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[MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] >> This view is way more intimidating.
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>> [LAUGH] Tristan, a very warm welcome back to Stanford GSB.
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It's a great pleasure and honor to have you. >> Thanks, man.
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>> As I was researching your fascinating story for this interview, Tristan, I was most impressed by the refreshing candor of the mission you set for yourself when you were just a young boy.
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Back then, the ambition you had was not to change lives, change organizations, change the world.
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But rather something more pragmatic- >> [LAUGH] >> Which was, in your words, to become as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible.
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>> [LAUGH] >> That's right, that's right. Well done, well done.
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>> Could you share with us how your upbringing shaped that ambition of yours?
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>> Yeah, glad to be here.
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We were broke, [LAUGH] and as you said, I realized I had one goal in life was good as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible.
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The story that I share I had three outlets for that.
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The first was to be an actor, or an athlete. Didn't work.
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>> [LAUGH] >> The second way was to work on Wall Street, which I had the great fortune to do, and I'll kind of tell you how I got there in a second. But it didn't work.
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[LAUGH] And then ultimately I realized that there was this third one called entrepreneurship and kind of is working.
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Look, my ambition was quite humble, right?
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I realized I was a victim of bad circumstance, I was a victim of bad situation, the victim of bad culture, and realized that I had something in me to create good circumstance, good culture.
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A lot of which I learned from here at Stanford.
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I had the good fortune when I was in high school to go to one of the top high schools in the country, a boarding school on full ride.
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It's called The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.
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And it was the first time I got to see how the other half lived.
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I went to school with Rockefellers and Fords, and I think the most transformative point of that experience for me is that I recognized the value of name, right?
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Just like we had Rockefellers and Fords, what does Walker represent for people?
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What are the values that kind of come with that name that I want to purport, right?
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And the experience was really formative for every single thing that I've done from then to date.
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And it's carried with me ever since.
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I still want to get as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible. That has not changed.
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But there's some things that kind of came along with that, ie.
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, kind of firmness around values that really do matter to me and explain the majority of my story.
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>> And tell us about your path to Wall Street. >> [LAUGH] Jesus.
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This idea of desire, right?
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I think it's also important to talk a little bit about why I wanted to get as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible, right?
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We think about desire as this kind of straight line, this thing between what we think we want versus the thing that we desire.
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But desire doesn't really work that way.
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It tends to work through a model of influence, right?
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I want that thing, I want the money, I want the trip.
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I want like all that stuff because these models of influence, these celebrities, these Wall Street is in a nice suits, made me want to desire that thing.
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I realized very quickly, when I wanted to be an actor, an athlete, didn't work out for me because I was also good at math, and I realized, [LAUGH] that that conversion rate wasn't going to work as effectively as I wanted it to.
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But I did see those models of influence on television, wearing the nice suits working on Wall Street, and they had the money.
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And I was very much a kind of New England baby.
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I didn't know anything about Silicon Valley.
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I didn't know anything kind of west of New York, so I gravitated toward where the money was, and it was that.
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I worked at Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan.
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I did that for about two years, and I was miserable.
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And I talked about being the victim of bad culture, I was that.
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I got laid off, this was 2008.
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I got laid off in January of 2008.
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Fun fact that I've never talked about to this day, I don't even think I told Derek that.
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The day I got laid off, this is about seven or eight in the morning in January.
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I got on the phone, and I was expecting to kind of get this story from kind of my manager, and I get on the phone with the person who calls my phone, and it is this number that I didn't know, right?
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Telling me the story, high anxiety, I'm like, what's going on here?
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And this gentleman on the phone is, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Tristan, this is Derek Bolton from Stanford University.
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>> [LAUGH] >> You were admitted to Stanford Business School, right?
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>> [LAUGH] >> And it was fascinating, even a couple hours after that, then my manager kind of laid me off.
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Also said, we're going to give you a bonus, right?
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because it was around bonus season.
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And we're going to give you nine months of severance, right?
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So you talk about kind of this idea of having faith and just being thankful.
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That was a kind of real wonderful, informative moment for me, but Wall Street just didn't work.
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They put, had the wrong person in the wrong situation at the wrong time, and I'm very, very grateful to have been ejected, [LAUGH] from that industry.
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>> Indeed, great timing, and speaking of Stanford- >> Wonderful timing.
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>> GSB, this is where you got your first taste of entrepreneurship, as a second year MBA student.
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You were working pretty much full-time for a promising new startup at the time called Foursquare.
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The story of how you landed that opportunity with Foursquare offers us a lesson in persistence.
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Tell us how you got that job.
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>> Yes, so between my first and second year of Business School, and this was around the time when Stanford was starting on, the GSB was starting its new curriculum, which was particularly challenging.
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We had a rule that you couldn't do anything extracurricular at Stanford during your first quarter or two.
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I didn't listen and I did it anyway.
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So the first year I actually joined this company called Twitter at the time.
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They're about 20 people at the company.
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We had like fewer than a million users at the time, and I saw the way that it was changing communication, I got really excited about it.
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So much so, a lot of my GSB classmates were like, what is this shit?
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Nobody cares about this thing, you're crazy to even kind of desire it.
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But I knew that I had to be a part of that action.
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Now was really my first foray into kind of what Silicon Valley could be.
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In between my first and second year of business school, I worked for Boston Consulting Group.
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Did that for about half the summer because I wanted to do this Twitter thing for the second half of the summer, and Stanford gave me some grace to do that.
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There's a little bit of drama in the beginning but they gave me some grace to do that.
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And at that time I heard about this company called Foursquare.
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So in the same way that Twitter helped me really think about the changing landscape of communication, Foursquare helped me really think about kind of my connection to place in a way that got me really excited.
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Foursquare had two employees at the time.
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We had like 8,000 users, and I was just genuinely and authentically excited about what they were building.
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The story goes, I found the founders' emails on the Internet, Dennis and Naveen, emailed them eight times, the eighth time Dennis gets back to me. He says, you know what?
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I just may take you up on some of this, are you ever in New York?
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I was in LA at the time working for BCG, and I looked over to my wife and I said, well, how am I going to reply to this?
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I just email this guy like eight times and finally like he gets back to me.
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I replied back, I said yes, I'll be in New York tomorrow.
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I booked my flight that night, flew out the following morning, hung out with him for a week, and a month later I was running business development for the company.
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And that completely changed my life. >> Wow.
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>> Completely changed my life. I showed up at the door.
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He wasn't thinking I was going to come.
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I showed up at the door, opened the door, and there's a look of just like a surprise, like, who is this dude?
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And I sat down and got to work.
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And it completely changed everything for me, and I'm most grateful for that.
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>> You said you sent eight emails, correct?
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To the founder of Foursquare before you got a reply.
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For all of us hustlers out there, in your professional opinion, how many follow-up emails are we permitted to send before we cross the line?
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>> [LAUGH] >> It probably was going to be my last one, right?
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And it's again, a testament to faith.
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I think authenticity matters in this, there's no kind of set and hard rule.
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I knew I had to be a part of that movement, right?
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My life has been really about movement work, all right?
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Only doing the things that kind of adhere to the personal values that I had, in Foursquare was movement work.
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Twitter was movement work.
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Now looking in hindsight, people were like yeah, of course Twitter, right?
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But it wasn't that obvious back then.
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And I think especially in the GSB context, Jeff talked a little bit about the classes that we had previously.
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You'll find that a lot of business school classmates chase sameness with the same jobs with the same roles, right?
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And little do we realize that that sameness creates conflict because you're chasing these finite resources and that conflict leads to violence, right?
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And I think for me, I think the thing that kind of stood out was my difference.
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I was not chasing the thing that other people were chasing.
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I was chasing the things that live with my values and the wonderful thing about values is that they're infinite.
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I can't keep courage to myself.
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I can't keep inspiration to myself.
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I can't keep loyalty myself.
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Those are things that can be infinitely shared, right?
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So I try to gravitate all of the things that I choose to do, to be in line with the values that I have.
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So, one lesson to be heard here is, send us any emails as you want as long you're authentically committed to following through what you're saying in those emails.
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And that is a missing link that I think a lot of folks don't understand.
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>> Wonderful, after a three year stint at Foursquare, you joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2012 as an entrepreneur in residence, tasked with brainstorming big ideas for a future business.
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So how did you eventually settle on the idea of shaving products for people of color?
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>> Yeah, the jig was you have six, nine months to figure out if you want to start, right?
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It's crazy, I got paid to do that [LAUGH] it's absurd as best job I've ever had.
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I spent seven months there wasting their time, I spent seven months wasting their time, here's what I mean by that I was chasing the thing that I felt would make them proud to support me with.
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It's very like business school thing.
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I see a business model that needs disruption.
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Let me go do it and show how smart I'm, right?
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So I was chasing things that I had no business doing.
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I remember I had one idea that changed the way we thought about trucking in this country, I don't know shit about trucking.
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I've never been at a kind of truck stop to speak with truckers, right?
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But I had this idea, commerce moves on trucks and it should be more efficient and that's when Uber was getting started, right, this is smart.
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And I remember going down all these VC shops on Santo Road as this Andreessen Horowitz entrepreneur in residence.
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And I thought I'd just walk in and kind of own the place, right?
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And a lot of these VCs would say, great idea, go after it.
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And when I'd show up at Andreessen Horowitz, they say, no, it's a terrible idea, and I come up with another idea and I go down Santo Road and they say go after it.
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And Andreessen Horowitz say, it's a terrible idea.
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And I think the lesson that I learned, the first idea that Andreessen Horowitz said, that's a great idea was the one that they felt that I was uniquely positioned to do.
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It was a real great lesson for me where I recognize that each of us in this room has something that we are uniquely positioned to do, that we are singularly the best person in the world to try to solve that was based on your own lived experience.
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It was the first idea at least as I think about Walker and company and I'll kind of talk about how I kind of got to that.
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I got Andreessen Horowitz said great and everybody else said no.
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And it was the first time in my life I started to hear no, and I knew that there was an opportunity in that, right?
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Usually, what looks like good ideas or bad ideas, usually looks like bad ideas are good ideas.
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The problem with good ideas is that too many people try to do them sameness, right?
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And it wasn't until I came up with this bad idea, difference, that the breakthrough kind of happened.
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Now shaving, I spent the majority of my life shaving with products that we were relegated to having to use that didn't work for me, and I just got fed up.
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I actually came into this idea authentically, not as a business model.
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I was actually somewhat embarrassed, I was like, do I want to be building the thing for black folks as the black guy in Silicon Valley and doing the obvious thing.
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And it wasn't until I embraced that difference that really things started to take off for me.
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I'm just being like straight up and honest about it.
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But it really started with this, hey, I needed a better way to shave.
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And every single way I encountered facial hair removal sucks.
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Down to the experience of walking into these retail aisles, seeing dirty boxes with dudes with Jheri curls on the box and the packaging.
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Right, it didn't really reflect kind of like the culture that I respected so much.
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And I felt when I talked about this idea of unique difference not only did I have authentically the problem that I was trying to solve for myself, I was one of the few black folks in Silicon Valley at a major venture capital firm that really liked the idea.
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So in 2013, I felt like I was the best person in the world to start this company.
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I would not say that in 2023, but in 2013 I was in the rest system.
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>> Well, the idea you articulated just now sounds like a no-brainer, after all, when you think about it, people of color need shaving products too.
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>> [LAUGH] >> Established brands like Gillette and others have been around for many, many years, in the case of Gillette, I believe over a century.
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Why is it that they haven't already exploited the market opportunity you wisely identify?
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>> Yeah, I mean, capitalism is a cool game, some of it is about incentive.
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Our technology was built on hundred year old technology, right?
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We just encourage people to shave with single blade razors.
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I had one kind of interesting experience around the time that I was at Andreessen Horowitz, I was shaving, some satisfied.
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I walked into an Art of Shaving store, I don't even know if it's still here at Stanford Shopping mall right down the street.
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I was walking into the store and I said, hey, I've had to deal with this issue related to restaurants and stuff my entire life, what should I use?
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And the Art of Shaving is owned time for Procter and Gamble, right?
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And they have all the incentive in the world to take me to those like three, four, five, six blade, multi-blade razors with the nice handle on it where they can get their margin and that sort of thing.
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And I did this at this store, I also did it at one in DC.
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They never took me to any of those products.
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They always took me to use these off brand, single blade, double edge safety razors.
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So I tried it, woke up the following day, and it was the first experience of my life where I didn't have razor bumps on my face and I knew that there was a breakthrough.
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I said, why is this the case, right?
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I started to kind of learn a little bit more about the history of shaving, and I learned, everything started about 100 years ago with a single blade, double edge safety razor.
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It cuts the hair level with the skin, not beneath your skin, so if you have curly hair it's just going to grow into your skin, so really effective for that, it's one clean cuts and no pulling or tugging obvious stuff, right?
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Think about starting that in year 1900, 20 years later uses the patent for it, right?
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Then you make a two-blade razor, and 20 years after that, you lose the patent for it.
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Then you make a three-blade razor, 20 years after that, [LAUGH] you lose the patent for it, then you make a four-blade razor.
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But the thing that they had started with was the most efficacious thing for anyone to use.
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So why would they ever be incentivized to go make that again, where they can't maintain and secure their margin?
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So it was a good kind of lesson for me around innovators' dilemma-type stuff, right?
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And we're able to kind of package that in a bow because we knew how to speak to the consumer that we were targeting because I was representative of that same consumer.
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So why weren't they able to do it?
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I think there's a little bit of that.
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But also, if you're a brand manager at any of these companies, and you're making $80 billion a year in revenue, are you going to chase any new kind of innovation?
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You're going to want to see a realization of a billion dollars of return in the first couple of years.
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So you're going to get some brand manager who says, okay, it looks like black men shaving in the United States, right?
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It's a $200 million industry, so that same brand manager is going to say well even if we captured like 100% of that market share it's not big enough.
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And I realized that perhaps that person asked the wrong question.
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Because the reason the market is so small is because you make things that don't work for it, you know?
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And until you can start to articulate that reason why and actually have a new kind of different product for it, I thought about market expansion as opposed to just value capture.
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So those two things I think cut a lot of the competition on their back foot was why we're able to innovate so quickly.
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>> Not withstanding the intense conviction you so clearly displayed when it came to raising money, a venture capital firms were not exactly enthused by your idea initially, many of us in the audience may have pitched or planted pitch VCs, how did your first pitch event go? >> I hate raising money.
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I think every single mistake that I've ever made as an entrepreneur is a result of me having raised money.
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I think that there is an incredible incentive mismatch behind the kind of moneyed interest in what you want to create.
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I wanted to build something that was going to be around 100 years from now, but VCs need their return in 10 years, right?
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So it creates like this weird situation.
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So for me, I had to adapt and shift my pitch in a way that didn't make sense for the long-term outcome for the business but put me in a position to just raise that money, right?
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So, we were pitching this well, we're going to be a direct and consumer brand that xelebrates culture and there's technology, right?
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But ultimately we're a consumer package to good company.
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And I remember, I talked a little bit about walking down those consumer retail aisles and getting packaging that look dirty and the guy with the jerri curl and all that other stuff and folks would laugh, right?
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And then my first slide would be that package, and they would all shut up, right?
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And I think that is indicative of the difficulty that I had because folks had their assumptions for what it was like to shop as a black person as a non-black person, [LAUGH] you know?
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And they couldn't kind of rid themselves of those assumptions as I was pitching.
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So you're pitching to venture capitalists who don't understand, pitching to a lot of venture capitalists who don't want to understand, and that's where the difficulty came in.
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And you ask enough people, you get a couple who will give you some money.
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But when I kind of compare our situation versus other competitors in the space to focus on the mass market, the amount that we raised and the amount of support that we got pales in comparison.
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>> Now in the face of this pushback you described from investors, how were you able to maintain the confidence that your idea is the right one, that the problem lies with these investors who just don't have the right contacts or who don't understand the market or the product?
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>> Yeah, there's nothing that they could tell me because I felt like I was the best person in the world to solve that thing.
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, I live the problem, right?
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I don't need to convince you, I've already convinced myself and I'm going to make my life a little bit better.
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And I think that's something that's kind of carried with me ever since.
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Now I also want to say like I'm up here, speaking from view from the top, person of incredible privilege, right?
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I raised some $39 million, but look, I mean, I went to one of the top boarding schools in the country on full ride, I'm a Stanford GSB person, right?
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I was an entrepreneur in residence at Andreessen Horowitz.
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So my situation was a hell of a lot easier than some others I want to kind of acknowledge and respect the privilege that I received there.
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But it's hard, [LAUGH] It is hard.
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But there was no convincing that I wasn't solving a problem that was not only important to me, right?
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When I show up in offices with razor buffs on my face for an interview, the sapping of confidence and my ability to convert into getting the job that I want.
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If you are in the military and have to shave every single day, there's actually studies that talk about how your performance is impacted by your the pain that comes from the razor bumps that are on your face, right?
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So I had a story that was wholly authentic, and it was my goal at that point to find other folks that actually kind of felt what I felt.
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And look, meanwhile, this is a problem that 30% of black men and women have, or 80% of black men want to have, 30% of everyone else has it.
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Eventually, I found some people who had it.
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>> Yeah, and you were able to find some other folks including high-profile investors, people like Carmelo Anthony, John Legend, Magic Johnson.
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How did you market yourself and your brand to these big-name investors given your limited public profile at the time?
22:13
>> Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about those folks is they shop at the same place as I do.
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There's no like special health and beauty store for NBA players who can find solutions [LAUGH] for their shaving needs, you know?
22:28
They've had the same experience their entire lives and they have someone who looks like them that respects and understands the culture and speaks the language, and kind of knows what he's talking about, it might give me a good steward for my capital and they gave it to me.
22:41
And that's why I say at that point they weren't hearing stories like that from anybody else from someone that reflected that same diversity authenticity, so I was able to convert those folks a hell of a lot better than I was able to convert other folks.
22:55
But now we're in a position where there are so many folks that do the sorts of things that I do, that they're spreading their capital to support folks like me back in 2013.
23:05
But it was a real easy pitch then, and frankly, those were some of the easier pitches that lasted five minutes because they got it right away and I didn't have to explain it.
23:14
>> So now that you've secured a financial cushion from these investors, you could then focus on scaling your business, including getting your products onto the shelves of retailers like Target and Walmart.
23:26
What new skills did you have to develop as you transitioned from founder to operator? >> It's a good question.
23:34
I've had to reflect on this quite a bit, because there's a lot of entrepreneurs who would come to my office and ask me for advice like say I want to start a company like how can I raise money and all that stuff and I always ask them a question in return and I say, all right, you want to start a company but do you want to run it?
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And no one has ever had an answer to that question, immediately 90% of my job is just people stuff.
24:02
I don't focus on any product stuff anymore.
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And I learned at least in my role is that, I get to go through something that 99% of the world does not.
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I've gotten to go through a layoffs, terminations, raising up rounds, raising down rounds, being very close to running outta money, lawsuits and all that.
24:26
And I relish in it in a quasi-sadistic way, but it actually, having gone through it, now it makes me wise on the other side.
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The thing that I hated most was getting advice from VCs who never did anything [LAUGH] Getting advice from operators who didn't do the thing that I'm asking for advice for, but now having gone through it and now I can actually say that there is a difference between being a founder, and an operator.
24:51
Eben Haritz prepared me for this.
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He said, being a CEO sucks, is the worst job I've ever had. Being a CEO sucks.
25:03
It is the worst job that I've ever had.
25:05
But I can't see myself doing anything else. [LAUGH] You know?
25:08
Like there's something I think powerful and inspiring about having gone through all that stuff that makes me a better father and makes me a better brother.
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It makes me a better manager.
25:19
It makes me better friend, right?
25:21
Because I've had to live that difficulty.
25:25
So that's how I tried to articulate it to people that might not understand it.
25:28
I tried to prepare them for how much it sucks, that they'll be ready to like show up when they're people need them.
25:36
>> Right, and I would imagine running a business As you alluded to, comes with its fair share of disappointments.
25:43
What were some of the major setbacks you faced and how did you overcome them? >> I'll start in 2018.
25:49
2018 was the worst year of my life, frankly.
25:52
It started really in that way and ended wonderfully.
25:56
On December 12th of 2018, we announced our acquisition by Procter & Gamble, which was a kind of great and wonderful moment.
26:03
Look, I sit on the stage and folks are like, well, it's probably a pretty successful guy, right?
26:09
[LAUGH] But ultimately, that was a year when we were close to running out of money.
26:14
If we didn't get that acquisition, we probably wouldn't be around three months after that, right?
26:19
[LAUGH] We couldn't raise any money, we had to do a down round, I had to do a reduction in force.
26:26
God, it was 2018 and I was around 35 or so 34, something like that.
26:35
I got shingles all right?
26:37
For folks of you who are not familiar with it if you've had chickenpox before right like the only reason you would ever get shingles is because of stress.
26:44
Something and it was the first time when I heard that diagnosis I realized that there was a difference between what I felt and what was actually happening to me right I started therapy around that time.
26:57
I did therapy for about six months by the time we sold the company, and my therapist was like, Tristan, when you started here, you didn't do layoff, right?
27:08
You didn't have the down round.
27:10
You were not speaking to any of these companies for potential acquisition.
27:15
You didn't know that you're going to have your second kid, right?
27:18
You didn't like move or think about moving to Atlanta like these are all happening all at the same time.
27:28
That was a terrible, terrible, terrible moment.
27:32
But it really taught me about how much faith actually matters, right?
27:36
And if you kind of stick to the guns, stick to the values, know that you've been here before and have values that will guide kind of your decision making moving forward, it'll end up in an okay place.
27:45
And fortunately it did for us.
27:47
But I was well prepared by that time knowing that this stuff sucks, [LAUGH] It sucks, but you can get to the other side quite nicely.
27:56
>> When you sold your company in 2018 to Procter and Gamble for an undisclosed but presumably large sum of money, >> [LAUGH] >> You don't have to tell us how much, it's okay.
28:09
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> Although if you'd like to, you're welcome to.
28:13
>> [LAUGH] >> When he sold your company to PNG you became the first black CEO of a PNG subsidiary what does that milestone mean to you. >> It's meaningful.
28:30
I've shared the story quite a bit >> It was a story of when I first saw our products show up in Target stores.
28:40
So if you heard this before, I apologize that I'm repeating it but it really doesn't matter.
28:45
We started selling our products in Target stores in 2016.
28:49
We started our distribution in February of that year.
28:52
We were really busy at the time we were launching new products so I couldn't see what our products look like when we started there, so about April or May of that year, I said, let me go to Target and see what's up.
29:05
Make sure that they put our stuff on shelves in the right way, and I took my oldest at the time, he was two, his name's Avery, and we went to the Target in Mountain View, California And so I put him in the cart and we turn into the aisle.
29:21
And we get about a quarter of the aisle down, and my son points behind me and he says, dad, right? >> Mm-hm.
29:29
>> And one of our boxes was turned around and I was on the box.
29:32
So he saw me and like that, dad, and there's two things that I thought about in that moment knowing that he wasn't going to realize it as a 10 year old, but over time ultimately he will.
29:47
Number one, Dad is on the box. >> Mm-hm.
29:51
>> Particularly coming from a culture that is appreciated for its kind of consumer influence Who are less respected for our ability to produce.
30:01
And here's my son, a black two year old, who can look at that and say, my dad made that.
30:08
And I can be respected as much as a producer as I am as a consumer.
30:12
And second, we weren't in this ethnic beauty aisle with like the packaging at the bottom and having it be dirty and all that stuff that matters like we were above Gillette [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> And you know when I think about the meaning of being like first black CEO and 180 year history when we were acquired We're taking it to the boardroom of Procter and Gamble. I love the company.
30:39
And in the boardroom is like this mahogany walled office and there's a painting of every single P&G CEO since the beginning of time.
30:50
And they're like 15 paintings, right?
30:53
And there's It's a profound impact, like being in that room, like wow, these are like excellent people that worked for an excellent organization that has sustained itself excellently for a long period of time.
31:08
And there's a picture of me under Procter & Gamble, and they're right next to each other.
31:13
And I think that the juxtaposition of that was really meaningful and powerful because now we're in a position to scale Avery story to the world, right?
31:24
Now he can produce, who's going to be that first painting that looks markedly different from every single other one that's on the wall.
31:36
And that is a story that I think, our acquisition makes possible.
31:41
And I'm only hopeful that we see more of that over time but that's what it means to me and they really started with that kind of innocent target story.
31:52
>> I have a final question for you Tristan before we turn it over to the audience, You are the protagonist of a GSB case study called the Extroverted Introvert.
32:02
What does it mean to be an extroverted introvert and how has that disposition helped you personally and professionally?
32:10
>> That's a great question.
32:15
I am an introvert that recognize that my job requires my extraversion.
32:21
I'm just not naturally a sociable dude.
32:23
[LAUGH] And I find that it takes a lot of energy for me to show up, but it's a part of my job, right?
32:32
So, I kind of understand that and respect it and know that I have to do that excellently as well.
32:37
The way I've been able to cope with that though is I've curated my life in a way that is very deliberate.
32:46
Around the time I started my company, I went to Starbucks in El Camino Real down here, right down the street, you veer right.
32:52
And I spent 45 minutes writing down my personal values.
32:57
And they were as follows, courage, inspiration, respect, judgment, wellness and loyalty. I define them.
33:04
At that moment, I said I'm going to make every decision.
33:07
I am going to hire people.
33:09
I am only going to have a set of friends that share those values, right?
33:15
You find that there are few people that have ever done that.
33:18
And they find themselves wasting a lot of time and expending more energy than they need to.
33:24
So, I think I've done a good job curating my life around those folks who share those values which minimizes my requirement to have to be someone I'm not.
33:36
And be around people that give me permission to continue to be myself knowing that I have that kind of introversion about me.
33:44
But I'll do this in delight because I have to do it excellently and I have a job.
33:49
[LAUGH] But I think a bit of my power, or my superpower, has been knowing who I am and curating my life around not having to be who I'm not.
33:58
>> And would you say there are certain personal attributes or qualities that are more conducive to success? >> I don't think so.
34:05
I think it's consistency.
34:08
Just be consistent about the things that you value.
34:12
I was telling one of the classes that I was teaching at and I was like, man, where I came from, if you're loyal, you could die.
34:18
[LAUGH] You know what I mean?
34:19
That's stuff that is carried with me every single time.
34:22
So if I've ever had a colleague who moves on and does something else, maybe Tristan was a loyal dude.
34:30
That stuff matters to me.
34:33
I want folks to know that I did things courageously, right?
34:37
When you're with me or when you leave, I was a courageous dude.
34:42
And I think consistency really is the thing that matters most.
34:46
>> Consistency, I love it.
34:47
Thank you, Tristan, for sharing with us your wisdom today.
34:50
Would you like to take a few questions from the audience?
34:52
>> Sure, please, I won't bite, I won't bite. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Hello. >> Yes. >> Hi, I'm Samuel. >> What's your name? >> Samuel. >> Cool. >> A second year MBA.
35:08
My question is, do you believe in the future of more diverse brands or in a future of a diversity of brands crafted to single groups?
35:22
>> I believe in a future where people will choose to gravitate towards brands, people, entities that share their values.
35:32
I think we're in a bit of a cool renaissance right now where only Bevel Walker and Company can exist because we make space for people to reclaim their own values again.
35:44
I don't think the world needs more brands, it needs more authenticity and consistency, right? We have enough brands.
35:52
There's a million brands that you can go to, but what about you that kind of establishes that connection?
35:58
People will buy Gillette, that's fine, right?
36:01
Like, there are enough people who'll buy Bevel too.
36:03
And I think the trick will come for founders to not chase the greed, right, versus finding your tribe and kind of going in.
36:12
So, I think the future is founders who care about the tribes that they want to build and sticking with it, because that's a big enough opportunity.
36:20
Does that answer the question, cool. We got her working out. >> [LAUGH] >> Hi. >> Hi.
36:33
>> I'm Alexa, we met earlier when you were in my Paths to Power class.
36:37
And you had mentioned that you ask one question in interviews, you ask people, what's the hardest thing you've ever been through?
36:43
So I wanted to turn that back to you.
36:46
>> Yeah, that's a good question.
36:48
So, I shared that I usually ask kind of one question during my interviews.
36:53
Usually by the time that folks kind of come to me, the team has really vetted can the person do the job, right.
37:02
So, I tend to ask that question because I think it gets at the heart of values very quickly, right?
37:09
And I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of folks, and I've only had one person tell me something work related, which is a bit interesting, right, because you think that folks would try to say, all right, let me prove that I'm smart.
37:24
But folks really will get to the heart of everything, talk about divorce, they've talked about deaths in family, right?
37:32
Folks cry on the other side of the table.
37:34
And one thing that I do after they articulate the story, I try and recite it back to them kind of in line with the values that we have.
37:40
And then we have a really wonderful conversation.
37:42
And then they tell me nobody's ever asked them that question before, right? It's a bit cathartic.
37:46
But I usually give them my answer first to make them a little bit more comfortable.
37:51
And I say, for me it's getting married.
37:55
I've been married and blessed 17 years. I love my wife.
37:59
Derek, who's here has met her since the very beginning.
38:05
And especially the first two years of marriage for me.
38:09
Because it was a process of my relieving myself of my ego.
38:16
And I didn't know, it was the first time in my life I had to start thinking about things for two people instead of one.
38:23
And that tension is rich, right?
38:25
Because it forced us to really think about the values that were going to be foundational and allow us to sustain ourselves over that time.
38:33
17 years, I got married really, really early.
38:36
But we set that foundation so that now our sons, we have shared language to articulate to our sons why courage matters, why loyalty matters, why practicing good judgment matters, why having faith matters.
38:51
So it was a real good transformative moment of difficulty for me.
38:56
And the reason I bring that up, because it's so personal, but it actually closes the distance between me and the other person in a way that I think has proven productive and shows that person why these values actually do matter to me.
39:12
Nobody ever did that to me, so I thank you for that, I appreciate that.
39:20
My wife's going to see that on YouTube and be like, shit.
39:23
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] I love you.
39:27
>> [LAUGH] >> Hi, Tristan, my question is about the time in 2018 when you mentioned that you went through some of the hardest time in your life.
39:37
And there was a lot of pressure because the company also was low on cash and everything that was going through with your personal life as well.
39:47
I'm curious about how did the acquisition, how did that come about, because at the same time you were thinking about this is your baby, this is your brand that you've created, and you wanted to Go to a company that would take it and make it better. >> Yeah.
40:02
>> And not be in the pressure of just selling it off because it's not working out.
40:07
So what went through at that time?
40:09
>> Yeah, it's a great question.
40:12
The acquisition process is an interesting one because I think a lot of folks think about it as like big company comes in take small company, right?
40:18
But we got agency in that discussion.
40:21
We weren't only speaking to Prockner Gamble we were speaking to quite a few folks, right?
40:24
So for me, it was like if we were going to do this, and at that point, we kind of made the decision, there's some terms that were going to be important, right?
40:33
I still wanted to build something that was around a hundred years from now.
40:37
I never said that I wanted to own it in perpetuity, [LAUGH] right?
40:41
I just wanted to build something that was still going to be sustainable and support the community I cared a lot about.
40:46
So that was important number one.
40:49
Does it have a pathway to sustenance over the very long term?
40:54
Two, the best way to prove it is to show me that you've done it yourself.
40:59
And you think about 180 years of that kind of sustainability that at least Prockner Gamble anyway showed me that they can do it if they wanted to. Third, autonomy.
41:11
I wanted to make sure that we were still going to have the ability to offer our point of view in a way that was scalable.
41:19
So that requires setting up a system that enforces that autonomy.
41:24
I think I have a PNG email address but I wouldn't even know how to use it, right?
41:31
We're a completely separate entity we can't even take advantage of their health insurance if we wanted to we had to create our own, right?
41:37
So there's a system that really enforced, that autonomy for me.
41:43
And then lastly, let me just kind of wrap this in a boat and to really talk about on December 12th when we kind of announced the acquisition, something that happened to me that I think made me a better just leader on the other side now.
41:57
It was the first time that I realized what freedom was, all right?
42:01
And for me, I defined freedom is not owing anybody anything and was the first time in my life I felt that.
42:07
I didn't know investors anything.
42:10
I didn't owe P&G anything, right?
42:13
So it put me in a position where now I can actually again have the agency to show up in a way that the opportunity deserved.
42:21
And it was important that whoever we were merging with getting acquired by respected it, and every step of the way, P&G showed her respect for it, and they still do, and it's the only reason I still continue to be around. >> Thank you.
42:44
Thanks for coming, Tristan, >> Where's that coming from?
42:48
[LAUGH] >> Sorry, I was having trouble standing up. >> No problem.
42:53
>> So thank you, Sara, NBA2.
42:55
So I was wondering at the GSB, a lot of us want to be founders, but it often feels pretty daunting if you haven't done it before.
43:04
So I was wondering how did you convince others to believe in you as a founder, maybe including becoming an EIR at AndReessen'?
43:12
>> Yeah, I mean, first, again, I go back to the privilege thing.
43:16
The only reason Andreessen Horowitz gave me the opportunity is because they wanted the board a four square and I told them what I wanted to do and they said that there's an opportunity, right?
43:23
So some of it is access and information, right?
43:27
But I'll be honest, I still find myself having to prove that working company matters to people, right?
43:36
That's just what founders are going to have to do.
43:38
And I shared a little bit about the quality around what makes you good in its consistency.
43:47
But I'd add something there I think the best founders entrepreneurs whatever you want to call it have stamina.
43:55
You just have to have the stamina to know that you're going to get a lot of people to just say your ID is crap or you can't do it.
44:04
The only reason I got to where I did and most of the reason why I was able to raise the money that I was able to is because I was in a position of privilege that allowed me to.
44:12
I couldn't fathom how difficult this would be.
44:15
And if I ever started another company again, I would not raise in the way that II did, I would not try to secure money from the types of kind of investors that I did, because I know how hard it is and I know how destructive it can be for certain types of companies who are not ready for it.
44:35
So some of this, once you realize that you want to be a founder, there are a lot of questions that require answers.
44:44
Do you want to raise money? If so, why?
44:48
Are you understanding around the trade-off of what comes with raising money because you have to grow it and return it?
44:55
Do you want to hire a lot of people and manage a lot of people? If so, why?
45:00
And are you comfortable and understanding around what it means to hire and manage a lot of people, right?
45:07
So it's just not enough to say you want to be a founder but I think asking the second and third and fourth question around like, do you really want to run it?
45:15
And I think that the more comfortable you get with that, then the onus is on you because you've made that decision for yourself that you can't blame other people for, and I found myself blaming other people that I shouldn't have because I wasn't thoughtful enough in the beginning >> Hi Tristan, my name is Maria, MMB-2.
45:46
I've been very inspired to hear your story how you became a leader in the CPG industry and have created such a groundbreaking product.
45:54
I wanted to hear at such a young age, what's next on your career bucket list?
45:59
How do you plan to leverage your current position to grow in the future?
46:04
>> Yeah, gosh, it's kind of unbelievable I'm even on the stage right now.
46:08
It's like, I love my job.
46:13
I love what I do every day, I love the people that I get to do it with and I love the tribe we're able to build, right?
46:20
And the importance of what we've built matters.
46:27
And I was sharing with a couple of the previous classes that I was helping to teach that there are only three things that I've cared about that I think explains every single thing that I've done for my career.
46:38
The first is the demographic shift happiness country cultural influence of black people.
46:43
I think I can't see myself being in a position where I am not helping spread that gospel, that we matter in ways that most people don't understand.
46:55
Second, technology's impact on that, right?
46:59
If you can apply technology in the hands of curators of culture, the fundamental power of that asset is meaningful beyond belief.
47:09
And then lastly, I love the development of great brands, not just because they're cool, but they can be a force for good in the world.
47:19
So everything that I've done for Walker and company code 24, the great fortunes done on the boards of like footlocker, Shake Shack etcetera, can really be explained by the intersectionality of those three things.
47:30
Whatever I do today, whatever I do tomorrow will be the results of my kind of situating myself in the middle of those kind of intersection points.
47:43
I could do anything with that, right?
47:45
And I think about the application of those three things in every single industry, I think it's inevitably a creative.
47:55
I'm trying to not be vague but vague at the same time so I don't get in trouble.
47:59
>> [LAUGH] >> But But I can only see myself doing things that celebrate each of those three things.
48:08
>> We have time for one more. Go ahead. >> Hi, my name's Andrew. I'm curious.
48:13
>> Andrew, is that your name? >> Andrew, yeah.
48:16
You managed to join two eventually very, very successful startups while at business school, I'm curious, how did you identify that these would be the next big thing, did you have a feeling for that?
48:26
And especially curious about Foursquare when you joined the two people which is very impressive. >> Yeah.
48:30
I don't start by trying to think about what's going to be the next big thing.
48:34
I just think about doing things that improve my life and lifestyle.
48:38
Twitter improved my lifestyle.
48:41
Foursquare improved my lifestyle.
48:44
And I think it's okay to be selfish about that stuff, right?
48:48
I can't purport this like being authentic and living your own values and then say, I'm going to chase the next big thing, right?
48:53
Because who knows if it's going to be the next big thing?
48:56
If you have enough authenticity, that tends to win itself out every single time.
49:01
So for me, I just thought about the things that I was using, and it just happened to be those things and more often than not, your classmates aren't chasing those same things, right?
49:10
Because you were thoughtful about why you liked them in the first place.
49:15
So hopefully that answers the question.
49:16
But I'm very selfish about doing things that I like and you should be too. >> Wonderful.
49:28
Well, Tristan, before you leave, it is a view from the top tradition to close each session with a number of rapid fire questions. >> Okay.
49:36
>> If you don't mind, I've prepared some for you. >> Cool. >> Okay.
49:39
So to start off, the Super Bowls coming up, Eagles are chiefs.
49:45
>> [LAUGH] >> I'm just worried about Rihanna. >> [LAUGH] >> Eagles.
49:53
[LAUGH] >> [APPLAUSE] >> What was your favorite class at the GSB? >> Jeff, Ice still here?
50:01
>> [LAUGH] >> I actually didn't take his class, acting with power but Deb Grunfeld, it's my favorite class.
50:07
>> Best piece of advice you've received.
50:10
>> Tyler Perry told me that the trials you go through and the blessings you receive are the exact same things.
50:15
That stuck with me ever since.
50:16
>> Okay, the next three are fill in the blank questions. >> Okay.
50:20
>> So my friends would describe me as?
50:24
>> Wow, [LAUGH] Hey handsome.
50:28
>> [LAUGH] >> I think magnetic. >> Okay.
50:37
My next one was actually my wife would describe me as?
50:40
>> [LAUGH] She's going to see this too.
50:48
>> [LAUGH] >> I'm thoughtful. >> Okay.
50:54
And finally, I would describe myself as?
50:56
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> Consistent.
51:04
>> Wonderful, you're very humble Tristan, thank you very much, that's all the time we've had.
51:07
It's been a great pleasure. >> [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC]