2014 DENT Conference: Robert Scoble-Rackspace Startup Liaison, Interview

Concierge Q's coverage of the 2014 Dent Conference is sponsored by Wood River Fine Arts, featuring contemporary and traditional fine art of the American West.

How's it going?

My name is Matt Gerschader with Concierge Q, where travel meets entertainment. And today you are here at the 2nd Annual Dent Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, and we're with Robert Scoble. Robert, how does it feel to be a part of this gathering of people?

My wife is one of the speaker coordinators. It's, you know, a little guiding and a little participating. You know, what I do is I go around the world and do what you're doing. Interview innovators and startup, mostly startup entrepreneurs, but sometimes Bill Gates or Mike Zuckerberg. You know, people have, are creating bigger things. And I study innovation. I study where the future is. Siri was launched in my son's bedroom. You know, I was the first person outside the company to see the product and that, that makes me happy. That's what I want to do so I can bring, bring this stuff to other people.

One of the great visionaries right here now, Robert, you were real visionary is.

Like Doug Engelbart, who is creating the future. I don't create, I just study. I want a first row seat on the creation process. And by the way, Dent is all about that. We had people who built the iPhone on stage, people who built new toothbrushes that are coming out, people who do great new music. And yeah, we study the creation process, which is we learned this morning, comes.

Out of a lot of pain and persistence. You know, man, being there.

The weaker people, when they're under pain, they give up and they go do something more fun. No, people are called to create things, whether it's music or an iPhone. Stick in with it. And if you're really a good entrepreneur, you stick in it with it. Beyond rationality, right? Airbnb took a thousand days to start working. So you had to walk through the desert with eating ramen for and not paying your bills for a thousand days before you figured out what it was that caused people to, you know, do an Airbnb bed and breakfast, you know.

And so what are you doing today?

What's happening? Fun? No, I'm, you know, I'm sitting in the front row because that's my goal is to be the front, have a front row seat in the future. And here quite a few really interesting people are brought together. One of the six people who created Microsoft Office is here, right? And One of the 12 people who created the iPhone is Here and on and on. The guy who started North Face, we were partying in my bedroom with the guy who started North Face. And Scotty Vest, the guy who makes these shirts for me, was there and they were rebranding his company right in front of me. And it's like, that's cool. And if you're anybody who's trying to push yourself, that's what you're really trying to do is surround yourself with interesting people and create a moment in time where you can get deep on something and re energize yourself. So you go back into the battle because next Monday your customers will be yelling at you and your investors will be yelling at you and shit's not working. And it's why you come to Silton Valley, to get re energized so you can go back to battle.

Right? I was, we were just talking with another person here and they were saying that, you know, there's some incredible people on stage, but some of the magic that happens is actually in the communication and the conversations.

The hot tub, in the hot tub.

Drinking Hand of God. Oh, it's the biggest hot tub around.

102 degrees all the time. There's a big ass hot tub. I could swim across it.

Yeah, right?

You get in there, you have a drink or two and you're looking around and going, man, you're in a beautiful place up in the mountains with really cool people and you have a lifelong experience that turns into friendship and business deals. I mean, right on the deck here, you know, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post on the deck in this hotel, right? And that's the magic of this place. You know, last night at the reception, we were in this room and I said, how many presidents have had their kids here? You know, yeah, this is a special place. And that's why we travel, right? To visit these special places and, and be inspired.

You've been coined the king of the geeks.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

Give me a little history on where did that come from?

I've created over 30 years. I've been creating online communities since 85, when my friend had a BBS in his garage with six Haze modems, you know, and people would call in from Japan and, you know, pass a few files and a little bit of mail and then unconnect, right? That was the beginning of what we think of now as the Internet. And it just works now. Back then, it didn't quite work, but on that process, you know, back in junior high, I got a tour of Apple when it was one little building. I grew up in Silicon Valley. My dad was an engineer building stuff at Ampex and then Lockheed, you know, building military satellite stuff that still is in use above us. Right, right. But that being in Silicon Valley with a hardcore technical parent drags that kind of love for new into your world. And you see it. You see people creating new things that didn't exist before. Right? And yeah, if you're hanging out in Silicon Valley in the 70s and 80s and 90s, you saw New industries spring out of nothing and new ideas and. And I've always been that way, you know, that's why I like traveling, because I'm going to Coachella to see new music, not to see outkasts. Okay. You can see outcasts anywhere, right? You can watch them on YouTube. I want to see the band, the electronic music that nobody's watching or the teenagers are all playing with.

You know, there is so much to do here, so many great people.

But my mom worked for Apple, worked for Hildy Licht, actually, in the Valley. Apple, when they were starting up, ran out of manufacturing capabilities for Apple ii. Apple II was selling hotter than expected. Right. And so Woz and Jobs hired Hilde Licht, who had a group of housewives in Silicon Valley. And we built. They built motherboards for Apple. And my mom paid me a dollar a motherboard to stuff the motherboard, so that's how I made my allowance.

Is that how it got the name Motherboard? Well, the housewives are putting it together.

No, I don't think so, but it's where it fits. That story's funny. Yeah, I remember. And later I got to meet Woz, and I remember being in awe of the engineering that he did. He designed. Probably the only guy to design a personal computer from end to end in his head right. Today. That's impossible because of the complexity of the motherboard or even your iPhone. It's too much to understand end to end. And I appreciated how he laid shit out, you know, it was really pretty. And in fact, he said, I did that design very specifically to make it as easy to manufacture and easy to understand and. And shorten the amount of distance electricity had to pass. Right. And it made a beautiful thing. And yeah, not many people would see that. Right. Because that's why I can contextualize a new thing. Right. Because I've seen a lot of things over 30 years. It's not that I. There's lots of kings in this room that are a lot more.

This is like almost the royal court here.

Yeah, it really is.

Inspiration is happening right here. We are at the front row. We're in the hot tub, we're drinking great wine, and we're making a dent in the next generation. I'm Matt G With Con Q. Thank you for tuning in, and thanks for being here and doing what you do.

No problem. Thank you.