over.
45:16
Um, but the right answer is usually to sharpen the contradictions.
45:20
And the reason you want to sharpen the contradictions is cuz that's there's information in that contradiction.
45:28
There's information about like how you're not communicating, how the objectives are not aligned, how the strategy might be wrong, and like you've got to get that, cuz that's where the truth is.
45:37
Um, and so when you smooth that over, if you don't like bring it to a head, um, and resolve it, then, you know, you miss an opportunity.
45:46
So, it really is, uh, you know, it's one of the most important techniques, I think.
45:52
And I anytime, like in a board meeting, anytime, like I hear like a little bit of disagreement, or I see like, you know, an inconsistency in the strategy, I would that's always my cue to myself.
46:04
I want to, you know, that's when you get the answer.
46:08
Now, it's also a good way to start a revolution, so you got to be careful.
46:13
So So you are not a fan of the the default Bolshevik revolution? No.
46:19
Well, maybe that, too, but I was going to say you're not you're not a fan of the default backpedaling, "Oh, no, it's a miscommunication."
46:24
That type of Oh, no, that that that's, you know, like that is it may be, but like it's probably a systemic miscommunication. You know what I mean?
46:33
And as opposed to like, "Oh, yeah, like you meant this, and you meant that, and like so now we're all happy."
46:39
That's not what happened.
46:39
That's almost never what happens. Very rarely.
46:44
You, uh, you have a new book. Yes.
46:49
Why Why write a new book?
46:51
I mean, you're a gifted writer, but why why write a new book? And why this book?
46:54
And could could you describe, uh, could you describe what it is? Sure, yeah.
46:59
So, and then that's a great question, cuz after I wrote the last one, I was like, "I'm never writing another one." That was enough.
47:07
Um, so it surprised me, but you know, it it's interesting, because when I was kind of first, uh, learning to be a CEO, um, one of the, you know, and I asked I asked Bill, and I asked a lot of kind of others mentors, like, you know, "What should I focus on?"
47:27
And, you know, a lot of them said, you know, "You should focus on culture."
47:32
Um, but then I said, "Well, how do I do that?"
47:35
And nobody really had any kind of Like, it was all these weird abstract ideas that didn't They weren't compelling, you know, they weren't well articulated.
47:45
Um, and I never, you know, and it was always like a grope in the dark for me to try and understand like how to set the culture, how to change it.
47:56
kind of became obsessed with this question for myself, um, and, you know, I did a lot of In my life, I've kind of been interesting about like culture in the broader sense.
48:10
And so, you know, I I just really really really, uh, spent a lot of time kind of going through, you know, history, going through kind of trying to understand how people did it, like what were the components, and it turns out to be a you know, I think one of the most central parts of management, and that
48:33
if you think about like management tools, you know, there's the mission statement, and there is the OKRs and KPIs, and you've got, you know, whatever your objectives, and you've got, you know, all these kinds of things, but none of them really dictate the things that really define who you are, right? Like, do you Do you show up
48:50
Like, do you Do you show up on time for meetings?
48:52
Do you stay at the Four Seasons?
48:55
Do you stay at the Red Roof Inn?
48:56
Do people go home at 5:00, or do they go home at 8:00?
48:59
You know, like what kind of company is this?
49:01
What are all those behaviors?
49:03
Do you get back to people like right away, or do you never get back to them, or you get back to them in 3 days?
49:08
And like all those behaviors like are your culture.
49:14
Um, but they're how people are behaving when you're not looking.
49:19
So, like, what do you do about that?
49:20
And, you know, how do you set that?
49:20
And how do you make that go?
49:22
Because that ultimately is really going to speak not only to the quality of your company, but like what impression it makes on the world, right?
49:31
Like, is it a good company to do business with? Is it a bad company?
49:35
Is it a place where people work, and their life becomes better as a place they work and their life becomes worse?
49:41
You know, like what are all these things?
49:42
And they're all a result of this like weird abstract thing called culture.
49:47
And so, you know, as I started working with CEOs, like of course none of them know really how to deal with it at all.
49:54
Like they have ideas, but you know, most of the ideas are like half-baked and like mostly wrong.
49:59
Um so, I thought, you know, I should really go back and restudy this problem and see if I can articulate it.
50:08
And that's what the book's about.
50:09
Um and it's called What You Do Is Who You Are uh because it's not what you believe, it's not your values, it's not what you tweet, it's not like your social signal, it's like what you actually do. That's who you are.
50:21
Um and once you get your head around that, you realize that's a big task.
50:27
And the the subtitle is How to Create Your Business Culture.
50:29
And you I think alluded to at least one big component of this.
50:34
But is culture then as you define it here, like a shared set of behaviors and beliefs?
50:42
Or how would you suggest people who are listening to this perhaps change how they think about culture or ask themselves questions that'll help to refine their thinking if they're CEOs or or founders of a company, for instance.
51:02
Yeah, so the and the one of the greatest, most longest-lasting kind of cultures in histories is way of the warrior, the culture of the samurai.
51:12
Um you know, and you can like that culture or not, but you have to give the credit for the fact that it lasted like over a thousand years.
51:22
Um and to hold a culture for that long is amazing.
51:25
And one of the key insights from uh Bushido is a culture is not a set of beliefs, it's a set of actions.
51:35
And that's really what the culture is.
51:38
Um and this is why I think people miss it so much cuz they think it's a shared set of beliefs, but it's not, it's a shared set of behaviors.
51:47
And you don't even have to believe it, but if you behave that way, that's a culture.
51:50
Um and this is and you know, what you have to ask ourself is okay, like what are the behaviors that show like for real um that we're doing what we believe?
52:04
And I'll just give you an example in venture capital.
52:09
Um Every venture capital firm says they have great respect for the entrepreneurs. Right.
52:18
Very few treat entrepreneurs with any kind of respect at all.
52:21
Um and so, you go like, well, how do you have that disconnect?
52:25
And it's because that they haven't defined like what are the actions that translate into that um being a real thing and a real part of the culture.
52:34
Um and so, you know, this is one of the like the problems we had to solve when we started the firm.
52:41
And one of the things I you know, one of the things I put in place very early on was like if you're late for a meeting with an entrepreneur, and I collected $50 today on this, you know, it's $10 a minute.
52:50
And people are like, well, what if I had to go to the bathroom? I don't care.
52:54
You know, what if you had to make a phone call? I don't care.
52:57
And and the reason I have it that way is cuz I want them to ask me, well, why? And when they say, why?
53:02
I say, because like building a company is really really hard.
53:07
And you know, if an entrepreneur takes time out of their day to come see us, like we're going to respect the fact that that's how hard it is, and we're always going to be on time. No excuses. Plan your day.
53:20
Finish that phone call 5 minutes before you have to meet with the entrepreneur.
53:23
Go to the bathroom earlier.
53:23
Don't drink that eighth cup of coffee.
53:25
You know, like but you need to do what you're supposed to do.
53:29
And you know, you have to set these kinds of things in place if you're really going to live up to your ideals.
53:36
And and that has to be across every dimension of the culture.
53:38
You have to kind of program it in.
53:41
Um or you're just not going to have it.
53:42
You know, you're going to talk it.
53:44
And then if you talk it and don't do it, then your culture becomes your hypocrisy. Right.
53:55
Is it is is culture something that you really have to get right at the get-go?
54:01
Or is it possible to do a rehaul and make it work without replacing all all of the employees at a company? Oh, no.
54:11
Yeah, no, you you definitely can change culture.
54:13
You definitely can change culture.
54:14
Uh you know, my actually uh two two of my favorite examples in the book are one the the Haitian Revolution where, you know, uh Louverture reprogrammed slave culture into a military culture, which is almost unfathomable in that like not only did he have a slave culture, but it was uh one of the most difficult slave culture it was a significantly more brutal kind of slave environment than um the than the even like the US slave environment.
54:48
So, if you from uh the beginning of kind of the transatlantic slave trade to the Haitian Revolution, I think 900,000 slaves were brought to Haiti.
54:59
At the end, there were 465,000 left at the start of the revolution.
55:02
Um in the US, 500,000 uh slaves were brought in that same period, and there were 700,000 left.
55:10
So, like it was like that much quantitatively that much more brutal.
55:14
So, a very difficult environment of low trust to build like a military force.
55:20
And you know, he built an he built a culture that, you know, created an army that defeated the s- you know, probably at least two of the strongest military European military powers in history, you know, France under Napoleon and the British Empire.
55:38
And so, you got to say absolutely you can change a culture.
55:41
And you know, he used the same guys, the same guys who were kind of slaves, didn't even have clothes, that kind of thing, um to you know, to that kind of army.
55:49
And then the other one that that I found very interesting is Shaka Sengor, who was running, you know, a prison gang, a very violent prison gang.
56:01
And just changed the culture to be like remarkably, you know, empathetic for it.
56:07
You know, it's still prison gang.
56:07
So, like it wasn't all friendly.
56:12
Uh but it was a really significant change.
56:14
And those guys, you know, I I've met some of his guys, you know, that he had there as they've gotten out of prison, and it's just remarkable the effect it had on them not only in that organization, but but coming out. So, 100% it's possible.
56:27
And and in either case, uh in in the former, that is is at least based on my very limited understanding was if not the only one of the only successful slave revolutions.
56:42
Uh Yeah, it's actually the only the only slave revolt in human history that ever uh resulted in an independent state.
56:50
What were any of the things that he did that helped with that transformation from Mhm.
56:56
uh slave culture to sort of organized military culture?
57:05
Yeah, so it was you know, he was a quite a remarkable guy along these lines in that um he he was born a slave.
57:14
So, Toussaint was born a slave.
57:16
Uh but he was so smart that the plantation owner um basically made uh Toussaint not only he he let him read, so he learned to read and where he read things like Caesar's commentaries where he learned a lot of his military strategy and some economics books and so forth, but he also made him his driver.
57:38
And so, Toussaint was able to go to all these meetings, you know, on the island.
57:43
So, he learned French colonial culture, um kind of Roman military culture, and then he also knew slave culture.
57:51
So, he had this really comprehensive cultural understanding.
57:56
So, he knew the elements of kind of the various things that that he wanted.
58:03
And so, one of the one of the techniques he used, um which I refer to as kind of create a shocking rule, um was he had to solve this problem that trust was super low.
58:13
I mean, the most difficult part of slave culture is it lacks trust.
58:19
And the reason is trust is really a like a long-term commodity in that I'm going to do something for you today cuz I trust that over time like it's going to pay off for me.
58:32
But if you're a slave, there's no tomorrow, right?
58:34
They they they you have no possessions.
58:35
They could take your family at any point.
58:37
They can kill you at any point.
58:39
You don't own your own life.
58:40
Um so, to build trust in that environment is almost impossible.
58:46
Uh the way Toussaint did it is, you know, where one of the ways he did is he created this um rule, which was basically officers can't cheat on their wives.
58:55
Um and you think about that and you go, okay, well, maybe that's not that big a deal.
59:02
But like you're talking about an environment where like basically soldiers were paid in like raping and pillaging.
59:09
Like that that was like a fundamental kind of thing that everybody did outside of Toussaint's army.
59:13
Um but he said, no, look, I need to be able like your word like is everything.
59:22
And he had a great line about um you know, he'd rather relinquish his command than break his word.
59:27
That's how much emphasis he put on it.
59:29
And like if I can't trust you to keep that one promise, then you can't be an officer in the army.
59:37
And so everybody wanted to know why that rule was in place.
59:40
And so that kind of starts to build up okay, here's how much we value you keeping your word.
59:48
And so that was you know, kind of one like little aspect that he did to reset the culture.
59:54
You know, another thing was he he really elevated ethics.
1:00:00
And you go well like why is that important?
1:00:02
Well, you know, you live with a higher code and you have a stronger bond because it gives you a feeling about yourself and a feeling about the people who you're working with that like we're doing something important.
1:00:14
And you know, one thing he and he outlawed that and he outlawed raping and pillaging in the army and he said look, we're we're after something more important and that's liberty.
1:00:26
And so we're not going to rape and pillage and it became so powerful that the white women in Haiti referred to Toussaint as father.
1:00:34
Like this is a a slave who's running an army.
1:00:40
They liked him better than the troops from Spain or Britain or France.
1:00:43
They they liked like the the slave army better because they treated them so much better.
1:00:51
And and there's a great story around this which and it's a legend so you know, it's one of those ones we don't know is true, but the name Toussaint Louverture he wasn't born he was born Toussaint because slaves only had a first name.
1:01:02
It was part of the dehumanization process.
1:01:07
And Louverture came later and nobody knows for sure why, but the the story is uh you know, Napoleon hated him like he drove Napoleon crazy.
1:01:17
Napoleon suffered more casualties in Haiti than in Waterloo and he wanted to get him so badly.
1:01:22
And he got his generals around he said like how can you not defeat this slave?
1:01:29
And the general said, well, we get him backed up, we surround him, but every time we think we have him, there is an opening.
1:01:37
And so his name is Toussaint Louverture, Toussaint the opening.
1:01:43
And you know, I at least I my belief is that you know, those people those those women in the town you know, they helped him in a way that like Napoleon could never understand because he had elevated the culture to that degree.
1:01:56
So you know, those are a couple of the things I'm going to go on for hours and hours and hours on the Haitian Revolution. Yeah, fascinating.
1:02:03
I mean this this is something I I knew nothing about before doing some homework for this conversation and I'm excited for hopefully the clarity and with that sort of precise action that the book will bring to something that like you said culture in quotation marks is often thrown around as a collection of very high altitude abstract concepts, but with without any real plausible next steps.
1:02:39
But this this really makes the abstract concrete or it seems seems that way that you're both giving examples historical and current day of how to install these these shared and in some cases rewarded behaviors.
1:02:57
Yes, that definitely definitely.
1:02:57
That's uh Yeah, no, that's why I'm so excited about the book.
1:03:01
I mean I just I feel particularly now and and you know, you see all these criticisms of high-tech culture and like you know, this CEO how could he run a company like this and so forth.
1:03:13
And and whenever I see that I'm like, well, it's really hard.
1:03:17
It's really hard to get you know, 10,000 people to behave the way you want them to.
1:03:22
Um and you know, like the default is everybody's culture is screwed up and it takes a lot of effort to make it good.
1:03:29
Yeah, it makes me think of the uh there's a Ram Dass quote which I'll paraphrase, but it's something along the lines of if you think you're enlightened to go spend a week with your family and it's like okay, like like everybody should reflect on that when they're criticizing a especially I would say a relatively unseasoned or new to the job CEO's ability to get 10,000 people to behave well. It's very difficult.
1:03:54
Uh it's very very very very very challenging.
1:04:00
What what would you consider success for this book?
1:04:04
What type of outcomes would you like to see in the world? That's a great question.
1:04:11
It's funny cuz when I wrote the first one my goal was that the CEOs in the portfolio would read it and that turned out to be a good goal cuz it was so narrow that I think it forced me to write a specific book which I think a lot more people liked.
1:04:27
Um You know, on this one uh I would you know, I think that anybody who who kind of cares about their imprint on the world you know, this is kind of the book for that in that and and I always tell the people at the firm this like you know when we're all retired like we're not going to remember like every deal that we did that was good or that we did that was bad or that we won
1:04:57
or that we lost or you know, how much money we made or any of that, but we're going to remember like what it felt like to work there and what it felt like for the people who interacted with us and and like we're going to know if we were proud of it or or like it's something we want to forget and that you know, that's what culture is really about. It's like It's like who are you? Like what do you do?
1:05:14
Like you know, what does it mean to know you?
1:05:19
Um and that uh you know, I I think it's such an important thing um but people don't have the mechanics for that or or you know, that I hadn't been able to find anything that I could read on that.
1:05:31
So that that's kind of the purpose of the book.
1:05:34
And you know, I really like that it it also it I I would imagine and I I I haven't um yet read the book, but I'm very excited to that it that it provides examples that allow people to see principles in action and sort of deduce how those might apply to to their
1:05:55
own decisions whether that's say you know, Reed Reed Hastings right at Netflix or Netflix or rewinding the clock and going all the all the way back to Genghis Khan who's of course I shouldn't say of course, but someone that I've been really fascinated with for the last few years. Oh, interesting. For many many reasons Oh, interesting.
1:06:12
For many many reasons and has been really portrayed in a lot of the coverage in a one-sided sort of one-dimensional way very unfairly.
1:06:26
But these very underrated and the vision of cultural inclusiveness that that you talk about in the book as it relates to that I think it will be really eye-opening to people and I'm excited about it for that reason.
1:06:42
I know we're coming up on time be fun to to you know, grab a coffee in a round two some other time I still have a awesome a long list of of questions which which which we can get to some other time, but let me let me ask just a couple of really quick closing questions and then bring this to a wrap, but the this question is is sometimes one that is difficult to answer, but I'll I'll lob it out there and see what we get.
1:07:12
And that is if you had a a billboard this is a metaphor of course, but a billboard on which you could put a anything you want an image a question a word a quote but it allows you to get a a convey something to billions of people. Not non non-commercial.
1:07:35
What can you can you think of anything that you might put on such a billboard?
1:07:41
So this is just really off the top of my head because I was listening to this song this morning.
1:07:46
But my friend Nas has this great line which is I know you think I'm rich cuz of my diamond piece but I've been rich since I started finding peace. Mm.
1:07:58
And I think that's uh that that's my that's my vibe today.
1:08:07
Well, that that could be a podcast in and of itself just digging into that.
1:08:11
I think he said life is good. He made life is good.
1:08:12
I think he said my life is good cuz I've been cuz of my diamond piece, but All right.
1:08:16
Well, finding peace that that will be part of our of our round two.
1:08:24
Is there um anything else in terms of closing comments, suggestions, recommendations, asks of the audience that that you'd like to add before we before we close up this this first installment at least?
1:08:40
Yeah, I think that what I would just say is the book is really you know, to enable you to do what you need to do kind of as the leader in this organization to be who you want to be.
1:08:55
Um and as a leader I think that's the most important thing. Wonderful.
1:09:01
That is what you do is who you are.
1:09:01
You can find that anywhere books are sold.
1:09:05
People can wave hello on the internet on Twitter at BHorowitz and we'll link to that and everything else in the show notes including everything that we mentioned.
1:09:16
So people listening can find that at tim. blog/podcast.
1:09:21
Ben, this has really been a lot of fun and very enlightening and enlivening and I have all sorts of notes to follow up on for my own research and reading.
1:09:36
So, thank you so much for taking the time.
1:09:37
I really really appreciate it.
1:09:39
All right, and I thank you and I am looking forward to round two and a cup of coffee. Deal.
1:09:47
Hey guys, this is Tim again.
1:09:47
Just a few more things before you take off.
1:09:49
Number one, this is five bullet Friday.
1:09:51
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1:09:54
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1:10:01
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1:10:09
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1:10:12
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1:10:20
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1:10:28
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So, if you want to receive that, check it out.
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1:10:44
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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn's Hello Monday.
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Hello Monday is a podcast.
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Hello Monday with Jesse Hempell is back for season two and the show is full of advice, practical tactile advice that you can start using today.
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