0:00
If what it takes to be the best in the world at the thing that I'm doing is to lose some of those aspects that we're talking about, then I don't want it.
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Number one is the family.
0:11
And it it it and it is sort of what Avni and the kids are going to say.
0:16
And maybe I should say I'm kind of fearful that what you just said is true.
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But I'm not fearful enough to change it. You know?
0:38
I want to start with a question that I haven't I don't think I've ever asked before on this show, but what's the best advice you've ever received?
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I don't know if it's the best advice I've ever received, but it's the advice that comes to mind when you say it.
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And it's from my dad right when I first started working.
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And he said, "Listen, son.
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Don't have a work personality and a home personality. It'll just tire you out.
0:59
And you know, you don't want to have to live two different lives."
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And you know, I'm sure there are way better versions of advice from when I was a kid or any of that around integrity and you know, all that.
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But the piece of advice that just came to mind when you asked was that one.
1:15
Have you worked with people who seem like two different people?
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One person at work and one person outside of work? Yes. 100%.
1:23
How does that make you feel?
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I think the first thing is you're surprised when you see them in the home environment.
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Cuz you have this vision of the way they are and then you see them in a different environment and let's just say they're very, you know, tough at work and then they're different at home. They're understanding.
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They're, you know, they're smiling more, whatever.
1:47
So, I think the first thing is surprise of oh my gosh, this person is so different than what I expected.
1:53
And then I think the part that is bad is you're sort of like why don't I get that person?
2:00
Man, I would love to work with that person.
2:01
You know, um and this is where I think COVID was sort of interesting cuz like in COVID you actually did mix that up a little bit more and you'd see somebody who was generally a certain way and then you know, their kid would come bouncing into the room and you'd see how different they were with the their kid and it it really warmed them up to you.
2:21
And um yeah, so I think that uh it kind of makes you feel bad because you feel like you're not getting the real person, right?
2:27
People generally are more real, I think, at home.
2:32
Um and so you feel like you're getting this act almost.
2:33
And then that that becomes an impediment to trust too in a way, right?
2:38
Because it's like who am I getting?
2:41
How do I predict what I'm getting? Totally.
2:43
When your father told you that, you you were a teenager, I'm assuming?
2:48
I I just graduated college.
2:48
I was about to start my first real job.
2:50
What were your teenage years like?
2:53
So, I have an older brother who's 3 years older than me and I bring him up because I think he was pretty impactful to my teenage years cuz a lot of it was in comparison to him.
3:05
Um and my brother is wonderful and kind but he was better than me at most things and a lot of my teenage years felt like trying to either live up to what he was good at or differentiate myself and that I do think it's an interesting answer that when I say it out loud because it does feel like my answer as a teenager is sort of in relation to somebody else.
3:32
Um but I was a happy kid and all that but it it was all I always had that in mind.
3:36
Was he naturally good or did he work hard? Both.
3:39
I think my brother has an extremely He has a wonderful work ethic.
3:45
But he also you know, it it did come easy to him on some things.
3:50
And then I realized I to your point, I tried to spend time on things that were different than what he did.
3:53
So, he liked baseball, he liked lacrosse.
3:56
I didn't play baseball or lacrosse, I played basketball.
3:59
He really was uh deeply studious and was into pre-med.
4:07
And I was like, I'm definitely not going to be a doctor.
4:08
He went to college at Northwestern, which is close to where we're from, and I said, I can't I can't go to Northwestern.
4:13
So, there was a lot of that where a lot of my decisions almost felt like they were a response to his.
4:22
Um And the other thing is my parents are from India, and I think that they have a very strong sense of what success looks like.
4:33
And I'm very close to my parents, but that also informed my teenage years for sure because, you know, there was a very clear message from them around like, "Look, you got to you got to get after it.
4:43
There there is laziness was like a huge um ding in our household.
4:49
It was just so offensive, you know, to be lazy.
4:55
Um, and so any moments where I had that, you know, reeked of laziness were really poorly received in my house.
4:59
Are you like that with your own kids today? Certainly somewhat.
5:03
I I think um I think what we try what Let Let's think about this.
5:09
I think for Avni and me, both of us had parents that were pretty um you know, had an opinion on the value of trying to be traditionally successful, whatever.
5:19
Um, which I think is very typical for children of immigrants.
5:21
Um I think we probably have a slightly different view than them on that of, you know, there are probably a broader definition of things of success than what they had.
5:33
But I think we both do believe that we want our kids to be happy, and we think and I certainly think that like earned success is the key to happiness. I really believe that.
5:40
I heard this one time from Arthur Brooks, who used to run the American Enterprise Institute, and it's really sat with me.
5:45
It is something I believe a lot.
5:47
And so, a lot of what we try to get into our kids is this belief of whatever you do, just make sure you feel like you're good at it, and make sure that you feel like you've earned some level of success in it.
5:59
And that comes from trying.
5:59
That comes from practicing.
6:02
That comes from doing something hard.
6:04
You know, um and I have no idea how successful we are at that because they're the older There's three boys.
6:10
The twins are 10, and the youngest is eight.
6:13
But, I would say that that is kind of the theme that we try to use as we're talking to them.
6:20
I I like the idea of earned success.
6:21
Going back to sort of your parents' definition of success, do you think it was narrower um then than it is now because you have the luxury of being broader?
6:29
And I mean that in the sense of being narrow because here, this is your path out of this situation to a better life.
6:39
Whereas now, when you look at your kids, you have a much broader sense because you don't you have a lot more luxury in how they become successful. 100%. 100%.
6:52
You know, everything my parents said and wanted and all these parents said and wanted was out of love, and it was out of what they saw as the path to the things that they would that would make They basically thought what would have made them happy, and then applied that to us of, you know, okay, let's try to make sure that you have all that.
7:06
And I think to your point, I think that them immigrating to America it was a different life than they had in India.
7:16
It was a different life than their parents had in India.
7:17
And I think what you just said is absolutely a luxury um that we have.
7:21
And that's a luxury that was largely provided to us from our parents, you know?
7:27
But, yeah, uh I 100% agree with the the premise.
7:30
And the other thing I sort of wanted to go back to is laziness.
7:34
It's like such a trigger for me with my kids.
7:39
I don't know why, but any hint of laziness, I'm just like all over.
7:40
Mine Mine is a whininess.
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Any whining drives me nuts.
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And it is because I thought about this a lot.
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It it's a huge trigger where I'm irrational in my response to it.
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And but the reason I think I am is I just I really dislike whiny adults.
7:59
I really dislike people that are victims.
8:01
And I really have a hard time with it.
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And I have this thing that I just want to make sure that my kids are not like that.
8:10
And so I'm sure that I'm not doing it right, but it is such a triggering thing for me when there's whining or feeling like, "Oh, this happened to me."
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and kind of their that their life happens to them versus like, "No, you know, it's not a mistakes were made situation.
8:27
It's not like, 'Gosh, there was nothing I could do.'"
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No, we can always do something. We have agency.
8:32
We are the captains of our own ship.
8:34
And so I always joke with my wife that like if they're, you know, in therapy when they're older and they're telling their therapist about what their parents did, one of the things is starting to be like, "Man, I couldn't even complain about anything."
8:47
Um but that's my trigger.
8:47
How do you talk to them in that moment about whininess?
8:52
Like what does that conversation look like when you catch them sort of whining?
8:55
Yeah, I think Well, there's probably two different versions of it.
9:00
The one that I'm not proud of is the one where I'm emotional. I'm quick.
9:04
I sort of haven't taken the time to think about how exactly I want to deal with it.
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And I just kind of react.
9:10
You know, so hopefully that doesn't happen a lot, but that's definitely one version of it.
9:14
Um you know, stop whining. That one.
9:16
I think the one that is much better is sort of uh asking them questions.
9:24
"Hey, what happened here?
9:26
Hey, why are you Why do you sound like that?
9:29
What is the thing that actually went on?
9:31
Do you think you could have done anything differently?"
9:32
And I think that kids they are good at answering questions.
9:37
They and they give you surprising answers sometimes.
9:38
And what we find is if you just get them talking, it's generally much better.
9:43
And the questions generally help with that.
9:46
And so I'd say when I'm at my best or when we're at our best in that situation, it's much more asking them about what they think.
9:51
And trying to get them to get there themselves because it's the same thing, right? They have to believe it.
9:57
You know, my parents have this thing of you can't learn someone else's lessons for them.
10:02
And I think that applies a lot, right? I think about that.
10:04
Like they have to believe it. They have to get there.
10:08
And I'll give you an example that's a little bit broader, but it's a moment that I was pretty proud of.
10:11
And it's not totally related to the whining, but it is related to the earn success point that just happened, okay?
10:18
And afterwards I told my wife I said, "Gosh, if the lightning bolt hits right now, it's fine. I will be happy."
10:24
Because so my older boys all my sons play soccer, okay?
10:28
My older boys, they had the soccer tournament, it's called the state cup, and they won it.
10:31
And they've won it their team has won it 2 years in a row.
10:35
And so they were pumped, right?
10:37
They have this medal, their team got this big trophy.
10:40
And my youngest son he he plays soccer too in a you know, for his own age group.
10:43
And he's gone and his team hasn't won it before, okay?
10:46
So anyway, we're on the way home and the older boys have their medals. And they're just pumped.
10:51
They're excited talking about the game, whatever.
10:52
And my youngest son says to us, he's like, "Hey guys, can you sign us up for state cup this year?" His team.
10:59
And I'm like, "Of course, buddy."
10:59
But his team historically hasn't been quite as successful as the older boys.
11:02
So we're like, "We'll definitely sign you up.
11:06
You know, we're not sure exactly how it will go, but we'll sign you up."
11:10
And then the older boys have some real empathy for their little brother, which was awesome.
11:12
And they're like, "Sovan, both Nion and Trey, my older boys. Sovan, don't worry.
11:17
Even if you guys don't win, we'll get you a medal, okay?
11:20
We'll get you a medal, too.
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You sit on the bench with us when we go to the games.
11:26
You will get you a medal, too."
11:28
And Sovan, my 8-year-old, you You I don't say anything.
11:32
My wife doesn't say anything.
11:33
He looks at them and he says he smiles.
11:35
He said, "No, that's okay.
11:37
I want to earn my medal."
11:39
And that moment was so much better than us like interrupting and being like, "Well, it doesn't matter if you get the medal unless you win it and all the stuff." He said it himself.
11:46
Something inside of him has now been internalized of the medal is valuable if I earn it. Right?
11:51
The medal is not valuable if somebody gives it to me.
11:55
And that is like the success case.
11:57
There's a thousand failure cases, but the success case of you know, earning it is the thing that counts.
12:00
That was a pretty cool moment that I think is something we hope to get more often. That's awesome.
12:05
It's so countercultural these days, too, in a in a world or era of participation medals. Ugh. Ugh.
12:15
It it really does miss the point entirely of what the purpose is of a medal. Right?
12:22
Because, you know, the medal isn't valuable because it's shiny, right?
12:25
The medal is valuable because I read something recently, I don't remember where, but it was talking about memory dividends.
12:30
And the reason that the medal is valuable is if it provides you with a memory dividend, which something you can think back on as to, "Oh my gosh, this is what this represents."
12:40
And if you get it for just going, then like come on.
12:43
And I I I do believe that there's value in participating in sport.
12:50
There is all that, but it it's like we've it's like we've solved the easy part of the problem, right?
12:55
The the the the hard part is that kids want to get trophies and they want to earn them and only one team can win it, right?
13:02
And maybe the second place team, I guess.
13:06
But we've solved that by like, "Okay, cool.
13:07
We'll just give everyone a trophy."
13:08
It's like, "No, the way you solve that is by going home and having the hard conversation with your child afterwards of if you want to win, why do you think we didn't win?"
13:16
"Well, we didn't win because they probably practiced more than us.
13:17
We didn't win because they uh maybe more naturally talented than us.
13:23
What are we going to do about that?"
13:24
And the easy answer is, "Well, sure.
13:26
We'll give everyone a trophy."
13:26
But that doesn't solve the actual problem.
13:27
And so I do think that to me is pretty endemic in general.
13:31
I sound like I'm, you know, preaching, but I I I think that's a real thing.
13:34
Oh, you and me both, man.
13:36
I I think the same thing sort of about uh you know, the slow elimination of gifted classes versus non-gifted classes and uh and it's all in the name of equality. Yes.
13:50
but it it's so interesting in terms of how to think about that, which is like like some kids uh are better at math than other kids.
13:58
And you want to challenge them or you're going to lose them and those are the kids that might do something amazing in math in the future.
14:04
And if we lose them, then we're we're losing all this talent, too.
14:06
We're doing them a disservice in a way.
14:07
Well, I think it's also, to your point, Shane, you know, even when people say equality, it really is mistreating the kid that's better at something. Totally. Right?
14:15
Why do they not get to be challenged?
14:21
If you really think about it, why do they not get to enjoy school anymore?
14:24
Why do they not get to feel like they're learning something? You you know?
14:25
And I think that um you want to give everyone a chance, for sure.
14:32
You know, we are products of people being given a chance.
14:36
But you you can't mistreat somebody who uh either has worked hard or has natural, you know, talent.
14:44
I just don't think that that represents it.
14:46
I think that we've talked about companies, all that.
14:50
That happens in companies, too. You know?
14:52
Um and I just think that Yeah, I I don't I don't like that.
14:56
You want And it also is dishonest to the to the person because at some point you're going to have to pay the piper.
15:04
At some point, the world will decide whether you are good enough for the thing the world is asking you to do. Whatever it is.
15:09
Like no one's going to listen to your podcast if it's not good. Right?
15:14
Like so at some point, the bar becomes the absolute bar. You can't fake it.
15:19
I I want to come back to the bar for a second.
15:20
What seems to be happening is we just kick that can.
15:22
It's like, yeah, we we all know intuitively we have to have this conversation and that there's a reckoning, a moment when reality meets the situation.
15:33
But it seems like at least in in elementary school and even in high school increasingly, it's like, we're just going to kick that can a little further down I don't want to have that conversation.
15:42
The next person can have that conversation. Yes. Yes.
15:45
Well, this is it's so fascinating you just said that and you mentioned reality.
15:48
So, I have a couple of things that I say a lot at home, I say a lot at work, and I say a lot, you know, in any setting where someone will listen to me. But two things.
15:56
One, reality is undefeated. Right?
16:00
Reality is undefeated and the second is embrace reality.
16:02
The the sooner you figure out what reality is and you embrace it, then you can do something about it, right?
16:07
And I have a friend who's a founder and he was he was down like 6 months ago and he asked he said, "Can we have dinner together? I'm not feeling great."
16:19
And we went and we had dinner and you know, it's not like the dinner ended and all of a sudden he was feeling great.
16:24
But then 3 weeks later he sounded like a different person. So, I asked him. I said, "What happened?
16:27
What You sound so much better. What happened?"
16:32
And he said, "You know, instead of just thinking about the problem in the last few weeks, we've just started working on it."
16:38
He's like, "And we've only made like 1% progress.
16:41
But he's like, "It's so much better now that we're just working on it.
16:43
Now we're just working on a problem.
16:44
Whereas before, we were just thinking about it."
16:48
And I think that that comes from the embracing of, "Okay, this is where we are.
16:51
This is what we got to go do about it."
16:53
And I uh I think your point of effectively trying to avoid reality and kind of kick the can down the road and have somebody else have to deal with it, uh that's a real disservice to someone you care about or someone you love.
17:06
It's the same point reason that feedback is valuable.
17:09
It's the you know, I I I think it's the reason that sports teams are a good analogy when they're at the ver at a very high level.
17:16
Because the feedback happens every minute.
17:18
If you're not good enough to be on the floor, if you're not good enough to be on the field, the ball goes by you.
17:25
Your team might give up a goal.
17:26
You know, it is quite obvious and the feedback mechanisms are quick.
17:31
And so I think that um one of the things that I think about is sort of uh the speed of reality, how quickly does reality hit you, and what is the impact of reality.
17:42
And so there's that um saying that uh every morning in Africa uh I saw this on Twitter recently, but you know, every morning in Africa uh gazelle wakes up and knows that if he doesn't outrun the fastest lion, he's going to die. Okay, cool. So he wakes up running.
18:00
Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up and knows if he doesn't outrun the slowest gazelle, he's going to starve. So he wakes up running.
18:07
Well, for those folks, for the gazelle and the lion in that case, reality hits, you know, very fast every minute of every day.
18:15
And the cost of not facing reality is death.
18:19
Obviously, that's not quite the same for any of us sitting in our offices or whatever, but I do think understanding that reality does hit you every moment and that not embracing it does have a cost.
18:30
I think that's really important and valuable.
18:33
Well, let's dive into that a little more because you work with founders who live and operate in a reality-based world.
18:43
Uh they can't create their own reality.
18:46
They have to deal with reality.
18:46
They're in the truth business, if you will.
18:48
How do you help them see reality instead of misinformation or erroneous information or getting caught up in their own beliefs or their own ideas that may or may not be true?
19:00
Yeah, well, I think the first thing is a lot of founders you know, they're different.
19:08
Some of them are amazing at that to begin with, right?
19:12
That's their wiring, that's the way they are, and so frankly, with those folks, a lot of it is just making sure that you're helping get the right signals to them because by nature they are such where, you know, they do that.
19:25
There are some who I think I'm sure you've heard about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, right?
19:32
I think that's actually been pretty negative overall to the like startup ecosystem because I think that people have heard that as Steve Jobs didn't embrace reality and Steve Jobs I actually think that his was quite different.
19:45
That was a representation of ambition.
19:46
That was a representation of we need to be great.
19:48
And I think that that was a representation of I'm not going to be constrained by what someone tells me can or can't happen.
19:54
He still was embracing reality as to whether or not people loved the product, right?
19:58
He still was embracing reality as to whether or not it was selling and things like that.
20:03
And so I think that um I think one aspect is sort of reminding people that the Steve Jobs example, which is incredible in so many ways, you kind of have to dig underneath that.
20:13
The reality distortion field wasn't that he wasn't listening to market signals, right?
20:18
It was that he was ambitious for his team of we can do better, we can do more, we can do more, right? Go ahead.
20:25
When when I think of Jobs, what I think about when that happens, this reality distortion field, which I I think we've mislabeled in a way, I think that his standard was just so much higher. Yes. Yes.
20:37
The better example to me of Jobs is Have you ever heard the anecdote about him with the with when he looked at a cabinet? No.
20:48
It's an amazing anecdote, okay?
20:48
So, there was this beautiful cabinet that he saw, okay?
20:53
And he loved it, and he thought it was gorgeous.
20:56
And then he looked around the back of it, and in the back of it was plywood, and it was ugly.
21:03
And he was so offended by this notion that the front of it was beautiful and the back of it was ugly because someone's like no one's ever going to see the back.
21:10
And he's like, "No, I see the back.
21:12
The back should be beautiful, too.
21:14
If you want to try to make something beautiful, it should be beautiful from every angle. Right?
21:18
If the purpose of this is it's supposed to represent craftsmanship and beauty, don't don't go halfway and make the back ugly.
21:27
To me, the things that are interesting are like if you tear apart the iPhone, even the switch even the board underneath is you know, clean and gorgeous and thoughtful.
21:37
And I think that even the words on the back of the iPhone where it says, you know, "Designed in California, assembled in China."
21:43
Like it doesn't say "Made in China."
21:47
And so every choice that they made, I think represents those are cool stories about Jobs and the standard that he had and these sort of willingness to be disliked in the name of going to get excellence.
21:58
There's a story about Alexa with Bezos that's similar where they came back and said, "Look, the latency is going to be this."
22:08
And I don't know what the unit was, but Jobs or Bezos effectively said, "Well, I want it to be, you know, 1/5 of that."
22:15
And they said, "That's impossible. We can't do that."
22:16
He said, "Well, then we're not going to ship it."
22:18
But that was the magic and then they ultimately ended up doing it.
22:20
So I think that consistent raising of the standard, that's the lesson from these folks.
22:25
And so I think going back to your point on reality of talking to founders, I think it's helping them see the right signals because sometimes, especially in the environment and look, you know, investors, you know, all of us, we sent many of the wrong signals for a couple of years where people were rewarded and so they could look at something of like, "What are you talking about?
22:42
My business keeps on getting valued higher and higher and higher, you know, I'm doing the right stuff."
22:50
But I think the duration of their perspective was not necessarily correct in that ultimately, you know, your business is going to be measured on the financial performance of it and the financial performance is a representation of how much customer love there is and how much what you've actually created.
23:05
But I think the point, Shane, for me on getting people to embrace reality is "Okay, cool.
23:08
That signal that you're looking at is supportive of the point that we're doing great.
23:14
What about all these other signals?"
23:16
And I think that, um, you know, you have to earn the trust of somebody, like you said, to be able to share that perspective.
23:22
Um, but I think that idea is one that, um, I I think is really important to make sure that people have.
23:29
Well, before you worked at Instacart, you were KKR, right? That's right.
23:35
I haven't heard you talk much about your experience at KKR, but you were there like a decade.
23:38
I'm I'm curious, like, what did you learn while you were there? You're right.
23:41
Uh, no one has ever really asked me about, uh, my time at KKR.
23:47
Uh, and I was there a long time. So, what did I learn?
23:50
Uh, one, I learned it is extremely hard to build a real business.
23:56
I think that when you think about, um, the companies that KKR will try to buy or invest in, they are businesses that have generally been around a long time, and they produce a lot of profits, right?
24:09
But, I think that when you first get there, you think that those are just a dime a dozen and they exist all over the place.
24:17
But, anytime you go and study one, you realize that every business is fascinating if you're willing to go down to the details. Every single one.
24:24
Any business that you want to go and learn about, if you go and learn the details, you will find it fascinating.
24:30
So, that was one lesson, which is that every business is hard and every business is fascinating if you go deep.
24:38
The second thing that this will relate to why I tried to join a tech company is that, uh, growth is extraordinarily hard to come by once you've kind of stopped growing.
24:50
It is so hard to get something to move up again. It is so hard.
24:56
Uh, we have gotten numb to growth rates like 20%, 40%, 80%, 100%.
24:59
I mean, this in any sort of day-to-day company outside of tech, these numbers are insane.
25:09
And it's quite intoxicating when something is growing. It's so fun.
25:14
And I think that one of the things that you look at in private equity is like if you can get something to grow, if you can find a management team that can help you grow a business, it's amazing.
25:22
But, it's very hard to go from, you know, 2% growth or flat to 5% or 10%.
25:29
And so, I think uh there's this Eric Schmidt quote of like growth solves all problems.
25:33
It's not exactly right, but it's pretty close.
25:36
Like growth is incredible.
25:39
And then the last thing, well, not the last thing, but one other thing that I think I found valuable from KKR that I think, you know, ports over, is every time you make an investment, you are kind of thinking, "Here are the three things that need to go right in order for this thing to work."
25:56
And I think that that logic or that focus and that kind of belief, I think has applied when I worked at Instacart, it applies when I work at Sequoia, um and it is I feel like a pretty enduring lesson of, you know, what are the things that you're actually betting on?
26:13
What are the things that need to be right for this to become what you hope it becomes?
26:18
And then my personality is to be maniacally focused on those one to three things.
26:25
I want to come back to that a little bit in terms of the focus.
26:27
I I like that in the sense because it forces you to actually make a decision, too.
26:31
Not everything can be important.
26:33
And I I want to spend a large time talking about that.
26:37
Before we do, you said something that was really interesting, which is restarting growth after you've stopped growing is really hard.
26:43
And I'm wondering if we can get into some of the reasons why.
26:46
I have a hypothesis that one of the reasons is actually human nature or biology kicking in, which is when the pie is growing, we we live in this culture of abundance.
26:56
Our mindset is surrounded by abundance. Yep.
27:01
And so, it triggers our biology, like our biological instincts in a way that is growth-oriented.
27:07
We're happy with people, we're getting along.
27:10
But the minute growth stops, it triggers scarcity.
27:13
And what what do animals do in scarcity, right?
27:16
Well, now it's about self-preservation. So, we hoard.
27:20
And we So, the culture actually changes, too, because now it's about over dividing the pie.
27:25
I want to make sure I get my piece, and I want to make sure my piece is slightly bigger than yours.
27:30
And that's all of our animal instincts.
27:32
I don't think it happens consciously.
27:34
I just think it's sort of like how we subtly react to these environments.
27:37
Yeah, it's so fascinating.
27:39
You I think you're totally right.
27:39
I'd never thought about it like that, because to But You're right.
27:44
Everyone is The people are so much happier when it's growing, right?
27:49
And you actually can solve a lot of problems by being like, "Folks, if this all works, we're all going to be great, right? Don't worry.
27:54
There's enough to go around, right?"
27:55
You know, to your point, we'll grow the pie.
27:59
And I I think related to what you said, there's another human nature point, which is you know, when you move away from growth, the way to improve the business is to optimize it.
28:07
It's to optimize it optimize it so that you can get a little bit more profitability, a little bit more profitability, right?
28:12
And you sort of start focusing on and you bring in people that are much more oriented towards optimizing optimizing optimizing.
28:19
And you become good at that.
28:21
The problem is that actually has almost nothing to do with creating.
28:23
It has almost nothing to do with actually going and making something uh attractive to more people.
28:30
And so, you have a different set of people in the org.
28:31
And then you also have the loss aversion, another element of human nature, of the only way sometimes to get it to go is you have to experiment, and you'd have to risk something that you already have.
28:40
And so, people put in the constraint of, "Well, I don't want to have I have a innovation budget.
28:46
I have I want to keep my profits at this level.
28:50
And all of a sudden you have some constraint that's actually quite hard to operate around.
28:54
You know, and I think the other thing is look at the most fundamental level it's really hard to get people to use something.
29:04
If you really think about what growth means, it means you're going to get somebody new right?
29:07
To use the product that doesn't use it now or you're going to get somebody who uses it now to change their behavior to use it a lot more.
29:17
It is really hard to get somebody to change their behavior.
29:20
This is this whole idea of it can't be 20% better, it can't be 40% better.
29:23
It needs to be 10x better.
29:26
It has to fundamentally change you know, your experience.
29:28
And it's very hard to create things that are way better cuz we all talk to ourselves.
29:35
Well, this is a little better here, it's a little better here, but nobody cares.
29:38
One of the big things that's so fascinating is again Bezos has this in one of his letters, but consumers are divinely discontent.
29:46
You can give them something amazing and then it's just normal.
29:49
People really do just like find things to be normal.
29:51
So, it's hard to innovate.
29:53
I think that's the other thing.
29:54
Well, it becomes the new baseline, right?
29:55
So, the new baseline is like why would I write an essay chat GPT can do it for me? Yes.
30:02
One of the best pieces of advice I got in writing was from Mike Moritz who's obviously this beautiful writer.
30:07
But he said after you read after you think you have a version, read it out loud. Read it out loud. See how it sounds.
30:12
And he's like most of the time you'll be horrified.
30:17
And until read it out loud and edit and edit and edit until you like how it sounds.
30:21
But it really does demonstrate, you know, the quality of the thinking when you can read it out loud and feel good about it.
30:28
And I I think on your point if it could be written by chat GPT then maybe it's not that good.
30:33
Maybe you should try to write something better or more insightful.
30:36
And I think that uh the ones that I am proud of I think probably would be harder to write by that right now.
30:43
And maybe the ones that could have been written by that aren't as insightful as I thought.
30:48
So, I'm curious what other writing advice you've been given that you've found useful?
30:51
Yeah, so there's been a few because I was almost scared to write for a while because I assumed that it was hard for me and easy for everyone else.
31:05
And therefore I just wasn't very good at it.
31:08
And you know, the logic even as I say it out loud is pretty dumb, but a lot of what I've heard is just sort of embrace the fact that it's difficult.
31:16
It's difficult for everyone. Right?
31:16
Even the best writers don't they don't it doesn't just come out. Right?
31:22
They just do so many drafts.
31:22
They do so many versions.
31:25
And they just kind of you know, hammer it every day.
31:28
I'm sure you've heard the stonecutter's credo, right?
31:31
Of you know, pounding the rock.
31:33
A lot of what I think great writers do is they just sit down and they write every day.
31:40
Um so, that was one piece of advice which was if you want to get good at it just keep going over and over and over again.
31:49
I think another thing that I have found that has been good advice for me is um choose the topics that you actually care about.
32:02
Don't try to write about what you think someone else will think is interesting.
32:04
Write about something that you actually care about.
32:07
And it'll either be interesting or won't, but at least you'll find that you want to write about it. Right?
32:12
Find the thing that you're compelled to write about.
32:14
And so, I think that was good advice.
32:17
And then the last one that actually is one that I've taken very seriously is if something comes to mind you want to write, stop what you're doing and go write.
32:25
Don't you know, get out of the meeting.
32:27
Go and sit down, write it down. Write it down. Write it down.
32:29
One of my one of the things that I wrote that I'm most proud of is actually it didn't get get of attention or anything like that.
32:37
But, um and it shouldn't have because it's very like niche thing.
32:39
But, I wrote it on my notes section on my phone in the airport.
32:45
And but I felt something.
32:45
And so, I just started I I wrote the whole thing on my notes section. And that was cool.
32:49
Like, otherwise I would've been like, "Oh, I just like put the thought in my head."
32:53
And then I would've never written it otherwise.
32:54
But, I was taking a red eye and I was, you know, I was a connecting red eye and it was in between the connection. And I wrote it there.
33:02
And I'm really happy it exists because I wrote it when I felt it and I have it for me.
33:09
Um and it was something that I think was good advice on the if you feel it, just stop what you're doing and go write. I like that a lot.
33:15
I I sometimes do that on my watch.
33:17
I'll actually just pull out hit record and then talk because I find that a little easier and I can be anywhere.
33:24
I mean, I've done this in the sauna.
33:25
I've done it sort of like in the lake.
33:27
It's like, I got an idea.
33:29
I can't get to a pen and paper.
33:32
I'm just going to like hit record and and sort of uh get it out and then I I can come back to it later.
33:37
Often I don't come back to it, but sometimes I do.
33:40
The other thing you said that I thought was really important there was doing things when you don't feel like doing it.
33:46
I think that's almost the key to success in any domain is like doing things that are important even if you don't feel like doing it in the moment because you know long term it's important.
33:55
How do you motivate yourself or how do you create a ritual around that to to in order to be able to do it when your willpower is lacking?
34:03
I would segment it into different components cuz I I do think there are different answers for me on different things.
34:09
So, let's take like physical exercise.
34:15
Um you know, some people love exercising. They love it.
34:18
They, you know, it's their they say all these wonderfully poetic words about it.
34:23
I don't particularly enjoy it at all, right?
34:26
I mean, I like the result of it.
34:29
Um but a lot of the willpower comes from there of I really do want to like live a long time so I can see my kids when they're older and spend time with my grandkids and all that kind of stuff.
34:41
And I want to be able to do things with them now.
34:43
And I I'm afraid of, you know, not being able to do active things with the kids.
34:48
And so a lot of times I just sort of a lot of the willpower there comes from a want to do stuff with my kids and my family for a really long time.
34:58
I love playing sports with them.
35:01
I love being active with them.
35:03
And frankly, it's kind of like meeting them where they are, which I know is like a little bit of a statement that doesn't really sound like it means anything, but I actually think it's a real thing.
35:10
It's sort of like what they want to do, I kind of want to go do with them.
35:14
You know, and a lot of times what they want to do is run around.
35:17
And I like being able to do that.
35:20
And so the willpower there comes from sort of man, you don't want to be one of those parents that can't do stuff with their kids, right? At any age.
35:29
Um And I think a fear of like I I do I want to do everything I can to live a long time.
35:33
And I'm sure that if I was more zen, I could say like, "Oh, you know, I'll be fine and whenever it goes, it goes." But I'm not like that.
35:39
I really do want to live a long time. I like life.
35:41
Um Oh, I was going to say I'm the same way.
35:45
Like I I I have a different approach than you, but I have the same goal, right?
35:48
Like I want to live as long as I can, as healthy as I can for as long as I can.
35:53
Uh it's not sort of duration, but I want to actually like live and and and sort of be able to do things with my kids and um all of that.
36:03
When it comes to willpower, it's like I know I need to go to the gym. I hate the gym.
36:07
I'm not one of those people who's like, "Oh, this is fun. Can't wait to go."
36:12
And so for me, I've determined that every day is easier than some days.
36:21
Because if I go to the gym some days, it ends up being a negotiation with myself. Yeah.
36:28
And that negotiation is I don't have to go today.
36:31
I'm going to go tomorrow.
36:34
But if I go every day, there is no negotiation about whether I'm going to do it.
36:40
So whether I'm going to do it is predetermined. So I go every day.
36:44
The negotiation becomes when do I fit this in my schedule?
36:46
When does this make the most sense into my calendar?
36:48
And it changes the way that you talk to yourself about it.
36:53
And I found it super powerful because the people that I know have started working out and then stopped, it's always a negotiation with them I don't feel like getting out of bed today.
37:03
I don't feel like going to the gym today.
37:05
I don't feel like and it's like who cares how you feel honestly?
37:09
Like if you've decided that the gym is important to you and that's something that you need to do.
37:13
How you feel about it doesn't really matter.
37:16
Same as like I don't feel like going to work today.
37:18
It's like doesn't really matter.
37:20
You still got to show up to your job.
37:22
Well well so I Okay, I like your answer so much better than mine and so I'll I'll I'm going to I'm going to do an addendum because I actually think more of the physical part to me is actually food than working out in terms of the discipline.
37:32
And so I think to your point though in probably my favorite book How Will You Measure Your Life, Clay Christensen has this quote of you know, it's easier to follow your principles 100% of the time rather than 98% of the time because you don't know what 98% of the time to follow them, right?
37:46
It can always be a negotiation as to what's the two.
37:47
And so I think your point on the every dayness is a big deal.
37:51
So yeah, my physical fitness answer and exercise is pretty mediocre.
37:55
I think the food one I have a more of a framework.
37:57
Which is I work out with this trainer twice a week and he told me one time, he said, "Look, there's 21 meals in a week. Okay?
38:05
He goes, "If you want to lose weight, 19 or more of them have got to be good meals. Okay?
38:09
If you want to maintain your weight, 15 to 19 of them are going to be good meals.
38:14
And if you're less than 15, you're probably going to gain weight."
38:18
And it was really simple.
38:18
And so for me, that is actually the thing that I think about for food all the time. I do a count.
38:23
I'm like, "Okay, I got 21 of these."
38:25
And what I try to do is remove any sort of decision on 10 of them.
38:31
Monday through Friday breakfast and lunch, just do the same thing every day. Right?
38:34
And then ideally, I do it on the weekdays, too.
38:37
I can avoid ideally I will avoid a work dinner, right?
38:39
Or avoid eating at a restaurant or something like that.
38:42
Cuz what I'm trying to do is get as many in the house as possible before the weekend. Yeah. Right?
38:47
Because the baseline would ideally be that my Friday night and Saturday night are the ones that I can even if we don't even go out, which I can do with the kids, whatever.
38:54
Those are the ones where they're not good meals.
38:57
But I'd say framework-wise on the I try to almost remove the willpower by not having the ability to make a decision on as many of them as possible.
39:05
So that is one thing I try to think about on the physical side, and it's similar to you of like everything is a discussion, you just try to have fewer negotiations almost on that.
39:16
Um on the on the work front of sort of like doing the right stuff.
39:23
This is one where I I have a quote on my desk, and it's from Tom Izzo, the coach of Michigan State.
39:30
Now, I'm a Duke fan, but I thought this is a pretty good quote.
39:31
And it says on there, "It's not because you've got to, it's because you get to."
39:37
And it's at the top they have that quote at the beginning of the Michigan State locker room or the weight room.
39:42
And I think it's this reminder of dude, you chose to do this job.
39:45
Yeah, sure, it's a hard job, whatever.
39:47
But you chose to do this.
39:50
You every day, you don't have to do it.
39:52
And so if you're going to do it, remember like you you made the decision to go and spend your time away from your family doing this.
40:00
And I think again, like I come back to the family point, it's like make it worth it.
40:03
If you're going to be gone from the kids, from your wife, from people you care about, make this worth it.
40:10
Otherwise, what are you doing?
40:11
And I think reminding yourself that, you you you wanted this, and you have affirmatively chosen this.
40:18
That for me is an important part of the the kind of self-talk to have the willpower to do the thing that you need to do is don't waste this important time that you're using away from people that you care about cuz I do think like time is precious and you know, you got to be affirmative in how you spend it.
40:34
And so it's kind of like uh every day make a decision that you've made it worth it. I love that.
40:41
I love the meal thing, too.
40:43
I've never heard it put that way before and I think that's simple and easy to understand and very actionable.
40:46
It also prevents you from having more than the three meals, right?
40:50
Because you're kind of like, oh man, 21 is the number. And It's only Tuesday. I've already hit that. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
40:56
Like oh oh I had, you know, nachos at 10:30 last night. Darn.
41:03
Uh I want to go back to your time at Instacart a little.
41:04
I'm wondering, you know, what seemed missing or broken when you were there doing that and you still don't think has been really solved or fixed?
41:14
Uh of course, you know this. I love Instacart.
41:17
I The reason I went there was uh we used it a lot and when I was meeting with the company, I asked my wife, what do you think of Instacart?
41:26
And she said, oh my god, I love Instacart. And I said, okay.
41:30
And she said, if you wanted to move, the first thing I would do is see if Instacart delivered to the new house.
41:34
And I just remember thinking like I mean, what an anecdote, right?
41:38
Someone The person you respect most in the world telling you that they wouldn't move unless this product delivered there.
41:43
So, the love for it existed 7 8 years ago, it exists now. I love it.
41:51
In terms of something that was missing when I was there and is still missing, it's really hard to get everything you ordered every time.
42:02
It's just It is It is a hard problem.
42:04
And I I'll I'll do the math, right?
42:04
A typical I order has 15 to 20 items in it. Okay?
42:11
And we have a very high chance of finding that specific item.
42:16
But grocery stores don't always know exactly what's in it. Right?
42:19
They don't always have a perfect thing.
42:20
And people's algorithms for what they want to replace it with are not always the same.
42:24
So, I have a friend, one of my closest friends, he you know, likes to eat grilled cheese for dinner.
42:30
But if the grocery store doesn't have something that goes into grilled cheese, that would be kind of strange if they didn't have it, but you get what I'm saying.
42:35
If they don't have one of the ingredients for grilled cheese, his algorithm for what he wants if he doesn't eat grilled cheese is a quesadilla.
42:42
Well, that's not like, "Oh, the cheddar is not there.
42:44
I want the medium cheddar."
42:46
It's like, "Oh, if they don't have sharp cheddar, I want an entirely different dish."
42:50
And it's very hard to predict exactly what somebody wants if you don't have what the thing that they ordered, and grocery stores don't always know what's in it.
42:57
And so, Instacart's gotten so much better at this, but it still is not 100% of the time everything you ordered or something that you would want perfectly as the replacement.
43:06
And I think that it's one of those like you got to enjoy climbing the mountain because, you know, the company keeps on getting better at it. But like it's not there.
43:18
It's not perfect, and it's still not perfect.
43:19
I I had never thought about it that way.
43:22
Like if I order Windex, and you switch it for a no-name brand, I mean, that's simple, pretty obvious, and 99.
43:26
99% of the time that works.
43:30
I had never thought about the fact that if I'm trying to make grilled cheese, and you you you run out of cheese, well, then in my head, I don't go for a substitute from cheddar to mozzarella.
43:38
I actually move to an entirely different meal.
43:44
And so, you're replacing the cheese doesn't really fulfill my need, but it's an unstated Yes.
43:51
almost uh impossible to discover invisible need.
43:55
Yeah, and and and you know, you can imagine, "Oh, well, you should ask the person what exactly What do you want if this doesn't happen if this doesn't happen?"
44:02
And I mean, But that also requires like real-time interactions because you don't want somebody standing around a store or this endless loop or like diagram of like, okay, if this do this and on a 20 20 cart order that could end up with like 15,000 different like permutations of Of course and this is where it's so funny because You know, what I would tell people when they would say, well, isn't the space competitive?
44:29
I was like, yeah, of course it is.
44:30
I was like, but guys, you know, Instacart started in 2012.
44:32
So at this point, you know, the company is, you know, 10 and a half years old.
44:36
I was like, we made 10 and a half years of mistakes. This is hard.
44:39
Um and I think that that is actually a huge advantage and you think about what we were talking about earlier on businesses, businesses being fascinating, businesses being interesting, businesses being complicated.
44:49
Instacart is a hard business.
44:52
But it's a good business now that like, you know, the company has done really well and you know, learned a lot of lessons.
44:57
But that that's one thing that I think um was missing.
45:01
It's like less missing now, but it's definitely still not perfect.
45:05
One of your beliefs is quality over quantity and I'm wondering are there fun ways that that applies that may be not non-intuitive to the rest of us?
45:13
I think it it it's easy to be like, oh, I'm going to buy higher quality food.
45:16
I'm going to consume less of it.
45:18
But what are what are the non-intuitive ways that that idea applies to your life?
45:22
Well, I I'll tell you them and then I'll tell you the one place where I think that the it what I just said does not apply clearly that where quantity is more important than perceived quality.
45:33
So I'll give you one where I think I'd break my own rule.
45:37
I think one non-intuitive way is Shane, if I think about the jobs you've had, okay, and you look at the percentage of people that delivered 90% of the value in the places you've worked. Right?
45:54
What percentage would you put on it?
45:55
What percentage of the people do you think delivered 80 or 90% of the value in the places you've worked? Five. Yeah.
46:04
So, that's a pretty extreme thing.
46:04
I would say the same thing, 5 to 10%.
46:08
Everyone talks about 80/20 and all this stuff.
46:11
What company acts like 5% of the people deliver 90% of the value? Mhm. Very few. Very few.
46:19
And so, to me, one non-intuitive thing is like think about, you know, in the company you work at, what percentage of the people deliver 90% of the value?
46:25
And think about whether you're actually acting like those people are treated that way.
46:31
I don't mean in terms of money, I just mean in terms of respect, authority, love, you know, uh responsibility.
46:39
Frankly, like are you acting like if they left it would be a big problem?
46:41
All All those kinds of things.
46:43
And I think that 80/20 is conventional, 5/90 not conventional.
46:46
But my experience is closer to yours.
46:50
And that is one aspect where if you think about what that means time-wise, it means if you can get one of those five, right?
46:59
You should spend a crazy amount of time going to find them. Right?
47:03
You should spend a crazy amount of time getting to know people who could possibly be one of those five.
47:08
And actually, the entire point of being a leader might be to go find two or three trajectory-changing people for the company, rather than all of the other things that make you feel like you're making more linear forward progress.
47:18
So, I think 5/90 would be something that I would think about. Right?
47:24
I think about that a lot.
47:26
And if you have one of those people that's one of the five, are you behaving, are you aware of everything that could make them go, and are you in sync with them?
47:37
Because I think that people spend a lot of time trying to appease the 95% that are delivering the 10 delivering 10% of the value.
47:43
Think about comp systems.
47:46
Think about the number of times that you'll be in a company and somebody great will be like on the fence of staying, and you'll be like, well, could we do this on compensation?
47:56
Could we do this on title?
47:57
And they'll be like, well, the bands don't allow that.
47:59
I'm like, you created the bands.
48:02
What are we talking about?
48:03
What The purpose of the bands is so that we win.
48:06
That is a tool that we're using.
48:08
Now, the band is preventing us from winning.
48:09
What are we talking about? Right?
48:11
People are like, well, it's fairness.
48:12
I'm like, it's not fair to the person who's excellent.
48:13
So, that'd be one where I think the quality over quantity, I think people really don't, you know, do it in the the way that they should.
48:23
I think the second thing um that I'd I'd put on that is I don't know what percentage of your time do you spend with the people that matter most to you?
48:37
A lot of people, not very much.
48:37
Like, one of the things that I wonder about, and I wonder about this in my own life.
48:42
Like, you know, I think my wife and I are very good on spending time together, spending time with the kids, spending time with our very close friends who are who live close to us.
48:47
I think we're pretty good on that.
48:48
We don't just kind of peanut butter it.
48:51
And I feel like, you know, we have been thoughtful and uh affirmative in those decisions.
48:57
But, like, my parents live in Chicago.
48:59
My parents live in, you know, my brother lives in North Carolina.
49:01
My mother-in-law, who we're very close with, my wife's mom lives in North Carolina. I don't know.
49:07
They come, they spend they come every six or eight weeks, they spend a week or two with us.
49:10
So, we're like pretty good.
49:11
But, we made a pretty weird decision to go and like live pretty far away from them.
49:15
One of the things I wonder about is whether this I think kind of American mentality of like, go where your career takes you, go where the best professional opportunity is, rather than living close to your family.
49:26
I I wonder if that's an experiment that's not going to turn out to be right.
49:29
Because um so, I think we're doing that in some ways, and we're doing it pretty well, but not as well as we could relative to our grandparents, relative to the grandparents and, you know, our families.
49:42
Uh so, that's another thing.
49:42
And then I'll tell you the place where I think that the quality over quantity theory actually leads to some pretty bad behavior.
49:49
Is that okay if I go there? Yeah, please.
49:52
So, I think with your kids when they're young, I think the quality over quantity is a very pernicious thought.
49:59
Because it allows you to not spend that much time with them and be like, "Oh, it's all good.
50:03
I'll we'll I'll just be there for a like a kick-ass birthday party. Right?
50:07
I'll be there for I'll take them to Disneyland and I'll create this incredible memory that they'll love.
50:16
And it allows you to be gone more than I think you should.
50:19
And it gives you an excuse.
50:21
And it gives you a reason that you can do that.
50:23
And I think the truth of the matter is for young kids, you have no idea when the good moments are coming.
50:27
You have no idea when the quality moments are coming.
50:29
It might not be at the birthday party.
50:31
It might not be when you go to Disneyland.
50:32
It actually might be when you're just like sitting on the couch and they say something that makes you like, "Oh my gosh." Right?
50:38
There was somebody we spend a lot of time on like youth sports.
50:43
We don't care We don't care if our kids like do anything with sports.
50:47
We don't We don't care about it at all.
50:49
But we end up driving all over, you know, Northern California uh on the weekends.
50:54
And I had a friend who was like, "What are you doing?
50:56
Do you think your kids are going to do anything with sports?"
50:57
I was like, "Probably not."
51:00
He said, "Why do you spend so much time?
51:01
Why do you waste so much time on that?" And he's smart.
51:05
And I thought about it and I'm like, "Well, the truth of the matter is I love being at my kids' sports games. They're having fun. I love watching them.
51:14
I actually really enjoy driving them to those events.
51:17
Because kids kind of forget when they're in the car.
51:19
They have nowhere else to go and they're super chatty. Right?
51:21
And getting a lot of those in-between moments with them.
51:24
What would I be doing if I wasn't doing that?
51:26
Would I like be looking at my phone?
51:27
Like on my What would I be doing?
51:29
It's actually the thing I do want to do.
51:31
And I love that the quantity is there if I really think about it.
51:35
And so anyway, I think quantity is kind of the main thing when it comes to family time, particularly with young kids.
51:41
And I actually think that a lot of people uh tell themselves a story on this one that I think is not going to be great long term.
51:50
Have you ever invested with a founder and no names here if you have that um was focused on their business to the detriment of their family in an extreme way?
52:05
Like that neglected their kids, neglected their wife, that was successful. Yeah.
52:12
I don't know if it's direct me investing or but I've certainly seen it for sure.
52:18
Um and How does that play out later? Yeah.
52:24
Well, I think the first thing is it doesn't always like end in a obvious schism or an obvious break like divorce or something like that.
52:33
I think sometimes it ends up as just the relationships aren't the way that they would want them to be.
52:41
I think the way it plays out Shane is a lot of times it's sort of like the uh moment-by-moment corrosive behavior uh of just sort of that's the thing that you want to talk about.
52:52
That's the thing that has your attention.
52:54
So like when when Upfront and I have fought about work taking up too much mind share it's not that all of a sudden I'm a jerk.
53:03
It's that I'm not present.
53:03
It's that the only thing that It's that when she's talking about something, the thing that's going through my head is the thing that I'm thinking about and it's something related to work or the stuff that I am talking about with her or with our friends is all stuff all about me or it's that like when I go to the I'll still go to the kids' stuff but I'm not paying attention. I'm looking at my phone. You're not present.
53:27
I think a lot of the things that the way it plays out is It's not sort of like the lightning bolt moments.
53:33
It's just sort of a general drifting because the person finds you to be kind of selfish.
53:37
You know, they don't feel like they're number one.
53:39
Um and so I think that's the constant battle, at least as I've seen in the ones that are successful, is people kind of it's hard.
53:48
You know, funny enough, when I was at Instagram, one of the values that we had was this is your baby. Okay?
53:53
And you know, the reason that came out was that people would a lot of times tell um our founders like that's like a statement of like, "Yeah, of course you care this much. This is your baby."
54:03
And it was kind of a controversial value because of some of the people were like, "Wait a second.
54:06
Like, I don't I don't like those words."
54:08
And the point of it was sort of treat it like it you care about it.
54:12
Oh Treat it like you're an owner.
54:13
And it was like a lot more fun of a way to say it or a more interesting way to say it than like, you know, act like an owner.
54:20
But anyway, I think that if you take that logic though of sometimes the company for somebody particularly who created it, you know, it feels like it is a family member almost.
54:29
It feels like something that they hold dearly onto and their identity is tied up in it all that.
54:35
It's not crazy to think of so like why it could take up a lot of your mind share and it's hard to compartmentalize.
54:42
So I I think that happens a lot.
54:42
I've definitely seen that up close.
54:46
And I think the way it plays out Shane is that later they say, "Well, gosh, like I wish I would have done something different before."
54:52
And one of the things I think that's true is you can't go back and change it, but you can change it that day.
55:00
And I do think that people react People are pretty good at noticing if you're doing something every day.
55:05
If you've changed something and you've really committed and you're doing it every day, right?
55:10
I I you talk about this all the time in your uh in the various writing that you do, which is just the value of consistency.
55:16
And so maybe that's the point.
55:18
I think anything you're doing consistently shows up to people.
55:19
It might take a long time, but it shows up.
55:23
And that's in both directions.
55:23
On the other hand, I hold this thought which which doesn't conflict with that, but sort of wrestles with it in an interesting way, which is I I I believe you can be the best in the world at anything and be a well-balanced person.
55:42
Okay, let me let me fight with you for a second on it. Okay.
55:45
Well, I mean you know, the example that comes to mind is like Warren Buffett, right?
55:48
Best investor we've ever seen historically, uh you know, arguably wasn't a role model family person.
55:53
It's easy to look back and be like, well, he should have been, you know, he might have those regrets, but he might not be Warren Buffett if he had been a better family person. Yeah.
56:05
So, maybe the reason I said I would fight with you on it is actually kind of a poor argument because the truth of the matter is the vast majority of people that I think about as best in the world, I would agree with you on. Right?
56:15
Most of the examples that I think of uh I do think they tend to not be that well-adjusted.
56:20
The person that came to mind who I obviously have no idea about, but from a distance, is Steph Curry.
56:26
Where it does seem like he has a real, you know, family life and he is you know, the best in the world at, you know, uh something.
56:39
Now, I think it might be a situation where the exception proves the rule or the truth of the matter is like you know, I obviously don't know Steph Curry and so maybe maybe it's not about Tom Brady until this year, too. Right?
56:52
Yeah, I know, that's the problem is that like, you know, you don't really know anything about these people, but I think, you know, maybe Shane here will tell you and this is something that I it feels weird to say out loud, right? But I think it is true.
57:08
If what it takes to be the best in the world at the thing that I'm doing is to lose some of those aspects that we're talking about, then I don't want it.
57:19
Yeah, you know, I hope I hope I can be. I I want I am ambitious.
57:23
I I really want to go and try to do that.
57:27
But, you know, it's not number one for me.
57:29
Number one is the family and it it and it is sort of what Avni and the kids are going to say about the way I was and am with them.
57:38
And so and maybe I should say I'm kind of fearful that what you just said is true.
57:45
But I'm not fearful enough to change it, you know?
57:49
I I I totally agree with you.
57:49
And then I also catch myself going, you know, the maybe the worst parts of conversations with myself. Yeah. Is uh that's an excuse. Yeah. Right? You're scared.
58:02
You're you're getting in your own way.
58:04
You could do so much more and you could you know, this is the weird thing about about being an entrepreneur is like every minute you're not investing you could be for every minute you're not working you could be forwarding the business.
58:16
You could be doing something more.
58:17
You could be improving your position for the future. Oh, it's infinite.
58:21
You have to wrestle with this when you have kids and it's sort of like, well, what are these trade-offs and what are these lines?
58:27
And where do I stand with this?
58:30
And I I came out with the you know, what my kids are first and foremost always.
58:37
And if I want to do more when it's less impactful for them and I define that by them not living with me. Yeah. I like that.
58:47
I will I will work harder and if I still have those ambitions and goals I will commit to myself that I'll go all in on whatever it is I want to do.
58:56
And I define it as that because I saw a lot of parents of teenagers define it as them being independent.
59:04
So they hit grade seven eight, nine, they can come home, they can make dinner by themselves.
59:11
And because they can do that you tend to um take liberties that you might not actually know you're taking in the sense of I work with a lot of people who put their careers first. Yep.
59:23
Uh but then they didn't know anything about their kids.
59:27
They would come to me and be like, "What should I get my 16-year-old for Christmas?"
59:30
And I'm like, "Well, tell me about your 16-year-old."
59:31
And you get these like, you know, high-level sketches of this kid.
59:36
And you're like, "Well, this is because you work 14 hours a day, six days a week.
59:40
I I can understand you might not know a lot about your I don't want to be in that position."
59:45
And so, I'm I create these rules for myself to keep me the best version of myself, if you will, right?
59:52
So, I create rules that the best version of myself wants, and then I just follow the rules.
59:56
One of those rules is I'm home every day when the kids get home. Yeah, that's a good one.
59:59
And that keeps me But, they don't even talk to me anymore.
1:00:03
They're in grade seven and eight. Of course.
1:00:03
They chuck their book bags down. They go for a shower.
1:00:05
They start their homework. They're grumpy. Uh, but I'm there. Yes.
1:00:11
But, this is where So, so, I really like that because I think to your point on sort of the the when they live with you versus when they don't.
1:00:21
It's again, it's very hard to predict when they're going to want to talk to you. Totally. Right?
1:00:24
It really is very hard to know when that's going to happen. You know?
1:00:28
And I think just sort of like being there provides a huge benefit cuz when they are wanting to do it, okay, you're ready to have for that serendipity.
1:00:38
You're ready for that moment cuz you're there, right?
1:00:39
And the other thing is, like you said, in knowing them by seeing them, you actually know what the heck to say.
1:00:48
And you've earned the trust with them to kind of, you know, provide the the thoughtful feedback.
1:00:53
Like, there That is a real thing.
1:00:55
And I am just like you, where I count the number of days that I have dinners.
1:01:00
I count the number of days I'm on the road.
1:01:02
I go to pretty serious lengths to avoid, um, unnecessary travel.
1:01:08
And one thing that I do firmly believe is I think focus is such a helpful aspect of trying to thread the needle.
1:01:20
Because I just I hate when I am wasting time when I'm away from them. I hate it.
1:01:26
Cuz I'm like, "No, I'm not even furthering the thing that I'm trying to be good at. This is just dumb. Why am I doing this?"
1:01:32
And so I think that like that my my zealotry around focus is something that I think makes me feel better of like, "No, I'm I'm trying to move the ball forward Well, that's your most That's your best time, your most expensive time.
1:01:45
You're giving up the one thing that matters to you most, so it has to have uh arguably the payoff if you want to think of it that way.
1:01:54
We've talked about this on the phone a little bit.
1:01:56
Now is probably a good time to talk about it, but it's about the concept of taking simple ideas, which we've been talking about throughout this whole episode so far, and taking them seriously.
1:02:05
And one of the ones that you have that I admire the most, I think, about your relentless pursuit of it is to keep the main thing the main thing.
1:02:16
And I'm wondering if you could explain why that idea is so important to you and how it applies in various aspects of your life and when it breaks.
1:02:26
So obviously this is a quote that came from I think Jim Barksdale.
1:02:31
Um but you know, I remember the first time I saw it and I remember just the wording and why it sat with me, but it almost sounds silly when you first hear it.
1:02:40
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
1:02:42
And just, you know, anytime you see a quote with the same words three times in a row, it's really remarkable.
1:02:50
But when I've thought about it and it really came to life when I was at Instacart, right?
1:02:53
It came to life for me when I was at Instacart because there are so many people pulling you in different directions about the thing that they want to talk about.
1:03:03
And so specifically at Instacart, you know, when I got there, we were losing a lot of money on every delivery.
1:03:08
I was very concerned that we were going to go out of business.
1:03:13
And there was a genuine fear of our business is not going to exist.
1:03:20
And so truly an existential concern that I thought was well placed and fully informed by the data, right?
1:03:25
We had less than a year of cash, it was getting worse every day.
1:03:28
We were losing money on every order, so the volume wouldn't help us.
1:03:32
There was an existential and you know, imminent threat.
1:03:37
And the number of conversations that people would have because they didn't know, right?
1:03:40
About things that had nothing to do with that was remarkable.
1:03:46
And I realized I could spend my whole I could spend 6 months, I could spend 11 months, I could spend all of our cash months left doing things that didn't matter to the one thing that actually was going to determine if we had a business.
1:03:57
And that moment was like, wow, this this quote is exactly right.
1:04:00
You have to keep focus on the thing that matters.
1:04:04
And actually that is the job of the leader is making sure that the organization is focused on the thing that matters.
1:04:10
And sprawl and uh just spending time in little compromises on that is a disaster.
1:04:17
And it actually it it is a it destroys the obligation you have as the leader.
1:04:22
So I'd say like the the play it became real to me when I was, you know, one of the few people responsible for the outcome of a company.
1:04:29
Um and then I started seeing it that it applied everywhere. It applied everywhere.
1:04:36
Okay, well uh it applies personally.
1:04:40
Well your relationship with your wife and your children or relationship with your spouse and your children.
1:04:46
Well, that seems like the main thing. Cool.
1:04:47
How do you make sure that you actually are investing in that above everything else? Right?
1:04:52
How do you make sure that the people that you're spending time with are the ones that you actually want to spend time with?
1:04:57
And it just I saw it everywhere.
1:04:59
And so the reason I say Shane it became important to me was because I felt like it was a dramatic it was a huge unlock for like how I wanted to live my life personally and professionally.
1:05:09
And then it also fit with this book I referenced earlier of the Clay Christensen book, How Will You Measure Your Life?
1:05:14
And I think so much of that was sort of being able to answer that question and making sure your decisions every day, you know, fit with that with that answer of how you actually go about measuring your life.
1:05:26
In terms of your question of when it breaks, it it's at risk of breaking all the time for me, right?
1:05:36
Because so when I was at Instacart, it would break when people were unhappy that our goals were too commercial, right?
1:05:45
All we talk about is the GMV of the business, all we talk about is the metrics.
1:05:51
What about uh this other thing, right?
1:05:55
And somebody would say, "What are we doing for climate? Climate is a big deal.
1:05:58
What are we doing for climate?"
1:06:00
And you want to tell people like it will help with recruiting some great engineers if we are really forward-thinking on climate, right?
1:06:10
And so you can talk yourself into, well, that it'll help us if we have the best people in the world and the best people in the world sometimes care about these things and gosh, like maybe we should have a climate program.
1:06:22
Uh but we shouldn't have.
1:06:22
That was not the right answer for the company at that time.
1:06:25
And I think that um so it's at risk at breaking cuz it's also easy to say yes, people feel good.
1:06:30
You you you feel like you're listening.
1:06:33
A lot of times it can feel like you're being obstinate when you're not when you you know, it just feels easy to make that little compromise.
1:06:40
And then the same thing, it's at risk of breaking all the time, you know, I'll get invited to an interesting dinner.
1:06:47
I'll get invited to an interesting thing that, you know, is away from home.
1:06:52
And it's just like, "Oh, just one night, you know, it's okay.
1:06:54
You know, there's 364 other nights."
1:06:58
But um so I I'd say I find it to be a constant battle, but it is something I take pride in and that I I that I am I think it's like in my soul.
1:07:09
It's something I really believe.
1:07:12
I I like the climate example because it's sort of an example that we we see a lot today, right?
1:07:17
We see it in politics, we see it everywhere where somebody throws something on the table.
1:07:24
It's not the most important thing, but it's also really hard to argue with. Yeah.
1:07:30
Because you feel or it's framed like, "Oh, you don't think environment's important?" Yeah, exactly.
1:07:36
"Oh, you don't care about social responsibility?"
1:07:40
And it's like, "No, no, no, of course of course I care about that."
1:07:42
And and I actually I think the climate is huge problem.
1:07:47
I don't think that we are the people who are best suited to solve it with this company and I think for this company the best thing we can do is be a great company, right?
1:07:54
And I think I also I think I'm also more nervous about companies' ability to maintain their ability to be great.
1:08:03
And I think people misattribute things a lot.
1:08:05
Like, you know, a lot of people will be like, "Well, we should use the the comp system or the leveling system that Google uses.
1:08:12
Look at how big of a company Google is."
1:08:16
We should borrow a lot of Google's processes.
1:08:18
And it's just to me it's crazy because I understand the logic.
1:08:21
Google is a giant company.
1:08:23
It is a very successful company.
1:08:25
It has a lot of processes.
1:08:25
It has a lot of leveling and compensation bands and whatever.
1:08:30
I don't think that's the reason Google's successful.
1:08:32
I think the reason Google's successful is because they have a product that you have to use most of the time you use the internet and they effectively get to charge you a toll every time you use it.
1:08:40
And I think all that other stuff is like bolted on around it, but people I think there's a lot of correlation versus causation that people use to suggest things. Totally.
1:08:50
And I think frankly it's hard to disagree with people a lot. You know?
1:08:55
Yeah, you don't want to be disagreeable.
1:08:57
We used to sort of use it as a filter in operations because if people couldn't consistently identify the most important thing, Yes.
1:09:06
then it was sort of a sign that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, and they should maybe find another another job uh, within the organization to Oh, no, I was going to say one of the things that we do at Sequoia now is every Tuesday, every single person writes down their most important thing for the week. And we And we share it.
1:09:24
We like literally have it on a Google Sheet.
1:09:26
Every person, what is the most important thing you are doing this week?
1:09:30
And you can pick whatever unit you want. Uh, unit of time.
1:09:33
But I really like that discipline of like, please write it down.
1:09:36
And don't write down two of them.
1:09:37
The purpose is to have one, you know? Um, but I like that.
1:09:42
But sorry, I interrupted you.
1:09:42
No, I was I was thinking, like, have you Do you know anybody that uses this as an assessment tool to gauge success?
1:09:47
I'm formulating a hypothesis as we talk that if you were to give somebody a complicated scenario, and this was the only interview question, and the only question was identify the most important thing in this scenario, that that would correlate to outstanding job performance. I like that.
1:10:10
Yeah, I you know, literally uh, somebody uh, Alfred Lin the other day asked me, you know, who what is your favorite interview question? And I sent him to him.
1:10:20
And honestly, I felt like it wasn't that good of an interview question after I sent it to him.
1:10:25
And I would so much rather have asked what you just asked.
1:10:29
And I'm going to take that.
1:10:29
Because that is what I care about.
1:10:31
I care about someone's ability to identify the thing, and then to execute against the thing, right?
1:10:37
Um, and I I I like the hypothesis that you just, you know, formulated.
1:10:43
Because does this, I I want to email me.
1:10:45
I want to see the results. Yeah, of course. I'm going to do it.
1:10:49
I'm I'm going to take it.
1:10:50
I'm going to experiment with it now for the next few months.
1:10:52
So, if I ever interview somebody soon, that's the question they're going to get.
1:10:55
I'm going to come up with a scenario and be like, "What's the most important thing?"
1:10:57
And and you can make it complicated where you you can email your partners and not everybody would agree, but they sort of correlate on Yes.
1:11:06
80% of high performers would pick this as the most important thing.
1:11:09
And I bet you uh yeah, I'm interested to see the results.
1:11:15
I bet you that would be a really good proxy for on-the-job actual performance.
1:11:21
Well, so there's this person who I worked with at Instacart.
1:11:23
Um who told me she was you know, you mentioned ops.
1:11:25
She was um uh an ops leader in San Francisco.
1:11:32
And the scenario she would give is uh and I thought it was an amazing question. Effectively this.
1:11:36
But she would say, "Look."
1:11:37
She's interviewing somebody.
1:11:39
"Hey, you're um one of the managers in San Francisco and one of the people at the store in at the Safeway in Potrero Hill calls you and says, 'Hey, look.
1:11:49
The refrigerator where we store the groceries cuz you know, we would have a shopper pick it and then put it in a refrigerator and then a delivery driver come get it from the refrigerator, you know, and then take it to someone's house.
1:12:01
The refrigerator's not working, right? Um what what do we do?"
1:12:06
And she said you'd get all these answers of people.
1:12:07
Sometimes people have you know, uh backgrounds that are academic in nature or whatever.
1:12:11
Well, you know, I I'd call all the rest of the stores and I'd figure out if there's a systematic problem with our fridges.
1:12:16
You know, I would uh analyze the data.
1:12:18
I'd look at the sales that we're going to lose in that store based on the fridge and I would try to create a new algorithm that didn't have people drop it off in the store. And all these answers.
1:12:28
And then the people she'd hire every time would be like, "I'd go to Potrero Hill and I'd fix the fridge or I'd go and stop somewhere else and buy a new fridge and bring it there." Every time.
1:12:37
And she's like, "The answer is fix the fridge, right?
1:12:39
Find a way to have us have a refrigerated thing as soon as possible so we can continue to run the business."
1:12:45
And I always loved her question cuz I thought it perfectly embodied, you know, what somebody would have to do and the kinds of problems that have to solve and the way that the action orientation that she wanted.
1:12:55
And I think it's a version of what you just said because I've always thought that that was such a wonderful interview question.
1:13:01
Um and now I can abstract it to what you just said. I love it.
1:13:03
What you're really trying to do is uh we used to ask this at the intelligence agency in some of our interviews, which is like we're going to use a different question than we use, but like how would you break me out of a third world prison? Yeah. Yeah.
1:13:19
is what we're really trying to figure out is are you resourceful? Totally. Right?
1:13:25
How do you think through problems that you've never encountered?
1:13:27
Not know it way of like how do you move Mount Fuji cuz like I think those are easy to prepare for and but this is like how would you actually do this?
1:13:36
How would you fix the like how would you fix this problem?
1:13:39
Well, I buy a frid- that's a simple answer that's effective and works. That's amazing.
1:13:43
But it's surprising that that answer is not I know.
1:13:48
That answer is not the standard. I know.
1:13:50
And and to your point yeah, like I I always one of the things I tell people who I work with, you know, I'm like guys this is not gymnastics.
1:13:59
There's no points for degree of difficulty.
1:14:01
Let's just go let's just get to the the right answer. Let's go. If it's hard, it's hard.
1:14:05
Cool, but sometimes it's not hard. Let's just do the thing.
1:14:10
Well, that's easy it's Actually, it's interesting you mentioned that you said that there's no points for degree of difficulty.
1:14:16
One of the things that I've been playing around with in my head lately is that most of the people that I think of as exceptional decision-makers, consistently good decisions, find themselves in consistently good positions. Yes.
1:14:34
And when you're in a consistently good position, all of your options basically are good. Yeah.
1:14:42
You're never forced into a bad decision.
1:14:44
And when you're in a bad position, there's like one Hail Mary that might get you out, but everything else is just going to go from bad to worse. Yes.
1:14:53
How do you react to that?
1:14:56
I think I think that it is generally true.
1:14:57
In my Look, I mean, you have a lot more experience actually than I do in thinking through this and talking to people.
1:15:03
So, the reason that I find myself largely agreeing is I think the really good decision makers, what they do is they're very good at identifying the one-way doors versus the two-way doors, right?
1:15:13
And on the one-way doors, their metric is, you know, speed.
1:15:17
And they're sort of like, I need the feedback as soon as possible.
1:15:19
Or sorry, on the two-way doors, their feedback mechanism is just like, I got to I got to optimize for speed.
1:15:25
I got to make this one quickly.
1:15:26
I don't care if it's wrong.
1:15:28
If it's wrong, we'll fix it. Right?
1:15:29
One of my big things is you can bounce back from any mistake other than a mistake of integrity.
1:15:33
If you don't make a mistake of integrity, you can really actually just like fix almost anything. Right?
1:15:38
And um I think those same decision makers on the one-way doors, they're super thoughtful, and they they get them right.
1:15:46
They get them right more often than they don't.
1:15:48
And the only reason that I hesitated on, you know, are they always in good positions?
1:15:53
is there were definitely a couple of times where we felt like we did not have a great option at Instacart, right?
1:16:05
And I've seen good companies that don't feel like they have a great option.
1:16:08
I think the thing that I admire when people have that though is they kind of make it into a good option.
1:16:14
So, when Amazon bought Whole Foods, that was a terrible moment for us at the time. Right?
1:16:17
We uh our blood competitor, who's known for annihilating everyone in their way, buys our biggest partner who owns who has responsible for 43% of our volume.
1:16:30
And we are afraid we're going to go out of business, right?
1:16:33
At that moment, we don't actually have a great set of options, right?
1:16:39
We can't get Amazon not to buy Whole Foods.
1:16:41
We can't get Whole Foods that at some point not work with us. Right?
1:16:44
So, 43% of our volume is now gone.
1:16:48
I think what we did a good job of was, okay, our only way out is if this is the impetus for other grocers to work with us.
1:16:54
That's the only way out of this problem.
1:16:56
Okay, let's go make sure that we have left everything on the field to go get that to make that happen.
1:17:00
So, now every week, we're gone. We're in Grand Rapids.
1:17:04
We're in Lakeland, Florida.
1:17:04
We are in, you know, Idaho.
1:17:06
We are everywhere over and over and over again to meet them.
1:17:09
And it ended up being an amazing impetus. We had a good pitch.
1:17:13
They, over the next 12 months, everybody signed up with us.
1:17:18
The But, I don't think that at the moment it was that that was a great option, but I I feel proud, I think as a team, that we were able to turn it into one.
1:17:26
You know, so that's the only reason I hesitated on what you said, but I agree with it generally speaking, cuz I think that they're just great decision makers are good at identifying one-way doors versus two-way doors and getting the one-way doors right, but then on the two-way doors, just realizing that speed is the main thing.
1:17:44
Keep going on the great decision makers.
1:17:46
You You hang a lot Well, you work with a lot of them. Yeah.
1:17:48
As a profession, you're exposed to a lot of different types of people from a variety of different backgrounds.
1:17:56
I'm curious if there's common traits you see amongst the best decision makers that apply to decision making. Totally. Yes. Yes.
1:18:02
I I I very much I'm excited that we're talking about this, because I think it's a big deal.
1:18:10
And I take pride, uh I hope, in being somebody who is a good decision maker, right?
1:18:17
So, I think that uh the good ones, one, I think a lot of them use writing. Just like you've said.
1:18:24
I think a lot of them write, and they kind of write for themselves.
1:18:29
Because it reflects the It reflects the um It exposes the weaknesses of their process. Yeah.
1:18:37
And so, one trait that I found for a lot of the good ones is you'll ask them something and they'll be like, "Let me show you this memo I wrote."
1:18:42
And the memo won't have been distributed anyone. It'll just be for them.
1:18:47
And so I think that's one trait that is pretty interesting that is uh uh relatively consistent uh amongst people that I really admire is that they they test their thinking for themselves.
1:19:00
They're very honest with themselves about where it's strong versus where it's weak. Right?
1:19:05
The second thing is they're actually pretty good at figuring out whose advice they want and whose advice they don't want.
1:19:11
I think a lot of great decision makers, they they are not polite when it comes to the decision.
1:19:17
They just decide whose opinion they care about and they're super targeted and thoughtful and it's different people for different topics, right?
1:19:22
Maybe there are some people whose counsel they keep for everything, but it that's not a lot.
1:19:28
And um I'll give you an example of someone I work with who I think is a very good decision maker.
1:19:31
Max Rhodes is the CEO and co-founder of Fair.
1:19:33
This uh B2B wholesale marketplace that we're involved with.
1:19:39
Max is extremely good at asking each of his board members or advisers a specific question that they he thinks they will be useful on.
1:19:48
He doesn't ask the whole board when he's making certain decisions.
1:19:49
He goes and decides who is the right person to go ask.
1:19:54
He goes and spends real time with them on that.
1:19:55
And even in the board meeting, he's thoughtful about the order in which he asks for people's feedback, right?
1:20:02
Because he's like, "Look, on this topic this person is the one who I want to hear the most on, whereas on this one somebody else might be the topic."
1:20:08
And he's not worried if it's been three questions and he hasn't asked somebody something.
1:20:13
You're on the board, you obviously are somebody he's whose opinion he values. Cool.
1:20:17
So that's another one I think they're very thoughtful about whose counsel they keep.
1:20:22
I think the the third one is they are aware of when their decision making they're aware of concepts like decision fatigue, and they uh they sort of they they work around it, right?
1:20:36
So they say, "Okay, look, I I'm sure you've read the Bezos stuff of Bezos's point was like, my job is to make two or three good decisions a day."
1:20:47
Well, what that means is I should structure my entire day around making sure that I'm in the right state of mind to make those decisions.
1:20:52
My meetings should be at a certain time, right?
1:20:53
I should um I think the point of this is they don't confuse activity with insight.
1:20:59
They don't just go do stuff, right?
1:21:02
They do things that they think will help them make the right decisions, you know?
1:21:08
And then the last one, Shane, I think is they are very thoughtful about what uncertainty they're willing to live with and what uncertainty they're not.
1:21:16
So I'll be more specific here.
1:21:17
Every good decision-maker is good at making decisions in the face of uncertainty, right?
1:21:22
Otherwise, it's not a hard decision.
1:21:24
One time Michael Lewis wrote an article about the presidency, and effectively what he described it was he's like, "Look, it's a series of 51-49 decisions or 50-50 decisions.
1:21:32
Often times, they're life and death."
1:21:34
Because otherwise, they would have been made by somebody else.
1:21:37
So they're like really hard, you know?
1:21:40
But the thing that I think really good decision-makers do is they know how to get all of the available information by asking the right questions.
1:21:51
And when someone just sort of like, "It's a hard decision.
1:21:53
Here's what we Here are the two options."
1:21:55
They don't just accept those are the two options.
1:21:58
They'll be like, "Well, wait a second.
1:21:59
On this one, let's go deeper. Did we evaluate this? Did we evaluate this?"
1:22:01
So they're almost good at like efficiently getting the information they need so that yeah, there's uncertainty, but it's the only it's uncertainty that can't be solved in the time period they got it.
1:22:13
So those are some things that come to mind. I love that.
1:22:14
There There's a couple things that came out of that that I want to talk about.
1:22:19
One, structuring your day to match either your goals, your energy level, your what's most important, however you want to think about that, I'm always struck by how so few people structure their day in a thoughtful, conscious way. Yes.
1:22:41
And how many uh seemingly high performers Yes.
1:22:46
put a lot of conscious effort into you know what, I'm best in the morning, so I'm going to make decisions in the morning.
1:22:51
I get really tired around 2:00, so I'm going to go to the gym around 2:00, and they structure their day in a way that sort of uh works for them in a very thoughtful approach.
1:22:59
I'm curious as to what you've seen and what you think.
1:23:04
Yeah, so I'll give you an example from work now. Uh so Yep.
1:23:05
venture capital uh in many ways is a decision-making business, right?
1:23:11
You know, there are going to be some Everyone knows the stats, but effectively like one you make 40 or 50 investments in a fund, one of them is worth more than all the rest, right?
1:23:21
Okay, so you got to get them right and got to get in the right companies, whatever.
1:23:25
So, the decision-making, you know, apparatus is important.
1:23:30
So, one of the things that's funny is um at some places there'll be an important decision, and someone's like, "Well, we got to hurry up because we have a meeting coming up after this."
1:23:39
Think about how crazy that is for a moment, right?
1:23:41
Of like having a time around like how much time should you spend debating whether or not to make the most important decision of the year. Well, that's insane.
1:23:49
So, like our partner meeting times, they don't have an end time. There is no back end.
1:23:54
They go as long as they go.
1:23:57
And the And that, I think, is a really thoughtful, small thing.
1:23:59
They start in the morning because of the same point, we all think we're better in the morning.
1:24:04
And they go as long as they need to go.
1:24:06
And sometimes, if we're not getting to an answer, we won't be like, "Well, we got to make it today."
1:24:09
We'll be like, "Guys, we're not getting somewhere.
1:24:13
Let's break, and let's meet again tomorrow morning on it."
1:24:18
And I think the point of sort of realizing that you're not like a slave to your calendar, but your job is to make a good decision.
1:24:25
That is one example that I really like because there's a real respect.
1:24:28
Sometimes if the memo is distributed late, right?
1:24:30
We generally try to send a memo that's in, you know, that's thoughtful and, you know, deliberate and detailed on Fridays before our Monday decision meeting.
1:24:40
Sometimes it's not possible.
1:24:40
People get the memo out Sunday night and it because they have to.
1:24:44
They're they're doing a ton of stuff.
1:24:46
We'll be like, "Well, let's just not have the meeting until everyone's read it and internalized it and thought about it." You know?
1:24:50
And I think that maybe when I worked at McKinsey, this is my my first job was at McKinsey.
1:24:54
The the one person told me like, "You have to be willing to release your agenda and just like kind of have the meeting that needs to be had because a lot of times people are just like, "Well, we're on point one.
1:25:03
We got to go to point two.
1:25:04
We got to go to point three."
1:25:06
That's not the way that that doesn't reflect reality of the difficulty or the importance of each thing, right?
1:25:10
And so I think uh those would be a couple of examples that I think come to mind that I like a lot, which is "Why don't we just move the meeting after this?"
1:25:21
Or let's just not even put a meeting after this.
1:25:23
Or there's no constraint on our need to do it now.
1:25:25
And just kind of thinking about that and not putting artificial stuff around it. I I like that a lot.
1:25:31
That's very useful and practical advice for everybody out there.
1:25:38
The other thing that sort of struck me about your answer is something you didn't say, which I'm curious as to how you think about the tradeoffs between short-term and long-term and how they affect decision-making.
1:25:49
I might be contrarian in this, but I think that most people dramatically overestimate the impact of most decisions, right?
1:26:01
Like I think most short-term decisions don't really matter.
1:26:02
And so the number of times that I will say I don't care about something is pretty high relative I think to most people.
1:26:12
And I think look, to be fair, Shane, that that's different than a perfectionist.
1:26:15
I am not a perfectionist. I am not I am not.
1:26:17
That's not like my any gram or whatever.
1:26:19
And so there's some people are sort of like the way you do anything is the way you do everything.
1:26:23
Everything is important and we we got to get everything.
1:26:25
We need to, you know, have a really tight process around all that.
1:26:29
I am not like that at all.
1:26:32
So many things if someone say, "I don't care. It's fine.
1:26:34
Whatever you want to do is fine.
1:26:35
Whatever you want to do is fine."
1:26:36
And so a lot of decisions I don't even care to make and I'm perfectly happy with whatever somebody wants to do.
1:26:43
And so and they tend to correlate with things that are short-term and two-way doors, right?
1:26:48
If they're short-term and two-way doors, cool.
1:26:51
Like whatever happens is fine and we'll figure it out.
1:26:54
And then if it's if if what you just said is not right, then, you know, cool. We'll just fix it.
1:27:00
Um and then if they're long-term, they tend to be correlated with more one-way doors in nature.
1:27:08
And then I pay a lot of attention.
1:27:09
So the reason that I tell you on the investment thing that I pay a lot of attention is like we're not going to not Once we invest in the company, right? We're in.
1:27:16
We're in for, you know, 10 plus years.
1:27:19
And it's not just in investing.
1:27:21
It's sort of in anything where there's a big important long-term decision.
1:27:26
And so maybe to your point, I think I didn't say it because maybe by nature the only decisions that I think really uh that I'm super thoughtful about.
1:27:40
You know, um are the long-term one-way doors.
1:27:41
The other ones I'm actually more I'm like interested in velocity as much as anything else.
1:27:47
And there are occasionally things that I care about in which case, you know, I will.
1:27:51
But I also think that you're more likely to listen to me if I don't always push for my way.
1:27:59
And I'm kind of like there are three things a year I really care about. Please listen.
1:28:03
I'm telling you now this is one of them, you know?
1:28:05
And I also really believe in this idea of like reasonable minds can differ, you know? Um that's fine.
1:28:11
But on like really important ones, I want to you know, have a a voice that matters a lot.
1:28:17
I want to consider it and I want to treat it like I care.
1:28:23
I like that a lot because if you care about everything and and you care about everything equally, then you're not caring about the most important things either to you or to company or life in terms of how you think about that.
1:28:32
I have a good friend who gave me this advice a long time ago and it was about his partner and how they argue.
1:28:43
And he said when they catch themselves arguing, they would basically they can't say seven, but they would rate how important it is to them on a scale of one to 10. Yep.
1:28:52
And he's like very rarely was it ever a tie. Yes.
1:28:56
And often I'd be like six and she's an eight and he's like, oh, well, then you decide, right?
1:29:00
Then it just becomes sort of this this fast track past out of that. I actually saw that.
1:29:04
There was um the co-founders of HubSpot gave an interview and um I think it was Dharmesh who said this, but it was effectively the exact same thing.
1:29:14
Hey, when when they disagree, rate it one to 10. If you're a 10, cool.
1:29:18
You also get to do it your way.
1:29:19
If we're both 10s, which like does not happen very often, then let's debate it as long as it takes and until we knock down, drag them out. Yeah.
1:29:28
And then if it's in these areas, you decide.
1:29:30
If it's in these areas, I decide, right?
1:29:32
But I I really that goes a long way with me because I think that um there's a human element to the decision making, too, right?
1:29:42
And I think that um people have got to feel like their opinion matters.
1:29:49
They got to feel like their opinion's valued.
1:29:50
And I think that you actually can do that a lot by saying, "Sure, like it's You don't even need to tell them you disagree. Let's Yeah, cool. That sounds good."
1:30:00
And they're like, "Well, what do you think?"
1:30:02
Well, I probably wouldn't do it exactly that way, but like that sounds as good as any other idea. Let's let's try it.
1:30:07
And I think that you can gain a lot of trust with people, which you started this with, um by really telling them, like, I do trust you.
1:30:13
I I I'm not going to be second-guessing you after that.
1:30:15
I want us to do it the way you're saying. Right?
1:30:20
And, you know, let's see.
1:30:20
Um but I think that then you also have uh you have a framework that someone can understand.
1:30:28
It's the same thing we're talking about earlier about the home personality versus the work personality.
1:30:32
It's hard to create your algorithm to assume to predict how they're going to behave.
1:30:37
Except if you do this, you actually can have a pretty good algorithm if someone can predict pretty well if I'm going to care. I I like it, too.
1:30:43
It's also good for self-awareness.
1:30:45
I find it moves you to the end of the bell curve uh in either way, which is either know a lot about this thing, which is why I care about it, or I don't know Yes.
1:30:57
about this thing, and I I'm caring about everything, which is a sign, if you're reflective, that you're you're probably missing the element of whatever it is that you're talking about that matters.
1:31:08
Well, and in that case, like, you know, this happens all the time where a founder or someone you work with, they will ask you a question.
1:31:17
And you have Remember, you have very little context.
1:31:19
You're not in the organization.
1:31:21
You don't know what any of the people are thinking.
1:31:23
And so, first, to give a really strong opinion is pretty bold, right?
1:31:27
Cuz you don't know a lot of what's going on.
1:31:31
And um they actually might know a lot more than you specifically about the content.
1:31:35
So, I think a fair amount of time the answer when it's comes to that is like, well, here are the things that I would be considering.
1:31:43
Here are the dimensions that would inform my decision.
1:31:45
But I actually know less about those dimensions than you do.
1:31:48
So, like, the framework I'd use is this.
1:31:50
If you use that framework, what would it come out with? Right?
1:31:54
You're almost trying to help on that dimension.
1:31:55
And then, once a year, when you say, "Please, hear me.
1:31:59
I think I know I don't know as much about this as you do, but I really still feel like this is something we should do, they pay attention, right?
1:32:07
They don't always do it, but you've earned the right for them to listen because you don't say it all the time.
1:32:14
One of the words you used there was stood out to me as important, which was you used the word velocity and not speed.
1:32:22
Why did you choose that word?
1:32:25
I don't know if this is correct. I'm not a linguist.
1:32:28
When I think of velocity, I think of throughput.
1:32:30
I think of sort of you know, this um this concept of it's almost like I'm training the machine, you know, to make decisions.
1:32:41
I want as much feedback as possible so that I can input that feedback back into the machine so that the next one's better.
1:32:48
And so somehow it's like I want that machine turning as many times as possible.
1:32:52
And I I don't know if that's specifically like more correlated to velocity than speed, but the the word that's in my head that keeps on coming to is throughput, throughput.
1:33:01
On on the on the two-way door short-term, I want throughput to like inform, you know, I want as much feedback as possible to inform the next one.
1:33:10
And I just want to get a little better, a little better, a little better every time.
1:33:15
One of the things that's interesting is you know, uh the speed of you know, the speed of shipping, the speed of people actually creating new things and putting them out into the world, it seems to be very correlated with the ultimate success that a company has is like shipping velocity in the early days.
1:33:42
And so I think I tend to apply that into the decision-making.
1:33:44
And I think that that is uh that's probably why I said it.
1:33:48
Or I was just trying to sound smart with you, Shane, and use velocity instead of speed. It was one of the two.
1:33:56
Uh you you let's switch gears a little bit here.
1:33:58
You you work with a lot of exceptional people.
1:34:02
What are the ways that What are the common ways that you see them self-sabotage?
1:34:08
A very good friend of mine uh gave me a book called Ego Is the Enemy. Mhm.
1:34:13
Um which it came to mind when you said this.
1:34:20
I think that uh one way that folks self-sabotage is thinking your past knowledge is enough rather than treating the problem at hand like it's hard and deserves study.
1:34:37
I think a lot of times people overly pattern match from the past, particularly in in investing business.
1:34:45
Um and they sort of think that they have the ability to be right because they were right before. And it's like, no.
1:34:51
Like, you got to go earn it each time.
1:34:52
It's like thinking that because you were good at shooting threes in the past, you're going to be good at shooting threes today. It's like, no.
1:35:00
You got to go do it today.
1:35:00
It's not about what you did yesterday.
1:35:02
And so, I think that sort of having the a belief that uh something is beneath them in the work or having a belief that the past success will make it possible, I think, is a self-sabotage.
1:35:23
I think the another thing that comes to mind is um management is really hard.
1:35:30
And I think that I think people sometimes choose to be loved rather than respected.
1:35:37
And I think that uh when you when you do that you you optimize for people liking you in the moment rather than respecting you in the long term.
1:35:50
And I think that what I what I what I mean by that specifically is I think all you can really do as a leader of a company is have people believe that the decisions you're making are always in the best interest of the company.
1:36:03
And I think anything you do that breaks that algorithm, anything, I think it might serve you in the moment and that it ultimately comes back to bite you.
1:36:14
Cuz every leader I've ever really respected, every single one, I know why they're choosing what they're choosing.
1:36:22
I know what the North Star is and it doesn't change.
1:36:25
And I think that like you said on successful people, I think that sometimes they I that to me is a version of, you know, choosing appreciation or choosing affinity in the moment rather than choosing the right thing, the obligation for the long term, you know?
1:36:41
And so, I I think that applies to parenting.
1:36:46
I think that applies to a lot of stuff.
1:36:49
Like my parents were very different in parenting me and versus my brother.
1:36:54
And I was pissed when I was in high school about that. I was really upset.
1:36:58
And I was like, you know, smart enough to make a coherent argument. Like, this is not fair.
1:37:03
You treat him differently than you treat me. This is not fair. Right? We're your kids.
1:37:07
You're supposed to treat us exactly the same.
1:37:08
And I remember very clearly my parents saying, "One, we think we treat you guys pretty similarly, but if you don't, fine.
1:37:14
But our job is not to treat you the same.
1:37:18
Our job is to try and get the most out of you in the long term, right? That is our job.
1:37:22
And if that means treating you differently now, we are happily going to treat you two differently.
1:37:26
It's not a science experiment.
1:37:27
It's not an AB test, right?
1:37:31
You know, you guys are different.
1:37:31
We're going to do it differently.
1:37:32
I don't care if you're mad."
1:37:35
Man, I'm really happy they did that now. Right? We are different.
1:37:37
And I think that showed a lot of courage at that time.
1:37:42
And I think that um but I I guess my point would be like I think they could have easily like improved the relationship with me as a 14-year-old by being like, "You're right.
1:37:50
That's a really good point.
1:37:52
Well, let's you know, cool. We'll do it that way."
1:37:53
Um so, those are a couple of things that come to mind.
1:37:56
I don't know if they resonate, but those are two of things that come to mind.
1:37:59
Well, that example definitely resonates with me cuz I'm I'm sort of going through that with my kids right now where I'm getting a little pushback on I'm treating them differently.
1:38:09
Uh and it's all with the intent of sort of putting them in the best position possible for success given who they are, where they're at, their strengths and weaknesses, and it doesn't always come across as perfectly fair.
1:38:20
And I think, you know, my argument is uh life isn't fair, which is what my parents told me and it's like uh I never thought of phrasing it in in that way.
1:38:29
I like that a lot better.
1:38:29
It It that one really sits with me a lot because I remember how upset I was back then.
1:38:36
And I really am grateful in that respect that they didn't take the reaction of a 14-year-old and have it impact the way they did it and they did what they thought was best.
1:38:47
Now, whether it's right or wrong, who knows.
1:38:50
But, I like that they sort of had the courage of their convictions there and you know, didn't just listen.
1:38:58
Um and again, at least again again that trust point we keep on coming back, but so much of it is just like trusting why somebody is doing something cuz then if you disagree, at least you're like, "All right, cool.
1:39:09
Like I I think I I I think I mentioned this to you in one of our phone calls, but like you know, my wife and I, we we never really fought much, but before we got before we had kids, like whatever level of fighting it was, it was slightly higher before we had kids than after, which is a little weird cuz kids are like a stressor, you know, in some ways.
1:39:30
But, the things that would happen beforehand would be we'd discuss like career stuff.
1:39:32
And it'd be like, "Well, what's better for your career?
1:39:34
What's better for my My wife is a doctor."
1:39:36
Um and so, you can imagine all the different things that you could optimize for. Is it economics? Is it impact?
1:39:41
You know, is it you know, your turn, my turn, all all these things.
1:39:47
After we had kids, we basically never had an argument about that. Not once. Well, why?
1:39:52
We have arguments about other things.
1:39:54
We never had an argument about like, what do we go do?
1:39:56
And the reason is actually simple.
1:39:56
We actually both very clearly know what the optimization function is.
1:40:00
Both of us have the same one.
1:40:02
What is best for the family?
1:40:04
If if Avni tomorrow was like, we should move to Alaska, and you know, I would kind of be like, what?
1:40:10
I don't really want to move to Alaska, but but why do you say that?
1:40:12
And I would be pretty open-minded, because I would know that she has done some calculation in her head that that's better for the five of us. Right?
1:40:22
And so, you can hear something that's kind of a cuckoo idea on its face, and you're like, no, I'm listening, because I know that we have the same goal.
1:40:27
I know that I know exactly why you are I know exactly what you're trying to accomplish.
1:40:34
That is so powerful, right?
1:40:34
That to like have that understanding and that trust.
1:40:39
Um, and so, I think maybe the things that people do to self-sabotage themselves, they they fall into anything that breaks that trust with the people around them, that breaks that trust and breaks that ability to predict why they're doing what they're doing.
1:40:53
I have the the luxury of knowing we're going to have another conversation like this that we record, so I'm not going to try to fit all my questions in in the remaining time.
1:41:01
I do want to end this this version of our our interview with what does success mean to you?
1:41:11
Success for me means that the people that are most important in my life feel like I gave them everything I had all the time. Right?
1:41:26
I think that that they feel like that they know how much I love them, that they know how much I care for them and that I um that that comes through.
1:41:42
And that it's not something that they know because of grand actions, but it's something they know because of everydayness. Right?
1:41:49
It's something that they know because of the um just that I showed up for them. You know?
1:41:58
Uh that would be success.
1:41:59
And then I think I think even even professionally, I think that that is kind of similar.
1:42:10
Like the person I admire the most professionally, at least from a distance, is Bill Campbell.
1:42:14
The way that people talk about what he did for them and how much he cared for them and, you know, what he um meant to them.
1:42:23
That is an impossible standard that I will never ever ever reach, but that to me is a pretty amazing professional like hero to have.
1:42:32
Um so those would be the things I'd say.
1:42:35
And I will tell you I feel very I'm very proud that you said that you'd want to do this again because I really love the show.
1:42:42
I love the way you think and um I was very happy when you emailed me to ask me if I could be on it.
1:42:46
And I also uh uh would love to do it again.