March 2018

Monday: Steve Jobs the Lost Interview

To kill time while eating breakfast this weekend, I randomly put on a show on Amazon Prime called “Triumph of the Nerds” by Bob Cringely. I realized while watching it that this is the show that captured the famous Lost Interview with Steve Jobs. This show was pretty well done, mostly due to Cringely’s interviews with the actual players themselves. From Bill Gates and Steve Balmer to VC Arthur Rock and the founders of Compaq. Looking forward to episode 3 of Triumph of the Nerds and listening to this full interview in the meantime.

Tuesday: The Atlantic, Nov 2016 Article by Bianca Bosker / The Binge Breaker – Tristan Harris believes Silicon Valley is addicting us to our phones. He’s determined to make it stop.

Like the drug dealers who don’t use their own products, a lot of technology execs and engineers limit their kids’ screen time. Steve Jobs apparently banned the iPad from his house. Maybe it’s just a result of them seeing first hand the thousands of engineers working tirelessly to make their products as addicting as possible. Tristan Harris is a Silicon Valley insider trying to make sure we don’t subsume our lives to technology and make an active effort to pass “time well spent.” Even Mark Zuckerberg has taken up of some of Tristan’s ideas and is trying to implement them in Facebook’s roadmap. In this article, Bianca Bosker wrote a great introduction to Tristan and his work.

Wednesday: Song Exploder / Natalie Prass – Short Court Style

Just came across this podcast “where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made…breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording.” Awesome concept. Starting with the most recent episode available.

Thursday: Intelligence Squared / 12/20/2013 Episode – Eric Schmidt on the New Digital Age

Big fan of Eric Schmidt, former CEO/Chairman of Google and the first “adult in the room” Sergey and Larry brought on board.

After this, will check out what ES has to say on AI, here.

Friday: The Moment with Brian Koppelman / John August 2/13/18

Going with another creative focused listen this week to try something new. Brian Koppelman’s podcast features “interviews about the pivotal moments that fueled fascinating creative careers.” I’m starting with the recent episode with screenwriter John August. I’ve never heard of John before but am sticking with him instead of going with one of the other interviewees I already know, like Seth Godin or Jenna Fischer. In this episode, John talks about the benefits of exploring new fields, and his experience starting to write novels.

Lori Greiner told Jamie Siminoff his product would never sell on QVC.

Jamie had spent a full month perfecting his pitch.

Jamie’s team had peppered him with questions while running the business out of his 2-car garage.

They had spent $10,000 on props to build a set. $10,000 they could barely afford as they struggled to keep the company afloat.

And Jamie walked out of the Tank with no deal for Doorbot.

The episode aired on November 15, 2013. Fast forward 4 years and Amazon just announced today that it’s buying Jamie’s company for over a billion dollars.

All sorts of quotes praising “failure” fly around. Failure as a good thing has become a cliche. But failure in itself is nothing to strive for, so what does failure actually do for us?

Failure, as Jamie’s story suggests, is a benchmark on effort. If you’re not stretching yourself beyond perceived limits, you’re probably not growing to your full potential. Growth requires doing uncomfortable things. A lot of those things probably won’t work out. Constantly experimenting and striving will bring inevitable failures. But if you’re not failing, you’re not trying as hard as you should be.

Failure creates a feedback loop to learn from our mistakes. On the road to finding what does work, failures show us what doesn’t. As Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” We all make mistakes. Even J.P. Morgan failed to invest in Ford Motor Company because he thought it was just a toy for rich people. Taking the time to do a post mortem and analyze your mistakes, and admit you were wrong which is admittedly hard to do, can pave the road for future successes. A mistake you don’t learn from is wasted.

Failure creates new, sometimes better, opportunities. Look at Brian Acton. He applied for jobs at Facebook and Twitter in 2009 and both companies said no thanks. “Facebook turned me down,” Brian tweeted, “…looking forward to life’s next adventure.” Little did he know that life’s next adventure involved founding WhatsApp which would be bought by Facebook a few years later for $19 billion.

Or look at Bob Metcalfe, a pioneer in computer networking and the namesake of Metcalfe’s Law. He was one of the inventors of Ethernet and founded a company, 3Com, to make and sell computer networking equipment. As Bob describes on an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, the board of directors fired him from his role as CEO and asked him to lead the sales team instead. A sales team of one. Ouch. Getting demoted in the company you founded has to hurt. But Bob refused to let his pride get in the way and he seized the opportunity in front of him. As Wired Magazine writes:

Metcalfe says his proudest accomplishment at the company was as head of sales
and marketing. He claims credit for bringing revenue from zero to more than $1
million a month by 1984. And he’s careful to point out that it was this aptitude
– not his skill as an inventor – that earned him his fortune.

“Flocks of MIT engineers come over here,” Metcalfe tells me…”

“I have to sit ‘em down for an hour and say, ‘No, I don’t have this house because I
invented Ethernet. I have this house because I went to Cleveland and Schenectady
and places like that. I sold Ethernet for a decade. That’s why I have this house.
It had nothing to do with that brainstorm in 1973.”’

Finally, failure might just signal you’re on to something big. Jamie Siminoff was gut-punched with “no” after “no” from potential investors. Shark Tank left him literally in tears. But if you want to really make money with something, you need to be non-consensus and right or, as Fred Wilson writes, “you have to be right about something that most people think is wrong.” So if people tell you no, spin your feedback loop to learn and tweak for improvements but don’t give up. If people laugh at you or your idea or your company, just smile. Because you might have the last laugh like Jamie did when he sold $22.5MM worth of product on QVC. Or today, when he sold his company to Amazon for one billion dollars.

Any other thoughts on failure, let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!

For a deeper dive…

On Ring:

https://blog.ring.com/2015/11/13/sharktank/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/amazon-buys-ring-a-former-shark-tank-reject.html

https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-surest-sign-your-winning-is-when-goliath-takes-a-swing-at-you-da4103f80025

On Brian Acton:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/20/facebook-turned-down-whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-job-2009

On Bob Metcalfe:

https://tim.blog/2018/02/14/bob-metcalfe/

https://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/startup/lecture_slides/lecture5-market-wireframing-design.pdf

On being nonconsensus and right: