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Astro Teller Interview – Astro Teller’s Top 10 Rules For Success


he’s an entrepreneur scientist and
author he’s the co-founder and chairman
of body media since 2010 he’s been
directing Google X laboratories
he’s Astro teller and here his top 10
rules for success go big or go home
it’s so easy to think that if you play
it safe if you do it a little simpler a
little smaller you won’t scare yourself
you won’t scare your friends or your
family you won’t scare your investors
when you go ask them for money it’s just
not true
the world just doesn’t work like that
it’s counterintuitive but you can’t go
too big
you really can’t the bigger you go the
more inspired you will be personally and
trust me you will need to be inspired to
get through the hard times that will hit
you the bigger you go the more of a
cause you can make it for the people who
you’re going to need to attract hey come
with me we’re gonna do something and
make the world 5% better yeah you know
what I’ll stay my current job we’re
gonna make the world ten times better
we’re gonna make the world a hundred
times better now you got me now it’s
like I’ll ask what I’m getting paid
three months after I start work right
that’s the feeling that you need to be
able to create in people in order for
them to join you so go big or go home
the second thing is failing fast
companies say that phrase but they just
don’t do it in order to do something
radical you have to be prepared for most
of the things literally 99% of the
things that you do not to work out which
is totally fine and it’s not too
expensive if you kill them at the first
moment when you could reasonably have
known to stop doing it but for all kinds
of mostly emotional reasons we don’t I
mean even we don’t at Google X it’s
incredibly hard to make this happen if
you’re gonna have a portfolio of these
more radical bets of trying things out
I’m
and I assure you you are not smart
enough to figure out ahead of time which
of the hundred things you’re gonna try
is the one that’s gonna work out there’s
just no way like mate one person in
generation like a Steve Jobs like person
can just point and say that turns out to
be the right answer so unless you’re the
Steve Jobs of this generation the right
answer is try stuff just try stuff but
then you have to create a culture among
your people that says I value you trying
things there’s nothing wrong with the
learning moment the failure moment is
not the moment where we stop a project
it is the moment when we decide to stop
a project and realize that we knew six
months earlier a year and a half earlier
that we could have killed it that’s the
failure moment not the moment six months
earlier or 18 months earlier where we
say oh that was worth trying didn’t work
out next that’s a learning moment that’s
not a failure moment the perspective
shift is what it’s all about that’s why
going ten times bigger is more important
and works better than going 10 percent
bigger when you shoot for 10 percent
better you’re in a smartness contest
you’re putting all of your people in a
smartness contest with everyone else in
the world they’re not gonna win it
doesn’t matter how much money you give
them but if you push them if you give
them the expectation and the freedom to
be weird that’s moonshot thinking then
they can do the perspective shifts and
not only if you shoot for 10 times
bigger instead of 10 percent bigger it’s
almost never a hundred times harder and
the payoff is 100 times so you already
know that you’ve got a better return on
your investment but sometimes it’s
literally easier and the reason is
because that perspective shift is
actually cheap relative to being smarter
than everyone around you no excuses no
victim mentality the world owes you
nothing the world might come help you
but I wouldn’t count on it
and if you start from the feeling that
you need the world to participate in
order for you to be successful at taking
on this new thing that you’re
considering doing
you’re right to be scared a mite I
wouldn’t count on it though but if you
start from the perspective that the
world owes you nothing which it doesn’t
and that it is not likely to bring you
any particular help you have nothing to
lose because really isn’t that for every
one of the people you brought onto team
isn’t that how you want them to feel
when they report to you
you know what excuses that doesn’t mean
that you can’t fail or that they can’t
ever fail but right when you’re starting
you have nothing to lose right when
you’re a huge company you can spend 99%
of your time worrying how not to mess up
the billion dollar your money hoes
you’ve created but you don’t have a
billion dollar your money hoes right now
you have nothing so you can’t lose spend
99% of your time imagining what would
happen if things went well and planning
for that
I think risk is important for every
company I think it is the essence of
entrepreneurship whether you’re the
smallest company in the world or like
Google the second largest company in the
world to take smart risks all the time I
run this experiment frequently with
groups where I give them two choices
choice a and choice B so choice a is you
get to deliver a million dollars of
bottom-line value to your company this
year guaranteed choice B you get to
deliver a billion dollars of bottom-line
value to your company this year but only
with one chance in 100 so everyone does
the mental math I say who wants to say
nobody raises their hand
who wants choice B everybody raises
their hand it’s got an expected utility
it’s ten times higher than choice a and
then I say who here believes that your
boss wants you to choose choice B and
not a single person in the room raises
their hand I mean these typically are
large multinationals who want to be
innovative and then I say you don’t need
a lecture on innovation you need a new
boss you need a new context I really
think that it’s the context that matters
we all inherently understand that taking
smart risks is the right thing to do now
what counts as smart what counts as a
risk is different in different parts of
a company or companies or different size
you know you can tolerate a PR Fiasco
much easier if you’re a tiny company
because no one’s watching you than if
you’re a large company for example so
the calculus is different but the
principle is still the same the only way
to stay sharp to stay growing to stay
relevant is to take smart risks all the
time this is actually what I spend a lot
of my time on with Google X that if we
all believe that our project has to work
then we’re gonna find some way to BS
ourselves to BS our manager that it’s
going to work even way past the point
where we know in our hearts that it’s
not going to work and we do that because
we worried we’re gonna lose our bonuses
we’re gonna lose the people who report
to us we might lose our jobs we’re gonna
lose face with the with our peers we
have all these reasons not to want to
raise our hands and say look this is a
dumb one let’s go do something else and
so if you can create a culture in which
people actually believe not that failure
in the long run is acceptable I go we
just kind of went in circles but that’s
cool that’s not cool but if you can see
each thing that you do is a purposeful
experiment there’s no bat there are bad
experiments to run like if you already
ran the experiment you just run it again
that’s a dumb thing to do but there’s no
bad outcome to an experiment if it was a
thoughtful experiment to run think of a
good question
think of the fastest cheapest way you
can answer that question make sure that
the answer to the question would
actually change what it is that we would
do afterwards go run the experiment and
then you can celebrate whatever the
answer is afterwards and that way of
making progress
I think that’s the rate-limiting step of
real innovation swim out of your element
that’s another one of my favorite ones I
chronically take on tasks that I’m
hopelessly unqualified to do and I do it
on purpose
so I know that feeling that you have
inside where you’re thinking nanotech
and I know what to do and then you think
but I don’t actually know anything about
nanotech I need my head examined for
even considering going and changing an
industry I know nothing about right
wrong swim out of your element first of
all a lot of great ideas you’re not
going to be smarter than everybody
so the fact that you’re not nanotech
doesn’t matter because if you were a
nanotech you still wouldn’t be in the
top ten people in the field of nanotech
so the fact that you aren’t the top ten
is irrelevant if you aren’t gonna work
harder than everybody else
you’re probably not going to have more
funding than everybody else those are
not ways you could have won anyway you
can be more bold you can be more
creative those things you can actually
do but you don’t need to be from their
industry in order to have those
qualities and you can transplant your
ideas your expertise from an area that
you are an expert in into a new area if
you’re already in an industry you’ve
already been brainwashed with the rest
of the industry into how that industry
works your chances of breaking that
industry and remaking it in a productive
way are actually meaningfully lower if
you take ideas data inspirations with
you into a new industry you can actually
have a perspective that they haven’t had
and that you can do even if you can’t be
smarter or better funded or work more
hours you can have a perspective that
they don’t have because of your naivete
in that industry so swimming out of your
element is not a reason not to start
it’s not a handicap that you have you
can’t use it as an excuse it’s actually
your secret weapon you should look at
that as an opportunity to start in a new
area Plus personally in any fight I’d
rather be the underdog than the champion
it’s like if your remember in high
school when you’re like playing against
the varsity team and your junior varsity
that felt awesome because you couldn’t
lose right if you lost you were supposed
to lose and if you win then you get
bragging rights forever right it’s the
same thing when you enter a new industry
you have nothing to lose let’s not build
a prototype and do all the easy stuff
first so that it looks like we’re making
progress every week I don’t want that
because we’re in danger of building a
ladder to the moon where we’re closer to
the moon every week but we’re never
really going to get there let’s work on
the hardest part first we discussed
the project that you’re gonna work on
what are the things that are most likely
to kill the project and I say your job
is not to cause the project to succeed
your job is to kill your project I want
you to kill your project you won’t be
fired we’re just gonna keep doing this
and it is only the process of failing to
kill your project that will eventually
cause it to succeed so I tell you this
you’re thinking
does he really mean that that sounds
scary when you do that the first couple
of times and you try and experiment with
functionally what these things are maybe
it works and we take that risk off the
list that’s awesome we D risk your
project we try a few more and we find
the fatal flaw yes indeed this was going
to be a ladder to the moon and so at
Google X the mantra I know how
pollyannaish this sounds but we want to
make the world a radically better place
and we have conversations all the time
at the end of the conversation we say no
that would make a lot of money for
Google would make the world radically a
better place next and there’s just it’s
it’s joyous because and I believe that
it’s actually financially smart for
Google to have us think like that
because then they get a bunch of people
who are all as excited as I am to run to
work in the morning because I get to be
at a place where we get to say that to
each other it’s just so invigorating to
that you get to say that and then
everyone else starts saying it too
they’re like really because don’t you
all want to be able to say that in your
daily lives that you’re not just trying
to make money for yourself or someone
else that you want to make the world
better let’s just fundamentally
inspirational I think it’s a basic part
of being a human that we crave that like
we crave love or community and if you
say that’s what we’re gonna be like you
know Google X there’s another one of
these I this is a separate but but
related Santa Clause moment at Google X
we don’t worry we don’t work towards
that’s probably a better way of saying
it how we’re gonna make money in the
early conversations about our moonshots
they do not include okay so then it
would cost
this much and then we could charge that
much and that nets out positive and nope
it’s the wrong way to think about it
because if you’re gonna make the world
slightly better then you have to claw
for those pennies that you’re gonna make
that’s a tough business it’s just
exhausting if you make the world
seriously better 10x better than the
alternative the money will come find you
you really don’t have to figure it out
and it I can see from the outside how
frustrating this looks to watch Google
do this over and over again because I
think there’s this attitude like
Google’s just kind of bumbling its way
through the process a little bit but
over and over again Google has put
something out in the world like search
like Street View like translates geo
most of the thing almost everything
we’ve done has started from a you know
what this is just the right thing to do
the world’s just better this way
let’s start by helping users and then
we’ll figure out the money thing in a
little while and that just that
shouldn’t be true that’s like cheating
in the business world there’s something
wrong with that but wouldn’t that be
awesome if you could do that if you
could actually spend your time saying
let’s just make the world crazy better
and then trust that the money’s gonna
come find us if you want to know what
you’re capable of look backwards don’t
look forwards it’s so easy to feel like
I don’t know how to do it so I won’t get
it done but that’s kind of nonsensical
you’ve never done this thing before of
course you you never know how to do the
next thing it would be boring if you
already knew how to do it but look
backwards at all the things you
personally have accomplished in your
life imagine going back to the 20 year
old version of yourself and telling them
that they had to go do all these things
it would sound like black magic to them
because that person didn’t know how to
do it you figured it out as you went I
have a CEO that I’m mentoring and he
called me in a state like two three days
ago and he said oh god I have this board
meeting coming up and I had all these
plans about how I was going to ask the
board
he’s got an investor who wants to put a
couple million dollars in but the board
doesn’t want to take incremental
dilution and he was gonna like show them
all these great new results and he just
felt like you know our revenues kind of
been flat for the last couple of months
and I had these results and now I can’t
show to him because they’re not as good
as I thought they were just I’m so
frustrated I’m just I’m no good at this
I said Dave you’re looking over the last
like three weeks four weeks maybe you’ve
been a CEO of this business for 22
months it was already an ongoing
business when he became the CEO of it
the revenues of this business have gone
up a factor 12 in 22 months you’ve taken
on one person and diluted the company by
like 8% and taken up the revenues by
factor 12 seriously you’re a loser
my god we can only hope as a board that
you’ll be such a loser for the next 22
months right but it’s easy for us like
laugh and see that but you can see how
in the mindset you’re you care about
something and you get so focused on the
future and what you don’t know but if
you look backwards things look very
different and often that’s what helps me
to take on a task that I don’t know how
to do because I don’t have to prove to
myself I believe that I know how to do
that task I only have to convince myself
that I’ve historically done a good job
of figuring out tasks I didn’t know how
to do thank you so much for watching I
made this video because blast asked me
to so there’s a famous entrepreneur that
you want me to profile next leave it in
the comments below and I’ll see what I
can do I’d also love to know which of
Astro tellers top 10 rules resonated
with you the most leave in the comments
I will join in the discussion thank you
so much for watching continue to believe
and I’ll see you soon
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