I spend at least a week a year where I
just read people’s PhD theses and new
things that are going on in the field
you’ll believe the prime ingredient of
his success was his early fascination
with computers you have to understand
when you spend your time thinking
intensely about a field from the very
young age which my case is you know as
13 or 14 when I started to get involved
that’s where you can do great things is
because your mind has really gotten into
it you understand it one of the ideas
that excite you or is it just customers
customers first second is the last
century a company if you want to grow I
believe you should find a good
opportunity but today this was an L lack
opportunity the today if you want to be
a great company think about what problem
you can solve it’s not to catch the
opportunity it’s about solving the
social risk problems if you pick a
company like Alibaba will bring so fast
it’s very difficult for one opportunity
that can make us lost such organization
with the power power by Internet with
millions of millions of SMEs with 400
million consumers what kind of problem
can solve and I’m exciting it we mention
about cloud computing and talking about
the mobile things anything that’s
happened in the USA is it gonna happen
in China there is an amazing degree to
which people’s ambitions get beaten out
of them in the end these are in these
top universities if I look at what
people thought my senior year in high
school sort of like we’re very ambitious
that all these ideas what they were
gonna do and if you looked at the same
people at sort of college plus five
years sort of nine years later let’s say
it was amazing how much things have been
ratcheted down so I I do think there’s
something problematic where all the
talented people go to these schools
they’re sort of evaluated on the same
terms and at the end at the end a lot of
ambitions are beaten out of them and
probably the one that I think is
even worse for people than Harvard in
this respect might be a might be Caltech
where you have you know these brilliant
math physics people and after four years
we’re in the middle of your class you’re
convinced that the most you can do with
your life has become a line engineer at
Lockheed and maybe you can go into
mid-level management twenty years later
and so that that is that sort of is
characteristic of what I think has
happened and what what I think we need
to somehow find a way back to is is this
idea that that there’s not just a single
track that there are very different
things you can do you know the question
you know what truth do you know that
nobody agrees with you on the the sort
of career version this is what what are
you really good at that other people
aren’t that good at or or something like
that and that’s and that somehow gets
discouraged by this by this incredible
modernization and big ambitions get
discouraged I think that you think every
way the you end everyone when that’s
true of all of us I suppose we he decide
we can make it in certain line and do
things a little move ahead step by step
but they kind of yeah there’s always the
ambition to be a founder that if that
seems to be knocked out the whole both
the institutions and the mindset that
permeates the institutions is almost to
denial that that ambition is reasonable
or even possible well there’s a sense
that they’re all these people who are
ahead of you so there’s always a sense
there’s so many people who are who are
much better or just as good as you so
who are you to think that you can do
anything on anything different and
obviously when everybody starts to think
that nobody does anything in fact it
becomes self-fulfilling once again and
you know for me so much of the lesson
that that I I feel like I’ve learned is
I feel like it’s really hard to decide
to start a company right you know
Facebook I didn’t started to start a
company I started it because I really
wanted this thing personally and I
believed that it should exist globally
although I wasn’t quite sure that that
we would be able to play a role in doing
that it was mostly just through kind of
like wanting to build it and having it
be this hobby and getting people around
me excited that it eventually kind of
evolved into and got the momentum to
become a company but I never really
understood the psychology of deciding
that you want to start a company before
you understand what you want to do and
this gets back to the question of why
did we why did we first open it at
colleges that had competitors all right
I have this big fear I think of getting
locked into doing things that aren’t
actually the most impactful things I’m
to me this is like the trait that
entrepreneurs have is they just have
this like laser-like ability to go find
where they can have the most impact and
you know when you take on a new project
especially if you hire people or start a
company you’re doing that project and I
mean there are ways they’re obviously
different ways that it can exit and all
that but I think having the flexibility
to explore a lot of different things
which you can do when you’re in college
which is one of the amazing things about
being in college is you can work on all
these hobbies and and encode a lot of
stuff and try a lot of different things
it’s this amazing flexibility that I
think most people take for granted and
once you decide okay I’m gonna start a
company and I’m gonna do it with someone
else you immediately now need to
convince someone else if you want to
change your mind on something and I
think people really undervalued the
option value and flexibility I think
explore what you want to do before
committing is really like the key thing
and keep yourself flexible and no I
think that that’s yeah I agree yeah but
I think you can definitely do that
within the framework of a company but I
think you have to be wary about starting
a company too rigidly because you’re
gonna change what you do I mean people
talk about pivots all the time as if
it’s like it didn’t didn’t your thing
didn’t work so you pivoted Facebook
pivoted many times I mean just that you
know we kind of we’d work college and
then we were not college and then we
were just a website and then we were a
platform right and um you’re gonna
change what you do there’s another word
for the kind of pivots you’re talking
about expansions oh that’s not what
people usually mean by pivoting well you
know right flexibility follow your
instincts very easy to say be incredibly
everybody when they’re wondering about
what they should do after college or
after university you have the weight of
expectations on your shoulders you have
college bills that you might have to pay
you have parents
who have expectations for you in a
particular direction and whether you
like it or not subconsciously you carry
all that stuff with you and if you want
to go in a different direction from what
you’ve been spent your the previous 20
25 years of your life almost being
programmed to go and do that’s a very
difficult thing to do what matters
eventually is the quality of the
investment decisions made and the acuity
with with which those are made and it’s
somewhat similar to the analogy that
people used to make when newspapers were
read more frequently than they are today
which is not to get sucked up into
believing your own headlines and so I
think especially in the today’s era
humility also goes a long way
particularly in which if you don’t make
the decisions correctly can hand you out
a right royal spanking no matter how
high your public profile do you believe
there will be another steve job in this
5 to 10 years no anymore than I believe
there’ll be another Larry Page or Mark
Zuckerberg or Bill Gates they’re each
very distinctive personalities now if
the question is is there somebody whose
name we don’t know today who 20 years
from now will be very well-known because
of a company that he or she started
absolutely yes do I think Sequoia is the
preeminent venture firm I don’t I think
I think I always feel we’re always one
though we can never take anything for
granted and we’re only as good as our
next investment the advice that people
should follow their instincts whether I
could say a little bit more about that I
think it helps if you try and enter an
environment where you think you can
learn a lot whether that’s inside a
organization doesn’t have to be a
company it can be some other
organization or around people that you
put
I admire that you can learn a lot from
and I think that just helps expand one’s
horizons also gives the individual a
sense of what excellence is really like
how realistic is it for a company to do
b2c and b2b at the same time we I’m sure
there are examples of companies that
have pulled it off
I just think right at the beginning you
have to concentrate on doing one thing
super well and once you’ve done that the
second thing becomes easier particularly
if you’re dealing with it’s one thing to
sell precisely the same product to both
audiences and if you can do that bless
your heart
so it’s it’s a it’s a good thing to do
but I think it’s very detail in the
product differently I think that’s a
very dangerous thing for a company to do
right at the start you know it’s no
coincidence Apple under under Steve Jobs
was not prepared to compromise a change
and alter its products to please
corporations they would build products
and if corporations wanted to buy them
so be it but they weren’t going to come
up with with special products it was an
approach that obviously served them very
well and then as you know there are
plenty of examples of other companies
that have over time succeeded with two
different sorts of distribution channels
plenty of examples for that but at the
beginning I think simplicity is a virtue
so I think that’s really important
especially for young people to actually
do that self-assessment and find that
passion do you have any advice I think
many many kids and many grown-ups do
figure out over time what their passions
are and sometimes we let our I don’t
think it’s that hard I think what
happens though sometimes is that we let
our intellectual selves overrule those
passions and so that’s what needs to be
guarded against kids are very good about
knowing what their passions are I love
that act because I think I’ve seen you
describe this way that you’ve always
maintained that sense of wonder I think
that’s what kids have but we
that somehow along the way yes you
everybody it’s a gift if you can keep
your childlike sense of wonder and it
helps with creativity it helps to have
fun you know you laugh more and play
more if you keep that childlike sense of
wonder what we’re really focused on is
thinking long-term putting the customer
at the center of our universe and
inventing those are the three big ideas
I don’t think that you can invent on
behalf of customers unless you’re
willing to think long term because a lot
of invention doesn’t work if you’re
going to invent it means you’re going to
experiment you have to think long term
so these three ideas customer centricity
long term thinking and a passion for
invention those go together that’s how
we do it and by the way we have a lot of
fun doing it that way amazing about your
success is that you actually your timing
was good too how does an innovator
actually identify that historical
momentum with that Kitty Hawk moment you
recognize what was happening with the
Internet and you said you know what
there’s actually a room for me to start
with ebooks and they move on how do you
do that how do you find the time and the
momentum the zeitgeist I think everybody
has their own passion their own thing
that they’re interested in and then
you’re very alert to the things that
that are in the sphere of influence of
that passion so your passion has led you
to change the world frankly with Amazon
but yet you’ve got Blue Origin you’ve
got Bezos exploration this why can’t
something like you just rest on your
laurels well I you know I love what I do
I also have four kids I have wife that I
love I have a lot of passions and
interests but I one of them is the pace
of change I love the fact that I get to
work with these smart big smart teams
the people I work with are so smart and
they’re all they’re self selected for
loving to invent on behalf of customers
and so you know it’s not Malev every
moment of every day no that’s why they
call it work there’s you know there’s
always there are things that I
with that I don’t enjoy but if I’m
really objective about it and I look at
it I’m so lucky to be working alongside
all these passionate people and I love
it how do you remain nimble because
there is somebody in their dorm room who
could eat you up for lunch the next day
you know I my belief on this is first of
all that’s completely correct and you
can’t
it can never sure anybody that that
can’t happen but I think if you have a
customer-centric culture that cures a
lot of ills because we wake up if let’s
say you’re the leader in a particular
arena if your competitor focused and
you’re already the leader then where
does your energy come from whereas if
your customer focused and you’re already
the leader customers are never satisfied
so you always if your customer focused
you’re always waking up how can we make
that customer say wow how can we you
know our energy our passionate we want
to impress our customers we want them to
say wow is that kind of divine
discontent it comes from observing
customers and noticing that you know
things can also always a sense that
people have that it’s really hard to
come with answers all the answers have
already been discovered in one way or
another and I think that’s not the case
and I I sort of um I sort of divide
things up into conventions which are
things everybody knows to be true the
other extreme there are mysteries things
that nobody can figure out and in
between are these things that I call
secrets which are things that you could
figure out they’re hard but if you
really work at it you could you could
figure something out and and one one
thought that I have is that there are
many secrets left to be discovered I
actually think that this is a somewhat
non-conventional view because I think
the conventional view is that most
secrets have been discovered and that
there’s nothing new to find and so and
this is certainly is it is true
certainly of certain domains but I think
most things are not like that and I
think there are a lot of fields where
new things can be found
um we’re often discouraged by sort of a
version of globalization we think
they’re you know seven billion other
people in the world and there will
always be someone who will have already
thought of it and if no one will have
thought of it before us it must be
almost impossibly hard and so it ends up
being this sort of self-fulfilling thing
where we don’t even try and I do think
the only people who will discover
secrets are people who work at it and
who try doing it and I I think that many
of these um great companies have
something like this at the core this is
some some domain of knowledge some area
where people think they can figure out a
lot more data at PayPal we were very
interested in this in the intersection
of money and cryptography could you
create a new digital currency on the
internet and and it was a fairly
idiosyncratic field there were a small
number of people working on it there’s a
financial cryptography community and you
could sort of understand the field you
can get to the frontiers and you could
you could you could explore it quite a
bit more and so so that that you know so
I think the second idea I want to leave
you with is they’re still as a frontier
left and the frontier is not infinitely
far away there’s certain places where
the frontier has been closed up
geographically it’s kind of closed but
there are many places where you can
still get to the frontier and it’s
actually there are many directions you
can go where the frontier is closed and
where there’s a lot left to be left to
be discovered you have developed this at
least profile of a young man in a hurry
you know I know the rough elbows that
yes you know I think it’s in if how
should I put it we look at all of the
cities and and we know that the
transportation systems there are just
not they’re not serving everybody’s
needs I mean even here in New York with
a great mass transit system there’s
still two and a half million cars going
over those bridges every day and so we
just believe we can help the city do
better
I guess most most successful
entrepreneurs are not waiting for it to
come – for success and not waiting for
progress we are generally a little bit
forward-leaning when it comes to trying
to make progress happen for me it’s
about problem-solving and loving to
solve problems and so if you are
passionate about solving problems I and
sometimes I just like to describe this
as like imagine a really great math
professor with no problems to solve
right the great a great math professor
somebody who who wants the hardest
problems who wants to solve them and
love solving them that’s kind of how I
feel about my work and so it’s not about
a man in a hurry it’s more about really
interesting problems in the world and
how do you lean into them and solve
things that people maybe thought weren’t
even possible to solve and that’s fun
you know for us we don’t really aspire
to be somebody other than ourselves and
part of being ourselves as sort of
reimagining the way things could be done
so we like to take the impossible we
like to take the old way of doing things
and just completely change it that’s
part of who we are but I mean there are
great CEOs great founders great leaders
out there and there’s there’s something
to learn from all of them in fact
there’s something to learn from the ones
that aren’t great to like again you know
everybody sees success they see failure
and we see that personally and we should
learn from it but why not learn from
other people’s success and failure
there’s something to learn from all of
them I mean it depends how you look at
it but when you have sort of this this
problem-solving culture the core group
sort of depends on the problem that’s
being solved and so it’s very dynamic
what that core group is and on what
problem I have ten eleven direct reports
and then depending on what the problems
of the day are can determine how many of
those folks are in a particular problem
and by the way a lot of problems getting
solved that I’m not involved in and so
figuring out which ones that you go into
how do you prioritize it how do you get
to the future faster is is one of the
things we spend a lot of time sort of
architecting Silicon Valley in the sort
of the state of Silicon Valley do you
think it’s at a high point of invention
right now or at a plateau or at a low
point or well I think that I’m doing
yeah it’s funny it reminds me like you
know look I’ve been an entrepreneur
since the mid late 90s and I remember in
2001 I was raising money this is the I
was raising money in the fall of 2001
for a networking software company and I
remember going to one of the one of the
restaurants in Palo Alto which used to
be bustling and like you’d have to book
like get a reservation like a month
ahead of time or something and it was
empty it was like tumbleweeds and I
remember a VC telling me that all the
things that could be invented is 2001
all the things that could be invented in
software had been invented and that
there was no more innovation left in
software and right so that irrational
sort of there’s a rational exuberance
and irrational pessimism
I’m just generally an innovation
optimist I just think there’s just
problems to be solved everywhere and
once you solve them you already see
what’s you know yeah you know I’d like
to say boredom is only the result of a
lack of imagination and you know the
minute you solve one thing you just sit
down for a few minutes and then you come
up with like ten more ideas so so I
think I’m an optimist like there’s just
so much more to do I think what’s very
interesting and maybe this is because of
our global reach and just where we’ve
been is Silicon Valley I think has been
sort of the the North Star for
innovation or or the hub of innovation
globally and I think that is no longer
going to be a thing I think if we go
five years out you’re gonna start to see
hubs of innovation this is about to be
real at least with a couple major ones
right there’s gonna ask you one more
question as our time is up and you’re
worth a lot of money what’s the most
expensive thing you’ve bought well I
think what a lot of people don’t know is
that I’ve never sold a single uber share
so the most expensive thing I bought I
bought before we were started and it’s
my home and it was right around a
million bucks okay so I got a mortgage
fact you still have a mortgage yeah
amazing fabulous thank you so much
Travis Cheung Kong is the Cantonese word
for the Yangtze China’s longest river
and it is more than just a name for Lee
jung-hee Luva the lake I see a film
called me give my lung go sing my Chum
Goldman
it’s all I mean me so he lied only the
ring up so neither welcome yeah
so in each other suddenly Yahweh watch
again
Tom oh yes so it’s all Sundays yeah
we’re building a whole him I don’t know
Bo power yeah Mike Mo so much he given
Chi Chi Chi so gone angel come live cold
ocean come comment I guess so you know
Lee yet they knew him boy yet they you
cuffs okay – so you like play whole
Don lino more gaming from sector a toy
owner second parents near today yelling
those young siphon get Nemecek dhanyavad
noise ah Michiko much of ginger some
coke Rika Rika oh you young man good
morning life the chain man hi mati the
ko
yo t kokin-chan you mean the kill time
gotta get over I hope you do Bobby
what’s the lesson the lesson say
uniquely where he can Magnus
the company also told Englishmen and the
key pieces of advice leaker Shing is
passing on to his sons [Music]
just read people’s PhD theses and new
things that are going on in the field
you’ll believe the prime ingredient of
his success was his early fascination
with computers you have to understand
when you spend your time thinking
intensely about a field from the very
young age which my case is you know as
13 or 14 when I started to get involved
that’s where you can do great things is
because your mind has really gotten into
it you understand it one of the ideas
that excite you or is it just customers
customers first second is the last
century a company if you want to grow I
believe you should find a good
opportunity but today this was an L lack
opportunity the today if you want to be
a great company think about what problem
you can solve it’s not to catch the
opportunity it’s about solving the
social risk problems if you pick a
company like Alibaba will bring so fast
it’s very difficult for one opportunity
that can make us lost such organization
with the power power by Internet with
millions of millions of SMEs with 400
million consumers what kind of problem
can solve and I’m exciting it we mention
about cloud computing and talking about
the mobile things anything that’s
happened in the USA is it gonna happen
in China there is an amazing degree to
which people’s ambitions get beaten out
of them in the end these are in these
top universities if I look at what
people thought my senior year in high
school sort of like we’re very ambitious
that all these ideas what they were
gonna do and if you looked at the same
people at sort of college plus five
years sort of nine years later let’s say
it was amazing how much things have been
ratcheted down so I I do think there’s
something problematic where all the
talented people go to these schools
they’re sort of evaluated on the same
terms and at the end at the end a lot of
ambitions are beaten out of them and
probably the one that I think is
even worse for people than Harvard in
this respect might be a might be Caltech
where you have you know these brilliant
math physics people and after four years
we’re in the middle of your class you’re
convinced that the most you can do with
your life has become a line engineer at
Lockheed and maybe you can go into
mid-level management twenty years later
and so that that is that sort of is
characteristic of what I think has
happened and what what I think we need
to somehow find a way back to is is this
idea that that there’s not just a single
track that there are very different
things you can do you know the question
you know what truth do you know that
nobody agrees with you on the the sort
of career version this is what what are
you really good at that other people
aren’t that good at or or something like
that and that’s and that somehow gets
discouraged by this by this incredible
modernization and big ambitions get
discouraged I think that you think every
way the you end everyone when that’s
true of all of us I suppose we he decide
we can make it in certain line and do
things a little move ahead step by step
but they kind of yeah there’s always the
ambition to be a founder that if that
seems to be knocked out the whole both
the institutions and the mindset that
permeates the institutions is almost to
denial that that ambition is reasonable
or even possible well there’s a sense
that they’re all these people who are
ahead of you so there’s always a sense
there’s so many people who are who are
much better or just as good as you so
who are you to think that you can do
anything on anything different and
obviously when everybody starts to think
that nobody does anything in fact it
becomes self-fulfilling once again and
you know for me so much of the lesson
that that I I feel like I’ve learned is
I feel like it’s really hard to decide
to start a company right you know
Facebook I didn’t started to start a
company I started it because I really
wanted this thing personally and I
believed that it should exist globally
although I wasn’t quite sure that that
we would be able to play a role in doing
that it was mostly just through kind of
like wanting to build it and having it
be this hobby and getting people around
me excited that it eventually kind of
evolved into and got the momentum to
become a company but I never really
understood the psychology of deciding
that you want to start a company before
you understand what you want to do and
this gets back to the question of why
did we why did we first open it at
colleges that had competitors all right
I have this big fear I think of getting
locked into doing things that aren’t
actually the most impactful things I’m
to me this is like the trait that
entrepreneurs have is they just have
this like laser-like ability to go find
where they can have the most impact and
you know when you take on a new project
especially if you hire people or start a
company you’re doing that project and I
mean there are ways they’re obviously
different ways that it can exit and all
that but I think having the flexibility
to explore a lot of different things
which you can do when you’re in college
which is one of the amazing things about
being in college is you can work on all
these hobbies and and encode a lot of
stuff and try a lot of different things
it’s this amazing flexibility that I
think most people take for granted and
once you decide okay I’m gonna start a
company and I’m gonna do it with someone
else you immediately now need to
convince someone else if you want to
change your mind on something and I
think people really undervalued the
option value and flexibility I think
explore what you want to do before
committing is really like the key thing
and keep yourself flexible and no I
think that that’s yeah I agree yeah but
I think you can definitely do that
within the framework of a company but I
think you have to be wary about starting
a company too rigidly because you’re
gonna change what you do I mean people
talk about pivots all the time as if
it’s like it didn’t didn’t your thing
didn’t work so you pivoted Facebook
pivoted many times I mean just that you
know we kind of we’d work college and
then we were not college and then we
were just a website and then we were a
platform right and um you’re gonna
change what you do there’s another word
for the kind of pivots you’re talking
about expansions oh that’s not what
people usually mean by pivoting well you
know right flexibility follow your
instincts very easy to say be incredibly
everybody when they’re wondering about
what they should do after college or
after university you have the weight of
expectations on your shoulders you have
college bills that you might have to pay
you have parents
who have expectations for you in a
particular direction and whether you
like it or not subconsciously you carry
all that stuff with you and if you want
to go in a different direction from what
you’ve been spent your the previous 20
25 years of your life almost being
programmed to go and do that’s a very
difficult thing to do what matters
eventually is the quality of the
investment decisions made and the acuity
with with which those are made and it’s
somewhat similar to the analogy that
people used to make when newspapers were
read more frequently than they are today
which is not to get sucked up into
believing your own headlines and so I
think especially in the today’s era
humility also goes a long way
particularly in which if you don’t make
the decisions correctly can hand you out
a right royal spanking no matter how
high your public profile do you believe
there will be another steve job in this
5 to 10 years no anymore than I believe
there’ll be another Larry Page or Mark
Zuckerberg or Bill Gates they’re each
very distinctive personalities now if
the question is is there somebody whose
name we don’t know today who 20 years
from now will be very well-known because
of a company that he or she started
absolutely yes do I think Sequoia is the
preeminent venture firm I don’t I think
I think I always feel we’re always one
though we can never take anything for
granted and we’re only as good as our
next investment the advice that people
should follow their instincts whether I
could say a little bit more about that I
think it helps if you try and enter an
environment where you think you can
learn a lot whether that’s inside a
organization doesn’t have to be a
company it can be some other
organization or around people that you
put
I admire that you can learn a lot from
and I think that just helps expand one’s
horizons also gives the individual a
sense of what excellence is really like
how realistic is it for a company to do
b2c and b2b at the same time we I’m sure
there are examples of companies that
have pulled it off
I just think right at the beginning you
have to concentrate on doing one thing
super well and once you’ve done that the
second thing becomes easier particularly
if you’re dealing with it’s one thing to
sell precisely the same product to both
audiences and if you can do that bless
your heart
so it’s it’s a it’s a good thing to do
but I think it’s very detail in the
product differently I think that’s a
very dangerous thing for a company to do
right at the start you know it’s no
coincidence Apple under under Steve Jobs
was not prepared to compromise a change
and alter its products to please
corporations they would build products
and if corporations wanted to buy them
so be it but they weren’t going to come
up with with special products it was an
approach that obviously served them very
well and then as you know there are
plenty of examples of other companies
that have over time succeeded with two
different sorts of distribution channels
plenty of examples for that but at the
beginning I think simplicity is a virtue
so I think that’s really important
especially for young people to actually
do that self-assessment and find that
passion do you have any advice I think
many many kids and many grown-ups do
figure out over time what their passions
are and sometimes we let our I don’t
think it’s that hard I think what
happens though sometimes is that we let
our intellectual selves overrule those
passions and so that’s what needs to be
guarded against kids are very good about
knowing what their passions are I love
that act because I think I’ve seen you
describe this way that you’ve always
maintained that sense of wonder I think
that’s what kids have but we
that somehow along the way yes you
everybody it’s a gift if you can keep
your childlike sense of wonder and it
helps with creativity it helps to have
fun you know you laugh more and play
more if you keep that childlike sense of
wonder what we’re really focused on is
thinking long-term putting the customer
at the center of our universe and
inventing those are the three big ideas
I don’t think that you can invent on
behalf of customers unless you’re
willing to think long term because a lot
of invention doesn’t work if you’re
going to invent it means you’re going to
experiment you have to think long term
so these three ideas customer centricity
long term thinking and a passion for
invention those go together that’s how
we do it and by the way we have a lot of
fun doing it that way amazing about your
success is that you actually your timing
was good too how does an innovator
actually identify that historical
momentum with that Kitty Hawk moment you
recognize what was happening with the
Internet and you said you know what
there’s actually a room for me to start
with ebooks and they move on how do you
do that how do you find the time and the
momentum the zeitgeist I think everybody
has their own passion their own thing
that they’re interested in and then
you’re very alert to the things that
that are in the sphere of influence of
that passion so your passion has led you
to change the world frankly with Amazon
but yet you’ve got Blue Origin you’ve
got Bezos exploration this why can’t
something like you just rest on your
laurels well I you know I love what I do
I also have four kids I have wife that I
love I have a lot of passions and
interests but I one of them is the pace
of change I love the fact that I get to
work with these smart big smart teams
the people I work with are so smart and
they’re all they’re self selected for
loving to invent on behalf of customers
and so you know it’s not Malev every
moment of every day no that’s why they
call it work there’s you know there’s
always there are things that I
with that I don’t enjoy but if I’m
really objective about it and I look at
it I’m so lucky to be working alongside
all these passionate people and I love
it how do you remain nimble because
there is somebody in their dorm room who
could eat you up for lunch the next day
you know I my belief on this is first of
all that’s completely correct and you
can’t
it can never sure anybody that that
can’t happen but I think if you have a
customer-centric culture that cures a
lot of ills because we wake up if let’s
say you’re the leader in a particular
arena if your competitor focused and
you’re already the leader then where
does your energy come from whereas if
your customer focused and you’re already
the leader customers are never satisfied
so you always if your customer focused
you’re always waking up how can we make
that customer say wow how can we you
know our energy our passionate we want
to impress our customers we want them to
say wow is that kind of divine
discontent it comes from observing
customers and noticing that you know
things can also always a sense that
people have that it’s really hard to
come with answers all the answers have
already been discovered in one way or
another and I think that’s not the case
and I I sort of um I sort of divide
things up into conventions which are
things everybody knows to be true the
other extreme there are mysteries things
that nobody can figure out and in
between are these things that I call
secrets which are things that you could
figure out they’re hard but if you
really work at it you could you could
figure something out and and one one
thought that I have is that there are
many secrets left to be discovered I
actually think that this is a somewhat
non-conventional view because I think
the conventional view is that most
secrets have been discovered and that
there’s nothing new to find and so and
this is certainly is it is true
certainly of certain domains but I think
most things are not like that and I
think there are a lot of fields where
new things can be found
um we’re often discouraged by sort of a
version of globalization we think
they’re you know seven billion other
people in the world and there will
always be someone who will have already
thought of it and if no one will have
thought of it before us it must be
almost impossibly hard and so it ends up
being this sort of self-fulfilling thing
where we don’t even try and I do think
the only people who will discover
secrets are people who work at it and
who try doing it and I I think that many
of these um great companies have
something like this at the core this is
some some domain of knowledge some area
where people think they can figure out a
lot more data at PayPal we were very
interested in this in the intersection
of money and cryptography could you
create a new digital currency on the
internet and and it was a fairly
idiosyncratic field there were a small
number of people working on it there’s a
financial cryptography community and you
could sort of understand the field you
can get to the frontiers and you could
you could you could explore it quite a
bit more and so so that that you know so
I think the second idea I want to leave
you with is they’re still as a frontier
left and the frontier is not infinitely
far away there’s certain places where
the frontier has been closed up
geographically it’s kind of closed but
there are many places where you can
still get to the frontier and it’s
actually there are many directions you
can go where the frontier is closed and
where there’s a lot left to be left to
be discovered you have developed this at
least profile of a young man in a hurry
you know I know the rough elbows that
yes you know I think it’s in if how
should I put it we look at all of the
cities and and we know that the
transportation systems there are just
not they’re not serving everybody’s
needs I mean even here in New York with
a great mass transit system there’s
still two and a half million cars going
over those bridges every day and so we
just believe we can help the city do
better
I guess most most successful
entrepreneurs are not waiting for it to
come – for success and not waiting for
progress we are generally a little bit
forward-leaning when it comes to trying
to make progress happen for me it’s
about problem-solving and loving to
solve problems and so if you are
passionate about solving problems I and
sometimes I just like to describe this
as like imagine a really great math
professor with no problems to solve
right the great a great math professor
somebody who who wants the hardest
problems who wants to solve them and
love solving them that’s kind of how I
feel about my work and so it’s not about
a man in a hurry it’s more about really
interesting problems in the world and
how do you lean into them and solve
things that people maybe thought weren’t
even possible to solve and that’s fun
you know for us we don’t really aspire
to be somebody other than ourselves and
part of being ourselves as sort of
reimagining the way things could be done
so we like to take the impossible we
like to take the old way of doing things
and just completely change it that’s
part of who we are but I mean there are
great CEOs great founders great leaders
out there and there’s there’s something
to learn from all of them in fact
there’s something to learn from the ones
that aren’t great to like again you know
everybody sees success they see failure
and we see that personally and we should
learn from it but why not learn from
other people’s success and failure
there’s something to learn from all of
them I mean it depends how you look at
it but when you have sort of this this
problem-solving culture the core group
sort of depends on the problem that’s
being solved and so it’s very dynamic
what that core group is and on what
problem I have ten eleven direct reports
and then depending on what the problems
of the day are can determine how many of
those folks are in a particular problem
and by the way a lot of problems getting
solved that I’m not involved in and so
figuring out which ones that you go into
how do you prioritize it how do you get
to the future faster is is one of the
things we spend a lot of time sort of
architecting Silicon Valley in the sort
of the state of Silicon Valley do you
think it’s at a high point of invention
right now or at a plateau or at a low
point or well I think that I’m doing
yeah it’s funny it reminds me like you
know look I’ve been an entrepreneur
since the mid late 90s and I remember in
2001 I was raising money this is the I
was raising money in the fall of 2001
for a networking software company and I
remember going to one of the one of the
restaurants in Palo Alto which used to
be bustling and like you’d have to book
like get a reservation like a month
ahead of time or something and it was
empty it was like tumbleweeds and I
remember a VC telling me that all the
things that could be invented is 2001
all the things that could be invented in
software had been invented and that
there was no more innovation left in
software and right so that irrational
sort of there’s a rational exuberance
and irrational pessimism
I’m just generally an innovation
optimist I just think there’s just
problems to be solved everywhere and
once you solve them you already see
what’s you know yeah you know I’d like
to say boredom is only the result of a
lack of imagination and you know the
minute you solve one thing you just sit
down for a few minutes and then you come
up with like ten more ideas so so I
think I’m an optimist like there’s just
so much more to do I think what’s very
interesting and maybe this is because of
our global reach and just where we’ve
been is Silicon Valley I think has been
sort of the the North Star for
innovation or or the hub of innovation
globally and I think that is no longer
going to be a thing I think if we go
five years out you’re gonna start to see
hubs of innovation this is about to be
real at least with a couple major ones
right there’s gonna ask you one more
question as our time is up and you’re
worth a lot of money what’s the most
expensive thing you’ve bought well I
think what a lot of people don’t know is
that I’ve never sold a single uber share
so the most expensive thing I bought I
bought before we were started and it’s
my home and it was right around a
million bucks okay so I got a mortgage
fact you still have a mortgage yeah
amazing fabulous thank you so much
Travis Cheung Kong is the Cantonese word
for the Yangtze China’s longest river
and it is more than just a name for Lee
jung-hee Luva the lake I see a film
called me give my lung go sing my Chum
Goldman
it’s all I mean me so he lied only the
ring up so neither welcome yeah
so in each other suddenly Yahweh watch
again
Tom oh yes so it’s all Sundays yeah
we’re building a whole him I don’t know
Bo power yeah Mike Mo so much he given
Chi Chi Chi so gone angel come live cold
ocean come comment I guess so you know
Lee yet they knew him boy yet they you
cuffs okay – so you like play whole
Don lino more gaming from sector a toy
owner second parents near today yelling
those young siphon get Nemecek dhanyavad
noise ah Michiko much of ginger some
coke Rika Rika oh you young man good
morning life the chain man hi mati the
ko
yo t kokin-chan you mean the kill time
gotta get over I hope you do Bobby
what’s the lesson the lesson say
uniquely where he can Magnus
the company also told Englishmen and the
key pieces of advice leaker Shing is
passing on to his sons [Music]
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