The Silicon Valley Whisperer: How Chris Yeh Wins by Helping Interesting People Do Interesting Things

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart and today I am thrilled, honored, and a little bit grateful. A lot grateful. I'm gonna go with a lot grateful that Chris Yeh is on the line today. Thank you so much for being here, Chris.

My pleasure, My pleasure, Brad. Really appreciate being able to come on.

Absolutely. And Chris is in Palo Alto, California, unfortunately doesn't have the capability to do video. But he sounds perfect, he's got a silky smooth radio voice. And I'm just grateful that we can just connect today and just get into some of the things you're doing because you're doing some amazing stuff in the world as well. And I'm just kind of looking through your blog and some of the things you've written, and it's very rare that I run into somebody who, you know, really understands investing at a high level, understands tech as well as, you know, has the background and the credentials to back it up. So I'm just grateful that we have time to chat it up for a little while. So thanks for being here.

Hey, it's my pleasure. And again, thank you so much for having me on and give me a chance to see the lovely decorations in your room.

Absolutely. Yeah, we got, let's see, hold on. Casey Neistat over there reminds me to work harder. We got the Buddha, reminds me to chill out. And then over there I got a little giraffe and a couple of silly animal stuff just to, you know, have a little bit of fun.

Very cool.

So, Chris, let's start with the beginning, right? Let's start with your kind of journey so far, your hero's journey, if you will, that has brought you to where you're at today. Family man, investor, entrepreneur. What has brought you to this point so that people are up to speed?

Well, you know, I would love to say that I had a very careful master plan worked out that brought me to this point, but that would be completely untrue. Basically, I have gone through life trying to do things that were interesting, trying to meet people who I thought were interesting. And those choices, good or bad, have led me to where I am today. The capsule bio is that I grew up in Southern California, so go Lakers. And just watched the big retirement Jersey retirement ceremony for Kobe Bryant last night. That was very fun. I actually have an auto mechanic who up here in the Bay Area who is a Lakers fan, and he drove down for last night's game. So you got to tip your cap to fans with that kind of dedication. But grew up in Southern California, came up here to the Bay Area to go to school at Stanford University, joined a company called D.E. shaw Company, a secretive hedge fund based out of New York but with a Boston office right after I graduated. And that's how I got started in the Internet world and went to Harvard Business School, came back out to Silicon Valley and have been starting companies, investing in companies, and then starting in 2012, 2013, writing books.

I love it. What has been the kind of thread that has led you through all these different adventures? If you were to look back and connect the dots? As Steve Jobs is so famously quoted as saying, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can connect them looking back. What have been the dots that have connected for you over this journey?

So I do think that there are a couple of dots that you have to connect up, and I'll refer back to a book that I didn't write, but which I'm in. So a number of years ago, my friends, Reid Hoffman, Ben Kaznoca, wrote a book called the Startup of you, which is all about careers and how you should think about your career. And one of the things they talk about is having a mission statement. And so the person they use as an example in the book is me, because I'm one of the few people who explicitly has a personal mission statement. And what I say is I help interesting people do interesting things. And all along the way, all the choices I made were based around what was interesting at the time. So when I was at Stanford as an undergraduate, I studied creative writing and product design because I thought those were the most interesting things I could study. Now, maybe, retrospect, maybe I should have studied computer science and gotten the job at Google. But you know what? I like doing things that are interesting. And all along I've just tried to gravitate towards things that are new, things that are different, things that are off the beaten path.

I love it. And what have been some of the key learnings along the way? By following your heart, by following the things that interest you do the most that you would like to share with the audience. What do you wish everybody knew based on your journey?

Well, I think one thing that I always tell entrepreneurs and other people who are starting out their careers is that you just don't know. I mean, I think that we all like to believe that we can see that Mark Zuckerberg is going to become this amazing CEO and that someone else is not going to succeed. But I guarantee you there are people who are looking at Mark Zuckerberg and saying, who is this guy wearing the hoodies inarticulate? I don't think he's ever going to go anywhere. And so a lot of what I do and the success I've achieved in my life is not around saying, well, I know I can predict exactly who's going to be the best, but being open to the possibilities, just if someone says, hey, you got to meet this person, I'm like, okay, I'll do it. Maybe I don't see it personally just now, but let me get to know them a little bit and give them a chance to surprise me. And a lot of the folks that I've worked with over the years, I've just run into for very random reasons. So my co author, Reid Hoffman, I ran into him during the early days of LinkedIn, because when LinkedIn first came out, I thought, this is the social network for me. I'm not a single guy, so Friendster is useless. I'm not in a motorcycle gang, so Tribe is useless. So LinkedIn is the one I got to go with. And the founders were Stanford folks. So I reached out to him and just developed a relationship. I didn't know that someday we'd be writing books together. I just thought, this is an interesting thing.

I love it. And that's a great story just to kind of ground people and how things look when they first start, right? Nobody knew LinkedIn would be a thing. Nobody knew Facebook would be a thing. But if you can build relationships with people that stand the test of time and continue to build and nurture those relationships, adding value to each other over time, you just never know what could come out of it. And I'm just grateful that you have that lean because I'm very much similar. When people say, brad, Brad, Brad, pay attention, you got to read this book. Or, Brad, you got to meet this person. Brad, you got to go to this event. I tend to listen. And that has opened up incredible amount of opportunity in my life. It's more of like a divine guidance. I look at it, I don't know what your particular beliefs are, but I do believe there's more to this life thing than we. We can scientifically prove at the moment. And, you know, even though we don't understand, it doesn't mean, we can't utilize it. So what are some of the ways that serendipity has played a role in your life? You know, aside from the ones you've already mentioned where you would be like, wow, there's no other way to explain this except for some, you know, other force that may not be completely understood yet?

Well, you know, let me tell you the story of another important thing that happened in my life. So one of the companies that I've been involved with that ended up being a big success is a company called Ustream, which is a live video company that IBM bought last year. And so that was a very good outcome for everyone concerned. But the way I found out about it is one Christmas time I was down in LA for the holiday season because I like to go down and see my parents and they like to see their grandkids and so on and so forth. And so I met up with one of my old business school classmates just at a Starbucks on Wilshire. And we were talking about old classmates and old times and all sorts of other stuff. And at the end he says, you know, there's these guys who reached out to me. They're startup guys. They got some online startup thing. I don't know much about this stuff. I'm just a Goldman Sachs guy who manages money. Can you take a look at it? Tell me if I should put any money in? And so I got introduced to the founders that way, got on the phone with them, did a demo, and I called my friend back and said, hey, not only should you put some money in, I'm going to put some money in. I think this can go places. But that was just an afterthought at the end of a social conversation at a Starbucks on Wilshire.

Which company was that? You can't bury the lead and not give us.

Oh, yeah. So that was Ustream, so the live video company that IBM bought last year in 2020.

Got it. Okay. So that's how it started. I apologize, I missed the.

No, no problem.

So you talk about a lot about your rules.

Yes.

And I noticed that you have some great rules. And I truly believe, like, I don't know if you can see my camera right now, but I've got a copy of Dalio's Principles.

Yes.

Here. I never stopped looking at this book. I think it's one of the best books I've read in the last five years. What are some of the rules that have made you more successful? Because if you can be rigid in your rules, flexible in your expectations, and update your Rules and lighter new information from time to time. That is a way to consistently, you know, life set up to make you win if you figure out how it works. So what are some of your rules?

So, and this is, and this is an interesting point about rules because I think there are two different ways to look at rules. One is to look at a rule as a hard rule. That's something you always obey. And the other is to look at a soft rule as something that's guidance. And I actually think you want to have a combination of both. Right. I think in life, there are a lot of things where our lives would be simplified if we followed certain hard and fast rules. For example, if you've ever been somebody who's gone on a diet or something like that, it's easier to say, I don't eat bread, rather than I'm trying to avoid bread, because one way you're just following a hard rule, and the other way you're actually exercising willpower and judgment. So there are certain things where I'm like, okay, here's a hard rule. And a hard rule is if somebody says that, if somebody that I think is smart and interesting tells me, I want you to talk with this other smart and interesting person, I just do it. And I totally get that. You know, there's only so many hours in the day, and I get that. I have no idea where any of that's going to lead. But I just feel like, you know what? I don't think I'm good at judging who is really that amazing. I think I'd rather just meet as many smart and interesting people as possible. Now, something that is more of a guideline is I definitely feel like in my life there's a lot of threads going on. I sometimes talk about how you might have a portfolio life. So I don't know if you remember the old essay that Isaiah Berlin had about the fox and the hedgehog, which basically says there's two types of people. There's foxes who have a lot of different interests, and there's hedgehogs who focus on just one thing but really go deep on it. I'm much more of a fox. And so I need a guideline to tell me, okay, am I going to invest more time into this endeavor or more time into this relationship or less? And so for me, what I do is I say, I go into it and say, I'm open to the possibilities, but as someone proves to be reliable, proves their ability to get things done, I'll invest more and more time and more and More energy into it. And so when I manage the portfolio of my life, it's not a series of hard decisions. Yes. No. It's more a series of gradual changes based on the guideline around is the person on the other end delivering.

I like that. And you're kind of, you know, testing out the. You're not completely shutting off the possibility by having a rigid rule, but instead you're like, alright, I'm willing to, you know, suspend disbelief and see what happens. And then invest more and more and more time. You're going bigger and bigger as things tend to work out. I like that a lot. That's a really good. It's a way to walk the line of that paradoxical dichotomy we call human existence. Because we just don't know.

Absolutely. We just don't know. And I wish I did, it would be a lot easier. But I don't.

But I also look at life as kind of this book you get to author and read at the same time. Why would you want to know the.

Ending of a book?

It would kind of give away, you know, like, nobody likes spoilers. Certainly, like if anybody tells me how Star wars ends, I'm going to flip out. But you know, if, if you knew how it worked before you started, what would be the point of figuring it out? I think life's really about the journey. Do you share that similar value or.

So I will say that if someone gave me the opportunity to know how everything was going to turn out in advance, I'd probably take it. Because you could avoid a whole bunch of bad things if you had that ability. But given that we don't have that ability, I absolutely believe that the process and the journey are the key, not the goals. So, you know, sometimes people, I remember back when I was in business school, people would talk about, oh, I'm going to go work in finance, or I'm going to do this, I'm going to make all this money and then I'm going to retire and then I'm going to do the thing that are meaningful to me. And I would look at that and say, you know, life is pretty uncertain. You don't know what's going to happen. People in my life, very sadly have died tragically and suddenly without warning. And so I've always been a person who all along says, listen, I'm not going to defer, I'm not going to wait. I'm going to do the things I think are interesting all along. And that way, no matter what happens, I'll feel like I've been doing the things that really are true to me.

So I don't come from an Ivy League background. I don't know what that's about. I don't really get it. But you seem to have been a part of many incredible institutions along the way. Do you find that that limits your thinking in some ways, or do you think it augments it, or do you think that there's a balance there? What are some of the things that you think are pro of having that background, and what are some of the things that you think are cons of having that background?

Absolutely. So the pro of having that background are, I think, generally pretty obvious. Obviously, it's a very prestigious brand. It gets you noticed. I think that the secondary effect of being around a lot of people who the system has selected and called out as being capable and likely to go on to greater things is also very effective. Right. If you think about the fact that I know all these famous and powerful people, a lot of it is that I went to school with them. So all those things are absolute benefits. There are definite downsides. I mean, I think that it is very easy if you grow in this sort of environment, to think that that is the only environment that exists in the world. And I often have this thing where I'm, you know, I'll go to a startup event even here in Silicon Valley, and somebody will say, oh, it's really easy to raise money. Speaker after speaker will say, it's really easy to raise money. And I'll get up and I'll say, so who here in the audience thinks it's easy to raise money? Nobody raises their hands. I'm like, yeah, it's really easy to raise money when you're already a multimillionaire and all your friends are rich, but for the rest of us, it's kind of difficult. And so I think that the big danger in that kind of background is thinking there's only 10,000 people in the world that matter, and I'm part of that 10,000. And therefore all I care about is what happens in this world when A, you're kind of a dick if you think that, and B, that isn't really how the world works.

So I like that too, because I kind of, you know, want to stick it to that old, you know, guard mindset a little bit in the sense that I agree that we're doing the very best we can, but I think that one of the mandates of leadership is to create better systems to serve more people. Over time, as new things become available. So what works now? You know, just like democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, as Winston Churchill is off to say, I think capitalism and some of the systems that we're working now are the best systems we have now, will eventually be supplanted by something better that serves more people. So as leaders, it's not good enough to just sit on our laurels. It's not good enough to just say, hey, I've got it figured out and the rest of the world can go suck an egg. It's what can we do as leaders to now include more people in the prosperity that we're creating and then do that in a way that's valuable and meaningful to the world at large?

Absolutely. And that kind of inclusiveness is really important. One of the things I am working on right now is this new book that Reid and I have coming out in October of 2018 called blitzscaling. What we're trying to do in this book is trying to be more inclusive. We're trying to take the story of Silicon Valley and to a lesser extent China and other parts of the world that have built these amazing companies, the Amazons and Googles and Alibaba's and Tencents, and try to explain how the process actually works. Because you know what, a lot of these companies are out there busy trying to invent the future. They've got AI, they've got virtual reality. I hear Google even is working on nuclear reactors. They're trying to build Skynet. And these folks are busy out there trying to make all these things happen. And I feel like what they're failing to do is to include people, to make people feel like, you know what, you also have a part in creating the future. All these people, no matter how smart and well meaning they are, if they're out there creating the future and not giving any of the rest of us a say in how it happens. And guess what? I don't think that's going to end well. I think the world is a lot better when everyone feels like they're a part of the solution.

Well, I love that. And Chris, and since we have an audience and a platform right now, I'm going to do something that's minorly selfish, but I think serves a great number of people, is I want you working on a problem that I've been thinking about for a very long time. I truly believe that scarcity, the perception of such when it's not in fact true, which, you know, sometimes it is, drives people to do a lot of horrible things to each other. War, rape, murder, genocide, you name it. When people believe that there's scarcity and not enough to go around, they grab for all the marbles instead of making more. Now, one of the ways I see as a solution to this problem, which I call lighting the fuse, the food, energy, water and shelter conundrum is coming up with a sustainable business model, a la Elon Musk, that then fuels the innovation that creates a new industry around. I think what would be the best, at least what I've thought about it so far, is like, okay, how do we have communities or stable structures in which people can have maybe vertical farms, farms and solar and batteries and water filtration, alkalization, that they could then live sustainably for a reasonable amount of money while still being profitable? Let's say we can get down to like $1,000 a month, US and all your basics are covered. Now that there's a floor through which nobody can fall, or there's a way that people can survive instead of just, you know, or thrive instead of just surviving, what does life look like then? How do we bring people up to a level where they don't need to worry about their basics, or it's so cheap as to be almost free or nominally free now, what can they do with their time, energy, intention to create? And if you were approaching this like a Silicon Valley investor, which you are, what would you do to solve that problem?

Let's see. And I've actually thought about this as well. I mean, I've actually written about what I call the miserly safety net, which is to say, you know, it's difficult to sometimes get people to pay for the safety net. Lord knows it should be easier, but it's not because everyone sits there and thinks, well, I'll never need to use it. Which a fallacy. I think most Americans are one health emergency away from needing help, and if that happens, they're really going to want to have that help. But, you know, I do think that the opportunity here lies in the fact that, in fact, there is so much deadweight loss when people are food insecure or homeless or what have you. I think the state of Utah has done an amazing job of saying, well, let's just get everyone housed, and that'll actually be cheaper than providing the social services that we do on the street. So I think that one of the business models that's going to succeed here is to basically privatize social welfare. So to say, listen, here are the goals that I want to achieve for this city Maybe it's the city of San Francisco, for example, and here is the cost of the programs we currently have out there. Let's see if we can put it out the bid and find new solutions, entrepreneurial solutions that will achieve the outcomes looking for for less than we're spending now. And of course, this is one of those crazy business libertarian fantasies, but I do think that we are moving in that direction, right? I think we're moving in the direction of saying maybe there are a lot of creative people out there who can come up with real solutions that may be able to help the problem.

And I've actually, we just built two houses in Mexico with a gentleman who I'll respect his privacy because I don't know how public he likes to be. But I basically, I laid this out for him. I'm like, I think we get this thousand bucks a. He's like, well, I got a place downtown, we could do it in San Diego. And I got a place out in those sticks that we could do. It's like 90 acres that we could do it on. I'm like, all right, well, let's do it. You know, let's go out and start talking to people and see what we do. He says if we can get the model right, all across California there's multiple cities that just are failing completely at getting their affordable housing right. So it could actually be a huge industry, multibillion dollar industry, very quickly if.

We can prove the model exactly. And you know, the other thing that I think will help, I think that one of the things that we face in California and other parts of the country is that there are just places like San Francisco where so many people want to live. And the law of economics, supply and demand, drives up the cost of living. And I think that the more we're able to allow people, wherever they are, to have economic opportunity, the more we're going to be able to more broadly distribute the population, allow people to live in areas where the cost of living is reasonable. And so I think that all the work that we do towards being able to have people telecommute or be able to live their professional lives online, I think that also helps.

Yeah, that's 100% where I was going with that. It's like if we can get people wi fi, they're pretty happy. If they can work online, make enough money to survive, have all their basics covered, and still have a community of other entrepreneurial type people. Because let's just be honest, the old world guard of, hey, be loyal to a company for 40 years that's going away very quickly, and disruption is going to happen faster and faster. So I really think this is a problem that can be solvable. We can create a better and better future. The poorest people today are still wealthier than the wealthiest people were 200 years ago. I think that trend will continue. Who are some of the people that you look up to, Chris, and that you model for things in your own life, either personally or professionally?

That's an excellent question. I have often found that I try to model myself after people who are already safely dead, so things cannot come out in the news that caused me to then feel. So I like to look at dead people and go back over history and look at different examples. And, you know, in funny thing, you mentioned the move away from people having lifetime employment. We actually wrote a book about this a couple years ago called the Alliance. It came out in 2014, and it talks about that change. And we also talk about figuring out people's values. And there's an exercise in there where we say, well, name three people that you really admire and why you admire them. And when you do that, that tells you what your values are. So if you look at that book and you go back into the appendix, there's actually a section where I answer that question. And the people I picked, there are three people. They are all safely dead. And the people I picked were Abraham Lincoln, just an amazing figure. If you ever read some of the biographies. I think there have been more biographies written about Lincoln than any other American in. So it's pretty easy to do. But the Doris Kearns Goodwin team of rivals is a great one, and there are many others. I think that Abraham Lincoln showed that it was possible to be a great leader while still having tremendous compassion and treating other people with respect. Lincoln's great ability, among other things, was he had these people working for him who initially had despised him, were his rivals, thought he was a fool, thought he was this random hick, and. And why was he even president? And in the end, he turned them around and they became people who saw that he was the greatest American and that they willingly followed him at the end because they actually understood the kind of person that he was. The other two people I picked, David Packard, the founder of Hewlett Packard, along with Bill Hewlett. These are capitalist figures who really understood that the point of the company is not just to make money, it's to build a better life for all the employees and the customers as well. And so many of the things we think of as Silicon Valley management And compassionate management, stock options, all these different things, those all come from Hewlett. Hewlett and Packard and the company they originally built, which sadly now no longer is run that way. But like I said, when you can always admire people when they're safely dead, you don't have to worry about too much stuff coming out. Last person would be Mr. Rogers. Those of us who grew up watching Mr. Rogers on television. The amazing thing was he was even nicer in real life than he was on tv. And his ability to see the best in people is something I've always admired.

That's beautiful. Do you have time, a chance to spend time with him?

I sadly never got a chance to meet Fred Rogers. And, you know, that's one of those. One of those regrets. Obviously, I never got a chance to meet Abraham Lincoln either, so I'll just have to live with that.

I get it.

Yeah.

I saw this great interview. It wasn't an interview exactly. It was more of an appeal to Congress that Mr. Rogers did to save public television.

Yes.

Which was fascinating. I loved it. It was so good. Because you see this man and, you know, everybody kind of like writes him off. It's like, oh, it's that kitschy old show you all watch in the. In the 80s, 90s, whatever. But now, you know, we see some of the ramifications of him having a voice at the right time and in the right mod, you know, just being incredible and a champion for public television. And now it exists because he. He stepped up at that time.

Right. And when those hearings occurred, they were planning to cut the funding. And after he spoke, they not only didn't cut the funding, they actually increased the funding. So who says Congress doesn't have a heart?

Well, yeah, that. And like, who. Who are the people now that should be standing up for things like net neutrality, which we all take for granted, that the Internet's free and that we can use it the way we want to use it. But that's not going to be the case if we keep going down this road. And we've just had some legislation that's halfway through being passed that that's going to really stifle a lot of the innovation and throughput that the Internet can provide. What are your thoughts on net neutrality?

Well, I think that. Well, I'll say two things, my son, every day is asking me what's going to happen with net neutrality. I think that net neutrality is a good policy. I think that what we should try to do, again, this is a classic. This is now a dive into Politics. But one of the things I like to remind people about politics, especially presidential politics, politics is that all the actions that a particular president takes can be undone by another president just as easily. So net neutrality is a protection that was put in place by Barack Obama, and Donald Trump undid it. He has the right to do it. And that's why the way to actually fix things on a more permanent basis is to appeal to Congress, get them to pass an actual law and get it on the books. That's the sort of thing that it's a lot harder to overrule and get rid of. I do think net neutrality is a good policy. I think that it is something where, again, for the sake of innovation, if you don't have net neutrality, it's going to tend to favor the incumbents. And we don't want a system that favors incumbents. We want a system that allows things that are great, that are new to rise up and take their rightful place. So I definitely am pro net neutrality. I do think that one of the things we can do, besides telling our Congress people and senators, hey, you know, you need to pass some legislation in this area, is just to keep the pressure up on the owners of the pipes. So The Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world, they may want to play their games. Guess what? You know what? People may need to have Internet access. But if they have to pay double what they're paying for Netflix, I don't think they're going to blame Netflix. I think they're going to blame Comcast. I think they're going to blame AT and T. And those corporations are used to being hated to a certain level. Their business model kind of assumes it. But I don't think they're used to being hated to the level they could be hated. If they really try to abuse that.

Loophole, out of my cold dead hands, you will snatch my Netflix. I hear you.

Exactly.

Okay, so let's talk about better systems to serve more people. What do you see coming down the pipe? Like, I'm a big fan of blockchain. I think it's going to really shake some things up in multiple industries. But I'd love to hear your thoughts, being in the circles that you're in, about what are the things that are coming next that we can all be a part of that might actually do more for more people.

Well, I think that this is the high level answer I give people these days, really has to do with artificial intelligence and not artificial intelligence in the sense of, you know, Jarvis and Iron man suit, being able to talk back to him. But artificial intelligence, in terms of being able to better understand the things that are going on in our lives and to be able to make them better. I mean, think about all the things that you do on a daily basis that you just sort of carry around your head and handle manually. Whether it is the people that you're going to talk with, whether it's the appointments you're going to make. I mean, even today, just the process of scheduling something on a calendar is insanely difficult. I again, want to give props to you and your staff for really making it super easy to schedule this. This was the easiest podcast appearance to schedule I ever had.

Thank you, Chris. That means a lot. I'll make sure to tell the team that we're.

And that's because you guys built a smart process, but you are also using technology, things like Calendly, in order to automate that. Now, even that is not AI, but just imagine when instead of having to have emails back and forth and even have me think, like, I actually opened up my calendar, looked at the calendar, picked a time, and said, okay, that's what it's going to be. A lot of people have assistants or virtual assistants. That's just human artificial intelligence. If you had an assistant for 10 years, they know, don't schedule things for Wednesday mornings at this time. Because he usually likes to do this, even though it doesn't say it on his calendar. Right. So it's getting that implicit unspoken knowledge to an actionable state that artificial intelligence is going to be so powerful for.

That's really brilliant. And I've noticed also that having the systems still, somebody, you know, out there is going to need a person. So it's kind of a. You know, I look at this as a cat call for the future, if you will. It's like, all right, yes, we're going to have all this cool technology and do a lot of stuff, but the human element is always going to be a necessity. Right. I always tell people, listen, if you want to do it the old fashioned way, cool, I get it. Here's Savannah or whoever on the team to talk to. And that's a really important thing, is just have somebody to understand that even when the systems are great and they serve people, that people want to be served by people, too. I'm sure we've all been to the bank and just wanted to be able to talk to somebody or call the credit card company.

I just want to be able to.

Talk to somebody, please. You're not helping Me solve my problem. And I think that'll continue to be the case.

Absolutely. Because there is a certain amount of emotional work that's being done there. Right. We're calling someone up because we want to feel better, not just get something done. We want to feel like somebody hurt us. And I don't know about you, when I'm leaving a message into the voicemail of a system that just does not give me the feeling that I've been heard.

Agreed. And people want to feel seen and heard before you can even solve their problem or hold space for them or do anything else for them.

Absolutely.

So, Chris, let me ask you a question that I love asking people, especially people that have had a long career already. Is that what do you wish that everybody knew?

Something that I wish everybody knew? You know, I think that what I wish everybody knew is I wish they knew that other people really don't care that much. And what I mean by that is this. I think a lot of us go through our lives worried about what other people are going to think, worried about what other people are perceiving about our actions and things like that. And, you know, unless you're the President of the United States, most people just don't give a damn. Their lives are so busy and so full of their own problems, they really don't have time to think about yours. And so whenever you make choices or decisions based on how it looks to other people, I think that's a waste of energy and it's probably driving you to a suboptimal solution. Instead, you should just remember that most people don't give a damn about what you're doing and focus instead on doing that which you really want or doing that which you think is actually right.

That is brilliant advice, and I would love to hear an example of how that served you in your own life.

So this is an interesting story, and I won't name all the different names, but I think it would be useful to just tell the basic outlines of the story. So once upon a time, at one of the companies that I was working for, there was a member of the team who had a compensation contract that was written up in a certain way. And it was written, it was signed by everyone else. And lo and behold, it looked like that compensation contract was going to cause that person to make a lot of money as a result of the good work that he was doing. And the CEO of the organization came back and said, I think we need to renegotiate this contract because so and so is going to make too much money and it's not going to look good. The board's going to ask me about it, and I just don't think we should do that. I think we should just, you know, tear up the contract and rewrite it. I said, wait a minute, you know, are we saying a deal is not a deal here? Didn't we all agree on this contract and sign off on it? If we made a mistake, you know, we should just own up and said, we made a mistake and we'll do it differently in the future. But you can't just go running around tearing up deals because they turned out to be too good. It's up to you to make the right deal to begin with. And again, that's a case, sir. I think a lot of times CEOs are very worried about what things are going to look like to the board. They're worried about what they're going to tell their venture capital investors. And, yeah, you want to manage them appropriately, but you got to remember, they're not thinking about you most of the time. Your job as the CEO of the company is to run the company and deliver the results. They pop in once a month and spend a couple hours. Half the time they're on their. Their phones anyways. So don't make your decisions based on what they think makes sense. Make your decisions based on what you think makes sense.

I think that's really brilliant. Really important to understand is, like, if you focus on what other people are going to think of you, you're going to spend your entire life in fear and not really living your true purpose at the end of the day.

Exactly. And, you know, one of the. I'll give you another great example. This is a more personal and hopefully entertaining example. For many, many years, I would write and say to people, you know, if I woke up tomorrow and I was a billionaire, there are two key things I would change about my life. The first thing is that I would take more naps. And the second thing is that I would build my own basketball court. Those were the two things I said I would do if I became a billionaire. And some number of years ago, almost a decade ago, I said, you know, what is it that prevents me from taking naps right now? Well, it's because there's no bed at the office. All right? Is there anything that prevents me from ordering a mattress for my office? No. Maybe people would think, what's going on? Why does he have a mattress at the office? It's just not done. I'm like, you know what? Once you're okay with people thinking you're eccentric. You can do a lot of interesting things and people already think I'm eccentric. So I just went ahead and ordered a bed and started taking naps at the office. It would lead to some interesting situations. Sometimes I'd be interviewing a job candidate and the job candidate would notice there's a bed in my office. Oh, my God. What kind of place is this? Do you have to sleep? Do you use that all the time? Like, don't worry, I only sleep during business hours.

I actually have a massage table just to the left off camera. Perfect massage. I need to give or receive. And it's just, you know, hey, if you're already weird, just roll with it.

Exactly. Oh, and I also joined the Jewish Community center gym near my house, which has a very fine basketball court with six different baskets on it. And I'm like, you know what? That's good enough. I'm okay with having to occasionally share the court with other people.

I like it. I like it a lot. And the fact that you didn't stay in that story, that was disempowering of, oh, I have to have a billion dollars before I ride my motorcycle across China or whatever. Wall Street Dakotas, you know. Yes. And you can ride your motorcycle across China for a couple hundred bucks. And you can have a basketball court near your house for, you know, whatever the dues are at your local membership gym. And the bed, the mattress is like a thousand dollar investment. So what's holding you back from your dreams? Honestly, if they're that simple.

Yeah. And the beauty is I actually got that mattress for free from the founders of Tuft and Needle, so I'm helping them out with a quick mention here. But I didn't even have to pay for the mattress.

I'm a purple guy myself. They got me with those raw egg test videos. I was like, that sounds pretty cool. I'm going to try that out and I love it. It's been great. So I'm happy to say that mattress technology is advancing very quickly. You spend eight hours your day in bed at least you should probably invest in a good mattress. That's just my thought.

Dr. Absolutely. And it sounds like I should check out those purple mattresses as well. I have no idea if they're a sponsor, but in case they are, I'm sure they're fantastic. Dr.

I wish they were, but they are not. But I'm a happy fan and Tufts and. Sponsorship can't wait. Still early days for that, but we'll get there. So Chris, I have been really just fascinated by talking to you today and just hearing how you kind of approach the world. And just your messaging is really polished. You write a lot. You create so much value for the world. So I just want to say how grateful I am on behalf of everybody here on the show. And I want to begin to transition into how. Why we do what we do is because we believe that we can connect and catalyze resources, opportunities, people and systems together to move all of our missions forward faster. That's the make more marbles philosophy. We want to show that in action by creating an opportunity, a platform for you right now to say, hey, this is what I could really use next. Because I've met billionaires and I've met millionaires. I met people who are very successful. Everybody needs something somewhere in some part of their life. What are the things that we can do to help you move your mission forward faster right now?

Let's see. That is an ex. That is an excellent question. Well, you know, there's a. There's a fairly easy thing that people can do to help move the mission forward. They can just go visit blitzscaling.com, which is the website for the upcoming book, and they can sign up for the newsletter. And that way they'll be able to find out when the book is finally available for pre order. So that's as a very simple and easy thing now, something that is a little more out there, something that's a little more interesting. You know, one of the things I love doing in life is going around and speaking, giving talks and the like. I am always on the lookout for interesting audiences and different opportunities to spread the messages, I have to say. And so I expect to be doing a lot of talking in the near future about Blitzscaling, about growth. But you know what? I'm happy to talk about anything. So for those people out there who have access to interesting opportunities and audiences where I can help get the word out for the things that matter to me, I'd love to hear from you. And it's fairly easy to get ahold of me online. People can find Chris Ye. If you just google Chris Yay.com, you'll find me. And I just love hearing about these different opportunities. A lot of the great things that have happened in my life have just been out of serendipity. And somebody said, hey, this is a great cause, or this is a great thing that you should take part in. This is a great podcast, for example, that you should be a guest on. And any of Those opportunities that come up, send them my way. I'd love to hear from them.

Absolutely. And the best way is through the contact form on your website.

I think that there. I don't remember whether there's a contact form my website. If not, they can just reach out to me on LinkedIn, but do include a note saying why you want to reach out to me. I never understand people on LinkedIn sending invitations without saying, yes, you're a perfect stranger. I'm just going to send you a LinkedIn invitation. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Yeah, context, please. You're gonna reach out to Chris, provide context. I'm sure he'd love to hear from. If you have something, consider it specific and valuable for him and make sure.

It'S the right Chris. Yay. Because there's no video on this one because I wanted to be lazy and not have to get dressed and just not wear pants. But one of the many benefits of.

Being a podcast host, they're all.

Yeah, exactly. From the camera angle, I have no idea if you have any pants on. But in fact, I think that's true. The news anchors as well. I don't know if you remember, some months back, there was this episode where a guy was talking with CNN or BBC or something like that, and his daughter comes in behind him and his wife comes charging in and pulls the daughter out before she could distract everyone. And he later confirmed the reason he didn't get up because he wasn't wearing any pants.

I love it. That's so good.

Yeah. But anyways, I'm joking. I'm sure we're both wearing pants.

Let's see. Hold on. Yep, got him on. Okay, cool. So, Chris, thank you so much for being on the show. In the remaining time that we have, I would love for you to just share any parting wisdom that you have for the audience. Anything that you would really wish the world could be more like and ultimately what you think your life is going to be about. If you were to look back on 100 years lived, or however many years lived, what would you want your legacy to be, really?

So I think that one of the things I've really been stumping for this past year is this notion of civility and decency. And it's a lot of it is because of the political climate we're in. And, you know, I have friends from all across the spectrum of beliefs, and seeing people who I know and respect and have affection for tearing into each other like wild hyenas has been a bit dispiriting. For. For me. And so one of the things I want everyone to remember for themselves is that whoever you're talking to, whether it's face to face, you see someone out there in the social media or just reading about someone online, remember that whoever they are, they are the hero in their own story. Like, no one goes through life saying, yeah, I'm the villain. I'm gonna screw as many people as I can because somebody's got to be the villain. Now. They all think they're the hero. No matter how bad you think they are, in their own mind, they're doing it for the right reasons. And in order to actually make change in this world, the answer isn't to say, I'm going to say the reasons why I think you're a monster and say them louder and louder. It's to figure out the story they're telling themselves, to figure out how their actions are helping them be the hero of their own story. And then, only then can you start to figure out ways to get them to change their mind and to change the story that they're telling.

I love that, Chris, and thank you for being so compassionate and empathetic towards people because that really, I think, is what the world needs more of, is not more separation and not more blame and shame and guilt. It's, hey, we're all trying to figure it out and doing our best. And some people are living under disempowering stories and some people are living under empowering stories and hating on anybody is not the right. It's just not a sustainable thing.

Absolutely. We all get to tell our own story and. And the story that we choose to tell has a huge impact on how we see the rest of our lives.

Chris, you are a rock star. I am super grateful. Thank you so much for being on the Make More Marvels podcast. And, you know, we hope to have you again sometime. This has been absolutely a pleasure and thank you for being here.

Thank you, Brad. Really appreciate it and happy to come back on anytime. And I'm not just saying that. I know people always say that. I actually mean it.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth and relationships, whatever that means to you. Head on over to makemoremarbles.com, check out our cool explainer video about what we're about, and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way and don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play, wherever you're listening your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.