hello believe nation welcome to another
episode of Environment if you want to
accomplish great things you need to be
surrounded by greatness and so I hope
the clips that follow inspire you to
want to do something great I encourage
you to listen to them like you would
music so if you’re on your way to the
office
whether you’re at work whether you’re at
home use it as a background track to
your life to help you do something great
enjoy we think we ain’t about how hard
you hit how do you succeed if you don’t
try the time is now to be great you
gotta love it you gotta have passion you
really can make what you want I mean I
am dyslexic and and therefore I think
I’ve been very good at keeping things
simple because you know as a dyslexic I
need to need things to be simple for
myself and therefore virgin I think you
know when we launched a financial
service company or a bank you know we do
not use jargon it’s everything’s very
clear-cut very simple and and you know I
think people you know people have an
affinity to the Virgin brand because we
don’t you know we don’t talk above them
or talk down to them a lot of times my
shows people are not setting goals that
will be something that somebody is will
becomes rich or as could do anything you
got to be excited about working on that
for 10 years so you got to have a big
enough coal then you know you attract
the best people and you retain them and
you keep them focused then my experience
you don’t go wrong you know maybe you
don’t hit it next year or maybe you fail
entirely and you discover something more
exciting to work on with the same set of
people the first time I grabbed the mic
like though like in front of actual
people that mattered you know saying
like it at a club I got boo I remember
that was very traumatic for me and I’d
actually I think I at that point like
the 8-mile things time when I was right
yeah thank you for him or whatever so I
just remember that being so traumatic
and I think I went home like man up
I quit right and then you know maybe a
couple days later week later hour later
whatever I don’t know I just I got the
Earth’s like you know man I gotta I
gotta get up try to do it again life is
too short to go through it without
caring deeply about something do
something that matters do something that
matters beyond your immediate world and
when you’re an old and gray and look
back on your life you’ll want to be
proud of what you’ve done the source of
that pride won’t be the things you’ve
acquired or the recognition you’ve
received it will be the lies you’ve
touched and the difference you have made
because if you’re a true visionary
you’re gonna be seeing something that
other people don’t see or feel
threatened by because it’s going to
potentially disrupt the way that they’ve
always done things you have to believe
in what you’re doing you have to believe
in your vision with truly every fiber of
your being and that conviction provides
the courage to other people to pursue
the same and if you don’t feel it if you
are just going through the motions if
you’re using somebody else’s words
people will will sense that from a mile
away they need and want to pursue
authentic leadership I mean I think a
lot of people do not have the courage to
try to start a business and all I was
saying but I’ve written a book called
screw it just do it and it basically is
trying to say to people just give it a
try and she sometimes a very very small
amount of money is all that’s needed to
start a company I mean my mother found a
a bracelet on the street and she handed
into the police station and after three
months the police there to sell it and
you know the the couple of hundred
dollars was really critical at a
critical time in the development of our
business so it’s always safe just to
give it give it again and good luck on
that one one of the things that I’ve
been through as a student was some
leadership training and one of the
things they taught us was to have to not
be afraid of failure you know and
instead have the goal to fail a lot
quickly and then eventually you’ll
succeed and I sort of took this to heart
and now it’s not a slogan called healthy
disregard for the impossible and they
actually made you write down sort of the
things you would do that were kind of
impossible but you thought you might
really
and that’s really stuck with me and in
everything that I’ve tried to do and I
think you know it was very very close
that we wouldn’t have started the
company and I think there are many of
you out there in sort of similar
situations you know do you want to take
a little bit more risk do you want to
try something out and you know even if
you don’t succeed we’ve actually tried
many things that didn’t work you know
Google happens to work pretty well but
there are many things that we did that
didn’t but we don’t worry about those
right because we we tried many things so
I just encourage you to take a little
more risk in life and I think if you do
it often enough they will really pay off
I don’t think that my goal has changed
in a sense of you know from from just
from from this yeah I rap from the same
aspect of when I did when I was a kid
like I just wanted to get the respect I
just wanted to get a reaction out of
people I just wanted to be heard and I
wanted people to respect what I do and
respect the fact that I respect the
craft you know I mean of him seeing so
I’m really just kind of the scariest
pretty much the same thing today I think
when I stuck it both what I’ve done you
know certain sandwich you know has done
with a number of people then you cast
around and you look for areas that you
begin to see either a glimmer of a new
breakthrough type of thinking or the
some technology in this sector has been
left alone and not applied to that
sector and or there’s a just a need
based on an emerging market and those
are the things that actually are can be
real drivers for success innovation
first of all it’s a very human thing to
project your own perspective on others
it’s a it’s a very think common thing
and as a less experienced executive or a
leader or for anyone in the audience
that works with other people the
tendency will be to expect people to do
things the way you do them yeah it’s
very natural
and it’s it’s not the right way to
approach it you need to take a moment to
manage compassionately put yourself in
their shoes understand why they’re
coming with what they come with what is
their background what is their baggage
where are their anxieties what inspires
them where are their strengths their
weaknesses and that takes time and it
takes real investment in the knee-jerk
reaction is just to do things the way
you would normally do them and that’s
going to create a lot of dissonance and
so from that moment going forward I kind
of decided that would be a first
principle of management be managing
compassionate I think the most important
the most important thing about running a
company is to remember all the time what
a company is a company is simply a group
of people and as a leader of people you
have to be a great listener and you have
to be a great motivator you have to be
very good at praising and looking for
the best in people you know people are
no different from from flowers if you
water flowers they flourish if you
praise people they flourish and and
that’s a critical attribute of a leader
this is how we keep our innovation
running I think usually as companies get
bigger they find it really hard to have
small innovative projects and we have
this problem too for a while and we said
oh we really need a new concept you know
the Google Apps that’s a small project
that we’re not quite sure if it’s gonna
work or not but we hope it will and if
we do enough of them some of them will
really work and turn out such as news
but then we had a we had a problem
because then we had over a hundred
projects and I don’t know about all of
you but I have trouble keeping a hundred
things in my head at once and we found
that if we just throw it all of them
down and ordered them and these are kind
of made off I don’t really pay attention
to them
for example the the by Iceland was from
a media article we would never do such a
crazy thing
but in case we found if we just
basically wrote them all down and
ordered them that most people would
actually agree what the ordering should
be and this was kind of a surprise to me
but we found that as long as you keep
the hundred things in your head which
you did by writing them down that you
could do a pretty good job deciding what
to do and where to put your resources
and so that’s basically what we’ve done
since means tooth out of years ago and I
think has really allowed us to be
innovative and still stay reasonably
well organized hip-hop has always been
about bragging and boasted and I’m
better than you with this and I’m better
than you with that and I finally found
something that yeah this kid over here
you know he may have more chicks like he
may have better clothes or whatever but
he can’t do this like me you know I mean
he can’t write what I’m writing right
now and it started to feel like you know
maybe Marshalls getting a little respect
I used to when I was secretary of energy
I used to try to explain to people using
an analogy with Wayne Gretzky the great
hockey player yes really
arguably one of the best hockey players
there ever was and he’s pretty skinny
person right but fast and you say how
you know what made you different than
all the others and he said I skate to
where the puck is going to be not where
it’s been yes and I tried to explain and
I think it got some partial traction
look what’s happening with the
technology looks what’s happening yeah
you want to position yourself to see
this is where the world is going this is
what science and technology is going to
give us not I wish it were like it was
50 years ago and a hundred years ago
first and foremost is asking yourself a
pretty straightforward question
sometimes a little more challenging to
answer which is ultimately what is it
that you want to accomplish so look out
twenty to thirty years from now looking
back on your career what do you want to
say you did and I think when you’re
graduating school it’s it’s perfectly
reasonable to not necessarily know the
answer but you’d be surprised how many
people ten fifteen years into their
career still don’t know the answer to
the question because they get swept up
in the stream of opportunity you know a
promotion here an offer from a hot
company over there and they wake up one
day and they’re not happy and they’re
trying to figure out why it’s because
they never stopped to ask themselves
what it is that they ultimately want and
if you don’t know the answer to that
question try optimizing for two things
one is passion and the other skill and
it’s not one at the exclusion of the
other because that’ll lead to some
pretty suboptimal outcomes so that’s one
know what it is that you want to
accomplish as simple as it sounds
it’s really really important to is
surround yourself with great people I
used to think this was all about finding
the right boss or the right mentor but
it’s not just about the person above you
it’s about the people you work with your
peers and the people that work for you
it’s all about talent in this day and
age and so you have to surround yourself
with the best only the best and then
third is to always be learning and to
take great passion if you can in
improving yourself and to challenge
yourself you know there is there’s a
very thin dividing line between success
and failure when you start a business
from scratch and you know if you don’t
have enough money to pay the bills you
go the wrong side of that dividing line
and if you can somehow get enough money
to pay the bills
you stay the right side of that dividing
line you know I’ve always been running
running running faster than perhaps I
should me and I’ve have great difficulty
saying no to things so keep on taking on
new things and we’ve just managed to
stay the right side of the dividing line
over the last 50 years in business but
but equally in those early days when you
when you’re starting a business without
any financial backing it’s it’s it’s
easy to slip the wrong side and in fact
you know most entrepreneurs do do slip
the wrong side and the poor the
important thing is then just you know
pick yourself up and you know start
again and if it doesn’t work at that
time keep keep going until you do
succeed and not to give up you know I
talked a little bit about focusing the
company and you know I think that I want
to talk a little bit about making some
big bets and you know we always try to
concentrate on the long term well
doing for the long term and yeah I think
that you know many of the things we
started up that are really big now like
Chrome or seen as kind of crazy when we
launched them and so how do we decide
what to do or do you know how do we
decide what’s really important to work
on well I like to call the toothbrush
test so the tooth project asked is do
you use it as often as you use your
toothbrush and for most people I guess
that’s twice a day or is your hand twice
a day yeah okay most people so I think
you know we really want things like that
and I think things like Gmail obviously
use much more than twice a day and
YouTube you know I think that those
things are amazing and I think that you
know we look at things like YouTube
people thought oh you guys are never
going to make money with that you bought
it for 1.4 billion dollars you know
you’re totally crazy and we were
reasonably crazy but it was a good bet
and we’ve actually been doubling revenue
every year on YouTube for four years and
actually if you’re doubling things it
starts to add up pretty quickly even no
matter where you start from so I think
that’s a good example of the how it’s
sort of our philosophy is that we see
things that people use a lot that
they’re gonna that are gonna be really
important to them and we think that
usually you can make money from those
things over time you know a well-run
technology business can be monetized
over time I think one of my greatest
inspirations or things that our feed off
of basically was just obviously people
not believing in you know the cloud of
doubt they kind of I felt hung over my
head and wanted to just prove everybody
wrong you know I mean I wanted to make
it and I was gonna make it regardless of
what anybody said when I got the Nobel
Prize I was asked to write an
autobiography
our life than our intellectual
development and in writing that I
remembered vividly the profound impact
that my high school physics teacher mr.
minor played in my intellectual
development in the 12th grade it was the
final exam I kind of flubbed the
question and then he read written in the
margin I’m disappointed
he wasn’t trying to teach his facts he
was actually trying to teach us a
learning process learning whether you
understand something or not was probably
the most important thing I began to
learn in his class that lesson I took
with me not only through college and
graduate school but from my entire
career as a business I’m Steven Chu on
the US Secretary of Energy we need a new
generation of teachers to join those
already in the classroom invest in the
future inspire a generation of children
teach it’s all about the conversation
and it’s very rarely if ever about
actually selling and as soon as someone
comes in to see me and they open up a
PowerPoint presentation they’ve
essentially lost me I think most
effective interactions of this sort
start with you know first of all some
ice breaking getting to know the other
person but then a simple question which
is what can I help you with you know
what what are your objectives what are
your priorities what are you trying to
solve for and then determining how in
this case if we’re on the selling end
how LinkedIn can benefit your
organization and really make it a
conversation and I think that makes all
the difference in the world just
starting from there similarly you know I
feel all too often people have a
tendency this is kind of classic public
speaking effective public speaking but
you got to know your audience and it’s
not necessarily about what you know and
what you want to present it’s about what
your audience wants to hear and why
they’re there you know they’re taking
time out of their schedule to be there
why have they come to the meeting what
are they hoping to get out of it and as
tempted as we’re all going to be to
stick to the material that we’ve
prepared that’s really for our benefit
and perhaps we’re going to end up using
some of that because it’s relevant for
the audience but I think it’s really
important on
stand what it is that the folks are
trying to connect with what what they’re
trying to learn more about and and how
we can benefit them I think the next
stage is you know is to be a great
delegator and not try to do everything
yourself try to find people who are
better than you all the time try to find
people are better than you to put you
put you out of business effectively so
you know whatever you’re spending all
your day doing try to find someone who’s
better than you to do that to replace
you at it so that you know you can go
off and you know think about the next
big picture you know an entrepreneur is
not a man I’m not a manager I mean an
entrepreneur somebody who is great at
conceiving ideas starting and starting
ideas built building ideas but then
handing over to really good managers to
manage the businesses you know the
moment you got more than one business
you can’t be hands on doing everything I
think a lot of companies not so much
these days but still got started because
some space is hot and honestly I don’t
think that’s very good reason to start a
company and in fact we see you know
hundreds or thousands of people come to
us who want to commercialize something
or want us to collaborate with their
business and we actually look at these
and I look at saw quite a few of them
and my guess is like one one a year we
are interested in so you know the trick
is to have the one that somebody’s gonna
be interested because it’s a good idea
and not so you know be one of the
thousands that come through all the time
and I think you know if you’re the one
good good dealer they have a good idea
you really understand the area you’re in
you know the funding environment doesn’t
matter it doesn’t matter whether it’s a
hot area yeah I guarantee you be able to
get people interested in helping you out
I don’t know how we describe muscle
though I think you know I develop to
slow them
so many other different artists like I
was inspired by letting I’ll have to say
you like barley home ll Beastie Boys
when he obscene and if he came you know
and rock him and kind of started wanting
to maybe Kool G Rap Kara’s one Treach
from Naughty by Nature
so I had him you know I was a student in
hip hop so it was like I just got watch
that study with everybody get in a game
and just you know try to develop my own
kind of sound and it took me a long time
to get but you know I just kind of watch
what everybody was doing was kind of
sponge and soap that anything when you
look at new technologies and you’re
looking that there could be you know
sinkhole wild claims but you know what
is the quote theoretical limitations but
not theoretical the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle you know there’s a
lower theory this is beyond this it’s
just you know it’s not gonna make it
and then just where is the technology
and then you say how much space is there
between that that realistically you can
get there in five years okay and and
that actually helps define things and
and focuses the mind and what you should
be thinking about what you shouldn’t be
thinking about so there are many things
like that I think successful innovators
do all the time the constructive
feedback that honest feedback is exactly
what we were establishing an RPE that’s
now being infecting the rest of the
departments or energy you know if you
hear an idea that you don’t really agree
with instead of lightly sitting there
and being polite you say no I you know
that I don’t think that’s right you know
this is why you know you’re wrong and
then and then you sit at a table and you
talk about it and that’s where you
figure out are you right are you wrong
and then you have a deeper understanding
of what’s going on I think one of the
things that all really strong leaders
have is extraordinary awareness
and what I’ve noticed is these
individuals have the ability to read and
take the pulse of a room whether it’s
talking to one individual their staffs
of ten or twelve people or a group of
1,800 and to be able in real-time while
expressing themselves and while
communicating and while thinking to be
able to take in what’s happening yeah
and that awareness enables them to
course-correct
hmm and that is such an important part
of leadership is that course correction
in every moment ideally I don’t know
that people always have that luxury but
moment to moment hour to hour day to day
quarter to quarter year to year it’s
being able to understand your
environment the competitive landscape
the technical landscape the talent
landscape the people you’re working with
what motivates them and to be able to
course-correct
and then it starts with awareness so I
couldn’t agree more on that I don’t
actually think with the stereo a
stereotype of a businessperson shredding
away over people to get to the top
generally speaking works I think if you
treat people well people will come back
and and come back for more and it’s a
very small world I actually think that
the you know the bet the best way of of
becoming a successful business leader is
is is dealing with people you know
fairly and and well and like to think
that’s how how we run virgin and I think
for all of you there are many areas
where there’s leverage available in the
world where you know one or two people a
good idea a lot of hard work can really
make a difference there’s many many
things like that and it’s good not to
forget that but it’s good to look for
those things googles mission is to
organize the world’s information and
make it universally accessible and
useful and one of the things that
surprised me that’s a very broad mission
it’s a lot of work we’re not going to
achieve it anytime soon right it’s
almost an impossible task but it’s an
exciting task and one that you can get
other people excited about and they can
help you
and one of the things that also
surprised me is sometimes easier to do
something that’s harder because other
people get excited about it and you can
get much more resource you can get
tremendous resources to solve a hard
problem or as you might only get minor
resources to solve a small problem
don’t be afraid to try whatever even if
it the idea in the beginning is stupid
yeah you know cuz a lot of ideas and
beginning stages not mine of course mine
are just insane from the moment I think
of them course but sometimes ideas you
know they’re not always the greatest ya
know I mean you don’t be afraid to fail
basically to get somewhere else to get
on the journey absolutely yeah so if you
say one thing that’s gonna spark another
thing to lead to a better thought yeah
be really excited in what you’re doing
love what you’re doing and don’t get
discouraged if things don’t work most of
the time things don’t work but pick
yourself up don’t you’ve got you expect
to fail but fail quickly and move on
don’t keep banging your head against the
same wall repeatedly but really be
excited what you’re doing and know that
it will be important why join LinkedIn
was the ability to make a difference in
the world in a very positive way you
look at the platform you look at the
vision about creating economic
opportunity I can’t think of a more
worthwhile purpose than investing in
tools that create economic opportunity
for people there there is no more
sustainable or profound way to change
the quality of an individual’s life in
my opinion then creating an economic
opportunity for them and in turn
improving the quality of the life’s of
their family the lives of the people
that they can create economic
opportunity for and in developing
countries you’re creating role models
for the next generation that didn’t even
know it was possible and that’s pretty
appealing to be able to make a
difference I love learning I’ve never
actually thought I was you know starting
a company as such I just saw situations
as I traveled in life where I felt I
could improve on the way things were
being done by other people so
and yes so I would you know one way
favorite phrases is screw it let’s do it
like I’ve used that phrase a lot of
times and we and and we’ve you know we
just love going in and trying to shake
up industries and doing it better than
it’s been done before you know anything
you can imagine probably is doable right
you just have to imagine it and work on
it and things that we thought were
almost impossible so we we were
interested in machine translation there
are services on the web we had licensed
one that which could translate between
different languages and obviously for
search you know if you can’t if the
information is not in your language we
can’t find it for you and most
information is not in your language
right this is sort of a by definition
and so we thought well be great if we
could provide search results from any
language for any query and so we’re
really focused on that problem and we
focused on it and we developed Google
Translate and we found some machine
learning researchers and we said do you
think you can translate you know between
any languages and do it better than an
average human translator and they said
they laughed at us he said no we can’t
possibly do that but they actually were
willing to try and you know six years
later we can translate between 64
languages and it’s amazing actually
we’re better many languages were better
than an average human translating I mean
do it instantly and for free and between
those 64 languages we can translate
between any two of the languages so we
have something like 4,000 languages we
can translate between and so I’m just
trying to give you
I guess I’m tremendously optimistic or
whatever things we try to challenge
whatever challenges we try to take on we
can solve with a little bit of concerted
effort and some good technology and I
think that’s a really exciting place to
be in the world so I think we want more
people working on it we want to have
more in business goals and I think with
that we could easily double kind of
human progress and the rate at which
were developing like always with
anything you got to take the good with
the
you know you might I understand it did
that the level of success that I’m at
doesn’t happen to everybody every day
but like you know there’s there’s new
problems you’re gonna have with with
everything if it wasn’t my success and I
was still trying to look for a job or
working a dead-end job and didn’t have
no money to eat with it would be those
kind of problems that I would have those
type of family problems how we gonna
feed Haley how we gonna raise her how we
gonna stay together how we gonna pay our
rent Jenna I mean so it would be so now
it’s new problems it’s like money’s not
the problem now it’s different things
other people interfering in our lives
and our business and like that so you
gotta take the good with the bad we do
not want to put our eggs in one basket
uh you know when the president said all
the above he really meant it you we have
fossil we have nuclear way of renewables
we need all these things we’ve got to
get some of these cleaned up a little
bit but it’s all this mix I think if you
talk to any utility company executive to
say you’re hanging it all on them in
your business where reliability and
delivery is so important you can’t just
say it’s all here you’ve got to
diversify that supply and it starts by
asking yourself the question what would
it take to make that dream or that
vision statement a reality and that
question what would it take
it’s incredibly powerful and liberating
and if you set your sights too low
sometimes you’ll never challenge
yourself to think bigger sometimes
you’ll never challenge yourself to
question conventional wisdom but by
asking the question what would it take
it unleashes all of this creative energy
and it unleashes the sense that anything
is possible and so we started asking
ourselves the question what would it
take to make the vision a reality what
would it take to not just connect the
world’s professionals 780 million people
but create economic opportunity for over
three billion people in the global world
yeah when we launched Virgin Atlantic 30
years ago the New York Times did a
review and they did some market research
and they said
you know first of all with a name like
virgin it’s not going to go the whole
way but but but say but secondly that
and they did market research which said
only 7% of people would fly on an
airline called virgin and and we put our
hands up and said 7% would be just fine
so so we carried on with it but there
are a lot of there were a lot of
skeptics out there and there always will
be lots of skeptics when when you want
to start something new everybody will
tell you why it’s a bad idea why you
shouldn’t do it why you’ll you know lose
everything you’ve got and in the end you
just gotta get out and try to prove them
wrong
but good luck so I’m gonna switch gears
and talk really briefly about
entrepreneurship so I’ll try to give you
some of the things I think are really
important that other people won’t tell
you or won’t stress as much and one of
those is really just don’t settle it’s
very very very important if you’re
starting company to have the right
people involved and I can’t stress that
enough I’ve been you know enormous ly
happy with people we’ve had involved at
Google with my co-founder and with Eric
and we took a long time to find these
people actually I’ve been working with
Sergey for a really long time but Eric
took us over a year to hire Eric and
just generally having great people
involved that you really like and that
are compatible with you and all those
things is tremendously important and
you’re never gonna question the equity
you gave up or any of the other things
so I can’t stress that enough the other
thing I think we really benefited from
is being real experts we worked on
Google for many years at Stanford before
we started the company and that was a
pretty nice position to be and we
understood sort of all aspects of search
we talked to all the search companies
for many years we really really knew a
lot about was going on and you can do
that pretty cheaply right it’s just your
labor right you can invest a year or two
or three years and really learn
something very very well before you
start having hundreds of people you know
working on the problem well I definitely
think that people have seen me push
boundaries and
maybe you know some people get inspired
to do the same thing but I got that from
other people you know I mean like
hip-hop has always been about seeing and
feeding off of you know getting inspired
from other MCS in the game you know
everybody gets inspired from everybody
you know and like I saw Dre do it you
know I’m saying in NWA and the way that
they push boundaries and it was kind of
like you know it’s every few years there
will be certain rappers that will come
along and do that and you know some some
tend to do it better than others are
push it further than others if you think
you can make a difference it requires
commitment it requires a thick skin
mm-hm it requires an inner compass that
I would recommend it you also as the
signed one would have to be able to
explain things at any level yeah and not
sound like you’re being condescending
mm-hmm that doesn’t work but but having
done that some of the best sciences I
know can explain the science truthfully
and accurately at any level from from
the deepest experts to to people who are
not really scientists or may not even
have an interest in science but to show
them that you know why do we think what
it is how can that be useful to society
you know I personally believe that
leadership is about the ability to
inspire others to achieve shared
objectives and I think the the most
important word there is inspire and I
think that’s what separates leaders from
managers managers tell people what to do
and leaders inspire them to do it and I
think inspiration largely emanates
emanates from three dimensions the first
is the clarity of your vision and what
mountain you’re trying to summit and
climb and the second is the courage of
your conviction because if you have true
vision and you want to try something
that hasn’t been done before there’s
gonna be a lot of naysayers there’s
gonna be a lot of skeptics there’s going
to be a lot of people who feel
threatened and try to get in your way
and you have to feel it deeply to be
able to overcome those challenges and
for people to want to follow you and if
you’re not authentic in that belief and
you don’t have true conviction they’re
not going to be behind you and then
lastly is the ability to effectively
communicate that vision and that
conviction and I think if leaders are in
a position where they can do those three
things that they can effectively inspire
and when you can inspire it it’s just a
matter of what objective you’re trying
to achieve and then ensuring that you’re
surrounding yourself with the absolute
best talent you can to make it a reality
I think the word business it becomes the
business but what you’re doing is you’re
you’re you know painting a pitch you’re
you’re trying to you’re trying to create
create something to make a difference to
other people’s lives you have a blank
canvas and you’re filling in in every
little bit of that canvas to get every
single little detail right and and if
that canvas you know sings out at you at
the end and it’s you know it’s a
beautiful picture your your business is
going to be successful if you know if
bits of the cameras are not quite right
your business may fail so if you set up
to change people’s lives you’ve got to
get every single little detail right and
you got to make sure that the people
that you’re working with a hundred
percent believe in what you’re trying to
do and you’ve got to you’ve got to make
sure that what you’re trying to do is
it’s worthwhile spending your time on
and at the end of the day you want to be
sure that you know that the people’s
lives you’ve affected you’ve really been
effective them and benefited them and
you know if you get all that right you
know hopefully you’ll be able to pay the
bills at the end of the year
recently I reorganized a bit to focus on
product areas and I think you know in
any company as it grows you know if the
company’s not static which shouldn’t be
you know has it grows and it changes you
know you need to reorganize it and just
question is you know are you keeping
ahead of that
and looking at the our business is
pretty complicated we have all these
different products we have advertising
we have search we have chrome we have
Android we have YouTube and so on and
those things are actually relatively
different they have different different
things going on so I think you know I
kind of moved that up a level in the
company and made sure that we were super
focused in each of those areas now what
our user experience was and I think
that’s that’s helped just generally as
you switch to a company as we got more
offices you know as we got time zone
differences we had to change how we did
our meetings change how we do our
employee communications and so on so I
just think you know and I technology
business is growing rapidly just need to
make sure you’re changing everything you
know you’re being responsive to that
change and changing everything you know
every year for us you’re just not
keeping up with it I was reserved and I
was shy and had it in me but wasn’t
quite sure how to bring it out yet I
wanted people to hear me so bad I want
to do my fit but it was like you know
them jitters and them I’m scared I’m not
scared
I hope struggle and everything
especially early on for me which I love
being on stage and stuff like that once
I got a mic I was cold but it was that
prompted me to do it and get up there
and not be scared to grab it and just
and just rock I feel like anybody can do
anything in set their mind to it depends
on how bad you want it and I wanted to
do it you know the stage of my life I
don’t feel like there’s too much that I
can’t do I don’t mean to sound cocky
enough but if I was like really really
want to do it I don’t give up that easy
I was a professor for many many years
and and my attitude always and when I
was working in Bell Labs sometimes I
would have an idea the management had go
and talk to them I want to do this they
kind of look at me know and my my
reaction was constantly okay not oh I’m
smart and they therefore know what’s
going on there say okay I went back and
I said hmm what didn’t I explain right
and then would go back and say okay this
is what I think now
once I would
three times and and my then boss’s boss
kind of looked as me up and he says see
if you’re gonna make argue about you
want to do that experiment I’ve got
better things to do he and actually let
me do it but never mind he wasn’t
thrilled but but I always come in with
the attitude that if you don’t if you
don’t succeed the first time try again
you something you know or they can try
to convince you they’re right that’s
part of this discussion you know I could
be wrong well you’re in the moment and
someone’s doing something that upsets
you were frustrates you we all have a
natural tendency to become very
emotional and part of managing
compassionately is having the
wherewithal to be a spectator to your
own thoughts especially when you become
emotional and get a little bit of that
distance and enables you to put yourself
in their shoes and ask yourself why are
they behaving the way that they’re
behaving there’s a wisdom potentially or
a rightness to how they’re behaving or
it could be a wisdom it could be in your
parlance a rightness it could be a
wrongness but they’re not to be blamed
for the wrongness yeah it’s not a blame
game if they’re angry at you maybe
they’re angry by virtue of something
that took place years ago had nothing to
do with you
and when that anger comes your way the
knee-jerk is gonna be to become angry in
response now they’re angry and you’re
angry and guess what happens I mean
every single one of us has been in that
situation probably every day I was just
someone just wrote me an email the other
day and they were angry about something
and I need jerked and I was frustrated
if not outright angry that they were
expressing themselves like that and then
I took a minute before I responded
thought to myself I wonder why they’re
so emotional about this and what can we
do about it and I ended up get on the
phone with them and I said are you
trying to solve a problem or are you
just trying to vent mm-hmm so I’d like
to solve this problem and I think it’s
too late and as a result I’m very angry
I said it’s never too late let’s focus
on solving the problem and then after
that let’s come back to how you
expressed yourself I would say the
overarching and key thing that really
binds the group together
is the idea of not just playing the game
but changing it for good
I think Richard embodies the principle
was better than anyone I’ve ever worked
with and anybody that I know because
he’s very focused on the business on
starting new businesses on making sure
that he’s got the right people in the
businesses but also on doing things
differently and really changing the game
and I think that it’s the combination of
those that sits in the pod is the great
entrepreneur of his generation I want to
talk about dreams for a second and in my
case literally a dream when I was in
college I was sure that I’ve been
admitted by a clerical error probably a
computer error and because of that I had
an irrational fear I’d be sent all on
the bus and Sergey sure knows this is
true but it turns out because of that
anxiety I woke up literally with a dream
it was kind of a strange dream it went
like I think I could download the entire
web on to some old computers that were
lying around and that would probably
seem pretty crazy to most people but I
stayed up a couple hours in the middle
of the night doing some math and it
seemed actually pretty plausible while
assuming he actually didn’t keep any of
the white pages you only kept the links
and then sort of figured outs given all
that data I thought I would take a
couple of weeks and I told my advisor
that and he just sort of laughed to me
and of course took a year or two but at
the end of that we had a way to rank web
pages and no thoughts to search at all
and eventually search entered the
picture and you know the rest
and that became Google
so next to her gentlemen following their
dreams you know back there if somebody
would call somebody out of the mic and I
think I ever called anybody out I always
got called out you know I’m saying you
know somebody had a mic in the old day
and the Whitewater there can get it too
so doodoo week break me down like how
would you break down an emcee I’m gonna
give you a pass to break me down if I
was an emcee just stuff in that you like
this you know if he was an emcee and you
would caught me out yeah well it was
dependent probably depend on what what
you what I said what you said to me in
order for me to throw it back but I’ll
say top of the head Slim Shady weaker
than the ankles on the elderly lady take
it in a mannequin holes in that old navy
screw it imma change your name
introducer slim Brady then I would say
to you off the top of your head that’s
not at the top of your head I’ll take
the turbulent the top of your head if
you flat on the ground dead yo I’m
number one and that suit right there is
the 1981 and first of all you don’t want
to step to me look at your shoes dog
they’re broken and broken and you look
at your gear you get them not here I
don’t want to have a kid
take another beer go take a sip here go
sit down
do yourself a favor because dog you’re a
clown and you know the best part about
it was no matter what somebody said to
the next person you shake hands
and it was it was all love yeah the
world is a deeply interwoven in space
and in time as Martin Luther King wrote
in his letter from a Birmingham jail 48
years ago he said we are tied in a
single garment of destiny
whatever affects one directly affects
all indirectly above all we must value
and protect the most innocent members of
our society the children of the world
yet to be born I end my remarks with a
nassif with the atra physicist Carl
Sagan and he wrote of an image taken by
Voyager 1 as it was leaving our solar
system in this picture earth appears as
a pale blue dot of light embedded in a
rainbow he says look again at that dot
that’s here that’s home that’s us on it
everyone you love everyone you know
everyone you ever heard of every human
being who ever was lived on this mote of
dust suspended in a sunbeam the earth is
the only world known so far to harbor
life like it or not this is where we
make our stand
this distant image of our tiny world
underscores our responsibility to deal
more kindly with one another and to
preserve and cherish the pale blue dot
the only home we’ve ever known
to this message I add an ancient Native
American saying treat the earth well it
was not given to you by your parents
it was loaned to you by your children my
advice would be don’t just optimize for
passion you have to optimize for both
passion and skill and for the
entrepreneur I would add a third
dimension which is the market and if you
can find the the convergence the nexus
of those three elements your passion
your skill and the market
and you’ve got the right timing of
course you know anything’s possible and
and for me it’s all about knowing what
it is you ultimately want to accomplish
thank you so much for watching I hope
you enjoyed I’d love to know what you
think of the video if you want to leave
a comment below do something great today
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
episode of Environment if you want to
accomplish great things you need to be
surrounded by greatness and so I hope
the clips that follow inspire you to
want to do something great I encourage
you to listen to them like you would
music so if you’re on your way to the
office
whether you’re at work whether you’re at
home use it as a background track to
your life to help you do something great
enjoy we think we ain’t about how hard
you hit how do you succeed if you don’t
try the time is now to be great you
gotta love it you gotta have passion you
really can make what you want I mean I
am dyslexic and and therefore I think
I’ve been very good at keeping things
simple because you know as a dyslexic I
need to need things to be simple for
myself and therefore virgin I think you
know when we launched a financial
service company or a bank you know we do
not use jargon it’s everything’s very
clear-cut very simple and and you know I
think people you know people have an
affinity to the Virgin brand because we
don’t you know we don’t talk above them
or talk down to them a lot of times my
shows people are not setting goals that
will be something that somebody is will
becomes rich or as could do anything you
got to be excited about working on that
for 10 years so you got to have a big
enough coal then you know you attract
the best people and you retain them and
you keep them focused then my experience
you don’t go wrong you know maybe you
don’t hit it next year or maybe you fail
entirely and you discover something more
exciting to work on with the same set of
people the first time I grabbed the mic
like though like in front of actual
people that mattered you know saying
like it at a club I got boo I remember
that was very traumatic for me and I’d
actually I think I at that point like
the 8-mile things time when I was right
yeah thank you for him or whatever so I
just remember that being so traumatic
and I think I went home like man up
I quit right and then you know maybe a
couple days later week later hour later
whatever I don’t know I just I got the
Earth’s like you know man I gotta I
gotta get up try to do it again life is
too short to go through it without
caring deeply about something do
something that matters do something that
matters beyond your immediate world and
when you’re an old and gray and look
back on your life you’ll want to be
proud of what you’ve done the source of
that pride won’t be the things you’ve
acquired or the recognition you’ve
received it will be the lies you’ve
touched and the difference you have made
because if you’re a true visionary
you’re gonna be seeing something that
other people don’t see or feel
threatened by because it’s going to
potentially disrupt the way that they’ve
always done things you have to believe
in what you’re doing you have to believe
in your vision with truly every fiber of
your being and that conviction provides
the courage to other people to pursue
the same and if you don’t feel it if you
are just going through the motions if
you’re using somebody else’s words
people will will sense that from a mile
away they need and want to pursue
authentic leadership I mean I think a
lot of people do not have the courage to
try to start a business and all I was
saying but I’ve written a book called
screw it just do it and it basically is
trying to say to people just give it a
try and she sometimes a very very small
amount of money is all that’s needed to
start a company I mean my mother found a
a bracelet on the street and she handed
into the police station and after three
months the police there to sell it and
you know the the couple of hundred
dollars was really critical at a
critical time in the development of our
business so it’s always safe just to
give it give it again and good luck on
that one one of the things that I’ve
been through as a student was some
leadership training and one of the
things they taught us was to have to not
be afraid of failure you know and
instead have the goal to fail a lot
quickly and then eventually you’ll
succeed and I sort of took this to heart
and now it’s not a slogan called healthy
disregard for the impossible and they
actually made you write down sort of the
things you would do that were kind of
impossible but you thought you might
really
and that’s really stuck with me and in
everything that I’ve tried to do and I
think you know it was very very close
that we wouldn’t have started the
company and I think there are many of
you out there in sort of similar
situations you know do you want to take
a little bit more risk do you want to
try something out and you know even if
you don’t succeed we’ve actually tried
many things that didn’t work you know
Google happens to work pretty well but
there are many things that we did that
didn’t but we don’t worry about those
right because we we tried many things so
I just encourage you to take a little
more risk in life and I think if you do
it often enough they will really pay off
I don’t think that my goal has changed
in a sense of you know from from just
from from this yeah I rap from the same
aspect of when I did when I was a kid
like I just wanted to get the respect I
just wanted to get a reaction out of
people I just wanted to be heard and I
wanted people to respect what I do and
respect the fact that I respect the
craft you know I mean of him seeing so
I’m really just kind of the scariest
pretty much the same thing today I think
when I stuck it both what I’ve done you
know certain sandwich you know has done
with a number of people then you cast
around and you look for areas that you
begin to see either a glimmer of a new
breakthrough type of thinking or the
some technology in this sector has been
left alone and not applied to that
sector and or there’s a just a need
based on an emerging market and those
are the things that actually are can be
real drivers for success innovation
first of all it’s a very human thing to
project your own perspective on others
it’s a it’s a very think common thing
and as a less experienced executive or a
leader or for anyone in the audience
that works with other people the
tendency will be to expect people to do
things the way you do them yeah it’s
very natural
and it’s it’s not the right way to
approach it you need to take a moment to
manage compassionately put yourself in
their shoes understand why they’re
coming with what they come with what is
their background what is their baggage
where are their anxieties what inspires
them where are their strengths their
weaknesses and that takes time and it
takes real investment in the knee-jerk
reaction is just to do things the way
you would normally do them and that’s
going to create a lot of dissonance and
so from that moment going forward I kind
of decided that would be a first
principle of management be managing
compassionate I think the most important
the most important thing about running a
company is to remember all the time what
a company is a company is simply a group
of people and as a leader of people you
have to be a great listener and you have
to be a great motivator you have to be
very good at praising and looking for
the best in people you know people are
no different from from flowers if you
water flowers they flourish if you
praise people they flourish and and
that’s a critical attribute of a leader
this is how we keep our innovation
running I think usually as companies get
bigger they find it really hard to have
small innovative projects and we have
this problem too for a while and we said
oh we really need a new concept you know
the Google Apps that’s a small project
that we’re not quite sure if it’s gonna
work or not but we hope it will and if
we do enough of them some of them will
really work and turn out such as news
but then we had a we had a problem
because then we had over a hundred
projects and I don’t know about all of
you but I have trouble keeping a hundred
things in my head at once and we found
that if we just throw it all of them
down and ordered them and these are kind
of made off I don’t really pay attention
to them
for example the the by Iceland was from
a media article we would never do such a
crazy thing
but in case we found if we just
basically wrote them all down and
ordered them that most people would
actually agree what the ordering should
be and this was kind of a surprise to me
but we found that as long as you keep
the hundred things in your head which
you did by writing them down that you
could do a pretty good job deciding what
to do and where to put your resources
and so that’s basically what we’ve done
since means tooth out of years ago and I
think has really allowed us to be
innovative and still stay reasonably
well organized hip-hop has always been
about bragging and boasted and I’m
better than you with this and I’m better
than you with that and I finally found
something that yeah this kid over here
you know he may have more chicks like he
may have better clothes or whatever but
he can’t do this like me you know I mean
he can’t write what I’m writing right
now and it started to feel like you know
maybe Marshalls getting a little respect
I used to when I was secretary of energy
I used to try to explain to people using
an analogy with Wayne Gretzky the great
hockey player yes really
arguably one of the best hockey players
there ever was and he’s pretty skinny
person right but fast and you say how
you know what made you different than
all the others and he said I skate to
where the puck is going to be not where
it’s been yes and I tried to explain and
I think it got some partial traction
look what’s happening with the
technology looks what’s happening yeah
you want to position yourself to see
this is where the world is going this is
what science and technology is going to
give us not I wish it were like it was
50 years ago and a hundred years ago
first and foremost is asking yourself a
pretty straightforward question
sometimes a little more challenging to
answer which is ultimately what is it
that you want to accomplish so look out
twenty to thirty years from now looking
back on your career what do you want to
say you did and I think when you’re
graduating school it’s it’s perfectly
reasonable to not necessarily know the
answer but you’d be surprised how many
people ten fifteen years into their
career still don’t know the answer to
the question because they get swept up
in the stream of opportunity you know a
promotion here an offer from a hot
company over there and they wake up one
day and they’re not happy and they’re
trying to figure out why it’s because
they never stopped to ask themselves
what it is that they ultimately want and
if you don’t know the answer to that
question try optimizing for two things
one is passion and the other skill and
it’s not one at the exclusion of the
other because that’ll lead to some
pretty suboptimal outcomes so that’s one
know what it is that you want to
accomplish as simple as it sounds
it’s really really important to is
surround yourself with great people I
used to think this was all about finding
the right boss or the right mentor but
it’s not just about the person above you
it’s about the people you work with your
peers and the people that work for you
it’s all about talent in this day and
age and so you have to surround yourself
with the best only the best and then
third is to always be learning and to
take great passion if you can in
improving yourself and to challenge
yourself you know there is there’s a
very thin dividing line between success
and failure when you start a business
from scratch and you know if you don’t
have enough money to pay the bills you
go the wrong side of that dividing line
and if you can somehow get enough money
to pay the bills
you stay the right side of that dividing
line you know I’ve always been running
running running faster than perhaps I
should me and I’ve have great difficulty
saying no to things so keep on taking on
new things and we’ve just managed to
stay the right side of the dividing line
over the last 50 years in business but
but equally in those early days when you
when you’re starting a business without
any financial backing it’s it’s it’s
easy to slip the wrong side and in fact
you know most entrepreneurs do do slip
the wrong side and the poor the
important thing is then just you know
pick yourself up and you know start
again and if it doesn’t work at that
time keep keep going until you do
succeed and not to give up you know I
talked a little bit about focusing the
company and you know I think that I want
to talk a little bit about making some
big bets and you know we always try to
concentrate on the long term well
doing for the long term and yeah I think
that you know many of the things we
started up that are really big now like
Chrome or seen as kind of crazy when we
launched them and so how do we decide
what to do or do you know how do we
decide what’s really important to work
on well I like to call the toothbrush
test so the tooth project asked is do
you use it as often as you use your
toothbrush and for most people I guess
that’s twice a day or is your hand twice
a day yeah okay most people so I think
you know we really want things like that
and I think things like Gmail obviously
use much more than twice a day and
YouTube you know I think that those
things are amazing and I think that you
know we look at things like YouTube
people thought oh you guys are never
going to make money with that you bought
it for 1.4 billion dollars you know
you’re totally crazy and we were
reasonably crazy but it was a good bet
and we’ve actually been doubling revenue
every year on YouTube for four years and
actually if you’re doubling things it
starts to add up pretty quickly even no
matter where you start from so I think
that’s a good example of the how it’s
sort of our philosophy is that we see
things that people use a lot that
they’re gonna that are gonna be really
important to them and we think that
usually you can make money from those
things over time you know a well-run
technology business can be monetized
over time I think one of my greatest
inspirations or things that our feed off
of basically was just obviously people
not believing in you know the cloud of
doubt they kind of I felt hung over my
head and wanted to just prove everybody
wrong you know I mean I wanted to make
it and I was gonna make it regardless of
what anybody said when I got the Nobel
Prize I was asked to write an
autobiography
our life than our intellectual
development and in writing that I
remembered vividly the profound impact
that my high school physics teacher mr.
minor played in my intellectual
development in the 12th grade it was the
final exam I kind of flubbed the
question and then he read written in the
margin I’m disappointed
he wasn’t trying to teach his facts he
was actually trying to teach us a
learning process learning whether you
understand something or not was probably
the most important thing I began to
learn in his class that lesson I took
with me not only through college and
graduate school but from my entire
career as a business I’m Steven Chu on
the US Secretary of Energy we need a new
generation of teachers to join those
already in the classroom invest in the
future inspire a generation of children
teach it’s all about the conversation
and it’s very rarely if ever about
actually selling and as soon as someone
comes in to see me and they open up a
PowerPoint presentation they’ve
essentially lost me I think most
effective interactions of this sort
start with you know first of all some
ice breaking getting to know the other
person but then a simple question which
is what can I help you with you know
what what are your objectives what are
your priorities what are you trying to
solve for and then determining how in
this case if we’re on the selling end
how LinkedIn can benefit your
organization and really make it a
conversation and I think that makes all
the difference in the world just
starting from there similarly you know I
feel all too often people have a
tendency this is kind of classic public
speaking effective public speaking but
you got to know your audience and it’s
not necessarily about what you know and
what you want to present it’s about what
your audience wants to hear and why
they’re there you know they’re taking
time out of their schedule to be there
why have they come to the meeting what
are they hoping to get out of it and as
tempted as we’re all going to be to
stick to the material that we’ve
prepared that’s really for our benefit
and perhaps we’re going to end up using
some of that because it’s relevant for
the audience but I think it’s really
important on
stand what it is that the folks are
trying to connect with what what they’re
trying to learn more about and and how
we can benefit them I think the next
stage is you know is to be a great
delegator and not try to do everything
yourself try to find people who are
better than you all the time try to find
people are better than you to put you
put you out of business effectively so
you know whatever you’re spending all
your day doing try to find someone who’s
better than you to do that to replace
you at it so that you know you can go
off and you know think about the next
big picture you know an entrepreneur is
not a man I’m not a manager I mean an
entrepreneur somebody who is great at
conceiving ideas starting and starting
ideas built building ideas but then
handing over to really good managers to
manage the businesses you know the
moment you got more than one business
you can’t be hands on doing everything I
think a lot of companies not so much
these days but still got started because
some space is hot and honestly I don’t
think that’s very good reason to start a
company and in fact we see you know
hundreds or thousands of people come to
us who want to commercialize something
or want us to collaborate with their
business and we actually look at these
and I look at saw quite a few of them
and my guess is like one one a year we
are interested in so you know the trick
is to have the one that somebody’s gonna
be interested because it’s a good idea
and not so you know be one of the
thousands that come through all the time
and I think you know if you’re the one
good good dealer they have a good idea
you really understand the area you’re in
you know the funding environment doesn’t
matter it doesn’t matter whether it’s a
hot area yeah I guarantee you be able to
get people interested in helping you out
I don’t know how we describe muscle
though I think you know I develop to
slow them
so many other different artists like I
was inspired by letting I’ll have to say
you like barley home ll Beastie Boys
when he obscene and if he came you know
and rock him and kind of started wanting
to maybe Kool G Rap Kara’s one Treach
from Naughty by Nature
so I had him you know I was a student in
hip hop so it was like I just got watch
that study with everybody get in a game
and just you know try to develop my own
kind of sound and it took me a long time
to get but you know I just kind of watch
what everybody was doing was kind of
sponge and soap that anything when you
look at new technologies and you’re
looking that there could be you know
sinkhole wild claims but you know what
is the quote theoretical limitations but
not theoretical the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle you know there’s a
lower theory this is beyond this it’s
just you know it’s not gonna make it
and then just where is the technology
and then you say how much space is there
between that that realistically you can
get there in five years okay and and
that actually helps define things and
and focuses the mind and what you should
be thinking about what you shouldn’t be
thinking about so there are many things
like that I think successful innovators
do all the time the constructive
feedback that honest feedback is exactly
what we were establishing an RPE that’s
now being infecting the rest of the
departments or energy you know if you
hear an idea that you don’t really agree
with instead of lightly sitting there
and being polite you say no I you know
that I don’t think that’s right you know
this is why you know you’re wrong and
then and then you sit at a table and you
talk about it and that’s where you
figure out are you right are you wrong
and then you have a deeper understanding
of what’s going on I think one of the
things that all really strong leaders
have is extraordinary awareness
and what I’ve noticed is these
individuals have the ability to read and
take the pulse of a room whether it’s
talking to one individual their staffs
of ten or twelve people or a group of
1,800 and to be able in real-time while
expressing themselves and while
communicating and while thinking to be
able to take in what’s happening yeah
and that awareness enables them to
course-correct
hmm and that is such an important part
of leadership is that course correction
in every moment ideally I don’t know
that people always have that luxury but
moment to moment hour to hour day to day
quarter to quarter year to year it’s
being able to understand your
environment the competitive landscape
the technical landscape the talent
landscape the people you’re working with
what motivates them and to be able to
course-correct
and then it starts with awareness so I
couldn’t agree more on that I don’t
actually think with the stereo a
stereotype of a businessperson shredding
away over people to get to the top
generally speaking works I think if you
treat people well people will come back
and and come back for more and it’s a
very small world I actually think that
the you know the bet the best way of of
becoming a successful business leader is
is is dealing with people you know
fairly and and well and like to think
that’s how how we run virgin and I think
for all of you there are many areas
where there’s leverage available in the
world where you know one or two people a
good idea a lot of hard work can really
make a difference there’s many many
things like that and it’s good not to
forget that but it’s good to look for
those things googles mission is to
organize the world’s information and
make it universally accessible and
useful and one of the things that
surprised me that’s a very broad mission
it’s a lot of work we’re not going to
achieve it anytime soon right it’s
almost an impossible task but it’s an
exciting task and one that you can get
other people excited about and they can
help you
and one of the things that also
surprised me is sometimes easier to do
something that’s harder because other
people get excited about it and you can
get much more resource you can get
tremendous resources to solve a hard
problem or as you might only get minor
resources to solve a small problem
don’t be afraid to try whatever even if
it the idea in the beginning is stupid
yeah you know cuz a lot of ideas and
beginning stages not mine of course mine
are just insane from the moment I think
of them course but sometimes ideas you
know they’re not always the greatest ya
know I mean you don’t be afraid to fail
basically to get somewhere else to get
on the journey absolutely yeah so if you
say one thing that’s gonna spark another
thing to lead to a better thought yeah
be really excited in what you’re doing
love what you’re doing and don’t get
discouraged if things don’t work most of
the time things don’t work but pick
yourself up don’t you’ve got you expect
to fail but fail quickly and move on
don’t keep banging your head against the
same wall repeatedly but really be
excited what you’re doing and know that
it will be important why join LinkedIn
was the ability to make a difference in
the world in a very positive way you
look at the platform you look at the
vision about creating economic
opportunity I can’t think of a more
worthwhile purpose than investing in
tools that create economic opportunity
for people there there is no more
sustainable or profound way to change
the quality of an individual’s life in
my opinion then creating an economic
opportunity for them and in turn
improving the quality of the life’s of
their family the lives of the people
that they can create economic
opportunity for and in developing
countries you’re creating role models
for the next generation that didn’t even
know it was possible and that’s pretty
appealing to be able to make a
difference I love learning I’ve never
actually thought I was you know starting
a company as such I just saw situations
as I traveled in life where I felt I
could improve on the way things were
being done by other people so
and yes so I would you know one way
favorite phrases is screw it let’s do it
like I’ve used that phrase a lot of
times and we and and we’ve you know we
just love going in and trying to shake
up industries and doing it better than
it’s been done before you know anything
you can imagine probably is doable right
you just have to imagine it and work on
it and things that we thought were
almost impossible so we we were
interested in machine translation there
are services on the web we had licensed
one that which could translate between
different languages and obviously for
search you know if you can’t if the
information is not in your language we
can’t find it for you and most
information is not in your language
right this is sort of a by definition
and so we thought well be great if we
could provide search results from any
language for any query and so we’re
really focused on that problem and we
focused on it and we developed Google
Translate and we found some machine
learning researchers and we said do you
think you can translate you know between
any languages and do it better than an
average human translator and they said
they laughed at us he said no we can’t
possibly do that but they actually were
willing to try and you know six years
later we can translate between 64
languages and it’s amazing actually
we’re better many languages were better
than an average human translating I mean
do it instantly and for free and between
those 64 languages we can translate
between any two of the languages so we
have something like 4,000 languages we
can translate between and so I’m just
trying to give you
I guess I’m tremendously optimistic or
whatever things we try to challenge
whatever challenges we try to take on we
can solve with a little bit of concerted
effort and some good technology and I
think that’s a really exciting place to
be in the world so I think we want more
people working on it we want to have
more in business goals and I think with
that we could easily double kind of
human progress and the rate at which
were developing like always with
anything you got to take the good with
the
you know you might I understand it did
that the level of success that I’m at
doesn’t happen to everybody every day
but like you know there’s there’s new
problems you’re gonna have with with
everything if it wasn’t my success and I
was still trying to look for a job or
working a dead-end job and didn’t have
no money to eat with it would be those
kind of problems that I would have those
type of family problems how we gonna
feed Haley how we gonna raise her how we
gonna stay together how we gonna pay our
rent Jenna I mean so it would be so now
it’s new problems it’s like money’s not
the problem now it’s different things
other people interfering in our lives
and our business and like that so you
gotta take the good with the bad we do
not want to put our eggs in one basket
uh you know when the president said all
the above he really meant it you we have
fossil we have nuclear way of renewables
we need all these things we’ve got to
get some of these cleaned up a little
bit but it’s all this mix I think if you
talk to any utility company executive to
say you’re hanging it all on them in
your business where reliability and
delivery is so important you can’t just
say it’s all here you’ve got to
diversify that supply and it starts by
asking yourself the question what would
it take to make that dream or that
vision statement a reality and that
question what would it take
it’s incredibly powerful and liberating
and if you set your sights too low
sometimes you’ll never challenge
yourself to think bigger sometimes
you’ll never challenge yourself to
question conventional wisdom but by
asking the question what would it take
it unleashes all of this creative energy
and it unleashes the sense that anything
is possible and so we started asking
ourselves the question what would it
take to make the vision a reality what
would it take to not just connect the
world’s professionals 780 million people
but create economic opportunity for over
three billion people in the global world
yeah when we launched Virgin Atlantic 30
years ago the New York Times did a
review and they did some market research
and they said
you know first of all with a name like
virgin it’s not going to go the whole
way but but but say but secondly that
and they did market research which said
only 7% of people would fly on an
airline called virgin and and we put our
hands up and said 7% would be just fine
so so we carried on with it but there
are a lot of there were a lot of
skeptics out there and there always will
be lots of skeptics when when you want
to start something new everybody will
tell you why it’s a bad idea why you
shouldn’t do it why you’ll you know lose
everything you’ve got and in the end you
just gotta get out and try to prove them
wrong
but good luck so I’m gonna switch gears
and talk really briefly about
entrepreneurship so I’ll try to give you
some of the things I think are really
important that other people won’t tell
you or won’t stress as much and one of
those is really just don’t settle it’s
very very very important if you’re
starting company to have the right
people involved and I can’t stress that
enough I’ve been you know enormous ly
happy with people we’ve had involved at
Google with my co-founder and with Eric
and we took a long time to find these
people actually I’ve been working with
Sergey for a really long time but Eric
took us over a year to hire Eric and
just generally having great people
involved that you really like and that
are compatible with you and all those
things is tremendously important and
you’re never gonna question the equity
you gave up or any of the other things
so I can’t stress that enough the other
thing I think we really benefited from
is being real experts we worked on
Google for many years at Stanford before
we started the company and that was a
pretty nice position to be and we
understood sort of all aspects of search
we talked to all the search companies
for many years we really really knew a
lot about was going on and you can do
that pretty cheaply right it’s just your
labor right you can invest a year or two
or three years and really learn
something very very well before you
start having hundreds of people you know
working on the problem well I definitely
think that people have seen me push
boundaries and
maybe you know some people get inspired
to do the same thing but I got that from
other people you know I mean like
hip-hop has always been about seeing and
feeding off of you know getting inspired
from other MCS in the game you know
everybody gets inspired from everybody
you know and like I saw Dre do it you
know I’m saying in NWA and the way that
they push boundaries and it was kind of
like you know it’s every few years there
will be certain rappers that will come
along and do that and you know some some
tend to do it better than others are
push it further than others if you think
you can make a difference it requires
commitment it requires a thick skin
mm-hm it requires an inner compass that
I would recommend it you also as the
signed one would have to be able to
explain things at any level yeah and not
sound like you’re being condescending
mm-hmm that doesn’t work but but having
done that some of the best sciences I
know can explain the science truthfully
and accurately at any level from from
the deepest experts to to people who are
not really scientists or may not even
have an interest in science but to show
them that you know why do we think what
it is how can that be useful to society
you know I personally believe that
leadership is about the ability to
inspire others to achieve shared
objectives and I think the the most
important word there is inspire and I
think that’s what separates leaders from
managers managers tell people what to do
and leaders inspire them to do it and I
think inspiration largely emanates
emanates from three dimensions the first
is the clarity of your vision and what
mountain you’re trying to summit and
climb and the second is the courage of
your conviction because if you have true
vision and you want to try something
that hasn’t been done before there’s
gonna be a lot of naysayers there’s
gonna be a lot of skeptics there’s going
to be a lot of people who feel
threatened and try to get in your way
and you have to feel it deeply to be
able to overcome those challenges and
for people to want to follow you and if
you’re not authentic in that belief and
you don’t have true conviction they’re
not going to be behind you and then
lastly is the ability to effectively
communicate that vision and that
conviction and I think if leaders are in
a position where they can do those three
things that they can effectively inspire
and when you can inspire it it’s just a
matter of what objective you’re trying
to achieve and then ensuring that you’re
surrounding yourself with the absolute
best talent you can to make it a reality
I think the word business it becomes the
business but what you’re doing is you’re
you’re you know painting a pitch you’re
you’re trying to you’re trying to create
create something to make a difference to
other people’s lives you have a blank
canvas and you’re filling in in every
little bit of that canvas to get every
single little detail right and and if
that canvas you know sings out at you at
the end and it’s you know it’s a
beautiful picture your your business is
going to be successful if you know if
bits of the cameras are not quite right
your business may fail so if you set up
to change people’s lives you’ve got to
get every single little detail right and
you got to make sure that the people
that you’re working with a hundred
percent believe in what you’re trying to
do and you’ve got to you’ve got to make
sure that what you’re trying to do is
it’s worthwhile spending your time on
and at the end of the day you want to be
sure that you know that the people’s
lives you’ve affected you’ve really been
effective them and benefited them and
you know if you get all that right you
know hopefully you’ll be able to pay the
bills at the end of the year
recently I reorganized a bit to focus on
product areas and I think you know in
any company as it grows you know if the
company’s not static which shouldn’t be
you know has it grows and it changes you
know you need to reorganize it and just
question is you know are you keeping
ahead of that
and looking at the our business is
pretty complicated we have all these
different products we have advertising
we have search we have chrome we have
Android we have YouTube and so on and
those things are actually relatively
different they have different different
things going on so I think you know I
kind of moved that up a level in the
company and made sure that we were super
focused in each of those areas now what
our user experience was and I think
that’s that’s helped just generally as
you switch to a company as we got more
offices you know as we got time zone
differences we had to change how we did
our meetings change how we do our
employee communications and so on so I
just think you know and I technology
business is growing rapidly just need to
make sure you’re changing everything you
know you’re being responsive to that
change and changing everything you know
every year for us you’re just not
keeping up with it I was reserved and I
was shy and had it in me but wasn’t
quite sure how to bring it out yet I
wanted people to hear me so bad I want
to do my fit but it was like you know
them jitters and them I’m scared I’m not
scared
I hope struggle and everything
especially early on for me which I love
being on stage and stuff like that once
I got a mic I was cold but it was that
prompted me to do it and get up there
and not be scared to grab it and just
and just rock I feel like anybody can do
anything in set their mind to it depends
on how bad you want it and I wanted to
do it you know the stage of my life I
don’t feel like there’s too much that I
can’t do I don’t mean to sound cocky
enough but if I was like really really
want to do it I don’t give up that easy
I was a professor for many many years
and and my attitude always and when I
was working in Bell Labs sometimes I
would have an idea the management had go
and talk to them I want to do this they
kind of look at me know and my my
reaction was constantly okay not oh I’m
smart and they therefore know what’s
going on there say okay I went back and
I said hmm what didn’t I explain right
and then would go back and say okay this
is what I think now
once I would
three times and and my then boss’s boss
kind of looked as me up and he says see
if you’re gonna make argue about you
want to do that experiment I’ve got
better things to do he and actually let
me do it but never mind he wasn’t
thrilled but but I always come in with
the attitude that if you don’t if you
don’t succeed the first time try again
you something you know or they can try
to convince you they’re right that’s
part of this discussion you know I could
be wrong well you’re in the moment and
someone’s doing something that upsets
you were frustrates you we all have a
natural tendency to become very
emotional and part of managing
compassionately is having the
wherewithal to be a spectator to your
own thoughts especially when you become
emotional and get a little bit of that
distance and enables you to put yourself
in their shoes and ask yourself why are
they behaving the way that they’re
behaving there’s a wisdom potentially or
a rightness to how they’re behaving or
it could be a wisdom it could be in your
parlance a rightness it could be a
wrongness but they’re not to be blamed
for the wrongness yeah it’s not a blame
game if they’re angry at you maybe
they’re angry by virtue of something
that took place years ago had nothing to
do with you
and when that anger comes your way the
knee-jerk is gonna be to become angry in
response now they’re angry and you’re
angry and guess what happens I mean
every single one of us has been in that
situation probably every day I was just
someone just wrote me an email the other
day and they were angry about something
and I need jerked and I was frustrated
if not outright angry that they were
expressing themselves like that and then
I took a minute before I responded
thought to myself I wonder why they’re
so emotional about this and what can we
do about it and I ended up get on the
phone with them and I said are you
trying to solve a problem or are you
just trying to vent mm-hmm so I’d like
to solve this problem and I think it’s
too late and as a result I’m very angry
I said it’s never too late let’s focus
on solving the problem and then after
that let’s come back to how you
expressed yourself I would say the
overarching and key thing that really
binds the group together
is the idea of not just playing the game
but changing it for good
I think Richard embodies the principle
was better than anyone I’ve ever worked
with and anybody that I know because
he’s very focused on the business on
starting new businesses on making sure
that he’s got the right people in the
businesses but also on doing things
differently and really changing the game
and I think that it’s the combination of
those that sits in the pod is the great
entrepreneur of his generation I want to
talk about dreams for a second and in my
case literally a dream when I was in
college I was sure that I’ve been
admitted by a clerical error probably a
computer error and because of that I had
an irrational fear I’d be sent all on
the bus and Sergey sure knows this is
true but it turns out because of that
anxiety I woke up literally with a dream
it was kind of a strange dream it went
like I think I could download the entire
web on to some old computers that were
lying around and that would probably
seem pretty crazy to most people but I
stayed up a couple hours in the middle
of the night doing some math and it
seemed actually pretty plausible while
assuming he actually didn’t keep any of
the white pages you only kept the links
and then sort of figured outs given all
that data I thought I would take a
couple of weeks and I told my advisor
that and he just sort of laughed to me
and of course took a year or two but at
the end of that we had a way to rank web
pages and no thoughts to search at all
and eventually search entered the
picture and you know the rest
and that became Google
so next to her gentlemen following their
dreams you know back there if somebody
would call somebody out of the mic and I
think I ever called anybody out I always
got called out you know I’m saying you
know somebody had a mic in the old day
and the Whitewater there can get it too
so doodoo week break me down like how
would you break down an emcee I’m gonna
give you a pass to break me down if I
was an emcee just stuff in that you like
this you know if he was an emcee and you
would caught me out yeah well it was
dependent probably depend on what what
you what I said what you said to me in
order for me to throw it back but I’ll
say top of the head Slim Shady weaker
than the ankles on the elderly lady take
it in a mannequin holes in that old navy
screw it imma change your name
introducer slim Brady then I would say
to you off the top of your head that’s
not at the top of your head I’ll take
the turbulent the top of your head if
you flat on the ground dead yo I’m
number one and that suit right there is
the 1981 and first of all you don’t want
to step to me look at your shoes dog
they’re broken and broken and you look
at your gear you get them not here I
don’t want to have a kid
take another beer go take a sip here go
sit down
do yourself a favor because dog you’re a
clown and you know the best part about
it was no matter what somebody said to
the next person you shake hands
and it was it was all love yeah the
world is a deeply interwoven in space
and in time as Martin Luther King wrote
in his letter from a Birmingham jail 48
years ago he said we are tied in a
single garment of destiny
whatever affects one directly affects
all indirectly above all we must value
and protect the most innocent members of
our society the children of the world
yet to be born I end my remarks with a
nassif with the atra physicist Carl
Sagan and he wrote of an image taken by
Voyager 1 as it was leaving our solar
system in this picture earth appears as
a pale blue dot of light embedded in a
rainbow he says look again at that dot
that’s here that’s home that’s us on it
everyone you love everyone you know
everyone you ever heard of every human
being who ever was lived on this mote of
dust suspended in a sunbeam the earth is
the only world known so far to harbor
life like it or not this is where we
make our stand
this distant image of our tiny world
underscores our responsibility to deal
more kindly with one another and to
preserve and cherish the pale blue dot
the only home we’ve ever known
to this message I add an ancient Native
American saying treat the earth well it
was not given to you by your parents
it was loaned to you by your children my
advice would be don’t just optimize for
passion you have to optimize for both
passion and skill and for the
entrepreneur I would add a third
dimension which is the market and if you
can find the the convergence the nexus
of those three elements your passion
your skill and the market
and you’ve got the right timing of
course you know anything’s possible and
and for me it’s all about knowing what
it is you ultimately want to accomplish
thank you so much for watching I hope
you enjoyed I’d love to know what you
think of the video if you want to leave
a comment below do something great today
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
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