Eric Siu and his team discuss work ethic and mortality after Kobe Bryant's death, urging people to control their daily effort and pursue what they want rather than live with regrets.
Chapters
What's going on, Eric? Well, we were supposed to shoot something today, but unfortunately the party that we were supposed to shoot with, they did not arrive on time. And we do these video podcasts all the time, so you really won't be able to figure out who it was. Point being is we had something set up. Noah came here, Noah who's filming me right now, and it takes him, what, you think 30 minutes or so or an hour to set up? So when that happens and, you know, the setup is done, I'm here as well, and then the party doesn't show up, that is not only a waste of my time, it's a waste of Noah's time as well. It's time that we could have used somewhere else. The investment where Noah had to come in early, he could have been doing other stuff. Like, he has a bunch of other stuff to do too. You know, and I talked about this with a group of friends too. The ultimate disrespect I think that I see is when someone is not on time, especially if it's a group. It's a group meeting and someone— we have 5 people in the room. And someone decides to come in 5 minutes late, 10 minutes late. And then what happens? They think, oh, it's just 5 minutes. But no, it's actually 5 times 6, right? 30 minutes. Because that person plus the 5 others, you're multiplying it. 6 times 5, it's 30. When you think of it as a business owner, it's actually very frustrating because I am the one that is, you know, paying the salary. So you look at it literally as money that's flying out the door. It is disrespect because, yeah, you can say your call ran over, you can say this, but if you prepped ahead of time, if you told your other party that you had a hard stop, Or, you know, you have to just end your call 5 minutes early. Like if you prepped ahead of time, that shows that you thought about it. But to let your calls run over and let other people wait for you, that is a complete waste of time. This is why, like when people come in to interview at the company, if they're late and the first thing I ask is, why were you late? Right? And you want to say it in a nice way. And I have said it in a nice way in the past. I remember this one guy came in late and then he started sweating profusely and he's like, well, you know, I'm late because, you know, You know, the bus was— I caught the bus and it didn't come at the right time. But it's like, dude, no, you could have came in like earlier. If you thought ahead of time, it would have been fine. But the fact that you didn't think about it and you came into this interview, it already tells me how you think about a lot of things. Remember, I always keep saying like how you do anything is how you do everything. One of my biggest pet peeves is if you come in late. And then I remember when I was debating with my friends, like my friends from back home, like even like 2 minutes late, even 5 minutes late, if you have a really good reason, yes. But most of the time you're not going to have a really good reason. Sure, there is exceptions. I mean, there's exceptions, but I think it's the ultimate disrespect, especially if you come in late and you start asking for other exceptions and then you start dragging things out. That shows your character. And at least for us, it's not a fit for our organization, which is why, yeah, you got to be accountable at the end of the day. One of our core values. So if we're going to get Eric famous on Byte, what should he do? Or he should make a music video. Lip-syncing? Oh, you're ready? Yeah. I think that he should roast campaigns. If you're gonna get famous on Byte, what would you do? Nothing. I wouldn't want to be famous on Byte. I'd do something that no one has done before. There's a lot of different personalities or different styles of memes out there. We need to find Eric's sense of humor, his lane, make memes of those things, and then figure out how to make those memes videos. Done. Any other questions? Now what are we doing, Hannah? Now we're having a meeting in the stop sign talking about guest carousels. For those of you who have been following our Instagram, we've got a lot of like these cool carousels coming out, and now we're trying to figure out a way to get those carousels to other people's Instagrams because— Zach, what happened? They worked, right? Zach, stop. I'm so confused. What are you doing? What's up, Hannah? What's going on? So if I told you we're gonna start the vlog If you could do it all over again, how would you feel? Excited. Yeah? Yes. You see, 2020, clear vision, you know? This is the year that, you know, we know, we see our goals, we set up the strategy, and now we just gotta execute. So 2019 is a foundation, great year, you know? But 2020, this is gonna be it. It's gonna be it for us. Why is everyone down here today? Because the internet's out. This is our startup. This is the ground floor. We start here, we'll go up eventually. And then wasabi and soy sauce, you're not supposed to mix it. That's a very traditional thing. Bruh, once I pay my money, I do what I want. Did you see the wink? You're very Justice-y. Did you see that I just winked at the camera? Oh my God. Yeah. I didn't get that, can you do it again? I'm gonna give it to my boy Justice. Sunday, yesterday, I was eating with a couple friends and I found out— we're just grabbing food at the buffet and all of a sudden someone said, dude, Kobe Bryant passed away. I was like, no way, like, because it's my hero kind of growing up. And so Kobe Bryant passed away. I checked Twitter immediately and it was confirmed by TMZ. I'm still actually feeling it right now. And I think the reason I'm feeling this is because I followed him for over 24 years. Like when I first got to middle school, everyone was talking about Kobe Bryant. And like, I've been through life with him, saw everything. He's an inspiration to us all. Like literally his work ethic, working. I remember one time he was practicing for the Olympics and he was 34 years old at this time. And he was in at the gym, called the trainer. He met a trainer and he's like, oh, like, hey, can you come practice with me? It was 4:00 AM. He was drenched when the trainer showed up at like 5:00. So he was practicing since probably 4:00 AM or so. And they practice, they train until maybe 7 or 8 AM. And then the official practice starts at 11 AM. So the trainer comes back in, sees LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, these other basketball players, they're all talking. They haven't even started practicing yet. Kobe's still there. He's drenched in sweat. And, you know, the most amazing thing is trainer walks up to him, he's like, hey, like, did you get any rest or anything? Oh no, I just finished up right now. I had to make 800 shots. after we finished training. So that's the type of work ethic. 34 years old, won 5 championships already, 17-time All-Star. That's Kobe Bryant, right? So that's why he's everyone's idol, like generational idol. And so literally, I mean, right now, like, I know I don't usually feel emotional, but I do. So I sent an email out to my team this morning because 2020 hit and like all these crazy things are happening. You have the coronavirus. It's crazy. It's such a big thing. And you have Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, all these amazing books that— he's just this amazing guy that was hired by Intel, all these big companies, and he fundamentally shifted the way that they think. Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, all these people. You know, Clinton Christian passes away Friday. Kobe Bryant goes by helicopter, which is really unfortunate, goes yesterday early in the morning. And then last year I lost a close friend from a helicopter accident as well. I lost him in Kenya. Life is just short, right? I think that's my main lesson I was giving people is that you don't know when you're gonna go. Literally the week before, my friend that passed away in Kenya, I was hanging out with him. I was on a helicopter that he booked on a boat the week before, and all of a sudden, boom, he's gone. So my point to my team was, look, you have to make the most of what you have. What you can do is you can control your effort every single day, what you're putting in, so you have no regrets. What I can feel actually is looking at Kobe Bryant's life, And looking at my other friend's life, like, I can't pretend to know Clayton Christensen but I can at least feel how these other two felt. I don't think they have any regrets. Sure, like, you know, they wish they could have lived with their, you know, daughters, seen them grow up and everything, grow old with his wife, with their wives but, you know, at the end of the day, you come in, you fight, you push every day, that's all you can do because the next day, you don't really know if life's guaranteed. You don't know if you're gonna get really sick, knock on wood, but that's the one thing you can control. So for you, if you're not happy with your job, then quit. If you don't like your boss, leave. You wanna go start something, go start something. But the one thing that you can control is your effort every single day, day in, day out. Which is why I sent that message yesterday. I wrote the message yesterday 'cause I was even more emotional. Walked by Staples Center, all the memorial stuff going on. But yeah, man, 41 years old and he didn't even start yet. That's the thing. He won all the stuff, he did all the stuff playing basketball. He didn't even start yet. And that's the sad part. He had all this other stuff going on, you know, the books, the venture fund, all these amazing things. Guy was just getting started and life is just unfair. So make the most of what you can, keep pushing, and that's all you can really ask for. Yesterday I went on the hike that I do all the time and it's by the Greek Theatre and you hike all the way up and you look at the city and this city was all purple and yellow for Kobe. And I looked down and someone had made this like amazing Mamba graffiti. So I cried for like the 20th time this week. But it was beautiful. And I watched the sunrise and the lights turn off. I'm gonna cry again. Kobe.
