what I do I have a photograph in my mind I go into a shop it paints a picture or it doesn't one bad color in a great painting that changes throws off the whole painting it's like the wheels the ugly wheels on a Mustang and I mean that every car now has ugly Wheels I can't
get over it you know you see the wheels it's like having a bad button on a sweater like this this is one of my best sellers and if you put an ugly button on this that's what you notice and I say never give a customer a reason not to buy [Music] something let's start at the beginning
you said your father was a model of what you didn't want he didn't fit up my job description uh of what I thought a father should be uh yeah I didn't know what I wanted then I didn't know you know when you're a kid like you moving all over the place you don't know what's
right and what's not right you learn over time what was that relationship like uh he was it wasn't good he wasn't a sensitive guy he had no emotion he didn't treat my mom well who died you know she was had cancer the year I was born and um what was it like it was I didn't know any better at all and I thought
this is what a father is like and over the years I learned that this is not what a good father is like and he never he's was an angry bitter guy was not successful and uh you know he always talked he wanted to be a big shot so in my family he acted like a big shot shot
with my mom's three sisters and my seven cousins and by the way the ironies none of them liked him because he wasn't a warm fuzzy nice person but I didn't know that when I was growing up how did that affect you I think my ambition comes from being the opposite of him I think I always lived in my
fantasies escaping where I am and Peggy my wife said you know maybe that's where your creativity comes from I don't believe it came from that because I think creativity is part of your DNA and I don't think it can be taught so uh but you know it affected me never took any
pleasure in uh my success and I have he just never did was there a moment when you realized he wasn't a big shot well I'll tell you it's an interesting story uh I used to to work he worked in a garment Coat Company he wor he worked buttons he had kind of a low levish job although I didn't want to face that um
and he um they asked me to take the payroll I was 16 he said take the payroll to the bank what do I do I duck out the freight entrance on West 37th Street and 8th Avenue go into the neighboring Freight entrance I looked through all the pay stubs or whatever it is he was one of the lowest paid people
there relative to his peer group who he would always put down and whatever that was a reality for me so that it was a cold reality so my thoughts of him being whatever disappeared then and As I Grew um he he wasn't a good dad so when I lived there I was going to City College
I was miserable and I was you know I used to go Subways long around Railroad and I'd had to escape from the house so I I luckily got into I I didn't know where to apply State University of Buffalo the some guy I knew went wasn't even a close friend I got in so I
escaped to Buffalo and for two years and uh but it was you know never took any he was competive itive with me in an ironic way and you know I was getting a lot of press when I you know I worked 12 years in the department stores and then I was very lucky fortunate I was called to run uh an Taylor then in
1980 I was a young guy I you know I don't know I said okay because I didn't know what I would do next after 12 years in the department stores I I couldn't find the ulation and the excitement or whatever you call it of the organizations and I don't think they're much different com
uh political suck up I I didn't know to how to articulate this but I think in most big companies people are always sucking up to their bosses yeah that's my own experience and and these develop over time you know because the boss reviews you the boss promotes you I've learned over the last number of
years the best judge of a boss is the person who works for the boss and tell me more about that well it's my own thing I think in corporations and well look at all the CEOs out there I don't know all of them but I think safe uh they went to the right schools I I couldn't care less
where anyone goes to school I like to see a colle college degree but I also like to see a work history but if you're a safe choice and you know it's again it's an editorial on what I think people would argue if they went to a fancy school here and a fancy school there and
now it starts and I was guilty when my son was 5 years old going to a nursery school I didn't have any connections I thought it was a fancy one it wasn't a good choice but um I think if you look at people you know like everyone all these earnings reports this I know the
public relations people right that they script them and safe you have a good education you don't want to take a risk on picking the wrong boss or senior Executives uh and I think there's a lot of self-interested people in this world plenty of them why do you think we're so risk
averse well I I can't answer for others I think uh you know why I don't I think you have to be creative to move any business forward any institution uh and that's what I think and it's really based on my own personal experience and also uh in the in the in the sector I'm in fashion and all that
creative drives the engines and so why are they R it's a good question question um they well salary they don't want to risk that they don't want to risk I mean they get very wealthy these days becoming a CEO when you transformed the Gap you renovated all 430 stores at the same time with no
focus group nothing oh my God if you if you take over something in you got to get rid of the old merchandise because it ties up a lot of cash and Don bless his heart was nervous about the earnings I get emotional you know my stomach kind of speaks for me a lot but you know business got tough for
the first year the stock dropped probably 50% you know I never I I worked hard and I was scared after a year I'll never forget we were talking about was a year and a half we were in Carmel and we're sitting there we come up with a kind of a bankruptcy plan that's when I started
to get nervous and I've been there a year and a half we Don redid the 400 Plus stores I redid All the merchandise I threw it all out and that's where he was concerned but you got to take and you got to get the cash out of bad Goods it's like rotten fish yeah or whatever so we redid
the stores what gave you the confidence to do that I mean this was like a was it we're we're basically going to go extinct so that's the base case those two or three years even when it turned around was like uhoh but I worked my ass off I kept no one taught me how to run
an Taylor I just did it without any supervision because the headquar was $25 million business but I just went in there day one and you know corporate a lot of people they leave you alone yeah or they don't leave you alone but there I was and the the the the threat was if
I don't turn this I was under pressure I didn't make money there they didn't pay me I negotiate whatever but it is what it is so uh I always depended upon my gut my instinct and in hindsight I did I knew who was good person not a good person I knew who was full of it and down to
earth and I in the department stores 12 years I kept looking for the right place to go you mentioned uh you could tell the difference between who is a good person who was a bad person who knew what they were talking about who didn't what are the tells how would you teach
somebody to do that you can't teach anyone I am a huge proponent uh and I never could say like Jesus they're the president they're the CEO they're the this and I'm thinking I'm not impressed privately and I can name drop some of the big shots of the time in the retail business and I would say something
like not a merchant look at me that I could tell and because I was a merchant I guess my first second day at Bloomingdale's they put me in charge of a department because the buyer Barber was on maternity leave Stan Stern who I love dearly was a great boss I was on my
own and I just did it what does it mean to be a merchant what it means to me is and it's not a lot I think it means to have know know from what's going to sell well from what's not going to maybe sell well Focus make sure it's on brand now this is what I do no rear viiew mirror most people do rearview
mirror and they say well we sold last year this sometimes it's going to go this way a lot so you chase what's over and post speak it means to me to be a merchant is having a sense of what's going to sell knowing the like I always had an instinct I guess on what I loved and I
learned later on if I think it it is non-negotiable the word that comes to mind though is like taste well that's a good question what's the difference between well you know for me I use that word a lot but it's in the eyes of the beholder I have a friend he's very successful I was talking about
the ugly merchandise in one of the companies he's involved with he said well to the customer it's not ugly to me it's ugly now I know what I know and I don't know where my eye came from but it came from somewhere but taste and style and fair value and moving forward and having a vision
those are the key ingredients that I think now when people say well look how good that company's doing I said that's not what I like to do I like to be proud of the merchandise um I like it to be fit my standards I don't say it that way of what it is Vision right and I like I
like I can always tell when something's not on brand I remember in some of my jobs I remember looking at something it was a big ta and I said uh oh and I didn't follow my instinct and really hurt one of the companies you know there's people involved so but um it means to be a good Merchant is you can't
Define it but you know when you know you know it when you see it so if we were to like walk outside and walk in a store and you had five minutes to like walk me through how you evaluate the merchandise 5 minutes three minutes what would you look at uh the picture painted
because when I it I just always it's a really interesting question because I don't know how to explain what I look at but I look at color very important when I did Gap I had a list of styles I was trying to start something I was looking for my I always admired Ralph Lauren but I
always thought his I couldn't afford his clothes he was a bronx guy ahead of me and you know I always he was always had a point of view and uh I I admired him I used to buy his clothes wholesale why because a friend of mine's uh cousin was his secretary so I got it half off
whatever but I always liked his taste and it's still the same today and there's not a lot of people who do that so it's interesting coming back to your friend's comment about well the customers is deciding what we sell if you're if you're selling if your game I guess is to sell the most product at the
lowest prices you're going to be selling the same thing that everybody else was selling but you're telling me you wanted to create a different Vision one that like escaped the competition in a way what I do I say this is my plan I look for a white space I this is in hindsight
so an Taylor was hugely successful I left after four years because my bosses were bureaucrats and I didn't like it there and I I also was at stage of my life where I have to have something I wanted to do where I could feel not compensated the right I was very happy with what I earned but I
faced the realities of living in Manhattan anyway I always had and tayor was purely instinctive but but I did learn there that I didn't want to sell brand AB C D and today you can get every brand at a discount and TJ Maxx my friend there Carol she's the best you can go to TJ Maxx and Trust yeah but
they're the biggest customers of most brands so um so I didn't want to carry because Alexander taught me the lesson I was maybe 25 years old and I said Jesus something's wrong here and you know you kind of I'm self-taught and then I'm also very curious when I join an Taylor
Brooks Brothers and I saw it decline dramatically then because you know no Merchants running it the quality they would take quality out to maintain price but they had a protective device about competitors they owned their name they didn't sell wholesale no one could take a markdown
so what I did at an Taylor is we did I you know I I found some manufacturers today you get your own but who can make Goods we designed them with them and we had an Taylor Studio label right now no one told me to do that but you it's the white space it's a well yeah and and then I don't have to worry
about meeting the competition what's going on in the business today by the way is if you look at pricing first of all everything's on sale I always give advice when I'm on a whatever I say before you give them the credit card Google the item you want to buy you'll
find it somewhere most of the time let's go back to the gap before we get to the end of the Gap what were the key learning learnings from The Gap like what are the key lessons every day the key learnings you must have a vision you must be whatever's defined as a good Merchant you must be spoton and be a
pain in the ass uh because the best bosses and I always say hi are your boss because that's the one and I never had bosses who I thought were the best especially in yeah but I became the boss other than Don was my boss there and I had to you know play that game with him
because if you do what I do and I wish you Steve does and you do what maybe all these other people do you are always competing you have to be competing it's Relentless and it goes with it and if you're not a lot of people don't compete I have I know friends who run companies
they they're bureaucrats I know because I know them so Old Navy um you know how I you know how I started that it's my favorite one of my favorite stories so in the New York Times I used to read it when it was a decent paper business section I always like to read about business because I
wanted to be who they all were yeah and then I realized well I didn't realize for a long time who they were but not what I wanted to be so there was a little article called page buried on page four or five about Target now it was then called Dayton Hudson very bureaucratic company that I I knew that
they did a lot of research and a lot of this and a lot of that so and then someone was quoted as saying it's pretty much going to be a cheaper version of Gap week the store opened I flew out to Mall of America that week I didn't even tell anyone yeah but I said well
them yeah and I went out Mall of America I walked in the store I was there no more than five minutes and I said to myself you know you got to you know only the paranoid survive that's interesting right because it's a story of only the paranoid survive uh and it's and Andy Grove is
the one who wrote that book but it's also a story of making sure that you're touching the medium so when you're talking to customers there's no filter between you and the feedb when you're flying to the store there's no filter but you're looking at the terrain
somebody's not telling you what it is in corporations most of the brass they're in their Ivory Tower I remember in the department stores they're so far disconnected go on the selling floor speak to someone plus it's decent you you know people for me I ident ify with those people who aren't the fancy people
you know a funny story about this I bought an Xbox for my kids it must have been I don't know seven years ago for Christmas and we're opening it and we're setting it up on Christmas and I was like the person who designed this Xbox experience doesn't have kids it took an
hour and a half to play a game from the time we plugged it in and turned it it's like first you got to do update second you got to sign up for all these simple stupid is the greatest lesson my first week at the Gap I put up signs keep it simple I took out the stupid every desk
in the corporation people would talk a language to me I didn't know the language this I'll never forget this she this one woman she's in charge of whatever planning and something I didn't know what she was talking about and I just said keep it simple to the point yeah you have to you have to bring
everything to its simplest common denominator and the best way to do that is to actually use your own product yeah yeah we did the pjes pajama thing which is a really fun thing it's going to be very good for him and us long term and there's a they call a boxer short well their name for it was a short
pajama pant and and they show me their new version now it's the third after the pant and the pajama set the they're calling it The Long P the short pajama pant number three seller and they show me this thing that they're changing it now this is typical of what goes on and
I said it's the third best seller you want change it I said and it's called a boxer short it's not called I I I get a little impatient a lot and then I do a little survey I go around just to I say what do you call this it's a boxer short when you say the word boxer short you
don't have to describe it it's the it is what it everybody has an idea of what of course everyone knows it's an elastic waste and I said continue that and not doing this whatever it was and that's what I do yeah and it's funny and they call things I like to name things that say what it is and I go
through this all the time they confuse people I said there's certain names that you know what it is everybody wants to come up with something they want to they don't no but they're not logical they don't so what happened at the end of the Gap in your tenure there well Steve Jobs
like just to frame the conversation here so Steve Jobs is on the board he calls you yeah take me through this well Steve Jobs joined the board he was recruiting me to join his board about a year Steve is very seductive he doesn't give up like a lot of people do what he does and
he called me one day and he said I'll join the Gap board if you join my board deal because I knew Steve you know there's no such thing as an independent director you know there's a litness test not a relative they don't do business with you but they ought to have on the
test not a close friend not a college roommate not a cousin not whatever unless it's you know if it's a controlled company you can do what you want but in independent director so I said didn't even think deal I knew he would be Steve Jobs he's irreverent he challenges things he might be late but I
love the guy what what was he like as a boort member he was a troublemaker because he brought up things I'd sit there thank God but he alienated people because you know it's okay to alienate people he had he but he didn't he really wasn't a very paid attention board member but I didn't care so he was on
the board only about a year and the he wasn't very popular but I just you know guy was Ill he was dying I just so admired him and uh I really admired him a lot and Johnny I was his lunch mate and I had you know Johnny and I became good friends and Steve was whatever so
there's a board meeting I knew there was something going on people all of a sudden you know when you have a corporate and they don't first of all I never had a director who really understood the goods you know and and you know if they came in they didn't like the name Old
Navy I got it off a bar in Paris I was driving to the airport I was fortunately in the back seat on the left I'm looking out I said to Maggie she was in marketing I go to you know you go to shop you get ideas creative so I see Marquee with a lot of neon lights and it says Old
Navy I said Maggie that's the name we needed a name for Old Navy which by the way is about 11 billion do business today that's the name they didn't like the name long story short too naming I don't like uh agencies and I don't like consultants and Old Navy by the way that
was started it's a whole other story so so let's go back to the firing so jobs is calling you okay so this is we had a bad year so jobs was not at that board meeting I presented at that board meeting the turnaround assortment right I looked at every Banana Republic Gap an Old Navy was a tough year I think in the
marketplace they weren't looking at me I get home about 9: he says Don just told me you're getting fired they had it they had to tell him he said they didn't tell me until now because they were worried I would tell you and of course I would tell you so but nine was the deadline
they had for whatever and I called Don he rushed me off very quickly come in at 8:00 dot dot do was a board meeting the next day he hands me a one note whatever that was my last day so so you end up going on the apple board Steve recruited you he seduced you for over a year to
join the apple board yeah and I say that would all fondness for him what was the apple board meetings like and what contributions did you make to retail there well well you know I designed the first store with him because he designed an ugly store and I we went in and I
told them get a warehouse build a store so we can design it together so we did it Gap you have a store you before you open it up so I went in it's very simple I said it was too chachki he said simple a screen to show the movie whatever it is so we designed the store uh and that's the store it's still
the same store today the stores became iconic what's the difference between the first version and the one that we sort of oh no the first version you never opened up no but I mean the first version you saw like what it's like comparing apples and oranges or to but I always like to talk about this because
we always see sort of the end product you know we never see the messiness of the what I do I try to explain this I have a photograph in my mind it's it's I go into a shop it paints a picture or it doesn't one bad color in a great painting I'm not a big art collector I
love nice pictures but that changes throws off the whole painting it's like the wheels the ugly wheels on a Mustang and I mean that every car now has ugly Wheels I can't get over it you know you see the wheels it's like having a bad button on a sweater like this this is one of my best sellers and if you put
a ugly button on this that's what you notice yeah and I say never give a customer a reason not to buy something it's one of my rules you know so why do people buy or is it they just don't have a reason not to buy most people they don't get it you know the logo business
and by the way it's I learned this last week they call it dupes did you know that all the designer copies are called dupes like in duplicates hot business today because people say well they don't you know the LVS who the hell knows if it's a real or fake nobody knows you look at all you know well it's
interesting because you you sort of had uh I don't want to say envied because that's the wrong word but you liked Ralph Lauren who had logos and at J crew you did away with logos yeah well Ralph had the horse and that was I remember I was a buyer Bloomingdale's Ralph had the
horse when he was just started and it was prestigious right the horse was prestigious with J crew one of the most fascinating things to me is you took you did something that's incredibly rare in retail which was you took a brand that was known for discounting same with gab
and you made it high-end well Gap was the Gap was was it I don't know the early part of the Gap Gap well you probably I started there in 1984 yeah yeah I don't know that it was a hole with the FL a disaster culturally in every other way it was all on sale what what's the Playbook then to
take I mean they did it with Restoration Hardware too there's a couple of other brands I but the base rate of success is is pretty close to zero in doing this Vision imagination uh don't have any do NOS I call them do NOS telling it's not going to work if I look Old Navy I went out
and I did it it's interesting you make decisions mostly on your gut and research backing it up well I was just going to say but you're always gathering information are you pattern matching when you make decisions well it's funny to use that word the whole business is recognizing
patterns it's you know there's patterns that go on and for me I have to preempt the pattern and then I push the team like right now personalization two years ago we had painted dogs on a tote uh on a tote bag 18 of them that day gone two years ago I have still in the last two
years uh I want to be I want personalization to be uh who what we do it personalizes the goods you know so we have I don't have my bag here but painted initials cool the dogs painted dogs but I'm trying to get people to move and it's hard yeah so you know is the reason that focus groups are so
difficult in retail because people are telling you what they want but they actually have to be led they they're difficult for me everyone else does them but they don't seem to work I don't or do they I don't know look I don't know it's not what I do for a living I do I
say the see around corners you have to have a vision it's it's interesting because the outliers on both ends positive and don't use focus groups uh but everybody's sort of in the so it's almost like a guaranteed average in a way the world this is funny a friend sends me 20 plus page article two weeks
ago talking about how average the world is today I totally I called him I said wow you were on he talked about cars he talked about designs he talked this article he didn't write it but the world's average and the uh and you have to be not average if you want to do what you do
you kind of for me you break the rules but the rules are you know common knowledge isn't that common as you know it isn't uh and I'm an anti-authority guy I don't like that I don't like to I'll never forget when I used to work in the shipping room I had an idea you know I used to
ticket you know how you see those hang tags on buttons so I used to walk around bending down with the racks of coats like this I took a rolling chair and I'm going down the aisle it was like my father got so angry at me he wasn't my who knows who my boss was but that's what happens in
corporations I no one wants to change the rules in a way not that he was a corporate guy well this is this is a fascinating sort of like Nuance here because in an Corporation you can't get fired for following the rules uh you know I just follow what you told me to
do so I'm absolved of all responsibility or judgment right like nobody's going to get fired for following the rules I mean you do at the CEO level but aside from that you're basically well you you have to you can follow the rules on the other hand you have to have a drive menu
That's creative and can make changes when I worked at the department stores you know I'll never forget I had some simple ideas for the financial person you know none of them they didn't ask people I ask people you know they know young people don't have any baggage well this is fascinating because you say
you're anti-authority but when you say that what I hear is you're not anti-authority you're really a rule breaker who's constantly questioning things which comes across as anti Authority but you're vacuuming up information from every available source and I when I hear
something two or three times I bring it to work immediately every weekend I have a Monday morning Weekend Update what is it it's a combination of me seeing things that are an idea I look through uh not that I like the fashion magazines but I look through every picture on
monthly and if there's a picture I like I cut it out last weekend it was a great picture it was a designer I think it was fendy uh and they just showed the woman's heads and they had a sweatshirt on each of them in four in bright colors so I cut that out and I said this
is something we will do while you are doing hooded sweatshirts in bright colors and then I you know I always do detective work I'm addicted to detective shows great great detectives solve cold cases there's such a difference anyway I then I asked someone who I know I said are there any companies we can do a
collaboration with we do collaborations we get together and you know when we did it at Jake we kind of invented and now everyone's they're all collaborating with all the famous Brands so it doesn't make it unique but uh anyway so she mentioned this company in England I went online
looked at it and they had a hoodie hat a Bak of lava whatever it's called they had a so I said we're going to do that hat C we sell a million cashmere uh hats we're famous for that and by the way being famous for something drives businesses because you're dominant retail do you think is theater the
theer uh well you know Stanley Marcus nean Marcus was known for that I don't think it's you know the hottest supermarket in America now you had an ear one yeah I was in one in La about three or four weeks ago I don't call anything theater theater is great product looking like a painting and
going in for me I never had Old Navy by the way it was an amazing business in its day I had Schwin bikes around the escalator M we sold out of them very quickly and then the guy I knew who owned he you know he's an investor not a close friend but Schwinn decided not to
sell us because we didn't weren't buying them from dealer but the business first apparel business to hit a what's the number I think they hit a billion dollars that's first one in apparel but now I'm sure there's many others but um I I just follow the guidance of yeah but I also absorb detectives I
always come in every I see I see these F I'm addicted to True Crimes you're always gathering information looking you're always question and probing which helps you develop the patterns and I see a picture yeah who who do you think are the great retailers today I don't like
to name competitors but I'll tell you some well TJ Max okay I always named Carol uh because Carol myrowitz TJ Maxx is the honest Discounter and she's a great Merchant the only thing is you have to keep changing acts the wrong word but you got to keep changing and seeing down the
road and I have these ideas but you can only do that if you touch the territory like when you hopped on the plane you went to the store when you're constantly talking to everybody when you're getting all the information sources that's how you rapidly adjust because you're not
looking at if you are not curious in any any field whether it's nonprofit profit selling cars and all that any field product is always driving and product is about emotion in my opinion uh someone said this the other day and I kind of took it on myself to say it I have a
love affair with the companies that I've been involved with you know made well you know what happened how I got that name yeah so David Mullen who's worked he's a great wash guy unfortunately you know he's an old friend 10 or 15 years ago when I was a J crew well you know how Old Navy and the
whole concept I told you so David has a logo made well since 1937 he shows it to me was actually the logo he said what do you think I said it's fantastic he said well do you want to buy it I said if the yeah what about you we can't afford it whatever I bought the name I owned the name and when we went
public at J crew then we did maid well and I had a vision I loved work clothes then I carart and all that but I had a vision for it but you can't do anything well unless you have the right team so we struggled for the first three or four years um we're going to do men's and women's
and I decided let's get rid of men's now I didn't have anyone to talk to about this other than myself yeah but I never thought about it that way so we got rid of men's and then samac who is works with me and US creative guy was at a J crew for 15 years and uh he left for a
year hired him back he became the creative director of maidwell boom boom boom and maidwell was a great company until it wasn't you know when we had A2 billion doll well don't even get me started with selling companies cu the mercenaries and by the way at Gap you know when I left there I didn't say that
no one called me on the board 18 years hello wow can you believe that except for Steve who didn't think you should be fired in the first place exactly exactly what make something a classic look yeah that's a good question um I always say if you know you know I wear clothes that have no
expiration date this shoe I found it in Paris it's all an American company and I must have been 40 probably 40 years ago it was my favorite store fob until they were bought out by a big American department store then it's then it's over so this shoe is from alen I've
been wearing not this one shoe we used to buy from all the J crew and my good friend Todd Snider who's a Men's Designer he buys from alen and I asked him about a year ago I said can you ask them to do a special this shoe again for me I ordered 10 of them that's awesome I
wear this and I wear another one one this jeans never go out of style but as long as you don't wear the big ones the skinny ones these are cashmere socks that we started doing at J crew they whatever and now we do them at this is clothes this scarf just it's 40 years old I Michael Drake was a good
friend I used to buy from him in London his collection there's a Michael Drake now but it's not the same I have about 20 versions of this I bought them wholesale because you know and this sweater this is our third year at Alex M but forever yeah and it's cashmere and our prices on cashmere are good oh I
only do vintage watches because I like vintage and uh old is new today yeah the Vintage business is this way and it's Unique you're not like buying you're not going to see well a hooded sweatshirt never goes out of style now that's a novelty so you know I don't know I love this
idea clothes that have no expiration date no expiration date right no expiration date fum Street the the website that I run is about knowledge that has no expiration date really so it's Timeless wisdom that Timeless and it's whatever I wear and it's things and I didn't learn this
everything I buy uh and it's internal to me uh you know I don't it's like if someone wears something oh that's the guy with the purple shirt or that's the car with the ugly hubc caps it's I like discreet yeah I like style and I like a uniform that's what I do and I wear the same Alex Mill
you know slub t-shirt blue every day perfect you know I've always had a uniform we always end the interview with the same question which is what does success look like to you I think what it looks like is a couple of things if you can impact people's lives uh in a positive way that to me is
the most the best sign of success and of course and if I could also be very pleased with myself that's another sign but I think um the biggest compliments I get are uh from people you know we had that I think you knew about the Gap reunion did you mention that to
me no 150 or 60 people yeah were there Ken pilot who used to work with me and I am I don't success it's not being rich only it's not even being rich because I know successful scientists or successful whatever but I think it's impacting people's lives my biggest compliment I say this on I've said it on
cmbc is when I'm called a mench you know what that word is MHM why don't you explain if everybody everybody knows is in yish uh mench is like a nice person normal heisha down to earth and um I like and I like talking talking to people in a parallel way and not I don't talk down to people
because I appreciate who I am and what I do now no one escapes you know I go through certain mood issues of course I'm always trying to better myself but I think success is um it's just not about money most people might say that but you have to be I'm very pleased with what
I've done more so over the last few years because I have changed people's lives I had a reunion two weeks ago last week with the um field team at Gap you know 15 20 of us and they all you know thanked me and they said they made their lives much better yeah and that's that's success