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This episode is brought to you by 99designs, your one-stop shop for all things graphic design-related.
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3:17
This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, ladies and germs.
3:20
Where does my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the habits, routines, influences, etc.
3:26
that you can apply to your life.
3:29
And those experts, the world-class performers, range from hedge fund managers to actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, to people like General Stanley McChrystal, to chess prodigies, and everyone in between.
3:41
And in this case, we have a business icon, none other than the Oracle of Silicon Valley. That's Reid Hoffman.
3:50
He is referred to as the Oracle of Silicon Valley by a lot of tech insiders who look at his company building and investing track record, which includes, for instance, well, of course, PayPal, LinkedIn, but then Facebook, Airbnb, Flickr, and on and on with awe, and rightly so.
4:06
Reid is co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, which has more than 300 million users.
4:09
Before that, he was executive vice president at PayPal, which was purchased by eBay for $1. 5 billion.
4:16
There he was nicknamed firefighter in chief by the CEO, who is Peter Thiel, who's also been on this podcast.
4:24
Noted venture capitalist David Z says of Reid, "He is arguably the most successful angel investor in the last decade or past decade."
4:31
And they're both now partners at Greylock Partners.
4:34
He has a track record to envy.
4:37
In this podcast, he is joined by a friend.
4:39
He's joined by Michael McCullough, MD, who's also co-founder of QuestBridge.
4:44
org and a successful investor of his own right with training as an ER physician.
4:50
Michael is clinical professor at UCSF and previously served as the on-call ER physician for the Dalai Lama.
4:57
Michael's also a Rhodes Scholar, Kauffman Fellow, and Ashoka Fellow.
4:58
He is an avid meditator and is particularly interested in investing in technologies and companies pertaining to the mind.
5:07
So, we bounce around a lot in this conversation.
5:08
conversation. We cover a ton, including how Reid met Mark Zuckerberg for the first time and how he decided to invest in Facebook, lots behind that, firefighting in startups and beyond, using board games to develop strategy,
5:20
Reid's view of what Uber's done well and what they could improve upon, some of Reid's suggested philosophers for entrepreneurs, we talk about going off algorithm, per se, in the ER to manage life and death decisions, the three types of CEOs, and much, much more. It
5:32
It is a very dense, intense, and useful episode.
5:37
And of course, we discuss QuestBridge, as Reid and I are both on the advisory board.
5:40
QuestBridge, guys have to check it out, questbridge.
5:43
org, currently supplies more exceptional low-income talent, meaning kids to top universities than all other nonprofits combined.
5:53
QuestBridge has created a single standardized college application that's accepted by 36 or so top universities like Stanford, MIT, Amherst, and Yale.
6:01
This allows them to do some very very clever and innovative things such as give away laptops, and the giveaway forms double as college applications.
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This offers scholarships to many kids who might otherwise not even think of college.
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So, if you want to break the cycle of poverty, QuestBridge is easily one of the most fascinating, effective, and highly leveraged tools I've ever seen.
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So, check it out questbridge. org.
6:23
We will talk more about that.
6:23
So, please check out the show notes.
6:26
There are a lot of cool show notes for this episode for our work week all spelled out.
6:30
Just go to fourhourworkweek.
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com and click on podcast, all the book recommendations, et cetera.
6:36
And uh you can find a lot more there about everything that we talk about.
6:41
So, without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with the Oracle of Silicon Valley, Reid Hoffman, and Michael McCullough.
6:53
Reid, Michael, welcome to the show. Great to be here.
6:56
Thank you for having us, Tim. I'm thrilled.
6:57
I'm really excited to have you guys on, and I know you've both known each other for some time.
7:02
And I was thinking about the commonalities that that you might have, the common threads.
7:07
And we'll certainly come back to this, but I had heard Peter Thiel had said of you, Reid, that you were the firefighter in chief at PayPal.
7:15
And I think that uh Michael, certainly based on our conversations at least, certainly has exhibited tremendous firefighting qualities.
7:25
So, we'll we'll come back to that.
7:26
But I I thought we could begin with just some basic context for folks.
7:31
And uh Reid, perhaps we could start with you.
7:33
When people ask you the question, "What do you do?" how do you answer that?
7:38
Well, there's a short answer and a a answer.
7:40
Uh the short answer is I'm an entrepreneur and investor.
7:42
That's when I want to be very quick and move through the question.
7:46
The long answer is I essentially uh build, design, and improve human ecosystems through software either as a creator or as a uh investor and partner.
7:56
And what that means is everything from, you know, things like PayPal to LinkedIn uh to Airbnb.
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Each of these things are ways you craft how people find each other, how they interact with each other, how they establish their identity, and how they make progress in their lives.
8:15
And that's part of what I mean by building and improving human ecosystems. I love it.
8:22
Uh Michael, what I What about yourself?
8:24
You you wear many hats, but how would you answer that question these days?
8:28
Yeah, I'd say it's probably pretty similar.
8:29
I'm I'm a uh I create and I help people create things.
8:32
Uh uh entrepreneur and investor as well, but I'm an ER physician by uh training and I actually began my life in in reverse from most people, kind of creating nonprofits actually first.
8:46
So, I made eight nonprofits before my first uh company, including like angel investments and things like, you know, HeartFlow and such.
8:52
And I'm uh currently a a partner at a Capricorn Healthcare.
8:58
And uh that's uh I'd love to bridge just on the medical side of things.
9:03
Uh Michael, you had a very uh difficult beginning, so to speak, and that is going way back to birth.
9:08
I was I was hoping you could just give us a brief description of of your experience at birth. Sure.
9:17
Yeah, you know, it's interesting how sometimes small little slips from like an intern or like a resident can alter your life, where I was 8 weeks uh premature uh with uh a twin birth, and um they squeezed a little too hard on my head, and it hemorrhaged, and it was missed for 9 years.
9:31
So, I couldn't uh speak much until I But, when I high school.
9:34
I couldn't speak as fluently I am now till I was in my 30s.
9:38
And even even like right now I have a like a speech impediment device kind of like they have in the King's a a speech movie.
9:45
Or I speak in accents if I need to speak more fluently.
9:47
Uh so, uh for me I learned how to like watch people a lot when I was younger cuz it was harder for me to interact with them kind of verbally. Got it.
9:57
And uh the as as the lines uh for both of you started converging and uh but before you met, Reed, you went to as I understand it uh a somewhat unconventional high school in Vermont.
10:07
I think it was the Putney School where you farmed maple syrup and drove oxen.
10:15
Uh what did you what did you take from that experience that stuck with you if if anything?
10:20
Well, I always actually I uh at the time, you know, it's funny it's kind of as you're older each decade you look back on your life and you actually in fact have a different view of your early decades.
10:32
So, if you'd asked me 10 20 years ago, I'd say, "Well, it's completely off track.
10:35
I've become a technologist and an entrepreneur and none of that stuff was actually uh directly relevant to now."
10:40
When I kind of look back at it, I say, "Well, actually in fact it was very grounding.
10:47
Um I had experiences there everything from blacksmithing to actually a bunch of artistic things.
10:53
Um I had uh you know, kind of some intensity around cross country speed skiing and sports.
10:59
And all of that actually I think helped me understand the breadth of human condition.
11:04
You know, typically um Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and and and and investors and and technologists tend to be very narrow focused.
11:15
And I actually think it's helped me keep a broader focus uh as I think about kind of what it is to be human and how do we increase our humanity.
11:26
And I I I might be skipping ahead a little bit, but do you have then a sympathetic ear for say non-technical founders uh who come in without technical chops uh or how do you look at that?
11:41
Well, so I um it depends on the project.
11:45
Um some pro are depth of technology.
11:47
Usually when I talk to a non-technical founder who wants to create something I the very first, second, and third piece of advice I I give them is to find a technical co-founder.
11:58
Uh because, you know, it's not, you know, it's not so easy to say, "Oh, well, look, I'm going to hire some engineers in some remote location to build the app that I think of."
12:05
Because actually in fact you have to be much more detailed, much more specific about how it's evolving.
12:12
And so if you're building technology and you don't at least have a um a a good techno- technical co-founder, you have a problem.
12:19
Now, that being said, there's a number of of businesses that um the technology is only one compete it's an important piece, but it's only one piece.
12:28
Like Airbnb, for example.
12:30
You know, Nate's very technical, um but Brian and Joe are design folks. They're product folks. They're art folks.
12:39
Um they both, you know, kind of uh coming out of RISD.
12:42
And so and actually that helps fundamentally with the Airbnb product.
12:46
And so it isn't that you that it isn't that everybody in the founding team has to be technical, but if you're doing a technology thing, at least one of you does. Right.
12:55
No, that makes perfect sense.
12:58
And where did philosophy enter the picture for you?
12:59
Because I know a lot of people in Silicon Valley think of you in part as a philosopher, uh at least a thinker along those lines.
13:06
How How did you become interested in philosophy and why?
13:11
Well, it's funny, actually very uh I'd say one of the small critiques of Silicon Valley is and and this may actually speak more to you than the people of Silicon Valley.
13:19
Very few people in Silicon Valley interface with me as a philosopher.
13:21
It takes another thinker like you to actually ask that question.
13:26
But um the way that I got to it is I did my undergraduate at uh Stanford University, you know, along with Michael, and um my undergraduate degree was called symbolic systems, which is, in short speak, cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
13:41
And uh I've always actually been very interested in kind of what makes us uniquely human, and and uh and that's continued throughout uh my entire arc of my career and childhood.
13:51
And so then it was like the scientific study of of thought and language.
13:55
But then what I realized when I was at Stanford is that actually in fact, even though we were trying to be scientific about what it is to be intelligent, about what it is to communicate, about what it is to have a point of view on the world, um the science hadn't really gotten there yet.
14:10
And actually in fact, uh I should experiment with philosophy to figure out the the the whether or not the the the root events of understanding these things I could get out of philosophy in order to pursue a more scientific view of intelligence.
14:25
And so, uh because the modern analytic uh view on philosophy is it's pre-science, it's like how you think about things with precision, uh uh and then science births out of philosophy.
14:38
And so I went to Oxford in order to uh study philosophy.
14:42
And are you currently drawn to any particular schools of philosophy or philosophers uh in in the context of say recommending someone who has never been exposed to philosophy or feels that they haven't?
14:56
Uh what what starting points might you suggest?
15:00
Well, one of the things that I uh the papers that I read at and cuz it's uh you when you do a course, you read a subject.
15:07
One of them was Wittgenstein.
15:09
And so, uh one of the things I actually frequently uh refer people to when they're thinking about kind of how do we think of ourselves as as as as sharing a world, as talking to each other about it, as understanding it.
15:24
Uh matter of fact, I recently when I was um explaining uh a theory on Bitcoin uh to some fellow technologists, I said, "Look, it's like a Wittgensteinian language game." Right?
15:34
That the notion of how you play and they're like, "Okay, how do I understand that?"
15:37
I'm like, "Okay, well, here's some good books on Wittgenstein and here's a couple of points." Right?
15:43
Um but it is that would be the one that I would probably start with just because I think he is one of the you know, um one of the fundamental philosophers who is still being understood because the the the the kind of one of the bedrocks of modern analytic philosophy is to
16:02
think of of if you're trying to talk to someone else about some problem and you're trying to make progress, how do you make language as positive an instrument as possible and what are the ways that language can work and what are the ways that language doesn't work? And
16:17
And so, for example, on that on that thread when I wrote my thesis in Oxford, it was on thought experiments because most philosophers actually in fact analyze and argue through thought experiments and there's actually more limitations to the methodology than at least many believe.
16:36
No, it's it's uh I find language just an end- endlessly fascinating topic because you you'll find I mean, Silicon Valley and elsewhere, people will debate say the existence of God without ever defining uh what God is for for each of the parties involved.
16:52
Um so so Michael, well, you and I have have spoken about I suppose philosophical topics a lot about meditation.
17:00
Uh and uh I think people gravitate towards say religion or philosophy respectively to to often face the prospect of death or mortality. Yep. Yep.
17:11
I I would love for you to elaborate if you could uh about going off algorithm in the ER and what that means because I've had some fascinating conversations with you about this and I was hoping you might be able to just explain that and give a few examples. Sure.
17:28
Well, I I I think I think algorithms protect a lot of people particularly from um if physicians aren't being fully attentive or on top of of all the literature, but in within a bell curve, there there might be ways to save people or just even improve people's lives that that aren't in kind of the standard operating procedure.
17:50
So, like I I had a patient one time who came in with head-to-toe burns and and you can look at him and you would know once you intubate him and and have him in the ICU, he he wouldn't possibly actually wake up again, but he was lucid enough and I thought, you know, I'd want to call a few people before I had to go to sleep.
18:07
So, I gave him my cell phone to use much to the chagrin of some of the people in the room.
18:14
Um let him make a few uh calls, but even even there like I I had to stop him from making additional calls, but he got to call a few people.
18:24
Uh he had begun to swell his airway shut, so I had to make sure I could intubate on kind of the first try or or I probably would have lost my job, but um And by intubate, you mean get it a tube down his trachea Yeah, I before it's completely closed.
18:38
Yeah, cuz if you in in inhale hot air, then your the the soft tissue in in your kind of your mouth will swell up and you won't be able to breathe.
18:47
Now, in in in his case, it didn't change outcome that much cuz he was either going to uh die in the ER or in the ICU.
18:53
So, so I thought enabling him to make kind of a human a connection ahead of the ICU would be would uh be helpful.
19:04
And now in in uh in your experience then, when you look at um the let's just define maybe the use of the the word algorithm.
19:11
So, is it is it fair to say that in this context one could think of an algorithm as a mandatory checklist which also excludes certain options?
19:22
Yeah, yeah, I I think that's true and and I think a tool a Guwop work another shows a checklist is profoundly helpful. manifesto.
19:32
Yeah, yeah, it's really good book and and even things like you know, washing your hands between patients or things as simple as that will save a lot of lives.
19:41
However, sometimes you do know everything on the checklist and sometimes there are things you can do that that aren't on the checklist that actually ought to be done.
19:47
actually ought to be done. So um example was also that um I had a patient who um in our ER they have a policy of making sure they call the donor network after the patient's actually passed away to see if they can
20:07
with the permission of the family and the interests of the patient um help with a a skin transplantation or like a a a cornea but they became confused to think well that means you then you shouldn't call earlier to talk about the heart or the liver and things like that. So in that particular a case an an
20:25
So in that particular a case an an algorithm or a policy actually um make people not appreciate the more im- important organs to kind of think of the twos.
20:38
So uh Have I answered your uh No, no, you have.
20:42
And it's I I I just when we've had dinner before and um I'd love for you to describe if you could and it's uh it was it was fascinating for me to hear your your description of this but what is it like to and I know we're bouncing around a bit but to stare into someone's eyes or to look into their eyes as they pass from alive to not alive.
21:05
Maybe Yeah, I have the honor of that having that happen a few times and it's interesting cuz it often depends on the emotional state of of the patient. Right?
21:17
So, if the patient's afraid you're trying to give comfort to them as they're dying and in other times patients die and they're giving you a sense of peace and kind of universality that that would be hard to pay for.
21:30
Kind of a depth of understanding that they are dying and and it's kind of the moment of their death.
21:37
And so um it it's an honor to be there either way, to either like witness it happening from a person who's a content with it or to comfort and hold the hand of someone who's not.
21:51
And in that type of context or just in general, what in to your mind separates a good ER physician from a great ER physician?
22:00
What do the great people have do or not do that that that the good lack?
22:07
Yeah, I I think a good ER physician is thorough, you know, they make sure they don't like needlessly miss me thing or not like you know, wash their hands between the patients.
22:17
I think um if you layer on to that that you actually care about the patient, you know, you you like to like laugh with the alcoholic or to make um or to or or to help the woman in the first uh trimester of her uh pregnancy feel comfortable that she is you you're likely not to lose her child but even if she does, it wouldn't interfere with her being able to get pregnant in the future again.
22:43
And so, you could either pay attention to say the odds that that she'd lose this particular uh pregnancy or to make sure to reassure her what she's actually worried about is you know, will I ever have an infant?
22:55
Will I ever have a family?
22:58
And I think like like a lot of people don't that a third of all uh are actually lost and that's normal for humans.
23:07
Every animal has like a normal rate of like losing one and and that's a known of pregnancy.
23:13
So it's likely more like half and yet since we no longer live in uh tribes with other people, we hide the fact of losing an infant in the first uh trimester.
23:24
So if you don't take the extra time to uh comfort people, sometimes they think they're abnormal when uh they actually are not. Right.
23:35
No, that makes perfect sense.
23:35
I know that applies to therapy of all different types.
23:39
I mean, outside of the context of an emergency room.
23:41
The uh the firefighting that I mentioned earlier, uh Reed, my understanding was that you had you wore many many different hats and uh had the the role of interacting with a lot of external entities when at PayPal, uh whether that was regulatory or the credit card processors, maybe that's not the right description of them.
24:04
But uh what makes a good entrepreneurial firefighter in a context like that?
24:11
Or what what did your co-workers feel made you good at that job?
24:17
Well, the most two relevant factors were uh Peter Thiel, who was the CEO, feeling that I was good and solving the problems.
24:27
Uh everything else was was uh secondary to those two considerations.
24:33
I mean, the on the firefighting side, I mean, PayPal had uh perhaps the most um the most kind of uh parallel thing to you know, to date myself a little bit like the uh Star Wars, you know, flying into the trench and trying to actually hit the target and a lot of different ways you could you could fail.
24:53
And and so in in in the PayPal case for me, a lot of that was um uh building an understanding of what each particular uh problem particular threat was, what the key moving uh variable was, and then being able to solve that, and then propagate that out to all of the places.
25:18
So, you know, for example, one of the um the kind of uh challenges that Peter uh handed to me was um we had thought that PayPal might be a bank, and so we had started the process of applying for a banking license.
25:35
Then, what we dis- uh discovered and decided upon inference was that actually, in fact, banking regulation is so fierce in terms of not innovating, not building new things, it would be very difficult to build a new company on that basis.
25:49
So, I essentially had to move to um to go persuade the regulators it was okay that even though we had applied for a banking license, right?
26:03
right? Uh that we it was okay that we were not going to be a bank, and that you and that it wasn't a tell, that was it was just an inconvenience for us or anything else, and and to give to full color to this, the the the basic
26:15
statement about whether or not a a a company is a bank starts with the claim uh you accept deposits, which obviously if anyone has has exposure to PayPal, they say, "Well, you could frame what PayPal does as accepting deposits, right? You know, uh
26:32
You know, uh why is it you're not a bank?"
26:33
And so that would be the kind of challenge uh that was handed to me.
26:37
And then what you had to do is you had to figure out for this uh problem, which could kill the company, what were the key moving variables, learn them, talk to really smart people, and then solve that problem so that it was then fundamentally part of the cornerstone of what you were doing.
26:54
Uh and it ranged from relationship with eBay to Visa and MasterCard to international.
27:03
Right, I mean just a just a very long list of things and um and each one the the the the the looking at the problem had to be reframed.
27:12
It was almost like building a kind of a a view of the world and then what are the key moving parts in order to get right in order to make PayPal succeed.
27:21
And when you're defining the moving variables, uh is that a list of the unknowns that where you need to go seek out information or is it uh how do how how would you go about um putting together that list?
27:37
Well, it kind of starts with uh what is the end result that you want to have happen?
27:41
So, for example, uh in uh like in the regulatory one, the key thing is that uh you can't Regulators will never tell you that they can't that that is not their job to regulate you because there's no interest in them for that.
27:55
What they will simply do is say, "Oh, actually in fact there's nothing for me here to actively regulate."
28:00
They won't tell you, "I won't you know, you're outside of my scope."
28:03
They'll go, uh "Okay, fine.
28:06
You now seem like you're an okay like I don't need to actually regulate you because you're not in my positive purview."
28:13
And so you say, "Okay, how do you get that state of affairs and how do you propagate that?"
28:17
And then you start working back from that to say, "Okay, well, how do they make their judgments?
28:22
What are their key considerations?
28:24
Uh how can I learn about that?
28:25
Who would I need to know?"
28:27
Cuz those are where some of the unknowns come in.
28:28
Uh what are the kinds of things that would get them to say, "Okay, uh your your your uh I think you're being reasonable and within my purview of how of how I am out to help govern society, help protect consumers, uh help protect other entities, uh you're good by me.
28:49
And that And then you then you work back from that is the essentially way that you do it.
28:55
And how did you learn how to do that?
28:59
Were Were you part of a debate team?
29:02
Did you study negotiation?
29:02
Did you work at a, you know, state fair for the summers?
29:07
I mean, how did you develop the ability the the ability to not only deconstruct a problem like that, but then to interface with all these various stakeholders at the table?
29:18
I think the most fundamental was I I don't know if if your audience knows what this is. You probably do.
29:26
As a child, I played a lot of Avalon Hill board games. Yeah.
29:31
And each board game is actually a complex set of rules and circumstances.
29:37
And essentially, as you're analyzing each one of them, you kind of look back from, okay, these goals mean that these are the kind of moving parts and how do you do it?
29:45
So, it was actually fact my childhood gaming for being able to build a model of what a game was.
29:53
That was the essentially the fundamental thing that informs you know, my strategic sense cuz this all comes out of strategy.
30:03
And if if you were giving advice to say someone leaving Stanford undergrad and they had they had no gaming background, how might What would you recommend they do to try to develop strategic ability or thinking?
30:20
Well, um you know, there's a lot of different paths to it.
30:24
Most people think they're better at strategy than they are.
30:29
And so, you really have to actually really hold up a very clear You have to have a very deep self-awareness of Am I in fact really good at it?
30:36
Cuz like having an idea or saying, like for example, you say, "Well, I'll just do this."
30:40
Well, one move, a real strategy is actually built up off a, you know, what are your competitors doing? What is their mindset? What are their assets?
30:50
How are they going to move?
30:50
How are you going to move?
30:53
What are your What are your edges?
30:55
What's the way that you can make that work?
30:57
How is it when they're playing against you, you can still play to win?
31:02
Um so, games are a very good way to do that and getting a lot of different exposure, not to computer games cuz computer, you know, AI strategies are usually not that interesting, but against other people is very useful.
31:13
I think it's also useful to read some, which I did as a child, you know, military strategy, Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, other sorts of folks, more modern folks.
31:27
And to think about kind of like what are the set of principles that when you're thinking about how to how to win a game that's in in contention, in conflict.
31:38
And then a lot of people also, of course, have some sports knowledge on this, too.
31:42
Although, one of the things that's frequently a little limiting on sports is that uh the sports game that a person tends to do They tend to be like, "I play soccer" or "I play football" or "I play basketball."
31:53
And then they have a very deep sense of what the strategy is there, but they haven't played enough different kinds of games, enough different circumstances.
32:00
You know, it's um uh it's like understanding like, "Well, what happens if I change these four rules in basketball?" Right. Right.
32:06
You know, how would you play the strategy now? Totally.
32:12
That That's the kind of thing because actually, in fact, most of the circumstances you find yourself in, actually, in fact, you have to figure out what does the current game look like and how do you play that?
32:23
Uh and that's, of course, also, by the way, the reason why frequently, um you know, companies rise and fall is because they learn to play one game, they got good at it, and then the marketplace changes, and now it's a new kind of game, and you have to adjust to playing that new game.
32:38
And that's actually, in fact, uh part of recognizing when a strategy applies. Absolutely.
32:44
Yeah, I mean, I was just having a conversation with someone about uh the rise and fall of Kodak um yesterday.
32:50
And of course, this is uh sort of the the disruptive theme that one encounters so much in Silicon Valley.
32:57
I um I I would I wasn't planning on asking this, but I'd be so curious to hear, given your experience with regulatory risk and so on, what what do you feel, uh if you have an opinion, Uber has done well, and what uh could they have uh executed more effectively or strategically?
33:18
So, what they've done well is essentially quickly deploying their product so that it's clear that there's a bunch of people who are benefiting from it, uh both consumers and drivers, uh in various circumstances, so that there is an ecosystem of people by which you go, "Look, see, we can actually add a lot of positive to the system."
33:39
I think that's been kind of one of the things that they've done most positively within it.
33:43
On the negative side, you know, the company tends to be very combative.
33:49
And, you know, when you actually think about the mental space in which regulators um tend to operate, they tend to have gone into that job because they view themselves as protectors of important groups in society, whether they're consumers or workers or other folks.
34:07
And so, they don't tend to respond very well.
34:10
It's not a competitive game with them.
34:12
It's not you bulldoze through them or over them.
34:15
They're actually, in fact, what what they want is they want to know that their their concerns are being answered.
34:22
And it's frustrating, of course, for the company because, you know, the regulators are being triggered by, you know, uh competitive interests like, you know, taxi cab companies and other kinds of things which want the world to stay only exactly as it is, which is not actually good for anyone to just say, you know, the way that we're going to run is the way that we were running in the 1950s and that's the way we're going to be running in 3000.
34:41
You know, that's obviously not a very good idea.
34:44
So, actually in fact innovation and change and the pushback is frustrating, but nevertheless, when you're interfacing with the regulators, uh you have to interface with them with the understanding that they're they may be conservative, they may be slow to change, they may be risk-averse, but their goal is a mission of protecting society and so you should interface with them on that channel more than on the just get out of my way, I'm innovating.
35:11
All right, and I treat you like I treat a competitor.
35:12
Uh and that's that's that creates a lot of unnecessary friction. Right. No, that makes sense.
35:19
Uh you are of course considered a a company builder.
35:23
Uh you've had integral part in building some massive successes, but you also very well regarded as an investor and uh I would love if you could tell the story of getting introduced to Mark Zuckerberg and how you decided to be one of the first investors in Facebook.
35:40
Well, actually I I could have told you I was interested in investing in Facebook even before um Mark Zuckerberg. I tracked the product.
35:48
I thought it was extremely well done.
35:51
Uh when I tracked it, it, you know, he and his co-founders, uh Dustin, Chris, and others, uh were uh in uh Boston, you know, going to Harvard. Right.
36:02
And so I wouldn't ask too much of that.
36:03
I was angel investing, it's too much of a hassle.
36:04
If I was a venture capitalist, I probably would have flown out there, but I was like I was an angel, too much of a hassle.
36:09
And so I kind of went, oh, that's cool, and then went back to it.
36:11
And then I got this call from Sean Parker, who um I'd known from his work at Plaxo and, you know, was a good product inventor um and good systems thinker on these things.
36:24
And Sean said, uh uh I've just met um uh these really good guys, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and others who are doing this thing Facebook that I'm joining that's really awesome.
36:32
And I'm like, "Oh, that's really cool. You moving to Boston?"
36:34
He's like, "No, no, they're here."
36:35
I was like, "Oh, that's interesting."
36:38
He's like, "Yeah, yeah, and we're looking for investment."
36:39
I'm like, "I would definitely like to meet with them.
36:44
You know, I'm super interested in this.
36:46
I tend to think" and one of the things I said, which is I think totally, you know, even though it's probably the most expensive economic decision I've made in my life, um but it all in a good outcome.
36:55
I said, "Look, you know, when I did when I led the Series A in Friendster, I got a lot of pushback on am I having my cake and eating it, too?"
37:02
Because even though I don't see any conflict between Friendster and LinkedIn, you know, it just generated all the stuff.
37:08
And part of having integrity and having, you know, a high sense of ethics is not just having it, but also making some work to appear to have it.
37:14
So, actually I think we should do is we should have Peter lead the Peter Thiel lead the round and I'll follow because then Peter can be the board member.
37:24
And even though I'm super interested in this, I think that's probably the best thing to happen.
37:28
And so, my actually very first meeting with Zuckerberg was at Peter Thiel's office with Sean there who I'd known and with with Zuck and then Matt Cohler was there as well and and who was working for me at the time.
37:43
And that was our very first meeting.
37:45
But, you know, basically the meeting was very confirmatory because I'd already seen the product, already known the product was amazing, already seen it having traction.
37:54
And and really what I learned from the from the meeting, which is, you know, hardly a surprise, especially now in retrospect, was that Zuckerberg extremely smart, very much of a learning machine, very good at you know, the evolution of technologies.
38:11
And so, but I'd already more or less was positive, you know, if he'd said, "I don't want to meet with you, but you want to put in money."
38:16
I probably would have put in money anyway. Right.
38:19
And uh did you What was the What was Mark Pincus's role at that at that point or his involvement with Facebook?
38:28
Uh well, actually, so the way um Mark had also Pincus had also known Sean Parker uh back from Napster days.
38:33
Um uh Pincus had done a an early startup called Freeloader.
38:40
But, uh part of actually how uh Mark got involved in the Facebook investment was separately Mark and I had bought a patent called the Six Degrees patent.
38:50
So, this has some number which uh describes the viral expansion of a system.
38:55
And, uh and, you know, again, kind of on the on the ex basis, I went, "Look, Mark and I are partners on this.
39:02
We're actually trying to protect all these new Web 2. 0 viral companies.
39:07
That's our principal goal in this patent in in going and buying this patent."
39:12
But, you know, um uh you know, given that Facebook's also in this, I should actually, in fact, uh split the investment with Mark uh because uh you know, basically, um uh it's part of being a good partner with him.
39:28
And, so that's part of how Mark Now, he also had known Sean Parker, and Sean had talked to him about it as well.
39:32
So, there's there's a bunch of different things, but that's fundamentally how uh Pincus also became a uh Series A investor in Facebook. Got it.
39:40
And, uh on the on the um the decision or maybe it's not related at all, but the um the suggestion that Peter lead the round.
39:49
Uh it's the impression of some people that that you have um actively decided in the past um not to be to take the CEO role yourself.
40:01
Um and do you Have you sort of proactively um made decisions in your life to avoid being uh to taking the CEO role or or having it for for a long period of time?
40:14
And, And, if so, why is that the case or is that a Well, there's kind of three different CEO jobs at levels of scale in the organization.
40:22
There's CEO jobs of call it 10, 20, 50 person organizations, there's CEO jobs of, you know, hundreds to, you know, like 150 to 500 people organizations, and then there's CEO jobs of, you know, over 500 people like a thousand or thousands.
40:40
I've always known that I'm fundamentally not really interested in the CEO job, that the large scale CEO job.
40:45
When you're doing a large scale CEO job, your primary responsibility, you have to embody the strategy, you have to think about the things the right way, but your primary thing is the organization, you know, having the right or culture, having the right structure of the organization, the right people in it, the right way of hiring new people, the right way of empowering them, even though you're making kind of strategic decisions.
41:07
And there are people like Jeff Weiner who are completely awesome at that, and I'd rather help them rather than being doing that personally.
41:16
Then you get to the other two CEO jobs.
41:18
So, you get to the mid stage CEO job. I'm okay doing that.
41:20
It's not the thing I'm most passionate about.
41:22
I actually prefer to work on, you know, product strategies, firefighting things, business strategies, problem solutions, um think about how to reconceptualize the strategy of the entire business.
41:38
And either myself or we're working with people on that, but I'll do that in order to make it work.
41:44
And then in the early stages, I'm actually pretty perfectly comfortable doing it.
41:48
It's not necessarily a job that I say I want, I must do it.
41:52
But being the CEO of a 10, 20, 50, you know, even up to 100 person organization, I can do that just fine because then you're still all kind of working on the same problem.
42:04
It's less about how you build the org.
42:06
Obviously, you have to build a very strong team, but it's less about like, okay, how do we take the org from 100 people to 1,000 people?
42:11
It's actually much more um uh like okay, how do we just solve these key problems?
42:18
And that's stuff I like to do.
42:19
So, it isn't really a a specific don't want the CEO job except in the very large scale.
42:24
What it is is uh am I am I am only interested in the CEO job as it's instrumental to something serious that I want to accomplish.
42:34
And then as that organization grows, wants not to be the CEO.
42:39
And what you've had some experience uh searching for CEOs.
42:43
Uh what should founders remember when looking for someone to replace themselves?
42:49
Or things they should keep in mind.
42:52
Well, so the first thing is generally speaking founders should try to go like I'm still very active at LinkedIn.
42:57
Uh should still should try to go the entire course of the company to the degree to which they're passionate and can be useful.
43:05
Companies are always stronger with founders more in them more uh connected and committed to it.
43:12
Um but that being said, sometimes you go look my great skill set is you know, uh product or my great skill set is evangelism or my great skill set is, you know, something other than building the scale organization.
43:26
In which case the fundamental way you look at it is And then so the the formal way that Silicon Valley used to look at it, which is I wrote an essay about this.
43:32
It's published in my LinkedIn influencer post and on my my site, you know, reidhoffman. org.
43:38
But the fundamental way that Silicon Valley used to look at this is like you bring in gray hair, an executive, a person with management scale.
43:46
And by the way, you want those skills.
43:49
But actually in fact, I think what you're what you're who you're bringing in as a founder is you're bringing in a late later stage co-founder.
43:54
And you're bringing in a later stage co-founder ideally who has scale skills, who knows how to build scale organizations, is passionate about this one, you know, has their identity as closely tied or or or nearly as closely tied to the organization as you do.
44:09
It's It's this specific mission is something that they really care about.
44:13
They're not just like, "Oh, I'm a hired gun."
44:14
But actually in fact, I'm a missionary on this as well.
44:19
And and then someone who would partner with you very well.
44:21
And that's actually what you're looking for.
44:23
And so, uh that's part of you know, the reason why Jeff Weiner has been so successful at LinkedIn is because, you know, he cares about not just scale organizations, but how do you transform people's careers?
44:36
How do you demonstrate you can be doing compassionate business and that compassionate management is a high-performing uh culture of a company.
44:44
Uh how do you have people who are who have a culture of of we make ourselves significantly better every year.
44:50
Um you know, how do you bring all that?
44:53
That's part of what he actually really cares about, which links which, you know, uh which uh is deeply tied to the LinkedIn mission.
45:01
Uh and so, he cares about the organization, he cares about the way he manages, and he cares about the product at all as a uh essentially a later stage co-founder.
45:10
And that's the kind of thing that you uh you should be thinking about when you're a founder and you're thinking, "Okay, it's time for me to bring in a another person as a CEO." Thank you.
45:23
Michael, I you mentioned accents a little earlier and uh that you use accents in the ER often. Yeah.
45:31
And I know you've mentioned to me before that Southern is best. And Yeah.
45:36
I was hoping you could elaborate on that because myself in too much trouble, but um you know, when when I had my injury as a kid and brain surgery as uh at in the fourth, fifth grade, you're always like looking for like ways to be more fluent, so uh in speeches, I took like I'm a European, it's a good accent for speaking.
45:56
But if I'm in the ER, I'll talk like I'm from Alabama, Georgia cuz it's a good accent for sick people.
46:01
You can almost like yell at them they don't think you're mad.
46:04
So it's uh you can kind of raise the volume of someone who's hearing impaired pretty loud.
46:08
They don't think you're mad at them.
46:11
And it keeps the nurses also kind of um humorously enter attained as well.
46:17
And how has the ER experience uh or the skills developed or exhibited there translated to the other things that you've done in the nonprofits or uh or in the for-profit investment world?
46:32
the ER particular has helped a lot with my investing cuz most of the uh specialties interface with the ER and enable me to like reach into like ophthalmology or cardiology and things like that.
46:43
So I can and invest in things like heart flow.
46:47
Um I can just pick up the phone and speak to interventionalists or heart institutions and things like that.
46:53
So um I think from a decision-making capacity it it teaches you the importance of actually making a decision cuz you don't always have all the information um you need but the uh stakes are high.
47:04
So I I think there's a lot of entrepreneurial kind of a crossover there that can also be helpful.
47:11
Right, making important decisions with incomplete information.
47:15
Well, well and also just the importance of having actually uh made a decision as well, right?
47:19
Cuz if you're always kind of like waffling, it's uh sometimes, you know, nothing actually happens.
47:25
And you and I have talked a lot about uh meditation but uh more broadly speaking, the people listening are very interested in morning habits and morning routines.
47:36
So I'd love to ask you guys the same question.
47:37
We let's start with you, Michael.
47:39
Uh what is the first 60 to 90 minutes of your day look like?
47:42
And uh what time does it start?
47:44
If we get into specifics, that would be great. Sure.
47:47
More recently, I I I used to fight um this kind of hour and a half awake in the middle of the night thing between two sleep uh cycles.
47:55
Now I kind of actually just kind of get up and do like probably, you know, half an hour to an hour of like meditation between like 3:00 and 4:00 a. m.
48:02
in the morning or 4:00 and 5:00, and that then hands me half an hour of real clarity after that to kind of think about kind of my day and how I'd like to end up using it.
48:15
And what type of meditation do you practice?
48:18
Uh there there are concentration and mindfulness techniques that you can use at a pretty common I I I think rather than talk about the type that I do, I I think a lot of the debate between types of meditation is kind of like the debate of kinds of like weight lifting people do, and I think the important thing is that you actually just like you know, lift the weights, right?
48:39
So, um I I'm not convinced any one type of mindfulness training is the superior to another, but clearly almost any would be superior to actually not actually doing it.
48:51
Do you have any opinion of um neurofeedback?
48:56
I I think generally, even as an investor, I think there's beginning to be a commercial breakdown between the interface of um the brain and you you see these EEG feedback pieces of equipment.
49:07
I think they're not not quite um as far along now as they should be, but I think you're certainly seeing some interesting applications with people that are taking uh the interface with the mind out of the realm of religion and into the realm of uh science and such, and I think um uh they're even like a prep high schools are doing a controlled ex- experiments on mindfulness to see how it affects homework and performance and things like that. Yeah. No, definitely.
49:39
And Adam Gazzaley, who's also on this podcast, uh at UCSF, is doing some really interesting work Yeah.
49:46
with uh iPad-based or tablet-based games for quantifying um progress in meditation and mindfulness.
49:53
Uh Reed, what about yourself?
49:55
What do your morning rituals look like in an ideal day, assuming you have control of your morning?
50:01
Uh the first 60 to 90 minutes of your day.
50:04
What what is what is that what does that look like if you had your sort of optimal recipe?
50:09
Well, I don't know if it's optimal or not, but um and I also don't know how interesting it is, but you know, most of my days are pretty packed because of, you know, responsibilities to Greylock, responsibilities to LinkedIn, portfolio companies, much other things.
50:21
So, where my morning tends to be most highly tuned to is what is a creative problem that I've identified uh either, you know, like as something that I was like, "Okay, I want to work on this.
50:39
I want to think about this the night the day before the night before."
50:41
It's like, "This is a key thing that I want to think about."
50:43
A product design, a strategy, a solution to a problem that one of my portfolio companies is looking at.
50:49
You know, that sort of thing.
50:49
Uh or I need to solve this thing creatively for a meeting I'm having later today.
50:56
Like I'm uh we're making a decision at Greylock to invest in something.
50:58
Uh you know, a team is going to be pitching me or there's going to be some kind of business development relationship between LinkedIn or another of my portfolio companies.
51:11
And so, the very first thing I do when I get up, uh almost always, is to actually sit down and work on that problem cuz that's when I'm freshest.
51:17
I'm I'm not distracted by like phone calls and and responses to things and so forth.
51:25
So, I'll I'll I'll actually if it's the most tabula rasa, you know, kind of blank slate moment that I have.
51:32
And so, I use that to maximize my creativity on a on a particular project.
51:37
I'll do usually do it before I shower.
51:40
Cuz frequently, like if I go in the shower, then I'll continue to think about it as I'm doing it, but I'll get it all fired up.
51:47
Uh ideally, I would have 60 minutes for that. Some mornings I do.
51:49
Uh, frequently it's like around 30, um, just because of the press of the day.
51:56
And then, uh, the next things that kind of round out if it's only 30, um, are, uh, a combination of a quick triage through email to see if there's anything that's a uh, emergency that's or kind of something that's temporarily or otherwise important, uh, that I need to get on right away.
52:16
Uh, and then, uh, frequently, uh, most of my during the work week I almost always have a business breakfast uh, on some project.
52:23
It could be anything from a nonprofit, you know, like Mozilla, to, uh, you know, portfolio company or uh, just a general meeting with someone who's been recommended to me.
52:35
Uh, and then on the drive to that breakfast, um, frequently I'll do a call that's kind of one of cuz it's one of the uh, uh, usually, uh, the days are so packed with meetings that some of the the the it's the typically the only real phone time I have.
52:49
And so if there's someone I need to talk to, uh, that is not co-located, that's usually when I call them. Got it.
52:57
And when you're working on that first creative problem, is that something that you've put in a notebook the night before? Is it on a laptop?
53:04
How are you storing these problems and then working on them?
53:09
Um, so it'll either be most commonly cuz you know, I kind of grew up where I was thinking by using a pen and paper.
53:18
Uh, most commonly I will have sketched a few things, thought about a few things.
53:23
Uh, it'll be a so, you know, and usually it's in the notion of how do you solve this problem?
53:27
Like a little bit back to the thing we're talking about is like setting up that framework, like a strategy, you know, within a strategy of a game.
53:36
What are the kind of key things that, you know, might be constraints on a solution or might be the attributes of a solution and what other tools or assets I might have because part of what I'm trying to do is I actually think, you know, most
53:50
of our thinking of course is subconscious is part of what I'm trying to do is allow the fact that we have this kind of uh relaxation rejuvenation period in sleeping uh to essentially possibly bubble up the the thoughts and solutions to it. And so, when I've woken up not
54:08
And so, when I've woken up not only am I kind of tabula rasa, but I'm also uh possibly primed for that.
54:14
And so, anyway, that's the way I do it. Yeah.
54:20
No, that makes perfect sense.
54:22
You've said before, Reid, that your network is your mentor and that you learn from everyone in your network.
54:27
I'd love to just tick off a couple of names of people I believe you know and hear the first thing that comes to mind in terms of what you learn or have learned from them.
54:35
Uh you mentioned earlier the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky.
54:41
Um what would what's the first thing that comes to mind there?
54:43
So, Brian um one of the things I paid it that I thought was an excellent focus from him is that he if he calls it seven star design, which is, you know, most review systems are uh you know, go to five stars.
54:57
And so, seven stars was uh thinking about the design at a much broader scope.
55:02
But the precise way of thinking about it is what he came to realize that Airbnb is not just an online product.
55:08
It's not just a a marketplace, a website, but it's actually the entire experience that you have of going to the, you know, room or apartment, of checking in, of staying there, and of leaving.
55:22
And how do you actually in fact best design within your abilities of doing a peer-to-peer marketplace that entire experience?
55:29
And so, the way the the the the placeholder he uses for that is this thinking of seven star design, which is thinking through each step of the experience.
55:39
And so, I thought it was in highly instructive and something I now use myself, use when I talk to other people, because our product isn't just the website, isn't just the mobile application.
55:53
It's the way that people are embedded in the environment when they're using it, and you should think through that as much you can, even though you may have some very limited ability to control other aspects of it. Mhm. Or shape. Mhm.
56:08
And what about one of your partners at Greylock, John Lilly?
56:13
So, John is about as deep and interesting as a technologist you get for an investor.
56:19
He puts together kind of both the aspects of being very deeply technical about platforms.
56:26
I mean, he was the CEO of Mozilla, growing it to being 20% of web browsers, with also kind of design experience.
56:36
Like, he is a consulting professor at the Stanford School of Design.
56:40
And so, for me, you know, part of the thing that I get from John and I've learned from John is to think about the intersection of kind of user design with deep technology and how, for example, design patterns then shape deep technology patterns and kind of the a set of different questions that you'd ask about Look, what's the structure of the design space and does that inform the structure of your technology space?
57:04
And so, we talk about a whole wide variety of technologies, but those are the kinds of mental and strategy and thinking patterns that I've gotten honed to a fine edge from John.
57:19
Also a hilarious guy, very sharp sense of humor. yes, definitely.
57:24
What about your former co-worker, now SpaceX Tesla founder Elon Musk?
57:30
So, Elon, obviously super smart, obviously relentless, uh obviously thinking, you know, like, for example, the the the old phrase, "The sky's the limit."
57:39
That's too short for Elon, right? You know. Mars and beyond.
57:43
Um uh the thing that I most learned from Elon is actually, in fact, um that So, previous to Elon's amazing successes with uh Tesla and SpaceX and SolarCity, uh I had come to learn that uh that part of the business strategy is to solve the simplest and easiest, most valuable problem.
58:09
And then, actually, in fact, part of doing strategy is to solve the easiest problem.
58:13
So, part of the reason why you work in software and bits is that they that atoms are actually very difficult.
58:19
You have uh sometimes real material, you know, product development risk, inventory risk, material science, you know, all these things that makes atom products harder and so, if you can work in the bits products, it's a lot more valuable, scales more quickly, and so forth.
58:33
And all of that's true in terms of the fact that that it wasn't that that lesson I'd learned was false, but what Elon taught me was, actually, in fact, if you have a very deep vision for something, you're relentless, and you choose something that really matters, that the competitors are, in fact, really weak, right? Right.
58:53
Like, they're not actually, in fact, like, for example, you know, all of the rocket contractors um were um mostly focused on how do they milk government contracts, not on how do they build new propulsion systems, not on how do they take advantage of the last couple of decades of of actual progress.
59:08
Um And so, that actually gave him a uh a uh it's a very hard challenge.
59:16
What he's done is extremely compelling, and and you know, very few people could pull it off, but that gives you a sufficient window, even when you're taking on a hard problem.
59:26
And that's actually one of the things I learned from Elon. And Julie Hanna, Kiva. org chairwoman. Yep.
59:36
What would you What would you say to that?
59:38
So, Julie, now I knew this already, but um but Julie is a very good model for this, which is that you can have someone who is a world-class entrepreneur, uh serially experienced with it, is a general learner, has done enterprise companies, has transitioned to thinking about open source, um and was one of the
1:00:05
early kind of people of how do you apply open source things, can also go and thoroughly apply all of those things into not just the for-profit world, not just her own companies, not just her angel investments, not just her work with various kind of incubators and others, but also into the nonprofit world. And
1:00:22
And where it's one of the things when you say, you know, we have a tendency in in Silicon Valley to say, you know, entrepreneurs are heroes, um but, you know, one of the things I think is, you know, truly heroic and awesome about what uh Julie's done is say, "Look, I can take all these skills.
1:00:42
I can take my entire um life only just building economics and and and and enterprise businesses and other kinds of businesses, but actually in fact, when I begin to think about how do I scale and how do I change the nature of humanity and human ecosystems, I'm going to take my technology skills and apply them to philanthropic projects with the same kind of scale, with the same kind of impulse, and I'll put real time into it.
1:01:06
I'm not just going to talk about it.
1:01:10
And and I'm going to do it with, you know, my the full set of skills that a world-class entrepreneur does.
1:01:15
And so, you know, I've seen I've taken heart and inspiration from Julie about the value of of diving in and getting your hands dirty on projects that are outside of the commercial side for that are really ones that you can actually in fact get to massive scale.
1:01:38
And last last for this list US Senator Cory Booker who I actually met for the first time at an event that you co-hosted. So thank you for that.
1:01:45
But what what have you learned or admired as it relates to Cory?
1:01:53
Well, so Cory is I think a great civic leader.
1:01:59
He you know, is entrepreneurial and bold himself when he is was the mayor of Newark.
1:02:06
He lived in the housing projects in order to know what the experience was in order to be able to be to understand, you know, kind of how does he maximize the happiness and the economic potential and the and solve the problems of the people that he is there to help you know, help as mayor.
1:02:26
And then as a senator part of what I have found him to be practically unique in in like or leading edge.
1:02:37
There's there are a few others who I think also do this.
1:02:40
But he does he's the the leading edge of I get that that Silicon Valley is creating all this kind of interesting technology.
1:02:50
And I get that there's these really powerful commercial models and I want to learn from them.
1:02:53
But when Cory comes out to Silicon Valley, of course he has the interest that every politician does which is, you know, raising money and there's a bunch of money in order to to inform political campaigns.
1:03:03
But his first, second and third questions aren't about how do I get you to give me a check?
1:03:06
It's how do I learn from you in order to solve a problem that's critical for the American people and in particular critical for the people who may be being left out, uh but all people as well.
1:03:18
And so, you know, whether his focus is on, you know, we have a really serious problem with mass incarceration, or whether the the challenge is, um you know, what do we do um in order to, you know, kind of have a good foreign policy, you know, any of these questions, he starts with what do I learn from you that can then help me figure out how to help us be better uh as a as a country.
1:03:44
And And then, of course, you know, when you get you know, if he ends up with alignment, and he says, "Look, you know, can you help me with X, Y, and Z?"
1:03:52
At that point, he's speaking your language, um and uh and has understood and has asked you to participate in helping being a good citizen.
1:04:03
And, you know, uh if we could have uh more senators like uh you know, Senator Booker, Cory, my friend, uh I think the world would be a much better place. Yeah, totally agreed.
1:04:15
He's He's exceptional at asking incisive questions, uh and not just for the sake of asking the questions, but for actually uh listening to the answers. Yep.
1:04:25
Um Michael, uh what is the book that you have given most as a gift or books?
1:04:34
We certainly actually read book with a Ben Akst and the a startup of you. Mhm.
1:04:43
And uh why why have you chosen that book?
1:04:46
Uh it it it just has a lot of principles in it for young people right out of a college or kind of in the middle of their a 20s and such to think about how to pursue their careers. Got it.
1:04:56
And what And uh what what would be your what would be your second book if you had to pick a second?
1:05:02
Uh Well, to young people, I often give them the a simple book you probably heard about called uh Getting Things Done. David Allen?
1:05:14
combine that with uh the Seven Habits of Highly Effective uh People because I think the former helps you actually to to action and the latter helps you decide which actions to actually, you know, take.
1:05:29
So, I mentor a lot of young people um and I think those two books together are probably good for them. Wonderful.
1:05:37
Yeah, and we're going to we're going to dive into Quest for Gin in a second because I I want to make sure that we cover that.
1:05:42
Uh Reid, what about yourself?
1:05:44
The the book or books that you've given most as gifts uh besides the ones that uh that you've been involved with directly. Yes.
1:05:51
Well, obviously, I tend to give out my two books, The Startup of You and The Alliance, uh a fair amount uh partially cuz you can sign it and you can make it very personalized and becomes a very, you know, uh personal touch gift.
1:06:04
Uh I'd say the two books that I have recently most given out um one of them is uh Conscious Business by Fred Kofman.
1:06:12
And Fred is, I think, to some degree the modern high spiritual priest of capitalist business.
1:06:20
Uh his whole kind of thread is to say actually, in fact, how you can express business and capitalism as a spiritual practice of compassion.
1:06:28
Um and I, you know, he, you know, it's a book that opens with a discussion of Aristotle and, you know, not not not you would be you know, be surprised on a business book. So, that's one.
1:06:41
And then the other one is Sapiens uh by Yuval Harari, which is a very grand, it's one of the ones I've I read most recently, um a grand theory of humanity and kind of how does the evolution's cognition work.
1:06:55
Um and I don't know enough to know like is it really deep scholarly work or not, but it's exactly the kind of broad thinking book that I think should be more in you know, uh general consciousness.
1:07:12
And Michael, you you mentioned mentoring.
1:07:14
I think this is a good segue.
1:07:15
Uh could you please describe uh QuestBridge uh and what QuestBridge does?
1:07:21
Because of course that's that's a common thread that ties everyone on this call together.
1:07:26
Uh Reed being it it it correct me if I'm wrong, but uh chair of the the advisory board.
1:07:31
I'm I'm one participant on the advisory board and very honored to be part of that.
1:07:36
But could you describe uh and you of course are one of the co-founders Yep. QuestBridge.
1:07:42
Could you describe for for folks uh what it is that QuestBridge does and some of the results or numbers? Sure.
1:07:48
I'll I'll describe what it does and what the problem it solves as well.
1:07:52
Um and and you said uh Reed is the head of the advisory board and we've really appreciated you your help also, Tim.
1:07:57
So uh QuestBridge is on one level simply a common application for super smart low-income kids um heading to top schools like Princeton and Yale and uh Swarthmore and Amherst and such.
1:08:14
Um you can apply to all the schools for free with our application online.
1:08:16
Um the schools help to offset the cost of the pool, so we don't have to waste a lot of money and can uh focus on execution.
1:08:27
Uh the scale it's reached um is significant.
1:08:30
We're about um at at some schools about half of their diversity and we put in more low-income uh kids than all the other nonprofits in the country actually all combined.
1:08:41
Um but there are a lot more out there and and the interesting thing in America that people don't know is there's actually no shortage of smart low-income kids to use up all these kind of wonderful uh financial aid opening schools that can afford to pay a full tuition award.
1:08:58
Um it's just they simply aren't sending in applications.
1:09:00
And so we're trying to make that process simpler.
1:09:04
But in real numbers, we had over 140 kids accepted to uh Yale last year.
1:09:08
Over 110 MIT were accepted.
1:09:11
Um the majority of those accepted would actually go.
1:09:13
Uh So, on the one hand our numbers are large.
1:09:18
Um on the other hand, we've probably gone from from finding and having them apply like one in 14 of the qualified kids to one in nine.
1:09:30
Um you could fill uh several uh uh uh times over every top school with smart, qualified, low-income academic kids for all the uh financial aid openings.
1:09:44
And uh I'm sorry, go ahead.
1:09:44
I I I didn't mean to interrupt if you had more there, but I Oh, no, I didn't.
1:09:49
My wife and I have been doing this now um in some form for about 20 years or so.
1:09:52
And uh our our our hitting a good scale, but our we're from people like Reed and others to try to increase our scale.
1:10:00
And also now we have about 8,000 students in our schools, you know, how do you bring them into uh the corporate you know, world and like medical schools and things also.
1:10:12
And uh the for those interested, uh the the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal has some some excellent feature pieces recently on QuestBridge.
1:10:20
Reed, you get asked uh for you to participate in different projects, different startups, different nonprofits all the time.
1:10:28
What is it about QuestBridge that led you to decide to participate, to to contribute to it, to be part of it?
1:10:38
Well, it's actually uh very similar process to how I actually make a decision to be an investor.
1:10:46
Uh not 100% but close, which is, you know, roughly speaking, I think the mission of life is how do you maximize humanity?
1:10:52
Uh the expression of human potential, uh our uh consciousness, our our our sense of ethics and ethos, our ways of being with each other.
1:11:05
And when you look at QuestBridge, you say, "Well, here is actually in fact one very intelligent system designed for exactly that."
1:11:12
Because the, you know, the way that you can change a life of this high talent, low income kid by providing a path and an understanding and a and a way of succeeding through a strong college is not only a way to change a life, but also to change the world.
1:11:33
Because, you know, those that not only do they change their own lives, but then they they model for others, they can potentially give back to the community, and also then folks who you know, benefit from elite universities have the knowledge and understanding and compassion to, you know, kind of what are the the the challenges for lower income and can help participate in a really positive way.
1:11:58
So, part of, you know, um I think if anything, you know, Michael's being, you know, kind of, socially apt and discreet and not, you know, kind of saying, "Look, it's a it's an application."
1:12:12
But not only is it an application, it's a community.
1:12:13
It's a community helps helps those kids succeed through college and then connect with the world around them at large.
1:12:24
And so, it's it's It was a very quick and easy decision to to join and help.
1:12:32
And so, I I Michael, what I'd like to do is just give a sort of a an example of the type of thing that gets me excited about QuestBridge.
1:12:40
And please feel free to correct me cuz I know this is just a small part or maybe one example, but Yep.
1:12:48
for those people listening, I mean, I'm I'm involved with a number of nonprofits, but I it I try to apply like Reed the same level of of scrutiny and high expectations to nonprofits that I would to for-profits.
1:13:00
And that's it it turns out to be very challenging.
1:13:03
Uh but in the case of QuestBridge, you know, Reed mentioned earlier part of strategy being solving um the easiest, most valuable problem.
1:13:13
And I think uh part of that is identifying, of course, the right problem.
1:13:19
And uh as you mentioned, Michael, there's a lot of money out there.
1:13:23
There is a lot of money uh you know, colleges will give students more than $300,000 each to go to college.
1:13:30
The The one of the issues is simply the lack of applications.
1:13:33
These kids don't apply often times, and they may not have the social support, and may not even enter their minds to apply.
1:13:40
So, how do you solve that problem?
1:13:43
Because a lot of people are trying to solve the wrong problem by throwing more money at the problem, doing it too late, and they miss the window of opportunity.
1:13:50
And so, what what really caught my first about QuestBridge was uh just one small example, which was in these communities where they may not even be thinking of applying to college, uh doing, for instance, an iPad giveaway or a giveaway of some type.
1:14:07
And the application or the form to sign up for this giveaway potentially uh and win just so happens to also be a standardized application that you've convinced 36 top schools to accept as as college applications.
1:14:24
And so, these kids are incentivized in a way that is kind of culturally relevant to them.
1:14:28
And then they get a letter in the mail saying, "Hey, by the way, uh Princeton University here, we'd like to offer you a full ride Yep. uh for 4 years."
1:14:37
And it's just such an elegant solution, and it's such an example, for me at least, of putting in a a getting a very large result for a a a a small input, a small intervention.
1:14:55
And that's why, you know, I've been so excited to to talk about QuestBridge.
1:14:59
I've been looking forward to this interview for many other reasons also, but to to try to showcase it for people to say like not all hard problems have to be hard to solve.
1:15:08
You just have to really surgically focus in the right place.
1:15:12
Um so I'd love to ask just as it relates to QuestBridge, um what's what if for people who want to learn more, where should they go?
1:15:19
And there there are many people listening to this show who are perhaps like me have recognized how they were set down a a very fortunate path by having educational opportunities that are not available to everyone.
1:15:37
So for for people who might want to uh contribute to such you know an effective Archimedes lever like QuestBridge, you know, where should they go and and how might they be able to help? Sure.
1:15:51
Um I I think to clarify the problem just so your listeners can understand it.
1:15:56
Um the uh Before QuestBridge, about three quarters of the diversity was drawn from only fifth of 10 urban areas in the country.
1:16:08
So you were uh more likely to hear about heading to a school like Swarthmore if you had a 2.
1:16:13
8 from Harlem than if you had a 4.
1:16:15
0 from a lot of other areas in the country.
1:16:18
So QuestBridge recruits at at you know in New York and Chicago like other people do, but also in like Buffalo and Syracuse and other areas of the country.
1:16:29
Um in defense of the kids, it's not intuitive that a school would give you $300,000 for free. Of course.
1:16:37
So so so to get their application data, Quest is unique in that we have our own kind of application data set.
1:16:43
So, as you said, if we create um a prize or if others you wanted to help us do that, uh we've had a lot of success in attracting applicants to fulfill out a college application for a proposition unrelated to the application itself.
1:17:02
Um so, if it's a student who wants to get involved, they can simply go to our website at QuestBridge. org.
1:17:06
We have an application actually open now for um this fall's application cycle.
1:17:12
We have access to about half a billion dollars of a financial aid from our universities.
1:17:18
And we like to um uh you know, harvest more of America's latent talent from areas that we haven't reached earlier.
1:17:28
Um I I'd say to your listeners to make sure that your local high school actually uses our application.
1:17:35
And that um only about a third of the high schools in the country have handed applications in.
1:17:41
Um and then for people who would like to create um their own intervention, let's say for low-income kids wanting to do math and science or low-income women or low-income people from the south or almost any interest, they can even reach out to me to uh me directly and uh uh I on your uh blog, you can feel free to put my email address if you'd like to. Okay, wonderful.
1:18:06
And would you like to give that out now or would you prefer just Yeah, it's Michael um uh at questbridge. org. Great.
1:18:16
And by prizes you mean people could offer um some type of what what what might a prize look like?
1:18:23
Yeah, it it it it it's really odd.
1:18:23
It could be it could be non-monetary like we'd like to say um you know, have like a a leadership award at like the White House or something.
1:18:34
Um but it can be as simple as we ran a pilot for Native Americans where we gave away a 20 laptops hooking the actual university application up to the a prize application and we grew from having only 34 applicants one year to over 250 um the year after that.
1:18:57
So, for everyone listening, I just want to really encourage you.
1:18:59
I I I am very very uh I have a very very tight filter tightness filter when it comes to working with nonprofits and uh this this one is worth your time.
1:19:10
So, I would just encourage you to look at it.
1:19:14
Um forget about the label nonprofit as an intervention that can better humanity.
1:19:19
Um as as Reed mentioned, this is this is one of the rare gems out there in my opinion.
1:19:23
And you know, other organizations that I've worked with like DonorsChoose for instance, Charles Best is a huge fan of QuestBridge version.
1:19:30
He said the first thing he said to me when I mentioned a few years ago that Michael you and I connected, he said, "That is an excellent choice.
1:19:36
That is an awesome choice."
1:19:39
Um so, people check out QuestBridge.
1:19:39
org and you can reach Michael if you'd like to discuss um collaborating in some way Michael@questbridge. org.
1:19:48
So, I'll just ask uh one more question, guys.
1:19:50
It'll take uh 1 or 2 minutes.
1:19:52
And that is um Let's uh let's let's start with you, Michael.
1:19:56
If you could have one billboard anywhere that said anything, uh what would it say and where would it be?
1:20:02
I I I probably people do what you do, Jim.
1:20:06
Pick something you're afraid of every day and and kind of go after it.
1:20:12
And uh I I I'd put that on kind of people's a way to work, I suppose.
1:20:18
What about yourself, Reed?
1:20:22
Well, this is kind of a I uh funny reflex, but it's just something I was thinking about recently.
1:20:27
I think I would take the billboard in Washington, D. C.
1:20:31
I think I would target congresspeople and I say, "Have you worked with someone across the aisle today?"
1:20:37
Because what matters is not partisan conflict, but how do we govern our country to actually have a better future. Here, here. Definitely. Um last question, guys.
1:20:47
Do you have any ask or request for my audience?
1:20:51
Um Reid, we can start with you and then where can people find you online?
1:20:56
Uh where can they ping you on social networks, etc.?
1:21:00
Well, on the social networks, it's very easy.
1:21:02
There's this service that maybe a few people have heard of called LinkedIn.
1:21:06
Uh you know, findable there. Um I'd say two things.
1:21:09
Uh one is uh you know, I would also echo the fact that uh QuestBridge is a scale uh way of of of changing the world for the better, of actually making us more of the you know, kind of for us in the US, the American dream in terms of the ability for uh for talented low-income youth to actually you know, uh live in a meritocracy.
1:21:36
So, I think it's uh awesome in whatever way you can support, whether it's contributing or helping or, you know, pointing out the right talented young kid at it is all great.
1:21:48
And then the second is you know, last year I published a um book called The Alliance.
1:21:53
Uh your audience tends to be highly literate, not a surprise given you.
1:21:58
Uh and so in as much as they're thinking about how is the nature of of employment and how is the nature of of um the relationship between an employee and a company changing, I think it might be something that could stimulate a few thoughts. Definitely.
1:22:13
And I have a copy of that book at home in SF, everybody.
1:22:15
Uh highly worth the read.
1:22:17
Uh so, highly recommended there.
1:22:20
Well, gentlemen, uh this this has been wonderful.
1:22:22
I've really enjoyed the conversation and uh for everybody listening, I will put everything we discussed in the show notes.
1:22:29
So, we'll have links to Questbridge, the book recommendations, and so on.
1:22:34
Uh just go to 4hourworkweek.
1:22:35
com, all spelled out, and click on podcast to find that.
1:22:40
And uh guys, I really appreciate you making the time.
1:22:43
This was This was a lot of fun, and I have pages and pages of notes just for myself.
1:22:48
Tim, uh always a pleasure and always an honor.
1:22:51
Thank you for the conversation, too. All right, guys.
1:22:52
Until next time, thank you.
1:22:54
And uh everyone else, until next time, thank you for listening.
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