Remarkable People Behind the Podcast: Secrets of Success from Silicon Valley

Foreign. Hello, remarkable people. We are back. Mr. Kawasaki is on vacation still. So I am Peg Fitzpatrick and this.

Is Jeff C. Nice to see everybody. See what I did there?

To see you.

See what I did there. That's right. So, yes, guys on vacation.

Yes.

So, yes. So we are back to talk about this week's remarkable podcast. So if you guys haven't listened to this one, it was go to remarkable people dot com. Make sure you guys go check them out. And as always, our show is sponsored by the amazing people over at Restream. We're not going live just to one place. We're going live to like five or more. We can go up to 30 places, but we only go like to the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and what else? LinkedIn.

LinkedIn, but also two Facebook pages. So shout out. Like, we'd love to know where are you watching from right now?

Oh, but you know what's cool in the comments? You know what's cool? Because here we go. Because I can bring up comments with Restream like Lucendo says, hello, guys, this is awesome. And I can see he's from LinkedIn because it brings up his profile. So very, very cool. Yes. So once again, we are talking all about this episode that just dropped today at 6:30am Central Time. The amazing show today that you guys need to check out if you haven't got it set up. And if you don't have it set up, subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating review for Guy. Tell him how much you love it because that really does help the podcast out. So, okay, we got.

He reads them all the reviews really mean a lot to him, so he will read them and appreciate them a lot.

So we've got people from Portugal, we've got some people watching from Costa Rica. So we've got all sorts of people chiming in from LinkedIn. Yep. So Shane says he is from. He's watching from LinkedIn. Very, very cool.

Cool.

So, yes, a ton of people watching live today. So we're going to talk about this episode that just dropped. Sorry, but we have an icebreaker question for all of you. So, Peg, what was that again? The icebreaker. Here it is. Okay, got it.

Yes. What is your favorite startup company? Like what one? When you hear startup, what do you think of what company really just rings a bell for you. I wanted to share a little story about a time when Guy, I live in on the east coast and Guy lives in Silicon Valley, so. And a little lesson just to start out with people get it wrong all the time. If you don't live in the Valley, as they call it. It's Silicon Valley, not Silicone Valley. But a lot of people get that wrong. So, anyway, moving on. One time I visited Guy, and he took me on a tour of all the. The big, like, cool places in Silicon Valley. So if you've ever wondered what it would be like, it was pretty amazing because he obviously knows the history of Silicon Valley. And we went. The first place we went was the garage that HP was started in. It was very cool. There was a sign and everything. So it's really cool, the history of it. And you've probably heard guys say a whole bunch of times, whether you're doing two guys, two gals, a guy and a gal in a garage, or if you have more than one partner. He says that because it's so true. So many companies started in garages, their parents, someone else's. You know, it's just. It's really cool to think about how these companies started out. Canva actually, Melanie Perkins and Cliff worked out of her mother's living room for a really long time. And she. She was probably so happy when they got an office.

So didn't we have the daughter of HP on an early, early podcast? That was like one of the first ones. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's very, very cool.

So, yeah, so it's so cool. So we went on a tour. We had this little startup sponsored us, and they're called Uber.

There you go.

Nobody knew who they were at the time, but they sponsored our ride. They liked, drove us everywhere. So we had an Uber driver. And even though you're supposed to keep switching, Guy was like, let's just keep the same one. They. They approved it. So with this Uber driver, speaking of startupy startups, because you can try every new thing in. In Silicon Valley, so we went to see those things. We went to the Apple headquarters, like the main one. It took photos there. And then Guy tried to go in the lobby, and they were like, I'm sorry, sir, you're gonna have to leave. And he loves that story because he went to Apple and there he. They were like, get out.

The first. That reminds me, the first time I interviewed Guy ever, we were at the hotel at south by Southwest, and they kicked us out because we couldn't do interviews. And we did it in the front. We went out the front of the hotel and they made us move off the cement square to the next cement square over to do it. It was just nuts. But he was very kind.

Imagine that's your job, telling people, get off your Front porch.

It was crazy. So we do have some people who said their favorite startup company. Shane says his favorite startup is Grove. I don't know what Grove is.

And then Shane, what does Grove do? Yeah, share that with us.

So, Sally. Yes, says Coinbase, which just went public not very long ago. And Rocks says Zoom. So very, very, so relevant now. Yes, exactly that. So what's your favorite one, Peg, what is your favorite startup company if you.

Had to pick one favorite startup? I don't know.

I mean, I guess the. For mine. My favorite, not my favorite, but the one I think of when I hear the word startup is the story of Michael Dell. And he was another one who built stuff like computers out of his garage for his college roommates and grew into this company. And he had kind of an interesting thing. So that's. I don't know why. Maybe because I used to have a Dell that was like my first computer I had. So.

Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard to pick a favorite. I mean, Uber has had some downsides to, to it. But I do love Uber because when I travel, I'm. I don't want to drive, you know, I want to just like.

Right.

You know, if you're just going into a city for a couple days, like for a speaking event, it's so easy to have an Uber pick you up and, you know, get around without having to worry about driving.

Yeah.

So I like that a lot of. An Airbnb is another great one.

That is.

I love Airbnb.

Yeah.

Like, it's so cool that you can stay in people's houses. I visited France with my mom and my sister, which was great. And we stayed in an Airbnb in this great neighborhood. So it kind of feels like you live there versus being in a hotel. So it's really cool.

That's cool. Well, Shane did give us, he said when we asked what Grove was, he says it delivers eco friendly home essentials. So very cool.

Yeah, it's like clean cleaning products and Fairdio.

I haven't heard of this one. I wonder what that is. All these cool ones I have to go check out after the show. So. But one of the things that we talked about, the guy talked about in the. Oh, this is. I gotta pull this one up because this is. Richard says this. My favorite startup was Napster. Who doesn't love music? That was a good one, Richard. Yeah, so that's interesting. I had Napster. Did you have Napster, Peg? Did you use it? No, I did. I totally did. Yep. Sure did.

Illegal music.

Sean Parker Yep. And yeah. So anyway, one of the questions we want to ask you guys, have you ever got, ever created an MVP or minimum viable product? And so, you know, Guy talked about this in the Art of the start 2.0 and he called it what is. Was it a minimum viable, valuable, validating product? So that's a mouthful. So minimal is the most basic form. Viable is economically feasible, valuable. Does it make our lives easier? Validating, does it validate and align with your company's vision and product is kind of self explanatory, kind of makes sense. But what, you know, I think it's interesting too because we Peg and I go in the social media marketing circles and a lot of times it's hard for people to get. You don't have to make it a, it doesn't have to be a physical product. A lot of, you know, when people are creating these digital products too, it can be a digital minimal, minimal viable product. So a lot of times you have that kind of. At least for me, it was like, oh, I got to have a prototype or like go get it manufactured or something like that. But it can be actually for digital as well.

Right? I mean, even if you think about digital stuff, people do online merchandise, they create their own merch using things, you know, Right. Maybe you would never even see them. You create designs and then add it to coffee cups and shirts and hats and then you could make a little online store and it could be like say for example, remarkable people. Guy could make remarkable people. Coffee mugs, shirts that say, I'm a remarkable person. I love remarkable people. Like you can, you can. There's a lot of different ways that you can reach people. Like and that's a way that you could build your community and have, you know, that provides value. Or also it could be a SaaS, it could be software as a service which you know, we use. I don't even know how many of those I use per day. We're using several right now as we speak. We're using eCamm and Restream who don't actually have a physical product, but we're using their tools to, you know, we used Canva to make the graphics we use. You know, there's just a lot of tools and things that you use. So it's important to know like is it valuable? Does it work? Because I have a problem when people make social media tools and they don't know how to use social media or how people would use their tool, but they know they wanna make a social media tool so they make Something that ends up not being valuable because they don't know what would help people or what would provide value. Like we don't.

They think it's a good idea.

Yeah, right. Well, they think it's gonna make money, but they don't know why or how.

Right.

And you know, I'm not saying you couldn't get to that place from there, but if you can't figure out how people are gonna use it and sometimes people use your product for something totally different than you thought they were gonna use it for. For example, post it notes, you know, like there's, there's things that sometimes people use it differently and are you going to like. And then that's fine.

Yeah.

So.

So I want to pull up this comment. This is from. Because we asked earlier and by the way, we. Peg mentioned Canva and she made all these graphics in cam and that's really cool thing with Restream. You can bring up the stuff as an ecamm too. So you can bring up all these graphics that you create. So that's kind of cool. But she, she asked, she says this because she goes, yes, I create digital ebooks and tiny courses under Frankie Johnny. That's really cool. But I love the name. Blessed her messy. That's pretty good. And she goes, my stuff is really minimal, but you're testing this stuff out which is really cool though. So I think that's really the way to do it. So very, very interesting there. So yeah. So you mentioned something to me before the show about Apple and laser printers. Can you explain what you talk about that you said that.

Oh, the Apple that, the story about if you. So this is one. That guy tells a lot that if Apple had. I think it's an art of the start 2.0 probably 2. Probably just regular artists are 2. But if Apple had made what people wanted, they wanted laser printers. So you know, it's just the thing of you can't. And it's a Steve Jobs thing. Definitely said, you know, you can't make what people want. You have to make. You have to make what you think that they'll need. Or it's kind of like, you know, it's not something better than them. You have to look. You have to look forward and say yes, you might think you need X, but that's only because you don't know that sleek and awesome MacBooks are going to exist.

And that wasn't the. I think the biggest one would probably be when he said like he, he dreamed the iPhone even though there wasn't People clamoring for it. He knew that that was something that they would.

Yeah, well, it started with the ipod, you know.

Right.

It was a stupid idea because why would you want to bring your mute? You have records and CDs, right? Cassettes. Why would you want a little teeny player that you could carry around and listen to it? And then people were like, obsessed. Although I will say now people. I don't even know if the kids even know what ipods are anymore. Just an ipod. Remember when you could get just an iPad?

The Nano. I remember. The Nano is a thing. Can you even buy an ipod?

I think I have one.

Yeah. I have.

When it has, like my workout playlist. I don't think I can update it on my phone anymore.

Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, I had the Nano. I had the. I had them all. I had the original ipod. Ipod with the wheel on it. Yeah.

Oh, that was really cool. So, yeah, everybody has, like a favorite version of the tech, you know, like one version of the phone. I liked the rounded one. I think it was like the three. They had like a little. It's when they feel better. Now they're so boxy and.

Right.

They're good.

But yeah, this whole podcast, I mean, it's all about if you're interested in startup and startups and, you know, entrepreneurship, which I know a lot of you guys are. This is amazing. This is an amazing episode. You will really like this episode. So make sure you guys go to remarkable people.com and click on that. And if you aren't subscribed, you need to. And if, you know somebody's like, hey, you know, Bob, this is for you. You need to listen to it. Send them. Get them to sign up. Send them an email going, hey, you need to listen to this and walk them through how to subscribe on a podcast. Because, you know, it's funny, you still have to do that with some people. Like my. My parents were going on a road trip, so I had to help them get podcast and figure it out. Because it's funny because you say. We say subscribe, and that always has meant pay for something, but you don't really for a podcast. So I had to explain to my parents, no, it's free. It's okay. You can listen to these.

So it's interesting language that they chose, subscribe when that's usually something that you pay for, like a magic magazine subscription. When I think people. That's what people think they're getting. So, yeah, it's free. It's a free podcast.

So we got some more. Some blessed Mary. I want to bring up this Henry Ford American automator of Ford car, says if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. That is awesome. Yes, That's a good one.

That is very true.

And Richard says I had a Newton that I used during field research in the Arctic way back in the day. Very, very cool.

Okay, Richard, you're. You're an adventurer.

That's awesome. Yes, that's that. Yeah. And doing research on a Newton. What if it had hard time in the cold? That's interesting. So, all right, next question.

They were. They must have been in a heated space. Well, I'm, you know, sitting out in the snow with a.

With a Newton. Yeah. What the battery life was on.

So I have a question for you and for everybody. Have you read Art of the start 2.0?

I read it in 1.0. I think the first one I think. I can't remember. I think I probably gone and skimmed the second one. So. Yeah, that is a good question for everybody.

Yeah, I was looking for it. I used to have my book stack behind me underneath the Artist Social, right there was all guys book. And I'm like, where? When I moved my office, I'm like, hey, where'd my little stack go? Because they had Enchantment. The rules were revolutionaries. I don't get.

Pretty sure I read. I don't know. I may have just skimmed through the second one. I can't remember. I've read most of everything he's had. So. Yeah. Have you guys read it?

People. People that are watching, have you read it? I'm interested to know if people that follow Guy have you like. What books have you read of his and which ones do you like? This book, Art of the start 2.0, is particularly, you know, attuned with this week's podcast, which is about entrepreneurship and startups. And I know, like Jeff already said, most of the people that follow Guy, that's really what they're interested in learning about because Guy knows so much about that. So I do highly recommend that. And Enchantment, which is the first book I read of Guy's that I really. I like that one a lot. And then that leads us into our guest's book, Jeff, which is. Oh, wait, that's not actually his book.

But the Lean Startup. Yes, this was. I have not read this one yet. So I'm. I. The thing is, which is so hard, editing Guy's podcast is. He always has these great books. I have a list of all the Ones I read. The one I've read pretty much all of. Well, I don't, I don't want to say which one.

We've had such great guests. I do the same thing. I am constantly ordering books. After I start reading, listening, and I'm like, all right, I'll just get that person's book, then I'll get this person's book. But the Lean Startup is by Eric Reese, not our guest. Our guest is Steve Blank. And the interesting connection is that Steve was an investor in Eric's original startup, which was imvu, which was a social platform I never heard of, but he had this startup with a partner, a co founder. And Steve was an investor and he was teaching classes at Berkeley School of Haas. And he, he said, all right, you, if I'm going to invest in this, you guys need to come and take these startup classes to learn more about the language and all these things. And then Eric, Steve says this is best student took all those. The things that he learned.

That's right. Yeah.

And he wrote the Lean Startup, which is Art of the start 2.0. And the lean Startup are like literally the bibles that startups use. People, you know, they just. For years, for years and years. I don't know, I would say maybe 10 or 15 years. I don't know how long the Lean Startup has been out.

Yeah.

But people just like love that. And Steve calls it the roadmap for innovation for the 21st century. He said the ideas in the Lean Startup could create the next industrial revolution, which I would have to say he was right about that. He wrote that whenever the book came out. And look how startups have changed the world. I mean, if we didn't have Zoom, which somebody mentioned is their favorite, if we didn't have all these ways to digitally connect with people, you know, we would have phones. But, you know, we have been able to continue. We meeting a lot of people that have been able to work at home during the pandemic, have been able to 100% continue working. I mean, that's amazing. Somebody like us, we, we do freelance stuff or a guy who's a speaker, you know, he segued from traveling around the world to having speeches to doing speeches at home, you know, in his, in, in his studio. So it's pretty. That kind of was the net. He was very right about that.

Yeah. And you know, just think of where we would have been if we couldn't have done that during the last year. You know, businesses would have, I mean, they, A lot of them did close and screech to a halt. But it would have been, you know, so much more difficult for a lot of companies. You know, the technology was here for live video and like Zoom and like Google Meet and you know, all those things. So it's pretty amazing that that happened. I wanted to pull up, you know, Richard said that he had read the Lean startup and seriously, you guys need to check out the podcast because if you're interested, this was a fascinating one. I got some. There's a lot of really cool insights and kind of behind the scenes that he was able to bring up. So I just was. I was fascinated by it. So I think you guys really like that@remarkable people.com. this was then. This is probably the, I thought the, the biggest takeaway and interesting thing is they talked about Kickstarter and have you guys raised money using Kickstarter now? I've not raised money now. I've purchased a lot of things and Peggy and I were running through this stuff we have bought off the Internet and from Kickstarter. But one of the things that they talked about in here when, when Guy asked him what did you think, asked Steve what he thought about Kickstarter was that. And I'm not going to give it all away, but that he didn't like it. He didn't think it was a good idea because they, they didn't fail fast enough. And you guys need to listen to that section. But I was like, oh, you know what? That kind of makes sense because I've backed some projects that I never got the product for. I don't know even if I got refunded, I think I did on some of them and then. But the ones that I have gotten, I've, you know, they have been super late. I don't think I've had one that actually hit the goal of shipping. Except Pat Flynn's. Except for Pat Flynn's, his Kickstarter thing that did go out and everything. Okay, here's Pegs.

This is one of my Kickstarter purchases. It is a vintage keyboard that lights up when you're. And it has that. Can you hear that?

Yeah, it's cool.

It feels like regular typewriter keys. So when you're typing, like when you're writing, it feels like you're on the old fashioned like Smith Corona typewriter. It's fantastic. And I forgot about it. But that one was on time and it. They were great. So there's a. I don't know how many other ones I've done, but it is interesting because Kickstarter is a startup, and then it helps other people raise money. The story that Kickstarter always reminds me of is when Zach Braff wanted to do some documentary or movie. And so, so he did a Kickstarter and he got like millions of dollars. And then the next day people were like, hey, aren't you already a millionaire? Like, why are we funding you with our 20s and 50s, dude?

Right. Well, I know there's like Darrell Eves, who's a big YouTuber. He had one of his huge projects funded with Kickstarter and it's taken off. Blessed or messy. Says, I visited Kickstarter's cool office in New York. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. So I guess, you know the good thing. And I do have a friend who uses Kickstarter exclusively. He runs a gaming company, board games, you know, the old retro board games. And he actually launches each of his games on Kickstarter, then gets the prototypes built and taken out of there. But that's his business model and it's working for him. He sold a lot of games doing it that way, so that's cool. But he. But to the point that Steve makes. And you'll have to listen to the podcast that he. A couple of them didn't probably fail fast enough and it cost him more money later. So I can see the point of Kickstarter.

So, yeah, yeah, that's tough. I mean, I know there's authors that have done Kickstarters to try to like self publish to try to get the money to publish their book. It's a big stretch for, I think for an author. I don't know, you have to have a very involved money audience to. For that to happen. Because even though you might have millions of followers, that doesn't translate into people necessarily giving you money for something.

Right.

For intangible thing like that.

So. Oops, that's the wrong one. There we go. So this is something. That was an extremely beautiful keyboard. Do you remember which Kickstarter project did you buy that one from? Peg?

This one is called Asio A Z I O. It's a retro classic. They actually did go into production. You can find them, I think, even on Amazon. So it's not cheap, but it was.

Right up kind of cool. Brian says, I need to do a Kickstarter for my electric car company, Graviton Motors. That's a cool name for a electric car company. But yeah, that'd be interesting. A lot of people start out and do some Kickstarter. So there. I mean, listen to the podcast and I would. Before you guys, if you're going to do a Kickstarter product prod project, go look and listen to this section, especially on Guy's show when they talked about this, because there's some questions that you probably need to ask yourself that you may not have thought about. Because it was really interesting hearing these titans of the startup industry, you know, talk about this and the pluses and minuses.

So Kickstarter is a startup with a good name. Kickstarter is a great name. It tells you what they do.

Yeah.

Sometimes they don't. And. But that's a good one. So our next question is, have you ever worked for a company that died because it couldn't scale fast enough? So for a startup that tried and just couldn't.

Couldn't make it, do you gonna ask me that question? Because I have an answer.

Yeah, let's hear. So everybody else.

So I worked for. I don't know if it was a startup, but it's a local business. And this was. I was, I was. I was making websites. Remember flash websites back in the day? I was their multimedia manager. And what happened was kind of the opposite. They staffed up too quickly because they thought they were going to get all this stuff from these doctors and all these things never happened. And then it started laying off, and then I quit before I knew what was going to happen. But it wasn't scaling fast enough. It scaled too fast. It didn't test the market. It didn't do a minimal viable product.

Those are both opposite sides of the same coin, right? You either. You either go so slow and you can't. And then you just never get anywhere. Or you go too fast and you grow. There's really like a fine line. Which is why investors, you know, that's. Which is why getting the right advisors for your startup is important. Because they come in and they look at all that stuff and they say, go faster, go slower, get stuff out. You know, you got to have that adult in the room that will tell you that the hard things that you're like. But I could just. And they're like, nope.

Because it's. I mean, you get your.

Tons of companies, too. That's one of the things that he does, is he'll advise companies and he'll just, he. I'm 98% sure. He's always ruthless. He gives you the best advice he can, you know, just be like, do this, do that, you know, And I'm sure it's the same for Steve Blank. You know, if somebody asks you for advice, you're not going to say, well, maybe you could not hire so many people. You're going to be like, get rid of 20% of your staff. You can't afford it.

So, oops, I keep hitting the too much buttons to press. So Richard goes, I worked at a digital music startup that couldn't penetrate the market fast enough to create the needed leverage to survive the transition to mass market. Yeah. So didn't scale quick enough. So it's always sad. So. But yeah, yeah, it's really hard when.

You have a great idea and you're trying to implement it and there's just so many pieces and sometimes it takes years and years. Just going back to the canvas story, you know, they, it took them like eight years maybe before Guy and I found them. And then people like, we helped get the word out. They worked on it for a very, very long time and they believed in it. But that didn't, that wasn't making them money. I mean, now they're a unicorn. So, you know, it can happen, but it is a unicorn. And there's, you know, that tells a lot, right. In the name of a unicorn. Because they're rare.

Yeah.

So Richard says this, he gave a little more details. He goes, About 12 million invested, minimal viable product completed in six months or so. So very interesting. So this next.

Sometimes big funding doesn't always help, you know, it doesn't always.

Right. Throwing money on it doesn't always work.

Yeah.

So. And the thing is, I was gonna say is like a lot of times and you mentioned advisors and having good ones and how important that is, because when you're making something, you got your blinders on your head down, you know, up all night writing code or making a product in the shop or something. And having those people go, that's not really a good idea, you know, or who are you going to sell that to? That's always important to have those kind of people. So. So this would be probably more for Guy, but maybe she goes, what? I mean, what would simple advice would you give a small startup? And I would say read Art of the Start and the Lean Start first.

First listen to this episode.

Right.

Because you will honestly learn so much from it. And then I would get the Art of the start 2.0 and the lean Startup. Those are really great places to start. So many people start there. And I'm sure that they probably, honestly, you could get those at the library if you, if you don't have the means to, you know, to go out and buy some books. But they've both been out for a while. Honestly, you could probably get like used paperbacks of both of them. I'm totally down for getting.

Yeah, ebay probably has. Yeah, ebay probably has some coverage.

So, yeah, just get, like, get a paperback, get something that somebody used in a class or something because they're both taught in the classes all over the country for how to. For entrepreneurship and startup. So I would give you advice if I had it, but read those books. Guy would probably tell you the same things because you can't give someone, you know, a 30 second.

You need to know what they're doing.

A lot that goes into it. Yeah, a lot goes into that.

Yeah.

So I would definitely get those two books and listen to the podcast and check out Guy's website. His blog has a lot of articles on startups too, and entrepreneurship. So.

Yeah, and this is a great question too. This is a. What do you guys think about this? If you could choose your leader, what traits would a good leader have? Like, if you could work for your perfect boss, what would a good leader had? What. What do you think? I think so. Everybody says transparency, but there's a big debate. I know in business circles that you don't want to be too transparent as a boss or a leader because you don't want them like, hey, we don't have any money, you know, or something, you know. But I think, you know, I think honesty is a good thing. And then also the ability to create excitement, you know, because you need coming into work on. Especially like we're talking about startups right now and not having, you know, that they have a vision. And I think a guy even mentioned it in this podcast is that, you know, everybody talks. Ask him about Steve Jobs. You know, how it was with Steve Jobs. And Steve, you know, is known he wasn't the easiest person to work for, but he had a vision and he was able to drive people towards that vision. Walt Disney was the same. I mean, Walt Disney was the same way. He was not that great of an animator after Mickey Mouse, but he was able to gather a team and cast that vision and grow the company that way.

I was gonna say Steve probably did the same thing. I mean, he hired the best of the best and it was, I'm sure, creative think tank, you know, so maybe he was hard to work with, but probably everyone else that you worked with was probably like a plus. So in some ways it was probably still a great work environment. Jeff Bezos is notoriously very hard to work for. And people work at Amazon at the higher levels and they they leave and they're like, I can't take this. And then they go back.

Right. Well, and by the way, another great podcast episode. You go back into the library is we had the guy underneath Bezos on, and his book is really, really good. That's a really good one to read as well. I thought that was a really good book. I can't remember what his book was called, but it's. Or his. But it was, it was probably two, three months ago. But he was, he was a fascinating one to listen to as well. So you can find that@remarkablepeople.com I think.

That was Colin Baer.

Yeah, I think that's right.

So a little, a little thought for you from Steve Blank on the podcast. He said founding a company is about leadership. It's not about management. So it's about leading people, not managing people. And when you think about the difference in those two words, are you leading people to do the best they can do or are you trying to manage them?

That's a good.

Yeah, because you have to give people, you know, the autonomy to do their jobs and do a good job at it without micromanaging them and lead them in a way that they can do that. So I thought that was cool. And then this one, this quote is from Guy from Art of the Start. He said, if you think that leadership is deciding what you want and telling people what to do, I feel sorry for you because reality is going to kick your butt. He said something else, but kick your butt so far that not even Google will find you.

Yes. So we have some answers when we ask people what they look for in a good leader. And one is patience and willingness to learn from others. That's interesting. And another one is a leader needs to be empathetic and respectful and listen to others and have the ability to create followers. That is not an easy thing to do. Yes, very, very true. That's a good one.

Listening is. Listening is important.

And another, I would like to have an empathetic as well as tenacious. Those are good words. Leader who is also a patient listener and able to give his 10 cents to my ideas. Very cool. And yeah, there's a big difference between leaders and managers. And yet top people in high positions are lacking the knowledge. Yeah, that's a whole other show right there.

Well, you know, they talk about soft skills for lower level employees, but I think at the top, top is where you need it the most. You need some of those listening and empathy. And I saw a tweet from somebody yesterday and she's and the girl said, I'm that one on. I'm that boss who will cry with you in the one on one. Because people are having so many, like, zoom call one on ones with their management staff. And somebody was like, why would you. Why would that even happen? Like, and she said, you know, it's a pandemic. Because somebody like, followed up and she said it's pandemic and people's lives are really stressful. And that, you know, sometimes that hits you in a work call, you know, hey, how you doing? And then, you know, and you really just want to share how you're doing. Like, this has been hard. Now people's kids are out of school again. So they're back, you know, trying to manage the kids in the school if they're still at home. So I just really appreciated that she was so, so empathetic. And I didn't even know her, but I followed her after that. But, you know, that she was so empathetic because sometimes life is really stressful, you know, and it's not going to be a helpful one on one if, if you're, if people aren't really sharing how they're doing.

Right. It's interesting to me that so many people who responded said empathetic in there. They want empathetic leader. And, you know, one I think is a good example of this maybe. Well, I don't know if he's pathetic, but he seems like very pathetic.

No.

Pathetic. No, but he's really, he's with Warren Buffett. He's very humble. The way he talks. He runs multiple companies, he has a set schedule. He goes in there. But he seems very empathetic. And he, you know, he goes the same restaurant, the same server. I mean, he's got his, you know, the in. In Omaha, Nebraska. So it's really interesting to me that he just seems like a very empathetic person. But. And he's a leader. I mean, people just.

He just left the Gates Foundation. He was like, peace out.

Really? I did not know that.

So anyway, so, yeah, it's interesting. Empathy is important for a leader. It is. So that is, that is something, you know, obviously as a startup, it goes into all of those things where, like, you're small. It's just like you and another person, you're splitting up the work and then you're growing and it snowballs real quick. So if you don't put the right people in place to help leadership. Yeah, it is important.

Yeah. So this is a great question. Why is it so many types of leaders who actually suck at their position continue to stay in those positions. My job is to inform them the truth and make changes and yes, challenge the status quo, which many in top positions hate to see and hear. Yeah, unfortunately that does happen and I think we may have all been in that situation. But yeah, it's, it's frustrating.

I've worked for cement entrepreneurs that were just, oh my God. One of my bosses was horrible. He told. He used to like flip out and scream at everybody and then one day he was like, you're all fired. Go home and read this book and come back and we're having a meeting tomorrow and I'll decide who gets to keep their job. And we were like, what the heck was that even about? It wasn't even about anyone in the office. And then you won't be surprised at this, Jeff. I was the only one who read the book.

Did you keep your job?

Everybody else bullshitted. Huh?

Did you keep your job? You said, you said yeah, but I.

Looked for another one because he was crazy. Yeah, of course I still see him around and he went to my church. So shout out. If you're watching, you know who you are. Hey, his name. Hey, whoever. Yeah, I think I'm connecting with him on LinkedIn. Oh, funny guys. So hopefully.

Oh yeah, you're fine. All right, so last question. You're like, what? He knows he did it, so yeah, yeah, so yes. So he's laughing, he says, love you guys. Thank you for the shout out. Yes, well, thank you for all your comments today. That's we've been really appreciate this. And same with. Same to you. Blessed or messy. I just love that YouTube name there. So last question. And you were going to talk a little bit about one of the guys mantras from the Art of the Start, but I have that as a question too because I think it's really, it's very profound to end the show with so.

It is.

Why don't you talk about that a little bit?

So one of Guy's main mantras from Art of the start is to make meaning. And he talks about it a lot in his innovation speeches too. Like if you guys have ever seen any of his speeches or presentations, he talks about making meaning. And what he means by that is that. Well, his little exact quote is how do you make meaning? Meaning is not creating a cool place to work with. Free food, ping pong, volleyballs, dogs. Making meaning is making the world a better place. And then his other part of that is you might make money doing this, but that shouldn't be your goal. Your goal shouldn't be, I'm going to have a startup and I'm going to make a million dollars. You have to have an idea. I'm going to use Facebook as an example, which, you know, some people say they're not a great example anymore, but initially, you know, to connect the world socially. Then there's all the dark sides of what people use things for after you create them. But that's a whole other topic. But, you know, making meaning means, you know, that you're really digging into what you're creating and how it's going to help people like Airbnb. You know, you're going to make a way for people to make money renting out their apartment or sharing. You know, they could rent their apartment out, go stay at somebody else's house. You know, like, it gives you the ability to stay somewhere affordably. You could rent a room, you could rent a whole house. You could have a weekend, you know, party with your family. One time we went to Back to New York for a wedding. We rented an Airbnb. We did the whole house. So all of our kids, everybody was all in the same house. It was like a really great experience. And without Airbnb, we wouldn't have had that. So I think Airbnb did a great job of, like, it's like double. It helps people earn income. And then some people, now that's all they do is they're Airbnb hosts because they'll have multiple properties or maybe just a really great one that they make a lot of money at. The one that we stayed in France, because I'm an Internet sleuth, I wanted to know, like, how could this person just, like, let the thing out? She actually had a job where she lived. She worked in Spain. She got transferred for work to a different country, but she wanted to keep her apartment and, like, her family lived. It was so cool because her sister lived across the hall from her in Paris in this great neighborhood. So. So she didn't want to give up her apartment, so she did Airbnb. So then she could affordably live somewhere else and still have her apartment. And then her sister could, like, check in on the apartment and do things if they needed it. So I think. Don't you think that's a good example of making meaning? Like, it's, it helps the people who are hosts and the people who get to travel.

I think it's a good idea just.

To look at the website. Like, right.

Well, the, the, you know, you said in France, mine Wasn't as big. My son's in College Station, so we went down there for a big thing. We got a big house. And the funny thing is, the lady was there. She lived in that house. But when she would rent it out, she would go to her grandma's and the kids would go with her. And. But. And so.

Yeah.

And it was. And it was always on game days because it was a game. You know, they had huge things there with A and M. And so. But it was a.

It was.

But she made meaning for bringing those people together in a big house. But she also made money, and she also goes. Spend time with her. It worked out perfectly for her. Yeah. So it's really cool.

Awesome. That reminds. Zillow is another great one. Zillow, like, is amazing. You know, before. Before you could look at things on the Internet for houses. Like, you look again. During the pandemic, real estate went crazy. Everybody was like, okay, thought my house was big enough, but it's not big enough for me and my spouse to work at home and our kids to have school, and it's too loud. You know, everybody's realizing that their. That their houses have rooms to do things, but maybe not all the things that you need to actually be in your house all the time. I was reading House Beautiful magazine. I still like magazines. And it was an article about how people are redoing their houses differently because they may have had a space, but, like, their house kind of was this place where you would, you know, come and go, not be there all the time.

Yeah, it's changed. Yeah. They. They're making, like, office home offices. All this stuff for that is shot up and, you know, playrooms for the kids now. You know, a lot of times, it was a. It was a kind of almost a bad thing to have a pool. Now pools are starting to shoot back up when people are looking for those because they want to stay home and have those pool parties. So Richard says this. He goes, people ascribe meaning to your products and work. I look for meaning through those who use my products. That's great. That's awesome. And let's see. Connecting with people is a very special, special ability to have, and in this itself brings out meaning for those that are connecting with. So that's. That's a great point as well. So. Yeah. So hope. Oh, I was. I'd have. Guy would get. So when we're talking about making meaning, you know, how do you make meaning? Guy has been, I think, for his podcast, one of the ways he's really Been doing it is really focusing on the transcripts. He had a big in there and you will find out next week why he is doing that. But he's taken a lot of pride and a lot of time and a lot of expense to get the transcripts perfect the way that he likes them. But that's one of the reasons he is doing it, is he wants to subscribe, meaning to people who may not be able to hear the podcast. So I thought that would be a great example and he'd get mad if I didn't say anything.

Well, I mean, that's the thing with the Internet there. People like their information all different ways. Some people like a video, some people want to read it, right? I love reading podcast transcripts because personally, I don't always want to listen for the whole time.

You could listen, you could read fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is the show. Make sure you guys go check it out@remarkablepeople.com and this was a fascinating one. All you entrepreneurs and startup people, this is one that you need to listen to. There's a lot of stuff you can. You'll probably listen to it twice because once you'll just listen to it. The second time you'll want to take notes. But hey, there's a transcript you can actually, you know, take that into your Evernote or whatever. And do not forget about our sponsor, Restream IO. You can find all about them in the description wherever you're watching. And wherever you're watching is because of Restream, because we're allowed to go to over 30 places very, very easily by the click of a button, streaming out everywhere, pulling in people's content. Thank you guys for being there. Richard. Thank you everybody. Who's late, made comments. We appreciate you Guy will be here next week. So you will have the. We'll get rid of the second string. You will get rid of the second string. But make sure you guys go check out remarkable people.com and we'll see you later. Bye, everybody.

Hey there. Week two of my vacation. But still, I'm coming back to tell you that Restream is the sponsor of of this live show. And I'm sure that Peg and Jeff are just kicking butt on this show. You probably don't want me back. But regardless of who's on the show, we use Restream to get it to multiple platforms at once. High definition audio, high definition video, multiple platforms. What could be more remarkable than that? So thank our sponsors, Restream, and next week I'll be back. That's not that good a person. Impersonation. That's not that good an impersonation. I'll be back. No, you know, I just. Not Austrian. What can I say? Restream, the sponsor of this live telecast, Aloha.

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