Starting a Business is a Rough Ride (Stephen Schwarzman) | AI Podcast Clips

I'm now personally taking a step into building a startup. First time, hoping to change the world. Of course, there are thousands, maybe more, maybe millions of other first time entrepreneurs like me. What advice? You've gone through this process, you've talked about the suffering, the emotional turmoil it all might entail. What advice do you have for those people taking that step?

I, I, I'd say it's a rough ride and you have to be psychologically prepared for things going wrong with frequency. You have to be prepared to be put in situations where you're being asked to solve problems you didn't even know those problems existed. You know, for example, renting space, it's, it's not really a problem unless you've never done it. You have no idea what a lease looks like. Right. You don't even know the relevant rent. And you know, in a market. So everything is new, everything has to be learned. What you realize is that it's good to have other people with you who've had some experience in areas where you don't know what you're doing. Unfortunately, an entrepreneur starting doesn't know much of anything. So everything is something new. And I think it's important not to be alone because it's sort of overwhelming and you need somebody to talk to other than a spouse or a loved one because even they get bored with your problems. And so, you know, getting a group, you know, if you look at Alibaba, you know, Jack, Ma was telling me they went, they, they basically were like at financial death's door at least twice. And you know, the fact that there, it wasn't just Jack. I mean, people think it is because of, you know, he became the, you know, the sort of public face and the driver. But, but a group of people who can give advice, share situations to talk about, that's really important.

And that's not just referring to the small details like renting space.

No.

It's also the psychological burden.

Yeah. And you know, because most entrepreneurs at some point question what they're doing because it's not going so well or they're screwing it up and they don't know how to unscrew it up because we're all learning and it's hard to be learning when there are like 25 variables going on. If you're missing four big ones, you can really make a mess. And so the ability to in effect have either an outsider who's really smart that you can rely on for certain type of things, or other people who are working with you on a daily basis. Um, it's. Most people who haven't had experience believe in the myth of the one person, one great person, you know, makes outcomes, creates outcomes that are positive. Most of us, it's not like that. If you look back over a lot of the big successful tech companies, it's not typically one person. It, you know, it's. And you will know these stories better than I do because it's your world, not mine. But even I know that almost every one of them had two people. I mean, if you look at Google, you know that's what they had. And that was the same at Microsoft at the beginning and you know, it was the same at Apple. You know, people have different skills and they need to play off of other people. So you know, the advice that I would give you is make sure you understand that so you don't head off in some direction as a lone wolf and find that either you can't invent all the solutions or you make bad decisions on certain types of things. This is a team sport. Entrepreneur means you're alone, in effect. And that's the myth. But it's mostly a myth.

Yeah, I think, and you talk about this in your book and I could talk to you about it forever. The, the harshly self critical aspect to your personality and to mine as well. In the face of failure, it's a powerful tool, but it's also a burden. That's, that's very interesting, very interesting to walk that line. But let me ask, on the, in terms of people around you, in terms of friends, in the bigger picture of your own life, where do you put the value of love, family, friendship in the big picture journey of your life?

Well, ultimately all journeys are alone. It's great to have support. And you know, when you go forward and say your job is to make something work and that's your number one priority and you're going to work at it to make it work. It's like superhuman effort. People don't become successful as part time workers. Doesn't work that way. And if you're prepared to make that 100 to 120% effort, you're going to need support and you're going to have to have people involved with your life who understand that that's really part of your life. Sometimes you're involved with somebody and they don't really understand that and that's a source of sort of conflict and difficulty. But if you're involved with the right people, you know, whether it's a sort of dating relationship or you know, sort of, you know, spousal relationship. You know, you. You have to involve them in your life, but not burden them with. With every, you know, sort of minor triumph or mistake. They actually get bored with it after a while. And so you have to set up different types of ecosystems. You have your home life, you have your love life, you have children. And that's like, the enduring part of what you do. And then on the other side, you've got the sort of unpredictable nature of this type of work. What I say to people at my firm who are younger usually, well, everybody's younger, but people who are of an age where they're just having their first child or maybe they have two children, that it's important to make sure they go away with their spouse at least once every two months to just some lovely place where there are no children, no issues, sometimes once a month, if they're sort of energetic and clever.

Escape the craziness of it all.

Yeah, and reaffirm your values as a couple. And you have to have fun. If you don't have fun with the person you're with and all you're doing is dealing with issues, then that gets pretty old. And so you have to protect the fun element of your life together. And the way to do that isn't by hanging around the house and dealing with sort of more problems. You have to get away and reinforce and reinvigorate your relationship. And whenever I tell one of our younger people about that, they sort of look at me, and it's like the scales are falling off of their eyes, and they're saying, geez, you know, I hadn't thought about that. You know, I'm so enmeshed in all these things. But that's a great idea. And that's something, as an entrepreneur, you also have to do. You just can't let relationships slip because you're half overwhelmed. Sam.