to Millennials out there I’m sorry
to the entitled generation of
Millennials I’m sorry to all of you who
received a participation award for
showing up in sports
I’m sorry and I’m sorry because your
generation has got a much tougher world
to face that my generation even my
parents generation and in fact to leave
a legacy or to create a legacy you’re
going to have to make enough money in
your life to live your life by the way
you’re going to live longer and by the
way there’s no such thing as pensions
anymore or Medicaid or social security
and and the world could really blow up
in any moment so well I’m sorry you have
a tough cat’s but I think you’re up to
it I think you can do it and by the way
I’m going to guide you through the story
and if I did it you know definitely you
can do it I grew up and there was a sign
in our kitchen and said the man tells
you he achieved something without
struggle don’t believe if someone tells
you they achieve something they struggle
you made them believe them that comes
from the tone I also grew up and on that
assignment said if you’re gonna walk on
thin ice you might as well dance so I
guess I was trained from early on that
life is a challenge but should have some
fun for lesson learned beyond the Miss
it’s okay to be optimistic
you must be optimism when I was little
we had I found a general ledger
in the basement my father wouldn’t come
and when other kids playing whatever
playing school or house whenever I
branded business I have a passion for
business that’s really my thing and I
love this I love writing the checks
invoices hiring people that’s right and
then when I was 14 or 50 years old I
have lobster business
I grew up 20 miles north of awesome I
had a boat and I had lobster traps and I
sold them kind of uniquely up inside in
the beauty power nearby said cute kid
both deliver lobster maybe that was the
first super business model LF we can say
about that and then one day a hurricane
came and wiped out all my traps god I
shut up for breakfast next morning my
parents look terrible and I’m like
what’s the matter with you they’re
looking to hear you okay about it once
I’m okay let’s start a lot of taxi
business today being an optimist so
bringing kids out there Millennials
here’s the deal you’re going to have
four to six careers each one’s going to
last four to six years and that’s going
to be how you create your legacy you no
longer can go work for AT&T for 20 every
time have intention this is what you
have these together it sounds pregnant
in fact when I speak over the Harvard
Business School a police training
subject while there’s no MBA in sales
which is it’s amazing you have a
population of kids at the 98th
percentile of strategic analysis and a
2% now the risk you know they’re trained
they’re fearful what are they so afraid
of and what is the big fear
kind of rejection by the way when they
give in to fear you rob yourself a
future opportunity fear is a primal
thing that whole kind of fight or flee
that’s a primal then like a predator is
going to eat you
no one is going to eat you in your
career this is the fear that you face
it’s the unknown actually it’s anxiety
and there’s a big difference between
cheer and example fear is when you know
where you’re afraid anxiety is when you
don’t but there are ways to deal with
anxiety I think a lot of you know that
in order to kind of be calm you need to
stay present in order to stay present
become you need to weed out all the why
nots all the candidates all the you know
it won’t
I don’t gel all of that so I’d like to
show you is kind of a tour through how I
was lucky enough to parlay this 46 and
46 by kind of taking risks and moving
for them the lesson here of course is if
I can do it definitely you can nitrate
about numbers of fifty eight years old
of having career changes one family
crisis night mentors don’t talk about
mentors this notion having someone am
latch onto some super people to grab
onto their cake really important but
it’s a gift tag type of thing of course
the most important time run here is 30
in this November
for 30 years which i think is the
greatest accomplishment of all it was
November 1980 I was 21 years old I
graduated Bentley University
thank God my brother told me was a pain
mentor friend of mine just three in the
streets they can take off my hat decade
hey Laura cable TV solar energy micro
grid Oh
hit one of those get involved with that
just jumped in and took a job some
computers on a retail sales I was 21
years old I showed up my first day and a
worn out green cashmere jet I’m
absolutely not but it was honest like
activity around me by the way that’s
treaters before the IBM PC even came out
and then I went into the back room and I
tried to figure out what was going on
because I was curious and the lesson
here is to be curious it’s hard to be
courteous this generation wants to be
told what to do but making curious is
asking why what how all this kind of
stuff that really engages you zone and
trying to learn and I learned about
these computers and something very
interesting happening to this whole you
know the soul PC error which really
started and by 1982 I was able to parlay
that into working as a manufacturer’s
rep most manufacture software in Darwin
went to market
– conditionally Salesforce and I joined
a manufactured workforce and it was run
by a guy named Mark and Mark was five –
like the Chihuahua with a German
Shepherd mark
okay I was petrified the fact that I he
knew everything this is the man who
enters pioneer electronics to America
and he was falling out on some cruise
that they had won and they say he said
when he Cosell preterist every Apple
Illinois and I’m like what yes go sell
printers I have of just camo grips go
something to go in women and I learned
it said of course you’ll serve or learn
to do is manage myself and this is a
great lesson because people wait to be
being wouldn’t be successful in the four
twenty five or six and have to be your
own man
well then I did this for five years and
we grew a rep firm and all that what I
learned is when you’re selling products
its own things in volume it isn’t
products that matter its personality
it’s bringing opinion to everything it’s
be yourself have a story but on buy
products they buy from people they buy
stores you know then they buy something
that’s bigger than in physical product
then it was like it out in 1987 and that
was 27 years old
to get recruited to the largest software
company rule Lotus development and while
I didn’t have a green cashmere jacket I
got dressed in a full suit fast overcoat
my wife got me a briefcase a launch of
the shiny shoes and the whole thing I
went to word was beautiful building in
Cambridge I was petrified oh my god was
like a
and and I did they had a library they
actually bought subscriptions all these
newsletters I had only heard about and I
hit the library Thalia great mentor to
me Frankie Garza way write down
everything you know about distribution
and I did an adventure that became the
company’s distribution strategy and as
my career Lotus work the CEO common
Jimmy NC hey woody I want you to go do
this and one day Commons and 21 you go
start the omean business for loads which
is when you bundle software in other
people’s computers and my hot and he
said that you know really goes what’s
the matter you afraid of my drama and
that kind of kind of maybe should be out
of fear you know but I need to learn a
lot about it and then about this how
computers were being networked and it
was 1992 and I got a call from the
startup company Cambridge Mass a couple
kids out of MIT start you know we’re
inventing this networking project and I
met with a great venture capitalist
Henry cancer founded gridlock and he to
mentor to bean I don’t know how this
happened why I said what I did was the
story part I guess I said Henry I wanted
to work as a vp of sales or marketing
when your companies make your loved one
and then I want to be a CEO of one of
your companies and making a lot of money
and then I want to become a venture
capitalist and I don’t know how that all
happened but that’s I kind of
pre-programmed myself and Shiva became
one of these things where I learned
about being passionate and working
I try to be the hardest worker in that
company you know I try to be the one
when I did the London Boston London
Paris Tokyo trip once month almost died
in Japan from the chicken pox on that
room but I try to be the last person
leaving the office wasn’t first person
in London and remember how I said you
didn’t matter at the beginning of just
get on any spaceship which I did but
this company was a spaceship this
company was a rocket I hope everybody
gets to feel the power of visualization
and the power of a team and everyone on
the team agrees that they are a Ferrari
that team acts like a Ferrari then in
1997 I suppose dreams do come true
angels do answer your prayers and I got
recruited on the female women became the
CEO of a company based in Calgary
Alberta and I learned that being the CEO
is really lonely I learned that being a
real true leader what everything falls
on your shoulders is a very lonely time
and you can’t really go home and
complain about it and your board doesn’t
want to hear it and most certainly your
team doesn’t want to hear it but
it’s–how golden retrievers a great
listener in fact my dog running
every single where they have but I
learned I learned about this
perseverance passion meaning to win and
then ultimately Luke Dempsey kid Boston
and reorganize management know that the
company was like in a public on my
birthday and 297 and then the stock
market crash happened if you remember
from 2000 was pretty bad and our stock
went from my 55 and what that person you
know and I felt horrible I felt like it
was on my shoulders I made the biggest
mistake I ever made in my life and I
hired someone replace me but I felt that
was the wrong person and that was a real
mistake that something I really do
regret every day but I was able to
parlay that into kind of the final
vision and then became a venture
capitalist in 2001 I worked for a bank
in New York called Lazar and September
2001 to join remember that by not the
greatest month to join a New York bank
final on the greatest time to invest but
maybe the greatest time to learn and I
learned from the great venture
capitalist West financier about being a
venture capitalist and join the work to
work and he told me you have to go look
at 100 houses before you buy one like
one yeah you have to go look at a
hundred deals before you were to check
my okay boss you know but that was
really the work
and then I learned because now I’m a
venture capitalist with a super
exclusive club that the other Club
members don’t really want you there you
know I didn’t get like a welcome party
to the VC club though BC once new PCs
coming in as hours I learned to be conic
when I learned to think for myself I
learned that this is a lonely gangly you
have to stick to your guns you have to
be yourself was our change in direction
in 2004 I joined a firm in prison and in
prison the one the first companies I
looked at was a company called 3m
software in in hundred this company
eventually became closby in but when I
was looking at that company I heard from
a brand new adventure cabins that
they’re going to pass on the deal
because they had talked to the CIO of
fidelity and fidelity and think it was a
great idea and I thought to myself
that’s very interesting but not very
useful and I went ahead and did that day
oh boy am I glad I am it’s 14 years
later I’m still on board I think the
reason is on board the CEO would tell
you what a provocateur which i think is
a great compliment but I think that
means he’s like seasoned math says it
estimates and then along this journey I
saw her a company that was putting video
on the internet and I’m thinking wow
and then ones like that one happened
this reason never uses cable is impasto
bulbs and here’s the last one if
something is freakin obvious it’s
freakin obvious I’m just saying I did
that deals called maven Network Franco
came rather Damon after eventually you
know salty odd and sometimes in life as
it happens when my children got barium
not the type of girl hospital and get
fixed go of one of these life situations
and I learned this I learned I can’t
control her I learned that I need to
understand and not that and I learned to
go all-in
I think our whole family learn to go
all-in very humbling very isolated and
then somehow step by step we got through
them and today I’m an investor with
lunch capital and we invest in
Millennials all the time every day we’re
writing text Millennials and here’s what
I know about you you are anxious you are
critical you are unhappy and you feel
stuck and you feel you should be
somewhere else and all this playing on I
know you don’t want to hear from me but
I’m willing to understand is that you’re
very good at listening to each other so
with other business leaders in Boston
over at Bernstein and a scoundrel
forming those Boston buddies system
match
Millennials to talk to other Millennials
to coach them you believe they are
expert at describing exactly what your
problem is however there’s not a lot of
solutions being presented there and
hopefully hopefully this will help
because I’m telling you if I can do this
you can do this you can be optimistic
you can say you know the heck with why
nots you have the heck with all this
stuff you know you can take a risk and
all that will be okay and then I look
back at all this others have learned and
what it really learned is this is to be
curious what it really learned is to be
passionate and how we need to win and
what I really learned is to be yourself
and then as the great artist Frank Zappa
says you are my you is and today it was
my last day and I was out there you know
as a lobster then again I would be one
happy person
thank you very much
to the entitled generation of
Millennials I’m sorry to all of you who
received a participation award for
showing up in sports
I’m sorry and I’m sorry because your
generation has got a much tougher world
to face that my generation even my
parents generation and in fact to leave
a legacy or to create a legacy you’re
going to have to make enough money in
your life to live your life by the way
you’re going to live longer and by the
way there’s no such thing as pensions
anymore or Medicaid or social security
and and the world could really blow up
in any moment so well I’m sorry you have
a tough cat’s but I think you’re up to
it I think you can do it and by the way
I’m going to guide you through the story
and if I did it you know definitely you
can do it I grew up and there was a sign
in our kitchen and said the man tells
you he achieved something without
struggle don’t believe if someone tells
you they achieve something they struggle
you made them believe them that comes
from the tone I also grew up and on that
assignment said if you’re gonna walk on
thin ice you might as well dance so I
guess I was trained from early on that
life is a challenge but should have some
fun for lesson learned beyond the Miss
it’s okay to be optimistic
you must be optimism when I was little
we had I found a general ledger
in the basement my father wouldn’t come
and when other kids playing whatever
playing school or house whenever I
branded business I have a passion for
business that’s really my thing and I
love this I love writing the checks
invoices hiring people that’s right and
then when I was 14 or 50 years old I
have lobster business
I grew up 20 miles north of awesome I
had a boat and I had lobster traps and I
sold them kind of uniquely up inside in
the beauty power nearby said cute kid
both deliver lobster maybe that was the
first super business model LF we can say
about that and then one day a hurricane
came and wiped out all my traps god I
shut up for breakfast next morning my
parents look terrible and I’m like
what’s the matter with you they’re
looking to hear you okay about it once
I’m okay let’s start a lot of taxi
business today being an optimist so
bringing kids out there Millennials
here’s the deal you’re going to have
four to six careers each one’s going to
last four to six years and that’s going
to be how you create your legacy you no
longer can go work for AT&T for 20 every
time have intention this is what you
have these together it sounds pregnant
in fact when I speak over the Harvard
Business School a police training
subject while there’s no MBA in sales
which is it’s amazing you have a
population of kids at the 98th
percentile of strategic analysis and a
2% now the risk you know they’re trained
they’re fearful what are they so afraid
of and what is the big fear
kind of rejection by the way when they
give in to fear you rob yourself a
future opportunity fear is a primal
thing that whole kind of fight or flee
that’s a primal then like a predator is
going to eat you
no one is going to eat you in your
career this is the fear that you face
it’s the unknown actually it’s anxiety
and there’s a big difference between
cheer and example fear is when you know
where you’re afraid anxiety is when you
don’t but there are ways to deal with
anxiety I think a lot of you know that
in order to kind of be calm you need to
stay present in order to stay present
become you need to weed out all the why
nots all the candidates all the you know
it won’t
I don’t gel all of that so I’d like to
show you is kind of a tour through how I
was lucky enough to parlay this 46 and
46 by kind of taking risks and moving
for them the lesson here of course is if
I can do it definitely you can nitrate
about numbers of fifty eight years old
of having career changes one family
crisis night mentors don’t talk about
mentors this notion having someone am
latch onto some super people to grab
onto their cake really important but
it’s a gift tag type of thing of course
the most important time run here is 30
in this November
for 30 years which i think is the
greatest accomplishment of all it was
November 1980 I was 21 years old I
graduated Bentley University
thank God my brother told me was a pain
mentor friend of mine just three in the
streets they can take off my hat decade
hey Laura cable TV solar energy micro
grid Oh
hit one of those get involved with that
just jumped in and took a job some
computers on a retail sales I was 21
years old I showed up my first day and a
worn out green cashmere jet I’m
absolutely not but it was honest like
activity around me by the way that’s
treaters before the IBM PC even came out
and then I went into the back room and I
tried to figure out what was going on
because I was curious and the lesson
here is to be curious it’s hard to be
courteous this generation wants to be
told what to do but making curious is
asking why what how all this kind of
stuff that really engages you zone and
trying to learn and I learned about
these computers and something very
interesting happening to this whole you
know the soul PC error which really
started and by 1982 I was able to parlay
that into working as a manufacturer’s
rep most manufacture software in Darwin
went to market
– conditionally Salesforce and I joined
a manufactured workforce and it was run
by a guy named Mark and Mark was five –
like the Chihuahua with a German
Shepherd mark
okay I was petrified the fact that I he
knew everything this is the man who
enters pioneer electronics to America
and he was falling out on some cruise
that they had won and they say he said
when he Cosell preterist every Apple
Illinois and I’m like what yes go sell
printers I have of just camo grips go
something to go in women and I learned
it said of course you’ll serve or learn
to do is manage myself and this is a
great lesson because people wait to be
being wouldn’t be successful in the four
twenty five or six and have to be your
own man
well then I did this for five years and
we grew a rep firm and all that what I
learned is when you’re selling products
its own things in volume it isn’t
products that matter its personality
it’s bringing opinion to everything it’s
be yourself have a story but on buy
products they buy from people they buy
stores you know then they buy something
that’s bigger than in physical product
then it was like it out in 1987 and that
was 27 years old
to get recruited to the largest software
company rule Lotus development and while
I didn’t have a green cashmere jacket I
got dressed in a full suit fast overcoat
my wife got me a briefcase a launch of
the shiny shoes and the whole thing I
went to word was beautiful building in
Cambridge I was petrified oh my god was
like a
and and I did they had a library they
actually bought subscriptions all these
newsletters I had only heard about and I
hit the library Thalia great mentor to
me Frankie Garza way write down
everything you know about distribution
and I did an adventure that became the
company’s distribution strategy and as
my career Lotus work the CEO common
Jimmy NC hey woody I want you to go do
this and one day Commons and 21 you go
start the omean business for loads which
is when you bundle software in other
people’s computers and my hot and he
said that you know really goes what’s
the matter you afraid of my drama and
that kind of kind of maybe should be out
of fear you know but I need to learn a
lot about it and then about this how
computers were being networked and it
was 1992 and I got a call from the
startup company Cambridge Mass a couple
kids out of MIT start you know we’re
inventing this networking project and I
met with a great venture capitalist
Henry cancer founded gridlock and he to
mentor to bean I don’t know how this
happened why I said what I did was the
story part I guess I said Henry I wanted
to work as a vp of sales or marketing
when your companies make your loved one
and then I want to be a CEO of one of
your companies and making a lot of money
and then I want to become a venture
capitalist and I don’t know how that all
happened but that’s I kind of
pre-programmed myself and Shiva became
one of these things where I learned
about being passionate and working
I try to be the hardest worker in that
company you know I try to be the one
when I did the London Boston London
Paris Tokyo trip once month almost died
in Japan from the chicken pox on that
room but I try to be the last person
leaving the office wasn’t first person
in London and remember how I said you
didn’t matter at the beginning of just
get on any spaceship which I did but
this company was a spaceship this
company was a rocket I hope everybody
gets to feel the power of visualization
and the power of a team and everyone on
the team agrees that they are a Ferrari
that team acts like a Ferrari then in
1997 I suppose dreams do come true
angels do answer your prayers and I got
recruited on the female women became the
CEO of a company based in Calgary
Alberta and I learned that being the CEO
is really lonely I learned that being a
real true leader what everything falls
on your shoulders is a very lonely time
and you can’t really go home and
complain about it and your board doesn’t
want to hear it and most certainly your
team doesn’t want to hear it but
it’s–how golden retrievers a great
listener in fact my dog running
every single where they have but I
learned I learned about this
perseverance passion meaning to win and
then ultimately Luke Dempsey kid Boston
and reorganize management know that the
company was like in a public on my
birthday and 297 and then the stock
market crash happened if you remember
from 2000 was pretty bad and our stock
went from my 55 and what that person you
know and I felt horrible I felt like it
was on my shoulders I made the biggest
mistake I ever made in my life and I
hired someone replace me but I felt that
was the wrong person and that was a real
mistake that something I really do
regret every day but I was able to
parlay that into kind of the final
vision and then became a venture
capitalist in 2001 I worked for a bank
in New York called Lazar and September
2001 to join remember that by not the
greatest month to join a New York bank
final on the greatest time to invest but
maybe the greatest time to learn and I
learned from the great venture
capitalist West financier about being a
venture capitalist and join the work to
work and he told me you have to go look
at 100 houses before you buy one like
one yeah you have to go look at a
hundred deals before you were to check
my okay boss you know but that was
really the work
and then I learned because now I’m a
venture capitalist with a super
exclusive club that the other Club
members don’t really want you there you
know I didn’t get like a welcome party
to the VC club though BC once new PCs
coming in as hours I learned to be conic
when I learned to think for myself I
learned that this is a lonely gangly you
have to stick to your guns you have to
be yourself was our change in direction
in 2004 I joined a firm in prison and in
prison the one the first companies I
looked at was a company called 3m
software in in hundred this company
eventually became closby in but when I
was looking at that company I heard from
a brand new adventure cabins that
they’re going to pass on the deal
because they had talked to the CIO of
fidelity and fidelity and think it was a
great idea and I thought to myself
that’s very interesting but not very
useful and I went ahead and did that day
oh boy am I glad I am it’s 14 years
later I’m still on board I think the
reason is on board the CEO would tell
you what a provocateur which i think is
a great compliment but I think that
means he’s like seasoned math says it
estimates and then along this journey I
saw her a company that was putting video
on the internet and I’m thinking wow
and then ones like that one happened
this reason never uses cable is impasto
bulbs and here’s the last one if
something is freakin obvious it’s
freakin obvious I’m just saying I did
that deals called maven Network Franco
came rather Damon after eventually you
know salty odd and sometimes in life as
it happens when my children got barium
not the type of girl hospital and get
fixed go of one of these life situations
and I learned this I learned I can’t
control her I learned that I need to
understand and not that and I learned to
go all-in
I think our whole family learn to go
all-in very humbling very isolated and
then somehow step by step we got through
them and today I’m an investor with
lunch capital and we invest in
Millennials all the time every day we’re
writing text Millennials and here’s what
I know about you you are anxious you are
critical you are unhappy and you feel
stuck and you feel you should be
somewhere else and all this playing on I
know you don’t want to hear from me but
I’m willing to understand is that you’re
very good at listening to each other so
with other business leaders in Boston
over at Bernstein and a scoundrel
forming those Boston buddies system
match
Millennials to talk to other Millennials
to coach them you believe they are
expert at describing exactly what your
problem is however there’s not a lot of
solutions being presented there and
hopefully hopefully this will help
because I’m telling you if I can do this
you can do this you can be optimistic
you can say you know the heck with why
nots you have the heck with all this
stuff you know you can take a risk and
all that will be okay and then I look
back at all this others have learned and
what it really learned is this is to be
curious what it really learned is to be
passionate and how we need to win and
what I really learned is to be yourself
and then as the great artist Frank Zappa
says you are my you is and today it was
my last day and I was out there you know
as a lobster then again I would be one
happy person
thank you very much
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