back to indexThomas Tull: From Batman Dark Knight Trilogy to AI and The Rolling Stones | Lex Fridman Podcast #259
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The following is a conversation with Thomas Tall,
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founder of Legendary Entertainment,
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known for producing blockbusters
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like Batman's Dark Knight Trilogy,
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The Hangover franchise, Godzilla, Inception,
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Jurassic World, 300, and many more.
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He runs Tolko, which is an investment company
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that focuses on how artificial intelligence
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can revolutionize large industries.
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He is part owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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He's the guitarist for the band Ghost Hounds
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that tours with the Rolling Stones.
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But most importantly, he's humble, down to earth,
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and someone who has quickly become a mentor and friend.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, here's my conversation with Thomas Tall.
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In 2004, you founded Legendary Entertainment,
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known for producing blockbusters
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like Batman's Dark Knight Trilogy,
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that includes Batman Begins, Dark Knight,
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and Dark Knight Rises, The Hangover franchise,
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Godzilla, Inception, Jurassic World, 300,
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and the list goes on.
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It's just some of the biggest movies in history.
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What does it take to make an epic movie like that?
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Or what does it take to make it happen
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from start to finish?
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Well, look, I've been enamored with movies
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since I was a kid as a fan,
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and I think what you need is to be able
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to tell a great story.
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And if you're gonna tell a great story,
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you need a great director.
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You gotta start with a fantastic script
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that is able to take some of these iconic characters
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that we did and put your own stamp on it
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while still respecting the mythology.
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And I had zero experience in movies and television
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before I started Legendary,
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so it was a very interesting trip.
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Total luck that we had the opportunity
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to make five movies at the time with Chris Nolan,
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who turned out to be one of the greatest filmmakers
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But each one is its own little startup company,
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and I don't think there's any formula to get there,
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but I know that if you don't have a great director
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and a great script, if you don't have that foundation,
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it's hard to pull off.
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Who's the CEO of that little startup company?
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Is it the director?
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Who would you say defines the success
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or the failure of a movie?
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Well, when you build a big movie like that,
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it's an enormous effort, 360 degrees.
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I mean, from digital effects, certainly the actors.
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I mean, if you have an amazing script and amazing director,
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but you don't believe anybody playing the parts,
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So the reason I think it was so difficult to pull off
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is I always used to say you start with a stack of papers
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with words on it called the script, bring that to life,
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and you're asking an audience to believe in everything
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that you're trying to put out there,
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and you've got a cast that,
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even if they're immensely talented individually,
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they have to mesh together,
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they have to have chemistry together.
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And the director is kind of a general on the battlefield,
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but if you have a strong producer who's very hands on,
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but it truly, to me, is each one had its own story
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and its own sort of how it came to be
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and why it worked or didn't work.
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See, you said you were new to the industry,
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but you did a lot of revolutionary things with Legendary.
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So at that time and now, what is the good, the bad,
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and the ugly of the business of filmmaking?
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What are some interesting holes that you were able to,
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or like problems that you were able to fix?
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What problems still exist that can still be solved?
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Well, look, the business has changed so radically
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When I started Legendary, DVDs were still a cash cow.
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So that's how far things have come.
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But I would say a couple of things.
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The reason that I started it from a business perspective
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was at the time it was a $30 billion industry,
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and there was no institutional capital
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around the movie business.
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And I was fascinated by that
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because almost every other category that you look at
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of that size has institutional capital,
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private equity, et cetera,
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is kind of a cottage industry set up around it.
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And I was perplexed and fascinated that that didn't occur.
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And the way the movie business worked
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was unlike any business I'd ever looked at before.
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So after kind of convincing myself
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that you could actually make money
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if you were disciplined and had the right approach,
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you know, went out,
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raised the money from the capital markets,
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markets which was Herculean,
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still maybe the hardest thing I've ever done in my career,
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to walk around and say, look, I have no experience.
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I've never done this before, but, you know.
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And the second thing, being very fortunate at the time,
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was able to partner up with Warner Brothers.
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Warner's at the time was run by a man named Alan Horn,
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who besides being creative is also a Harvard MBA.
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So really understood what I wanted to do.
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And Alan, you know, was just an absolute gentleman,
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someone that I still look up to to this day.
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After Warner Brothers, he went and ran Disney
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with their run, you know,
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between Marvel and Star Wars and everything.
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And so between Alan being responsible for Harry Potter,
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the Dark Knight stuff, and then onto all the Disney stuff,
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he probably had as great a career
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as anyone I've ever heard of in the movie business.
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So my first focus was around sort of two concepts,
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global, worldwide, large tentpole films and franchises,
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and then the business aspect of being,
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bringing longterm institutional capital to bear.
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I'm gonna ask you dumb questions,
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which is part of the style, I guess.
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But just for people who don't know, including me,
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what is institutional, what is capital?
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What is institutional capital?
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What is equity, what is private equity?
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Well, so if you're starting a company
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and you go around to a bunch of your successful friends
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and say, hey, you should invest in my company.
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Well, that's sort of, that's great and it's capital,
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but it's not getting money from Fidelity or TRO
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or a sovereign wealth fund or an endowment fund
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from a university that has large pools of organized capital
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that has a longterm point of view on your business.
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So if you get money from your neighbor
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who's a successful dentist,
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next year the dentist may say,
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hey, times are hard, I need my money back.
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If you're partners with Fidelity or Morgan Stanley
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or any of these institutions,
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they have the capital and the wherewithal to say,
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okay, I'm looking at this over the next five to 10 years.
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And I thought there was an opportunity
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to bring that type of capital to the movie business
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And the benefit of that patient, so it's longterm,
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you have to deal with fewer parties
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and they would do much larger investments.
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So what are the benefits?
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What are the sort of the challenges
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of that kind of investment?
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Well, I think the benefits in some ways
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are they're professionals who are largely dispassionate.
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It's like, look, if you're hitting the numbers you told me
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and you're hitting your plan, great.
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And the other thing that always was interesting to me
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about the movie business is if I'm investing
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in an artificial intelligence company
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or a chipset company or something like that,
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a lot of the institutions don't have the technical expertise
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to really truly grasp what's being done.
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So they don't, other than good business practices,
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they're not offering every little opinion.
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The movies and television are completely approachable,
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meaning everybody has an opinion.
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So whether it's, I think you guys chose the wrong actor
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for that or why did you do that movie?
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So it invites a lot more sort of second guessing
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and things like that.
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So that was always one of the idiosyncrasies
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of the business that I thought was interesting.
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And then when you talk about private equity
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versus public equity, if you're a public company
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where the companies are traded,
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you wanna buy Microsoft shares, you just go to your broker,
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go on TD Ameritrade and buy them.
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If on the other hand, you're talking about private equity,
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that's institutions or individuals
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investing in private companies.
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So thus, if you have pools of capital
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that mostly invest in private equity deals,
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that's how you'd think about it.
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It's difficult to make those happen
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because it's individuals, you have to sort of,
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what, have dinners and agree.
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So it's much less, it's much more human,
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much less mechanical, I would say.
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Yeah, now, and again, massive difference
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between large private equity shops who are professionalized
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and in the same category that I mentioned earlier
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versus private individuals who are wealthy or whatever.
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But again, it's much more individualized
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when you're going to people who like your idea
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and just say, I'd like to invest in this.
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Is that, from all the kinds of investments you've seen,
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what do you think is the most conducive
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to creating works of genius,
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whether that's in technology, AI space,
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or whether that's in movies?
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So creating something special in this world.
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I would say a couple of things.
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Enough money that whatever endeavor you're going into,
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that you're not so nervous about the edges, right?
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If I have $100 to spend and I think I can create
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a perpetual motion machine or something for $104,
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I can't do it because they're all over me about the budget.
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So I would say making sure that you have enough capital,
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making sure that that capital is patient enough
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so that it's, if you're gonna do things
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that are extraordinary, it takes some time.
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And you're gonna break stuff, right?
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You're gonna make mistakes,
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you're gonna have a whole bunch of film
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on the cutting room floor, so to speak,
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or if you're in the lab,
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you're gonna have a whole bunch of broken stuff.
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And I also think it's very important at the beginning,
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and I always try to do this with companies I invest in
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or buy, is make sure that you have a philosophical
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and somewhat mechanical alignment with the management team.
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So that going in, you both understand,
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hey, this is how we think about this problem
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or this company, this is what we feel like our culture is,
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this is what our goal is, and these are the metrics
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by which we'll agree to measure them by.
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Because if you don't have that shared,
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you know, hey, we're gonna take this journey,
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then I think that's where people get upset,
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disappointed, et cetera.
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What about, this is a weird question, but constraints.
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So this is both for filmmaking and investment.
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Do you think more money is always better?
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So I like constraints a lot.
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It's like constraints and almost like a desperation,
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and deadlines are catalysts for creativity,
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for productivity, for sort of innovation.
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So can you kind of speak to that as an investor,
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as a creator, like what's the right balance here?
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Well, I think if you're focused on a particular problem
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or a company or a thesis, if you have that focus
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and you feel like I have unlimited resources
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or renewable resources, so there's really,
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there's no leverage in the situation, right?
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There's no, if I fail at this,
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I'll just go get more money, right?
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I'll just go, I think that's a hard way to be resilient
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and to think of new ways to solve problems.
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So I think capitalizing things just, you know,
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to the nth degree does create some problems.
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So I think there's that perfect blend of
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don't starve the oxygen to the point
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where you make short term decisions
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or non strategic or thoughtful decisions
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because you gotta pay the rent.
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And on the other hand, you can't have it be like this,
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you know, everlasting gobstopper of whatever you want
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will just keep flowing the cash
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because that doesn't create any friction points
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that I think do result in works of genius,
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works of genius in things that, you know,
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that are transformative.
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And one of the things that is interesting to me
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about society sort of writ large is
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I think that when you go through hard times
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and you have to do things that are uncomfortable
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and you don't wanna do them because you're tired,
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because you're, that in some ways builds up that
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you're comfortable being uncomfortable muscle.
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And I sometimes think we're losing that a little bit
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and you can't sort of paint with a wide brush,
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but you know, that's one of the things
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that I kind of observe and hope that we don't go that way.
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I do think challenge and discomfort are a kind of gift
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because like overcoming that,
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it's like from every perspective,
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from a human perspective, it's a source of happiness
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and fulfillment, overcoming challenge.
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But from a business perspective,
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I see like if something is really difficult,
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to me it's also a sign that most others would,
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or many others would fail at this point.
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So like it's a feature.
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It's nice that something is difficult.
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When people tell you that something is impossible,
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I love that because it's like, all right,
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well then that's what a lot of people would believe.
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And that gives you an opportunity to be the person
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who shows it's not impossible.
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And you, of course you might be wrong,
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but if you're not wrong,
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you have the opportunity to stand out.
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So going through that hardship, taking those big risks,
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it's going to really pay off.
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So like discomfort is a feature, not a bug
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of both personal life, it's just good for life,
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but for business, it seems like just good business sense.
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If something is hard, it's probably a good idea to do that.
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Because most others will fail.
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I don't know if you can answer this,
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but what's the most expensive movie
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you were involved with to make?
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And why was it, you don't have to say numbers,
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but like is something stand out
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as being exceptionally expensive and why is it expensive?
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Um, I think Jurassic World was pretty expensive.
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I mean, worked out great.
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That's an epic film, by the way.
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It, look, it's one of my favorites.
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They just did an amazing job.
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And frankly, the crazy thing about my life
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is all the stuff that I loved as a kid
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somehow came full circle back into my adult life.
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And having the opportunity while I was out there
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to develop a friendship with Steven Spielberg
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and then have my name on the same film as Steven Spielberg.
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I mean, that was pretty surreal.
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So that was an expensive film.
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You know, Dark Knight Rises was an expensive film.
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But again, to me, there's a difference
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between expensive and irresponsible,
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and expensive because the vision warranted
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and it turned out financially it certainly did.
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Yeah, with Jurassic World, it's.
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I mean, I can't even imagine having those meetings
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because like you have to create so much
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and so much of it is obviously not real.
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You can't bring dinosaurs in a.
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Is that where a lot of the cost is,
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is in the computer side of things?
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Yeah, those are generally pretty massive components
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of the budget, and especially if you're doing it
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and inventing things as you go.
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I mean, Jim Cameron is one of those filmmakers
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who is designing the plane as it's flying
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in such a brilliant way.
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And I've got to know him over the years
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and just in awe of the way his brain works.
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And so yeah, it's a big component.
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Can you speak a little bit more to him
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in terms of, because you're such a fascinating person
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because you care a lot about technology.
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You care a lot about the cutting edge of technology.
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So how does he, a creator, a director,
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build the plane while it's flying?
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Like what's the role of innovation in this whole process?
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Well, so I never made a film with Jim.
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I'm just a huge fan and got to know him
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and John Landau, his producing partner.
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And one of the things that just fascinates me about Jim is,
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so he makes Titanic and there's a bunch of underwater cameras
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and things that they need that don't exist.
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So he goes and invents them and has a good grasp
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of engineering and has not only the imagination,
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but the ability to lead a team to build them.
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I got to go down early when they were shooting Avatar
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at a warehouse, I think it was, where they were shooting.
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And as they were explaining to me how they were capturing it
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and that they could go back later
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because they created the environment, it blew my mind.
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And I said, okay, this is truly,
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people talk about a big leap.
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This certainly is one.
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So he has continued to push the envelope
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in terms of the art of the possible.
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And I just think he's an incredible genius in that way.
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Again, another hard question.
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So you, in the realm of music, care about story, storytelling.
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Is there some aspect in which money
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and beautiful graphics get in the way of story?
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In filmmaking, so if you think about Jurassic World,
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obviously that's an experience like any other.
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Like what do you think about the tension
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between story, experience and like visual effects?
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Well, look, if you're using big effect shots
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and all kinds of tricks to cover over the fact
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that you don't have a very interesting story to tell,
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that's where I think it gets in the way.
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Where I think you have these incredible filmmakers,
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we mentioned Chris Nolan and Jim Cameron,
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Guillermo del Toro, you could go on and on,
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folks that just see the world differently
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and use technology to enhance the storytelling, right?
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To make you believe differently,
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rather to make you not just suspend your disbelief,
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but to feel like you're immersed in it.
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So I've certainly seen it done expertly
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and I've seen it done poorly.
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You've talked about this a little bit in the past.
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You kind of left the moviemaking business
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at an interesting time, perhaps you saw the changes.
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There's been a lot of excitement with Netflix, with TV,
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so the role of film in society has changed.
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So what do you think is the future of movies versus TV?
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Like if you were as a business person, as a creator,
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as a consumer, as a technologist,
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are thinking about the next 10, 20 years,
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what do you think is going to be the godfather,
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the great pieces that move us as a society
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in the next 10, 20 years?
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Is it going to be TV?
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Is it going to be movie?
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Is it going to be a TikTok clips?
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Well, so, and I think the other category
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that I would add to that, that will be the next great medium
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is truly immersive virtual reality
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in which new storytellers will emerge,
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especially when you can go into VR
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and there's enough computing power to sustain it
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and to allow it to be social
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and for you to have different paths to go down.
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That'll be, I think, the next realm
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of what storytelling and experience will look like.
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Do you think a video game kind of world
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or is it more movies or is it more social network
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or is it all of it kind of blending reality and gaming
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Yeah, I thought if you saw Ready Player One,
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which I love the book and the movie was cool too,
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but that's one version of it, right?
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Where you go in, now everybody's talking about the metaverse
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and all that, but you go into a world
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that's fully rendered as yourself
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and you interact with that world.
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The other side of it is to go in somewhere
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between being a passive observer,
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but being able to move around your point of view
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and experiences, which I think is interesting.
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And then I think another adventure, so to speak,
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I could think of is a blend of video games.
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So there's a mission, right?
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There's obstacles, there's everything
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and you move through it, but it's immersive
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and it tells a story at the same time.
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And that's why I think you're gonna see
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new amazing storytellers that we don't know yet
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that understand how to innovate
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and how to make you feel something in that environment.
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And to your earlier point, I saw probably around 2015
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when Netflix decided to be bold, put out House of Cards,
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put out all the episodes, leave you in charge
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of the pace at which you would view them,
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which I thought was great.
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That was a gutsy move.
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And I can't tell you around Hollywood,
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anybody that says that everybody thought it was a great idea
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is not being truthful because everybody I talked to
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said this is, they're idiots, right?
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What do they know about movie making and TV?
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And what I saw happening was if you look
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at what Netflix pulled off and they realized
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that there isn't really a moat around the studios,
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you really could make stuff and really good stuff.
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And so they started to create their own content
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that pulled in Amazon, which pulled in Google
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through YouTube and then you had Hulu,
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then you had Disney deciding
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that they're gonna have Disney Plus.
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And the next thing you know, you have some
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of the biggest companies with the largest balance sheets
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on the planet being in the creative business.
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If you're an independent, that's bringing a knife
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to a gunfight to be sure.
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And so I thought that was interesting.
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The other thing that it used to be that movies
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were where the big things happened
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and television was sort of,
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it was small screen, different experience.
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And you had something like Game of Thrones come out,
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which was not only on the same epic level visually
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and storytelling wise, but had the budget
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to be able to do it.
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And now I think you're seeing all kinds
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of different storytelling taking place.
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And I also like that you're not pigeonholed into a time.
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You got two hours to tell the story.
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You can do a three part mini series,
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a five part mini series.
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You can do television that's all kinds of different format.
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That I think allows creators
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to do a lot more interesting things.
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It is also interesting to consider the role
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of companies that enable that,
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like the capital that enables that.
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Without Netflix and HBO, you wouldn't have
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some of these epic shows.
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And so if we're thinking about the virtual reality world
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that you're talking about,
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it's interesting to consider who will enable that.
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Now, like you said, Facebook is talking about meta
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and metaverse, but it's unclear
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that just having money is enough.
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Netflix did a lot of really revolutionary stuff.
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There's a lot of companies that have money
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that don't quite do as good of a job yet
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at enabling creators of creating revolutionary new content.
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That changes the whole industry.
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And that's probably going to be the case
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with virtual reality.
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There is a lot of money needed to enable experiences,
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like in terms of compute infrastructure.
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There needs to be a huge amount of money there,
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but you also need to somehow give freedom to creators
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to have fun, to do their best work,
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and at the same time provide the perfect amount
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of constraints, all of that together.
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However Netflix makes it happen,
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they do a pretty good job
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because it's a very constrained platform,
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but yet all the creators I've ever talked to,
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comedians and so on, that work with Netflix,
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are really happy because they feel free
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to create their work.
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Yeah, and I think a lot of times companies are a letterhead,
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but it boils down to the people.
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And I think I've known Ted Sarandos a long time
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who ran the studio at Netflix
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and now took over for Reed running the company.
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But Ted, very smart, talented guy,
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and understood early how to cultivate talent
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and relationships with talent, which is important.
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When you're dealing with creative people,
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their motivations and their goals
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are not always the same, right?
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They're not always capitalistic, right?
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And so in terms of being able to communicate
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with creative people that are not always A to B to C
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And so I think they did a great job.
link |
Ted did a great job with that early.
link |
But I think that you're gonna see different formats.
link |
I don't think, I mean, going to a theater
link |
to see a massive movie on that screen in that format
link |
is a fundamentally different experience.
link |
And I think you're gonna find movies,
link |
my old shop, Legendary, just put out Dune,
link |
which I thought was phenomenal.
link |
When we secured the rights to Dune years ago,
link |
I was over the moon because I love the book.
link |
I love the entire world that is Dune.
link |
And that's a movie that I think you see on the big screen.
link |
I think when Avatar 2 comes out,
link |
I wanna see that on a big screen.
link |
But I think you're gonna see a ton of content
link |
is obviously being produced,
link |
and it's not all gonna go to a theater going experience.
link |
So you're gonna see, I think, different versions of this
link |
over the next five to 10 years.
link |
In case James Cameron is listening to this,
link |
so he officially agreed to talk at the time of,
link |
on this podcast, at the time of Avatar 2 release.
link |
I'm just holding you to that in this recorded conversation.
link |
Also just super excited, both the movie and the director.
link |
There's something special about movies.
link |
They win Oscars, they're historic in nature.
link |
There's something about TV shows,
link |
even when they're epic like Game of Thrones,
link |
that they're forgotten much quicker in history.
link |
I don't know, maybe that's because we haven't had
link |
enough of them, but the De Niro performances,
link |
and the Scorsese films, all the great films
link |
that we think of throughout the generations
link |
that define generations are films.
link |
Is that just old school thinking?
link |
Is that always going to be the case?
link |
I mean, look, to me, going in a darkened theater
link |
with a bunch of strangers, and the lights go down,
link |
and you go on this journey, there is something special
link |
and magical about that.
link |
And I think movies have been a part
link |
of our cultural fabric forever.
link |
And for some reason, Hollywood in America
link |
was uniquely positioned to do a great job with it.
link |
Not that there aren't great foreign movies,
link |
but far and away, American movies dominate,
link |
not only the world market, but you know,
link |
and so whatever it is that we do well,
link |
or Hollywood does well, there's something
link |
in the water, apparently.
link |
But I agree that I love movies,
link |
and I will for the rest of my days.
link |
It's interesting how creators can move
link |
back and forth now as well.
link |
That used to be a complete no no.
link |
You're either a movie guy, or you're a person,
link |
or you're a TV director, and that's that.
link |
But those lines have completely blurred.
link |
And they're also blurring, I mean,
link |
they're blurring all kinds of lines.
link |
Like they're moving to TikTok and Instagram,
link |
and I know right now it seems ridiculous
link |
to consider that these one minute things
link |
could be considered even in the same realm creatively
link |
as a film, but maybe that changes over time too.
link |
Maybe experiences can completely become fluid
link |
in terms of their size, as long as they have
link |
some deep lasting impact on you as a human being,
link |
Look, to me, the whole thing is about
link |
either the moving image, or even sometimes a picture
link |
will bring out an emotion, a reaction, something.
link |
So short form is harder, because you have less time
link |
to set things up and all that.
link |
But I'm sure there will be short videos
link |
and creators that come up with things,
link |
and if a moving image can get a reaction out of you,
link |
and make you feel a certain way,
link |
and stay with you, or inspire you,
link |
well, that to me is just the next evolution
link |
of whatever it's gonna be between humans
link |
and cameras, et cetera.
link |
See, I think that's why we've talked offline about this.
link |
That's why I love robots, is I think there's certain things
link |
in the short form with robots that immediately
link |
can bring out a feeling in people.
link |
There's something about our consideration
link |
of our own intelligence, of our own consciousness,
link |
of all the fears and hopes, and the beautiful things
link |
about human nature, the dark things about human nature
link |
that somehow, especially Lego robots bring out.
link |
Because we have both a fear and excitement towards that.
link |
Are these going to be our overlords,
link |
our gods that overtake humanity?
link |
Are these going to be things like horses
link |
or something like that, something that empower humanity?
link |
Like you don't know what to make sense of it.
link |
That's why they're super exciting.
link |
Speaking of robots and film, you've gone
link |
into traditional industries and disrupted them
link |
quite a few times.
link |
Was there, is there a system for deciding
link |
which industry is right for disruption?
link |
When you look at the world and see
link |
what are the big problems you would like to solve,
link |
do you have a system of how you see which problems to solve?
link |
How do you look at the world?
link |
Yeah, well, on the business side of that,
link |
so I have a holding company called Tolko,
link |
I know, very imaginatively named.
link |
Part of that is literally every name ever is now taken,
link |
registered and all that stuff.
link |
So we're a holding company.
link |
What's a holding company?
link |
So instead of being a fund that has money flowing
link |
in and out of it, and there's what's called a vintage year,
link |
I raise capital and I agree to invest that capital
link |
for so long, and then I give it back to you,
link |
which sometimes creates artificial time pressures
link |
and things like that.
link |
A holding company is more permanent capital.
link |
So the idea was, behind Tolko,
link |
was to buy almost always whole companies
link |
or majority stakes with great management teams
link |
in spaces that did not traditionally
link |
have a lot of innovation.
link |
And to have our labs group, who were data scientists,
link |
AI practitioners, engineers, machine learning, et cetera,
link |
and to be able to bring that wherewithal to that company.
link |
So to provide them with the right capital
link |
and to provide them with access to technology,
link |
that would be hard to individually recruit for that company.
link |
So I would say that the thesis was to look
link |
for industries that were large enough,
link |
that hadn't traditionally had access
link |
to that type of technology or innovation,
link |
and to try to look for companies that not only
link |
looked that part, but had management teams
link |
that embraced this and wanted to take that kind of journey.
link |
Yeah, there is quite a few industries like that,
link |
but that finding the industries and the management pair,
link |
because those industries often have
link |
a lot of old school folks who don't,
link |
it takes quite a bit of work for them
link |
to leap into technology.
link |
I work quite a bit with the autonomous vehicles
link |
and just the automotive industry.
link |
Depending on the company, there's old school folks.
link |
It's like Detroit thinking versus like,
link |
what do you call it, I don't know, California thinking.
link |
Well, I think you have to look at the nexus
link |
of two things there.
link |
One is just plain old human behavior.
link |
If I am uncomfortable and this isn't a comfort zone for me
link |
and it's not something I have as a field of expertise,
link |
I'm gonna shy away from that.
link |
Especially if I'm successful and I feel good about myself
link |
and it's a big successful company or person
link |
or whatever it might be.
link |
And the second thing is that especially
link |
if you're a public company and you're being weighed
link |
and measured every quarter, you are rewarding
link |
the managers of that company to hit metrics
link |
and to be reliable and to say, hey,
link |
I'm counting quarter to quarter
link |
that you're gonna deliver what you say.
link |
It's difficult to say, you know what, everybody,
link |
for the next two years, I wouldn't count
link |
on our financial projections at all
link |
because we're gonna reinvent what we're doing.
link |
It's gonna work in the long run and you're gonna see
link |
that this was a really smart investment
link |
five to seven years from now.
link |
That's not the way capitalism is currently wired,
link |
And a lot of, so again, if you reward managers
link |
with yearly bonuses and stock options
link |
based and tied to stock price and all these other things,
link |
you know, and then ask them to go break stuff,
link |
that's hard, I think.
link |
So you're saying like, so the talker approach
link |
to this, the private investment is the best way
link |
or perhaps the only way to enable this kind
link |
of long term innovation, investment,
link |
taking big risks, investing in innovation.
link |
Well, look, we certainly are not, by any means,
link |
the only one doing it.
link |
I'm just saying that when you think about big companies,
link |
more successful, you know, that are in old line businesses,
link |
and I hear people sort of talk about,
link |
well, why can't they just pivot?
link |
They recognize they need to be in the technology business
link |
because it's hard, it's hard to steer a ship and turn it
link |
that big, and especially if it's not part
link |
of your DNA at that company.
link |
So, you know, I just think that what we tried to do
link |
is to enable management teams that know
link |
where they wanna go and to be patient with capital
link |
and also, again, bring innovation to bear
link |
that they have access to.
link |
There's plenty of capital structures
link |
doing interesting things.
link |
That's one of the things I love about our country.
link |
This country innovates and this country invents things,
link |
and I'm constantly in awe of just the, you know,
link |
the human ability to innovate and to iterate.
link |
You know, I get to hang around some universities,
link |
including your old shop, MIT, and it's like.
link |
Yeah, you're still there.
link |
Still there, still teaching there.
link |
Still teaching, but that place is like Hogwarts.
link |
I mean, it's just, it's inspiring, right?
link |
And certainly the energy in Silicon Valley,
link |
which now Austin, Texas, where we're sitting,
link |
has its own incredible ecosystem.
link |
So that's one of the things I love about America
link |
is the ability, and that really is, I think,
link |
in the American DNA, to create things and invent things,
link |
and I just, I think that's invigorating.
link |
And I think that's even bigger than capitalism,
link |
sort of the machine of how capitalism works.
link |
That's just human nature.
link |
Capitalism is just one of the ways
link |
to sort of make that human nature shine, I suppose,
link |
but it's like, you mentioned MIT.
link |
There's a drive there to invent, to innovate,
link |
that's so purely human, that human spirit
link |
to sort of build something new.
link |
It's like that hopeful, optimistic spirit,
link |
especially in the engineering space.
link |
Like if you pay attention to the internet,
link |
like Twitter and all that kind of stuff,
link |
intellectuals and so on, there's a cynicism
link |
to when we talk about stuff,
link |
but there's an optimism to when we do stuff.
link |
And the doing part, when you actually build things,
link |
especially, like you care a lot about manufacturing too,
link |
like you actually build physical products,
link |
that's where we truly shine.
link |
Yeah, no question about it.
link |
And I'm passionate about our country making stuff again,
link |
doing our own manufacturing and making sure
link |
that we don't lose the ability,
link |
not just to create things intellectually
link |
and do the world's greatest blueprints,
link |
but actually make things here.
link |
Yeah, that's exactly right.
link |
How do we do that?
link |
How do we bring more manufacturing to the United States?
link |
Well, there's a company that I have a big personal investment
link |
in called Rebuild with some folks
link |
that all went through the MIT school years ago.
link |
There's a good friend of mine named Jeff Wilkie
link |
who used to be at Amazon.
link |
And we all felt the same way that America needed
link |
to make sure that it didn't lose its edge in that way.
link |
So it's a company that invests
link |
in American high tech manufacturing.
link |
And I think the way that we do that is provide capital,
link |
To me, this is also fertile ground for good,
link |
sustainable, high paying jobs.
link |
And we have to make it economically feasible to do that,
link |
again, here in this country.
link |
And not to say to companies that, again,
link |
are being weighed and measured quarter by quarter.
link |
Hey, this is three times as expensive to do it here,
link |
but you should do it here.
link |
We need to innovate and we need to create processes
link |
and companies and opportunity that balance that equation.
link |
And I think as we saw during the pandemic,
link |
I don't think in this day and age you can be an isolationist.
link |
That doesn't make any sense to me.
link |
But being self reliant and self determinant
link |
and making sure that you are never in a position as a nation
link |
that we can't do basic things
link |
because we're relying on supply chain in other countries.
link |
And whether it's we're not friends anymore,
link |
or a natural disaster or a virus or something pops up,
link |
I think those are costs of doing business
link |
that we have to put into the calculus
link |
of being able to make things here.
link |
There's an extremely high cost to making supply chain
link |
resilient that we really have to consider.
link |
And so if you really consider that cost,
link |
it makes a lot of sense to invest especially long term
link |
in building up manufacturing in a way
link |
where like you're making most of the stuff in one place.
link |
Sort of bringing it all, not all,
link |
but as much in as possible.
link |
And building it almost like from scratch
link |
here in the United States.
link |
I mean, what I guess your thought is with innovation,
link |
it's possible to sort of revolutionize
link |
the way we do manufacturing.
link |
So reduce the amount of supply chain stuff
link |
and like build stuff from scratch.
link |
Like do high tech manufacturing.
link |
So like optimize all aspects of the manufacturing
link |
and all that kind of stuff.
link |
Yeah, and I think where technology is the most efficient
link |
is the human machine interface, right?
link |
It's not let's automate everything
link |
and have nobody work anywhere.
link |
I, for a long time, that's neither feasible nor desirable.
link |
But where we can enhance jobs
link |
and make that interface immensely productive
link |
with the right training and so forth,
link |
I think that's a worthwhile endeavor
link |
and something that's gonna be important to our country.
link |
Yeah, I mean, you know who you're talking to.
link |
I love human robot interaction, human machine interaction,
link |
human AI interaction.
link |
So what do you think is the role of robotics
link |
in this high tech manufacturing?
link |
Sort of like industrial robots, robotic arms,
link |
all that kind of stuff.
link |
Or even more complicated kind of robots.
link |
What do you think is the role of robotics?
link |
What do you think is the role of AI
link |
in this manufacturing future you're thinking about?
link |
Well, robotics to me is an extremely exciting field.
link |
I don't have the same expertise that you do.
link |
I have an adjacency, but not the depth of knowledge.
link |
Have never really delved deeply into it
link |
or made investments in it.
link |
But I think what's exciting about it
link |
is everything from doing jobs
link |
that are very dangerous for humans,
link |
enhancing the human experience.
link |
When you look at really repetitive labor,
link |
things that, you know, it might take away a job,
link |
but is it a good job for that person?
link |
Is, you know, spending 30 years
link |
doing something highly repetitious,
link |
is that a good experience in life?
link |
So I think, and then when you think about everything
link |
from military applications, you know, rescue,
link |
we're already seeing a bunch of those things.
link |
And then just lastly,
link |
when you talk about that human interaction with robots,
link |
when you start to have the combination,
link |
so you have some level of intelligence and interaction,
link |
I mean, that's why we always love the droids
link |
in Star Wars, right?
link |
I mean, it's exciting, it captures the imagination.
link |
And I think, look, many, many hours have been spent
link |
on debating artificial intelligence
link |
and the ramifications, if things go sideways and so forth.
link |
And I think those are all, you know,
link |
those are appropriate conversations to be having.
link |
I think it's actually happening slower
link |
than most people realize,
link |
because there are tasks that humans do
link |
every minute of every day,
link |
standing up without losing your sense of balance.
link |
I mean, these are really hard things,
link |
but I think there's enough investment,
link |
both in private industry as well as nation states now
link |
on artificial intelligence that it is coming.
link |
So both in the software space, in the digital space
link |
and in the physical space.
link |
So we talk about manufacturing,
link |
so industrial robotics is very true
link |
that even in the factory, even the tasks that you think
link |
are pretty basic, you know,
link |
the amount of small intuitive decisions that humans make
link |
is quite incredible.
link |
So we have to be kind of explicit about saying
link |
which tasks are actually really hard
link |
and humans are just really good at them.
link |
And so on the flip side in the digital space
link |
with social networks, we recommend our systems
link |
with all kinds of like personal assistance
link |
in terms of voice based AI systems, all of that.
link |
There's opportunities there to find niches
link |
where AI can really have a transformative effect.
link |
I think one of the places that really haven't,
link |
this is where like you're worried to say stupid things,
link |
but I believe this very much that when we have AI systems
link |
in the home currently, you have somebody like Alexa
link |
and Google Home and so on,
link |
they're kind of very basic servants.
link |
They tell you about the weather, they can play some music,
link |
they can turn the lights on and off,
link |
all the kind of like smart home stuff.
link |
I think there's a lot of value in systems
link |
that form relationships with us
link |
in the way that pets do, dogs and cats.
link |
I don't know, just for people who have cats,
link |
cats don't care about you.
link |
They really don't, they don't form any kind of relationship.
link |
I don't know why you have relationship with them.
link |
Anyway, sorry, I threw out some shade.
link |
I'm just kidding by the way.
link |
That's a basic kind of connection you have
link |
with another living being.
link |
Then there's also just friends.
link |
You have different levels of friends,
link |
acquaintances, you have lifelong friends, all that.
link |
That friendship you have, I really believe
link |
that there is some aspect of the human experience
link |
that is deeply enriched by interacting with other beings.
link |
And for systems, computing systems,
link |
artificial intelligence systems in our world,
link |
to have the capability to engage in some of that,
link |
I think is not just an opportunity
link |
to help people grow, become better people,
link |
but it's also just a good business opportunity too.
link |
And that hasn't really been explored enough.
link |
So that to me is really, that's a whole exciting space
link |
that I think will enable better industrial robotics.
link |
It will empower a better Facebook
link |
or a better social network, a competitor to Facebook
link |
that overthrows Facebook.
link |
So it'll create better technologies
link |
that currently don't have that human robot interaction touch.
link |
So I don't know, that's super exciting to me,
link |
but that has to deal with the mess of human nature.
link |
The reason that most robotics people
link |
and AI people stay away from humans,
link |
they stay away from the human robot interaction problem,
link |
is because humans are complicated.
link |
They're messy, they're hard to control,
link |
they're hard to predict stuff about,
link |
they're hard to make sense of or like test repeatedly
link |
because one human can be drastically different
link |
from another human.
link |
And so to deal with that as a robotics problem
link |
And so one of the questions is which problems
link |
can you remove the human from consideration
link |
when you're trying to solve the problem?
link |
So like Elon Musk is an example of somebody
link |
who believes autonomous driving,
link |
we can remove the human from consideration,
link |
we can solve autonomous driving as a robotics problem.
link |
It's stay in the lane.
link |
When there's a red light, you stop at a red light.
link |
If there is humans in the picture like pedestrians,
link |
that's a ballistics problem.
link |
It's just treat them as a moving object
link |
that has with like 90% probability
link |
keeps moving in the way they were in the past few seconds
link |
with some smaller probability that might stop or turn.
link |
Just do some basic models about them
link |
and you'll be able to do just fine.
link |
So I tend to believe that even driving
link |
has to consider the full messiness of humans.
link |
The dance, the game theoretic dance of chicken
link |
that we all do when we jaywalk,
link |
we look at the car, that car doesn't,
link |
that driver doesn't have the guts to murder me
link |
so I'm going to walk in front of it and not look at the car.
link |
We do that kind of dance and AI systems
link |
need to be able to play, do that kind of dance.
link |
In Tolko, there's the labs.
link |
So there's a data science component, there's an AI component.
link |
So how do they go into a company
link |
and help revolutionize that industry?
link |
Well, there's different examples.
link |
So one of our companies, Figs, makes healthcare workwear,
link |
started by these two brilliant women
link |
and early days helping to build the platform and recruit
link |
and make sure that everything that we did
link |
at the company embraced technology
link |
and at the same time, they were obsessive
link |
about their customer, which is doctors, nurses,
link |
healthcare workers who are putting it on the line every day
link |
and obsessive about their product.
link |
And when you have those two things come together,
link |
you get the result that we did at Figs.
link |
We have a company called Acashure,
link |
which it's AI lab and base is down here in Austin, Texas.
link |
It was an insurance,
link |
one of the largest insurance brokers in the world.
link |
And we did a deal with them
link |
and sold some of our insurance holdings
link |
that was completely AI driven.
link |
And in that case, you basically put the team
link |
inside the company, right?
link |
Because it's a massive company
link |
and we've gone into all kinds of things.
link |
So it just depends on the different situations.
link |
But the biggest thing was just to make sure
link |
whatever the company needed,
link |
they had access to the talent.
link |
Sometimes we'd build it, sometimes we'd help recruit for it.
link |
You know how in technology, it's whatever works, right?
link |
There's no one way to do things.
link |
Well, Acashure is really interesting as an example.
link |
So insurance is a fascinating space.
link |
It seems like very ripe still
link |
for disruption across the board.
link |
So how do you, it seems like a lot of the disruption
link |
has to do with almost the first dump step
link |
of we've been using mostly paper.
link |
It's not digitized.
link |
You have to basically create a infrastructure
link |
and a framework where everybody is using
link |
the same digital system, like databases
link |
and just organize the data.
link |
It seems like that's a huge leap
link |
that basically can revolutionize major industries
link |
that still hasn't been done.
link |
Insurance is obviously the great example of that.
link |
And one of the things that struck me,
link |
the founder CEO of Acashure is a guy named Greg Williams.
link |
They're out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
link |
And as we were looking at expanding our footprint
link |
in insurance, I met with a lot of insurance executives.
link |
And they would talk about technology,
link |
but Greg truly understood the power
link |
of what would happen across actuarial sciences,
link |
predictive analytics and using machine learning
link |
to really run every aspect of your business.
link |
And then automating a lot of the,
link |
just the back office tedious steps.
link |
And as you said, one of the things that was great for us,
link |
they already had a data collection system and department.
link |
So it was much easier to pivot.
link |
And I'm very excited about the future of that company.
link |
It's, they're doing some pretty innovative,
link |
groundbreaking things.
link |
And those are the things that I like doing, right?
link |
Is that, yes, I wanna make money.
link |
Just, that's what that is.
link |
But at the same time,
link |
what did you do with your time on earth, right?
link |
Did you do anything to leave any kind of mark
link |
that you did anything interesting?
link |
I can only speak for myself.
link |
There are many more ways to measure one's life.
link |
And I can only speak about how I think about things.
link |
I grew up poor in upstate New York with a single mom
link |
and watched her work a couple of jobs
link |
and had to, from a young age, shovel snow and mow lawns
link |
and do all kinds of things to help her
link |
make sure the lights weren't turned off in our little place.
link |
And so that's just something
link |
that I've always been driven towards.
link |
And I just, I have really eclectic tastes and interests.
link |
And it's just been an interesting journey.
link |
So help be part of and help enable
link |
some cool new creations across the board,
link |
like film, music, AI, manufacturing,
link |
just insurance, all the specific industries
link |
that you disrupted, yeah.
link |
Small tangent, back to your childhood with your mom.
link |
Any memories kind of stand out,
link |
stick with you as something
link |
that helped define who you are as a man?
link |
Yeah, even though the university and college experience
link |
was not part of the family tree,
link |
and we had no connections, I didn't understand,
link |
I didn't know what a trust fund was or prep school,
link |
I didn't know what any of that was.
link |
But my mom from a young age would always say,
link |
you know, you're gonna go to college.
link |
There's no, you know, if you choose to,
link |
and I think from a young age,
link |
that was just an expectation that I had
link |
and that she instilled and the work ethic.
link |
And then my grandmother was a janitor,
link |
a cleaning lady in a hospital for 50 years.
link |
And then I remember there were times of, you know,
link |
I'm probably 10 years old, it's freezing cold out.
link |
And if I don't go out and shovel six driveways,
link |
we don't have enough money to pay the bill.
link |
So I don't know, I'm not a psychologist,
link |
so I don't know how that manifests itself in my life today.
link |
But I think the grit to say,
link |
I'm not in the mood to do this, I don't wanna do this,
link |
but that's the work that needs to be done.
link |
And no excuses, not I'm a victim
link |
and I'm gonna sit around and talk about,
link |
no, it is what it is,
link |
and you have to get done what you need to get done.
link |
And again, I think it's,
link |
you can never fully put yourself in someone else's shoes
link |
or experience, so I don't know what that is or feels like.
link |
But for me, those were two, I think,
link |
formative things that were important in my childhood.
link |
So that's pretty, the reality of life like that
link |
is pretty humbling.
link |
You still, you've been so exceptionally successful
link |
that it's easy to get soft now.
link |
How do you get humbled these days?
link |
You know, I think for me personally,
link |
trying to push the envelope
link |
and being weighed and measured, right?
link |
That's why I always loved sports too.
link |
There's a scoreboard.
link |
And I'm a huge believer in opportunity, meritocracy,
link |
all those things that I think are ideals
link |
that we wanna aspire to.
link |
And I think that there's a lot of things
link |
I'm involved with right now that I just wanna see
link |
I wanna see if, and you know,
link |
my own little mantra is cause the outcome, right?
link |
As much as you can, and at the same time,
link |
have the humility and not to have the hubris or arrogance
link |
to say I'm always gonna cause the outcome.
link |
Because you'll get your ass kicked pretty quickly
link |
The world and the universe is a big place
link |
with forces beyond, but I think,
link |
I also think a lot about being intellectually honest,
link |
which when I do university talks and so forth,
link |
I think that's a superpower.
link |
Because if you find yourself making decisions
link |
based on other people's expectations,
link |
based on places you don't wanna go,
link |
but you feel like momentum is taking you there,
link |
I think that's a big problem.
link |
And there are people that go to our top universities
link |
and can't wait to get out and start their own company
link |
and they want that pressure and they want to grind.
link |
And there are other people that are smart and talented,
link |
but just say, look, I don't wanna lay awake
link |
staring at the ceiling wondering
link |
how I'm gonna make payroll.
link |
I don't want that in my life.
link |
And I think if you can square that up
link |
and be okay with it and say, what makes me tick?
link |
What makes me happy?
link |
What puts me in a bad head space?
link |
Because there's a difference between challenging yourself
link |
and going against your nature.
link |
So that's why I think that being intellectually honest
link |
and being able to really sit down
link |
and go inside your own head and say,
link |
what am I good at?
link |
What am I not good at?
link |
How am I gonna put myself in a position
link |
Because I'm working on my weaknesses,
link |
but I'm not gonna put myself career wise in a position
link |
where I'm just fundamentally gonna have a hard time
link |
Yeah, intellectually honest is a tricky one.
link |
And it gets, there's like levels to it too.
link |
Because some of the things I think about
link |
when you dream of doing certain kinds of big things,
link |
a part of intellectual honesty is to say several things.
link |
One is like, hey, the thing you're dreaming about,
link |
like one, the fact that nobody's done it
link |
probably shows that you're just a dreamer.
link |
This is not going to, like think clearly.
link |
The fact that it hasn't been done
link |
probably shows that it may not be the right path.
link |
And two is like, if you're dreaming about stuff,
link |
there's a certain point where it's like,
link |
hey, you haven't done it.
link |
Like, why haven't you done it already then?
link |
Like you have to be honest with yourself.
link |
Like you have to be ambitious.
link |
Like a lot of people work hard a long time for a dream,
link |
but you have to wake up and be like, all right,
link |
I've been at this for 10 years.
link |
Like with a startup, you launch a startup
link |
and you think, okay, one year, two years,
link |
three years, four years, pretty successful,
link |
but it hasn't exploded like you dreamed
link |
and you have to shut it down.
link |
You have to be intellectually honest there.
link |
At the same time, you might want to be,
link |
like step it up, lean into it.
link |
Say almost like the flip side of like intellectual honesty
link |
is like maddening ambition of just saying, fuck it,
link |
I'm going to go all in.
link |
But that is a kind of intellectual honesty saying like,
link |
you know, the big problem here is I've been kind of going,
link |
doing too many things.
link |
Maybe with this dream, you have to go all in on it.
link |
All those kinds of things.
link |
I mean, this is human experience, it's complicated.
link |
Yes, all human things are complicated.
link |
And I think there's a difference between being reckless
link |
and making well thought out informed decisions.
link |
If you're going to go all in,
link |
make sure you've measured twice, cut once, as they say.
link |
And one of my other favorite, I forget,
link |
many years ago, I heard this saying and it stayed with me.
link |
It was never mistake, clear line of sight
link |
with distance and you know that.
link |
So I think that the key, whether you're starting a business
link |
or you're thinking about leaving the company you're at
link |
and starting a business or just leaving for another job,
link |
any of these things is as much as you can, right?
link |
And psychologists, I think would tell us,
link |
it's hard to be self aware completely, right?
link |
That's the rub that if we were all completely self aware
link |
of everything that we did and strengthen weaknesses,
link |
it'd be a different world.
link |
But I do think you can work on that
link |
and at least challenge yourself to think about it
link |
and not be in a position where I'm going to medical school
link |
because that's what you do in my family
link |
and even though I'm miserable doing it,
link |
So definitely you don't want to be sort of,
link |
because you don't think fall victim to conformity.
link |
Let's just go on doing the same thing over and over.
link |
But at the same time, is measure twice and cut once.
link |
It does feel like some of the biggest leaps taken
link |
are where you cut once and measure later.
link |
Is you leap in first.
link |
It's almost like a gut, I suppose that is a measurement,
link |
but you build up a good gut instinct of what to do
link |
and then you just do it and then you figure out,
link |
it's the building the airplane as you're flying it.
link |
Well, and I think each one of those instances
link |
that you could probably cite
link |
has its own unique circumstances, right?
link |
I don't have a deep biotech background,
link |
so if I suddenly stood up and said,
link |
I'm gonna put everything I have into this idea,
link |
well, those are, it's game theory, right?
link |
What are the odds of success?
link |
If on the other hand, you're brilliant in your field
link |
or you've seen some opportunity
link |
that you think is wide open
link |
and you're gonna go for it and break stuff, that's great.
link |
You just wanna, to me, always say like,
link |
how crazy is this on the spectrum of,
link |
do I have any expertise?
link |
What is the downside if I fail, right?
link |
If you're at a certain point in life with young children
link |
and you've got a mortgage and whatever else,
link |
that is one circumstance versus I just got out of Stanford
link |
or I just got out of whatever and I'm gonna go for it.
link |
It's just the whole thing, right?
link |
It is complex as you point out.
link |
And sometimes you just wanna have the right matrix
link |
in your head of decision making process
link |
to try to arrive at the right place.
link |
And even if you get close, that's where I think you say,
link |
you know what, the hell with it, I'm doing this.
link |
I do wanna ask you about one specific idea
link |
that sounds super fascinating
link |
that you're involved with recently.
link |
You led the $50 million seed round
link |
for a company called Colossal
link |
that is focused on deextinction.
link |
This is funny relative to our connection
link |
and conversation about Jurassic World.
link |
They're seeking to restore lost ecosystems
link |
and use gene editing to restore the woolly mammoth
link |
to the Arctic tundra.
link |
How are they gonna do that?
link |
Well, I met this fascinating guy at Harvard
link |
named George Church five, six years ago,
link |
and found him to be incredibly smart, have an imagination.
link |
And he partnered up with a guy named Ben Lamb,
link |
who's an entrepreneur.
link |
And basically the press and to me the imaginative,
link |
like you're capturing my imagination by telling me
link |
you're gonna bring back the woolly mammoth
link |
and other extinct animals.
link |
And I, you know, we'll see where that road leads.
link |
I was more interested in an investor
link |
in the things that they're working through
link |
around understanding genes and proteins
link |
and CRISPR and all these other things
link |
because being adjacent to George Church and his team
link |
as these things unfold over the next decade,
link |
I thought was the right thing to do.
link |
So people are important here,
link |
just like investing people and seeing
link |
what the hell they come up with.
link |
Absolutely, I mean, you can look through history
link |
and great things are done by great people, right?
link |
And companies, they end up over time becoming a logo
link |
and immediately what you think of them,
link |
but they started out with a person, with an idea
link |
and a team that cultivated that and made that happen.
link |
And I think there are certain folks
link |
that are just immensely talented
link |
that if you can be around them,
link |
and I also know his and his team's ethics
link |
in terms of, you know, after spending time
link |
talking about where the lines are,
link |
people in other countries that, you know,
link |
may not have the same process,
link |
may not have the same checks and balances,
link |
are doing this and pursuing this regardless.
link |
So at least I felt like with George and Ben and their teams,
link |
they're also very responsible people.
link |
This is where the human side of things comes into play.
link |
I've interacted with a lot of really brilliant people
link |
in the technology space where you kind of,
link |
you know, there's a lot of ways to feel this out.
link |
You can ask them whether they kind of read literature.
link |
You can feel out how much do they really understand
link |
about like human nature here.
link |
Like whatever the technology is,
link |
when it actually starts to play,
link |
interact with society at scale,
link |
like do they have an understanding
link |
or an intuition about how that happens?
link |
Some of that requires studying history.
link |
Some of that requires like just looking at
link |
the worst and best parts and events in human history
link |
to understand like, hey, it doesn't always turn out
link |
like everybody hoped the technology turns out.
link |
If a person has a depth of understanding about history,
link |
about human nature, then I think that's the right person
link |
to mess with some of this cutting edge stuff.
link |
Now you want Marcus Aurelius with a PhD from MIT.
link |
Just small tangent, but you mentioned having a conversation
link |
with Warren Buffett, you spoke really highly of him
link |
as an investor, as a human being.
link |
What about him do you admire?
link |
What from him, what insights have you drawn from him
link |
as a great investor yourself?
link |
Well, the afternoon that I got to spend with him,
link |
which is something I'll treasure forever.
link |
Look, sometimes when you meet people,
link |
even that are immensely successful,
link |
you may decide that after 20 minutes or a half hour,
link |
oh, you were in the right place at the right time
link |
There are other people that are clearly different,
link |
special, and I don't care if you made them start from zero,
link |
you know, would end up in a good place.
link |
And so it was an absolute privilege
link |
to spend the time with him.
link |
You know, and a couple of things that stood out
link |
in the conversation, he is incredibly intellectually curious
link |
and well read, and I like how simplistic he likes
link |
to keep his thought matrix.
link |
And then also, instead of trying to outsmart the market,
link |
it seems like a simple axiom, but just look,
link |
good companies that are led by talented managers
link |
that are good businesses over time are gonna get there.
link |
So I'm not gonna day trade, I'm just gonna,
link |
I'm looking for value.
link |
And then just on life stuff, he just, you know,
link |
and also his ability to take in
link |
and then use information was incredibly impressive.
link |
So I only spent the, you know, I'd met him before,
link |
but I only spent one afternoon with him,
link |
but it's, you know, pretty incredible.
link |
And one of the things that stuck out to me
link |
is we were in the middle of talking about Tolko
link |
or investing or how we thought about it.
link |
And I said, you know, I'm trying to be smart about,
link |
and he stopped me and he said, Charlie Munger,
link |
his partner of many years, Charlie and I
link |
don't try to think of the smart thing to do.
link |
We try to think what's the dumb thing we could do here.
link |
And I kind of laughed and he said, no, I'm dead serious.
link |
We think about it from the standpoint of
link |
what could we do in this situation that later
link |
we'd be like, that was a really dumb thing to do.
link |
And I actually thought that was, it got in my head.
link |
And I still think a lot about that
link |
as I'm dissecting problems.
link |
So there is, like, that's a kind of longterm thinking
link |
if you just avoid the dumb things,
link |
or if you simplify, just focus on those simple steps,
link |
all it takes is just do that for a long period of time
link |
and you'll be successful.
link |
Well, it certainly worked for him, that's all I can say.
link |
You've been a great investor yourself.
link |
How do you know, when you judge people,
link |
so I, whenever I go to San Francisco,
link |
I was thinking of moving to San Francisco.
link |
That's why I decided to, after really giving it
link |
some thought, talking to people, decided to move to Austin.
link |
You know, everybody's dreaming big and they have big plans.
link |
And it's actually, I don't envy the job of an investor
link |
of any kind, because everybody has big dreams
link |
and it's hard to know who exactly,
link |
what idea is going to materialize,
link |
what team is going to materialize into something great.
link |
How do you make those decisions about people, about ideas?
link |
Well, if I had any kind of a lattice work on this,
link |
it absolutely starts with the people.
link |
And I think the reason for that is your business plan
link |
is going to change, right?
link |
There's very few businesses I know of that say,
link |
we're gonna make a widget in this location
link |
and 30 years later, we're successful
link |
and we just make a widget and that's what it is.
link |
Things happen, right?
link |
And today they happen with such velocity
link |
that you have to be able to make hard decisions
link |
based on imperfect information.
link |
And are you, how are you going to calculate those answers?
link |
How self interested are you going to be?
link |
What kind of ethics will you apply?
link |
What's your short term versus long term thinking?
link |
Are you able to give an honest assessment of a situation?
link |
Because the thing that you can count on
link |
is problems are gonna happen.
link |
Things you didn't anticipate are gonna happen.
link |
How pliable are you, right?
link |
How much elasticity is there in your ability
link |
And I think it's important when you invest in something
link |
that you both see, you understand the roadmap ahead
link |
and agree to it, right?
link |
Doesn't mean there won't be twists and turns,
link |
but you're not like, whoa, wait a minute,
link |
what did we do here?
link |
This isn't what was in the thing I signed up for.
link |
And then I think honesty and communication
link |
is a huge thing to me with,
link |
I always tell people if bi directionally,
link |
if there's something going on,
link |
start the conversation with, Lex, we have a problem.
link |
Okay, now I'm sitting up, you have my full attention,
link |
we're gonna talk about whatever it is.
link |
Bad news should travel faster than good news.
link |
And because it's going to happen,
link |
being in business with someone
link |
that is gonna shoot you straight
link |
and sometimes say, I don't know.
link |
I don't know what the answer is.
link |
I gotta go figure it out.
link |
That I can process a lot better than,
link |
look, I don't want you mad at me or disappointed
link |
or I can't handle not having success.
link |
So we're just gonna kick the can.
link |
And I think, especially in today's business environment,
link |
that's very, very dangerous.
link |
So that's a bad sign, not just because it's good
link |
to communicate and be honest,
link |
but if they're not willing to do that,
link |
then it goes back to the intellectual honesty.
link |
They're probably not also able to be brutally honest
link |
with themselves when they look in the mirror
link |
about the direction of the company.
link |
But look, I wasn't there, so I don't know.
link |
But I think if you unpack many situations
link |
that turned out negatively,
link |
most of the people, whether you're faking lab results,
link |
you have a biotech company,
link |
everybody's staring at Theranos these days.
link |
Do I think in a lot of cases, you're either the villain,
link |
like you started out saying,
link |
I'm gonna screw my shareholders over
link |
and I'm gonna be a liar, that isn't my experience.
link |
Most things are little incremental moves that you say,
link |
we're gonna get this right next week,
link |
but today we gotta make the presentation.
link |
So we're gonna just tweak things a little bit.
link |
That's a slippery slope, right?
link |
And so that's why I think from a standpoint of people,
link |
you wanna go into the foxhole with folks that,
link |
you know, understand things are gonna happen
link |
and I'm gonna let you know about them
link |
and we're gonna try to solve them together.
link |
And then just in terms of the idea,
link |
it's, I always ask like, okay,
link |
if this company executed the way,
link |
that's the other thing that always cracks me up
link |
about financials, whenever somebody pitches you,
link |
inevitably they'll say,
link |
our projections are really, really conservative.
link |
I'm still waiting for somebody to come in and say,
link |
look, my projections are wildly optimistic.
link |
We'll never hit these numbers, but anyway,
link |
it's, you know, if this company did what it says
link |
and executes and does it matter, right?
link |
Does it move the needle enough?
link |
And what are the things that uniquely position
link |
this company to be successful?
link |
And you just have to be able to answer,
link |
I think a number of those questions pretty crisply.
link |
But at the end of the day, it's still a big risk.
link |
So you're just trying to minimize the risk.
link |
Let me jump to another topic.
link |
You're an incredible human being
link |
that you're involved with this.
link |
Your band, Ghost Hounds, is touring with the Rolling Stones.
link |
So before we talk about your band, let me ask about that.
link |
What's that like, playing with the Rolling Stones?
link |
Surreal, just because they're my favorite band of all time.
link |
To me, the greatest rock and roll band,
link |
it's not even close, of all time.
link |
And, you know, to share the same stage,
link |
to be on tour and to go out
link |
and get that energy from the crowd, you know,
link |
and every night and come off stage
link |
and later when they go on and you hear that iconic,
link |
ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones.
link |
And then it's incredible.
link |
And, you know, what's amazing to me about the band,
link |
next year will be their 60th anniversary, 60 years.
link |
And it's hard to be around anything for that long,
link |
but making music and packing stadiums.
link |
And what's amazing to me, they can play a two hour set
link |
and it's not just that, oh, that's a hit or you recognize it.
link |
It's like every song is an anthem, right?
link |
And so it's been amazing.
link |
We got to play with them in 2019.
link |
And when they ask us to do this again,
link |
it's just an absolute privilege.
link |
I asked you this offline,
link |
so I know you are a kind of rockstar,
link |
but just me, maybe I'm projecting,
link |
but do you get nervous, such a large audience
link |
with the Rolling Stones?
link |
It feels like there'll be a lot of pressure.
link |
Yeah, I mean, you definitely don't want to screw it up.
link |
I think our band is tight knit and all that stuff.
link |
And I think that the individual nervousness dissipates
link |
when you go out as a group and you're making music together
link |
and you sort of, okay, we're all in this
link |
and we're doing a thing, which is why even in sports,
link |
I always look at individual events like ice skating
link |
or anything where it's just you out there alone.
link |
And that's different than being with a team and nerve wracking.
link |
So I'm sure if it was me with an acoustic guitar
link |
just going out, it would feel different,
link |
but absolutely you get the right kind of butterflies,
link |
And just the energy of playing music
link |
and having it be this relationship and look, I get it.
link |
I've been to a ton of concerts where I'm like,
link |
look, can we just get to the band please?
link |
But what's been great is just an amazing reception.
link |
And we have this guy named Trey Nation
link |
who's the lead singer who's just incredibly talented.
link |
I mean, he's just not only an amazing voice,
link |
but just has that charismatic thing.
link |
What's it feel like to play in front of a huge audience?
link |
What's, as a guitarist, are you lost in the music?
link |
Like you almost don't feel the audience.
link |
Does it add extra energy?
link |
Does it add extra anxiety?
link |
What does it feel like?
link |
You know, stadiums are interesting
link |
just because it's so big and cavernous.
link |
And because you want to protect your ears.
link |
So we use an in ear system
link |
so that you are a little disconnected from the crowd.
link |
Because if you're playing that loud
link |
and you're standing in front of your amps
link |
without ear protection, that's bad.
link |
How are you monitoring the sound?
link |
The in ear stuff, is that producing sound
link |
or is it strictly ear plugs?
link |
No, it's producing the sound.
link |
So it's like putting ear pods in and listening to a song
link |
and you're playing to it, right?
link |
It's just us playing, but it protects your ears.
link |
But the energy from the crowd,
link |
when they get going and get into it,
link |
which Knock On Wood so far has been amazing,
link |
there's nothing like it.
link |
I mean, it's just this bi directional thing that happens.
link |
And music and sports were kind of my first loves.
link |
And yeah, it's very difficult to describe,
link |
I think accurately, because it's like no other feeling.
link |
Musically, how is it different than playing in a garage
link |
with the band by yourself practicing?
link |
Like, do you feel like you're creating something different
link |
when you got the guitar and the amp
link |
and just the sound dissipating out
link |
and everybody's listening, is that?
link |
It's, listen, the first time we did it
link |
and there's nobody in the stadium,
link |
first time I ever played in the stadium.
link |
And I'm just like, I'm out there in front
link |
and just hitting different chords
link |
and playing different licks.
link |
And I'm like, it's like I won a contest
link |
and I get to do this.
link |
But what's different about it,
link |
and each venue is different.
link |
So if you, we went on the road with ZZ Top a few years ago,
link |
which was incredible.
link |
Love Billy Gibbons, he's a Texan.
link |
Incredible person and guitar player.
link |
But when you're playing in like five to 7,000 seats,
link |
it's really, I mean, it's, you're right there with them,
link |
And then when you play in an arena,
link |
we toured with Bob Seger on his last tour, which was cool.
link |
Played some shows with him.
link |
And again, the arena, like they're all kind of packed
link |
And it's super loud, which was cool.
link |
Meaning the crowd is,
link |
stadiums is a completely different animal.
link |
And it's just a completely different experience.
link |
Do you enjoy it versus like a smaller room?
link |
What, as a guitarist, as a musician,
link |
what's your favorite like room to play of the size?
link |
Any room that'll have me.
link |
You know, look, I think arenas are the perfect blend.
link |
If I had to say, because it's loud and, you know,
link |
20, 30,000 people, but like right up, right up on you.
link |
A stadium, look, playing the stadiums with the Rolling
link |
Stones, it just is gonna go on the head marker somewhere
link |
is one of the more, you know, I say this,
link |
and I really mean it.
link |
My life is like a punked episode that just hasn't,
link |
no one's burst in yet, but yeah,
link |
it's as cool as you think it is.
link |
So 60 years, how do you think Mick Jagger still got it?
link |
How do you explain it?
link |
I gotta tell you something.
link |
I mean, the funny thing is whatever,
link |
wherever there is excellence,
link |
people wanna know how'd you do it, right?
link |
What's the secret?
link |
Not only is Mick Jagger, and I think the songs
link |
that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger wrote together,
link |
if you go back and listen to the lyrics,
link |
it's just incredibly poignant,
link |
and I'm just a huge Stones fan, so,
link |
but he works out like a maniac, right?
link |
And it's that 10,000 hours thing,
link |
and it's that, hey, maybe I don't feel my best today,
link |
but I'm gonna get up and do my routine and work out
link |
so that at his age, which, I mean,
link |
you can look at people at different ages chronologically
link |
that are, maybe we're both at this age,
link |
but I'm a lot older than you are, and vice versa.
link |
And he just, I think it's the combination of raw talent
link |
and the ability, and he's very smart, right?
link |
Like he understands how to have interaction with a crowd
link |
and hold them in the palm of his hand
link |
and be an entertainer, but then on top of that,
link |
the reason he can at this age run around stadiums
link |
and be just as energetic is he puts the work in.
link |
And that's one thing, step that I think
link |
a lot of people miss sometimes,
link |
where they want that magic trick,
link |
they wanna know what's the shortcut.
link |
Most of the time, the answer is there's no shortcut.
link |
Yeah, you have to work hard on the way there
link |
and work hard to stay on top.
link |
And sometimes it's not even like work hard,
link |
it's just like be a professional,
link |
which that involves, in his case, at his age,
link |
with the amount of stuff you have to do on stage
link |
and the way he does it.
link |
You have, this is a professional athlete.
link |
A professional athlete that has to do things
link |
that are probably designed for 20 year olds
link |
and 30 year olds has to do it at an older age,
link |
which means what do you have to do?
link |
Well, he probably has a whole physical routine
link |
Diet, the whole thing.
link |
And it's hard, look, if you wanna do great things,
link |
you probably have to do hard things to get there.
link |
I'm not gonna make you pick,
link |
just stick on the stones for one more minute.
link |
But what are some great Rolling Stones songs
link |
that were impactful to you, lyrically, musically,
link |
maybe something you like playing, like air guitar.
link |
Probably my favorites, I love Sympathy for the Devil.
link |
It's a very, I don't know, sort of Faustian.
link |
I love the lyrics.
link |
I love how the, almost a voodoo beat
link |
just kind of builds throughout the song.
link |
That's always been one of my favorites.
link |
So in that song, he never mentions Devil, does he?
link |
Like, you know my name.
link |
There's like a flirtation going on in the lyrics.
link |
It's kind of interesting.
link |
Yeah, here's all the trouble I've caused along the way
link |
And I just think it's really, really great.
link |
And musically, it builds really nicely.
link |
And it's like both fun and dark.
link |
there's a playful nature to it.
link |
It's, that's very stones.
link |
The only, they can pull it off
link |
because it's like playful,
link |
but it's also like dark and dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.
link |
And Gimme Shelter is just, you know,
link |
and to this day, when I listen to the studio version
link |
and Mary Clayton just comes on and sings that epic,
link |
And there's a documentary that was done
link |
about backup singers, phenomenal.
link |
And it tells the story of that moment
link |
in that song with Mary Clayton.
link |
And it's just her voice and the way it unfolded,
link |
they got her out of bed at like 10 o clock at night in LA.
link |
And she's like the Rolling Stones,
link |
and went in and just killed it.
link |
And I can't sing at all.
link |
I'm by ordinance not allowed around a microphone.
link |
So I'm always in awe when someone can sing like that.
link |
But, you know, those are,
link |
those are some of my favorite Rolling Stones songs
link |
and Painted Black's awesome.
link |
I mean, I could go on and on.
link |
Yeah, Painted Black is great.
link |
Again, a song that builds as bad as,
link |
I mean, it defines a whole generation.
link |
What made you pick up a guitar?
link |
What made you fall in love with the guitar?
link |
It's just the coolest instrument, right?
link |
I mean, when you watched back then,
link |
and I was kind of an old soul.
link |
I was listening at a fairly young age to Muddy Waters,
link |
Robert Johnson, Lightning Hopkins, BB King,
link |
and just the soulfulness.
link |
Oh my, I mean, BB plays five notes and just kills it
link |
and the emotion that it evokes.
link |
So I just was just in awe of the instrument.
link |
And I also, there's always somebody around who's a musician
link |
that just picks the instrument up and can play, right?
link |
And they're just so talented at it.
link |
And they can just listen to a record and play it.
link |
That was never me.
link |
I never took formal lessons.
link |
I had to grind to just make it sound
link |
like I wanted it to sound.
link |
So both technically and ear, everything was hard work.
link |
Yeah, I mean, I could hear it and what they call,
link |
you know, you play.
link |
So my right hand, the rhythm side of it is,
link |
that's probably if I have anything, my strength.
link |
But there's something pretty amazing that happens
link |
when you get together with other people and play a song
link |
in that moment where it hits the pocket
link |
and you all kind of know it.
link |
And it's just such a cool feeling.
link |
And it was interesting growing up because I was,
link |
again, I always had eclectic interests.
link |
So I loved math and physics and science.
link |
So I had those friends and I was an athlete
link |
and played football and baseball and basketball.
link |
So I had my jock friends, and then I had my music friends
link |
and so it was just kind of that.
link |
And so when I was still living in Los Angeles
link |
and had Legendary, I just missed playing.
link |
And so I put this band together
link |
and called it the Ghost Hounds because again,
link |
huge Robert Johnson fan and that legend of Robert Johnson
link |
selling his soul at the crossroads
link |
in exchange for his musical talent.
link |
And you guys have that in one of the videos.
link |
Such a cool video.
link |
Exactly, so I just thought that's such cool lore.
link |
I just love the blues.
link |
So Robert Johnson would often talk about hellhounds
link |
And so I always just thought, huh, what about ghost towns?
link |
So I wish it were a more clever, deeper story,
link |
but that's about it for the name.
link |
That's pretty deep, Robert Johnson's incredible.
link |
But you also talk about that you connect
link |
to the storytelling of blues.
link |
So what makes a good story in a song?
link |
Like what aspect of storytelling connects with you in song?
link |
So I'm a big lyrics guy too.
link |
I love like deep lyric people like Tom Waits
link |
and like people that are like Leonard Cohen,
link |
like even Bob Dylan, they're like obviously, it's poetry.
link |
And then there's some people like the Rolling Stones there.
link |
It's like seemingly simpler,
link |
but it's still so much more to it.
link |
It's like less is often more.
link |
It still tells a strong story.
link |
Yeah, and there's certain people
link |
and Jagger and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
link |
Billy Gibbons is in this boat.
link |
They just say things in a certain way
link |
that are just cool, right?
link |
It's just, and so I write our music and lyrics.
link |
I have to tell a story.
link |
I have to know the characters in the song.
link |
I'm not good at just writing some rhymes
link |
and having it match up to the right key and the right music.
link |
I have to understand like, that's just me.
link |
And so I think that, look,
link |
if you have three or four minutes to tell a story,
link |
you have to be more efficient with your use of language.
link |
And you have to understand what you're building to it
link |
understand what you're building to, if anything,
link |
and evoke emotion.
link |
And hopefully for those three minutes,
link |
get the listener to understand
link |
not only the point of the song,
link |
but where you're coming from
link |
and to make you feel a certain way.
link |
There's a song that the audience has seemed to like a lot
link |
on the new album called Good Old Days.
link |
And I wrote that because especially during COVID
link |
and reflecting on what normalcy looks like
link |
and what happens when you're cut off,
link |
I just was kind of taken with this idea of
link |
that when you sit around and reminisce with friends,
link |
oftentimes it's not just like some big event happened.
link |
It's, remember that summer,
link |
we'd go up to the lake all the time
link |
and it's who you were with.
link |
And at the time, it probably seemed pretty pedestrian.
link |
It just seemed like kind of a normal day,
link |
but it was the company you were keeping.
link |
It was the time in your life.
link |
It was whatever it was.
link |
And I just kind of struck me that right now
link |
we're doing stuff that you're gonna reminisce about later
link |
that seems kind of ordinary to be like,
link |
man, that was such a great time.
link |
So the idea is be in the moment and all that stuff.
link |
But these are the good old days.
link |
And enjoy it and soak it in
link |
and kind of be present for it.
link |
Yeah, it's a great perspective to take on the present
link |
because we are in the thing that we'll remember.
link |
We're living through the thing we'll remember.
link |
And sometimes the things we'll remember
link |
is the simple stuff, the little stuff.
link |
Outside of Keith Richards,
link |
who is the greatest, ridiculous question,
link |
but just indulge me,
link |
who is the greatest blues guitarist of all time,
link |
rock guitarist of all time?
link |
Well, you got a little bit of a hybrid
link |
with Jimi Hendrix, right?
link |
Because he played the blues and he played rock and roll.
link |
So I think most guitarists would say
link |
Jimi Hendrix was pretty ridiculous.
link |
That probably for me,
link |
I'm a huge, huge, huge Hendrix fan to play.
link |
He can't, I mean, even to this day,
link |
I don't care, technology, pedals, whatever,
link |
he just somehow fused with the instrument.
link |
I can't be sitting here in Austin, Texas
link |
without mentioning one of the great guitar players
link |
of all time, Stevie Ray Vaughn.
link |
See, that's how, I know you're like a rock star.
link |
You're sucking up to the audience.
link |
Well, no, you have listeners all over the place,
link |
but Stevie Ray Vaughn is another one of those.
link |
That is incredible.
link |
Just blows me away.
link |
And then with the older guys,
link |
BB King, Hubert Sumlin, Clapton.
link |
I saw him on his last tour
link |
and just walked out on my,
link |
just like unbelievable how he still sounds.
link |
And both electric and acoustic, just so strange.
link |
And the greatest storyteller, you mentioned Bob Seger.
link |
That's an interesting one.
link |
He almost doesn't get enough credit, I feel like,
link |
for how great he is.
link |
Obviously he's super famous, but.
link |
No, he's, and his voice.
link |
I also, I had the privilege of getting friendly
link |
with John Fogerty, you know, John Fogerty and CCR fame.
link |
And he's another one that's just the way he phrases things.
link |
And you just look at the catalog of stuff he wrote.
link |
I read Bruce Springsteen's book
link |
and was, I'm a fan, but after reading the book,
link |
it was really, you go back and listen to his lyrics
link |
and the way he pours himself out is pretty incredible.
link |
And then again, with the old blues guys,
link |
I just think the emotion they could get out of
link |
playing like, staying on the one, right?
link |
Just playing the same rhythm.
link |
You listen to Manish Boy by Muddy Waters
link |
and it's just, there's something so,
link |
it just draws me in every time.
link |
And the emotion they're able to get out of things.
link |
And I'm also a huge Chuck Berry fan.
link |
I just think that sound is, I love it.
link |
Do you know how to play Johnny B. Goode?
link |
Maybe one of the great moments, at least of my childhood,
link |
was back to the future and watching Michael J. Fox plug in
link |
and then at the end, play at the dance
link |
to save his parents with Johnny B. Goode, pretty awesome.
link |
Yeah, the guitar is so much more than a musical instrument.
link |
It feels like, it's like the,
link |
in the 20th century, it's like the car.
link |
Like it defines so much of Hollywood,
link |
so much of a generation of what it means to be,
link |
I don't know, what it means to be a man,
link |
what it means to be a human in America.
link |
Emblematic to me of a certain type of music.
link |
And that's, I made a documentary years ago
link |
called It Might Get Loud with Jimmy Page, The Edge.
link |
I highly recommend that everybody watch that documentary.
link |
It's an incredible celebration of the guitar.
link |
Yeah, it says Jimmy Page, Jack White from White Stripes.
link |
And The Edge from U2.
link |
Well, now you have to tell the story of that one
link |
because how the heck did that all come together?
link |
Because it's so fascinating,
link |
such different musicians all coming together,
link |
talking about their story,
link |
talking about how they approach the music
link |
and also playing together a little bit
link |
in this casual kind of setting.
link |
Well, look, one day I came downstairs
link |
and the Rolling Stone magazine is sitting there
link |
and it was the 50 top guitarists of all time, their list.
link |
And then I had some other financial report with video games
link |
and the top video game at the time was Guitar Hero, right?
link |
And then there was a third thing, I can't recall it,
link |
but I just, and I said to myself,
link |
what is it about the guitar that is so central
link |
to the rock and roll, whatever you wanna call it?
link |
Like, why is that the symbol?
link |
And I said to myself, I wanna ask Jimmy Page
link |
why he picked up the guitar,
link |
because he's Jimmy Page, right?
link |
And so I called a friend of mine, Davis Guggenheim,
link |
who had directed Inconvenient Truth,
link |
and I think still is,
link |
but at the time was the biggest documentary ever.
link |
And I called Davis and I said, look, I have this idea.
link |
I wanna make this movie about the guitar,
link |
about different eras and styles and whatever,
link |
but I've never made a documentary.
link |
I don't know how to do that.
link |
So I was just looking for advice.
link |
And thankfully, because he's one
link |
of the best documentarians ever, Davis is like,
link |
you know what, I can't get this out of my head.
link |
I'll direct it, which was amazing.
link |
And we wrote three names down
link |
that represented different eras and different styles.
link |
Rarely do you get, you go three for three,
link |
but it was those three guys.
link |
And it was just such a incredible experience
link |
to sit there and get to know Jimmy Page.
link |
You know, I mean, it was like,
link |
and he was like Gandalf, man.
link |
He was like always Jimmy Page.
link |
That was so cool to see him.
link |
Gandalf was, there's like a wisdom,
link |
there's a calmness to him compared
link |
to like the restlessness of Jack White.
link |
Like the, I mean, that combination was just fascinating.
link |
It was one of the coolest experiences ever.
link |
And one of the things, there was a moment
link |
where Jimmy, he was going through his guitar case
link |
and he had the double neck from stairway to heaven
link |
and he handed it to me and I was like, mm hmm.
link |
I mean, it's like somebody handing you X caliber or something.
link |
Amazing experience.
link |
And The Edge, one of the kindest human beings
link |
you'll ever meet in your life.
link |
Just an amazing person.
link |
And I think he hit it right on the head with Jack
link |
is he's got that energy, you know,
link |
and constantly pushing himself.
link |
But it's hard to believe it's been, I think 10 or 11
link |
or maybe even 12 years since it came out, but.
link |
After watching it, I realized like how much it was needed.
link |
And I was almost surprised it didn't already exist.
link |
It was like, yeah, the guitar wasn't quite celebrated
link |
We almost didn't acknowledge it.
link |
How important it was culturally.
link |
It's kind of amazing.
link |
And the way it closed from the song, the.
link |
It was called The Wait, yeah, by the band.
link |
That's because they didn't want to go home.
link |
We were shooting on a Warner Brothers soundstage
link |
for three days when we called it The Summit
link |
where the three of them came together.
link |
And the two things I'll never forget
link |
is when Jimmy starts to play the riff
link |
from Whole Lotta Love.
link |
Edge and Jack ceased to be rock, you know,
link |
rock gods or whatever,
link |
and had the same 15 year old kid feeling that I did.
link |
You could see in their face.
link |
And then at the end, they're like, hey, can we play?
link |
We just want to, we don't want to go.
link |
Can we just play something acoustically?
link |
So we printed out the lyrics.
link |
That's what they wanted to play.
link |
And they just sat there and sat on those couches
link |
Such a good way to end.
link |
What's your guitar rig setup like?
link |
You have a few guitars.
link |
First, let's just put on the line.
link |
So what's better, Les Paul or Strat?
link |
Well, I'm not going to get into what's better
link |
because I'm sure that'll start a flood of whatever.
link |
I'm going to say it's Strat.
link |
My main instrument is a Les Paul.
link |
But I, okay, let me just put it on the table.
link |
I'm speaking as somebody who literally,
link |
I don't think I've ever actually strummed a chord
link |
So I've been, maybe I'm uninitiated.
link |
So I don't, I don't speak from experience,
link |
but it's probably because of Hendrix
link |
is so deeply influenced by Hendrix
link |
that I just kind of follow in his footsteps
link |
and clap them and so on.
link |
The amazing thing to me is if you look back at Leo Fender
link |
and what the Gibson Guitar Company and Les Paul did
link |
in the fifties, those are still the shapes
link |
and the perfect thing today, right?
link |
The Strat and the Telecaster and the Les Paul.
link |
And it's, they got it right way back, way back then.
link |
So I have my main guitar, you got to name your guitar.
link |
So my main guitar is named Hazel and it's a 59 Les Paul.
link |
And there's something magical in that year,
link |
like a Stradivarius and they're just,
link |
there's something different about them.
link |
So I play that and then I play it through sort of
link |
my main rig is either a 59 Fender Twin or a 65 Marshall.
link |
And then when we're on the road now,
link |
cause when you use older vintage stuff,
link |
you just got to be super careful with the tubes
link |
and everything, it has to be reliable.
link |
So very nicely, the guys from Two Rock
link |
sent me some of their amps and they're really,
link |
cause I don't use any new stuff,
link |
but the Two Rock stuff is pretty great.
link |
So that's actually what I'm using.
link |
Oh, it gets close to the sound that you like
link |
with the Marshall.
link |
Yeah, it's new and reliable.
link |
So that's what I'm using on the road right now.
link |
Do people use like emulation?
link |
Do they use software?
link |
I personally don't, I go, I don't have many pedals.
link |
I use a Klon, an old vintage Klon straight into the amp.
link |
As old school as possible.
link |
Is there other cool guitars you have
link |
that kind of stand out?
link |
I have a bunch of what they call Blackguard Telecasters
link |
from the 50s, which are pretty great.
link |
What are those, Blackguard Telecasters?
link |
Yeah, so they just, you know, it's in the 50s.
link |
Oh, they actually legit have a Blackguard.
link |
But they're incredible, so.
link |
What's the color of the Telecaster itself?
link |
Most of them are yellow with black
link |
and then they got into different configurations,
link |
but there's something, I have a 51 Telecaster
link |
that I play in Open G, and in songs with Open G,
link |
that just, again, there's something, you know,
link |
and I'll take all the help I can get
link |
in terms of making it sound great.
link |
So I'll try to find the magic ones.
link |
What's your writing process like
link |
for the music and the lyrics?
link |
Is there, do you have to go to the mountains?
link |
Is there whiskey involved?
link |
What do you have to do?
link |
Or do you just write a little bit
link |
whenever you have a moment of free time?
link |
I'm a boring guy, because I don't drink.
link |
I don't, I just, I figure I can screw things up plenty
link |
on my own without adding anything.
link |
But, you know, for me, it either starts with a riff,
link |
just something that I think is an interesting,
link |
you know, riff or tone that I can kind of sink my teeth
link |
into a little bit.
link |
And a lot of times I'll write a title and love a title
link |
and then start to back it up.
link |
So the title is almost like an idea.
link |
Yeah, like this is where I want to be
link |
and then start kind of writing it out.
link |
And again, I just have to know,
link |
am I writing from a character's point of view?
link |
Am I writing about someone or something,
link |
you know, as like the narrator?
link |
And, you know, what is this person?
link |
Where are they in life?
link |
I don't know if all that, like,
link |
great writers, I'm sure, would say,
link |
why don't you just write?
link |
You don't need all that.
link |
But that's, for me, that's my process.
link |
Well, I'm not so sure about that.
link |
I bet you quite a lot of writers have
link |
created a world in their mind
link |
before they even put the simplest of words down.
link |
So yeah, there's quite a lot to that.
link |
What's your favorite song to play?
link |
Is there some favorite ones you go to?
link |
But both play and kind of, I'm sure you love singing.
link |
I'm not, I'm neither talented nor do I have the desire.
link |
And I think, you know, if you come see the show,
link |
you won't see a microphone anywhere near me.
link |
But do you, I mean, do you hear,
link |
like when you're thinking about lyrics,
link |
do you hear the idea of the words?
link |
And especially what's great with Trey
link |
is I write for his voice.
link |
And then we have these amazing backup singers
link |
that are just, and I can hear all of it,
link |
I just can't do it.
link |
And so I'd say of our stuff,
link |
there's a song called Half My Fault
link |
that I play in Open G that just,
link |
I love playing the song.
link |
I love that energy.
link |
And then there's, we have a new blues album coming out
link |
and there's a song called Baby We're Through
link |
and it just stays on the one.
link |
And if for non musicians, that means,
link |
like in a lot of rock and roll and blues,
link |
it's what's called a one, four, five progression
link |
from your kind of root note.
link |
And you would hear, if you're a non musician,
link |
if you heard it, you'd be like,
link |
oh yeah, that's a lot of songs.
link |
And this song just stays on the same groove.
link |
Like La Grange or Shake Your Hips or any of those songs.
link |
And it's just got this unbelievable energy
link |
and it's fun to play,
link |
but I have to keep the same rhythmic thing going
link |
for the whole song.
link |
With that simplicity, I mean,
link |
the personality of the song can really shine.
link |
I mean, Trey's, I mean, that guy, really cool.
link |
He just comes through.
link |
I mean, I guess you need that from a lead singer.
link |
He's just, he's just.
link |
You gotta have that, and my other guitar player,
link |
Johnny Bob is, he's a phenomenal,
link |
I mean, like a legitimate guitar slinger.
link |
You know, we probably split the leads 70, 30,
link |
and he is just, you know,
link |
there's times sometimes I look over at him
link |
and I'm like, I'm being a fan right now
link |
because what you just laid down is pretty good.
link |
From a lead perspective, what's the most fun thing to play?
link |
What kind of stuff do you, do you like slow?
link |
Do you like, I mean, if you, like, thrill is gone.
link |
So if you look at B.B. King,
link |
sometimes one note just bending the shit out of that.
link |
What do you call that, vibrato?
link |
If I'm gonna play the lead, it's a certain kind of feel.
link |
Slow blues is probably my favorite to play,
link |
or something that's got a little more
link |
of that Chuck Berry drive
link |
where you can be rhythmic in the lead.
link |
You know, I can't, the shredding thing that those guys do
link |
is, that's not my.
link |
I was actually always able to do that really well.
link |
Like, you mentioned people that pick up fast,
link |
like, maybe it's the classical piano training.
link |
I can play super fast on guitar, super technical.
link |
But to me, the hardest thing and my favorite thing
link |
is just, it's probably less to do with the guitar,
link |
more living on life that's worth playing a guitar for.
link |
It's like a certain kind of emotion
link |
that you can put into the notes.
link |
And that has to do with bending notes well.
link |
Like, bending notes is a whole other art form of,
link |
I worked surprisingly a long time on Comfortably Numb.
link |
And there's, so David Gilmour, there's a lot of bending.
link |
And they're simple, they sound simple.
link |
But the dynamics of them,
link |
to express like a build up in the way it's held
link |
and there's often a vibrato at the top for a bit.
link |
Just that, it's almost like a sigh
link |
and a sigh of relief and the build up.
link |
I mean, that's an art form for him that's hard to get right.
link |
It's not just playing a note, playing a note,
link |
playing a note, it's in that like dynamic movement
link |
of a note that so much can happen.
link |
That's where the blues happens to.
link |
Look, I'm a huge Freddie King fan too, right?
link |
And you listen to these guys and they're,
link |
you sit there and they're like,
link |
man, you're playing in a small range on the neck.
link |
But, you know, it's like, I know the notes you're playing
link |
and I'm playing them too, but not like that, right?
link |
I mean, it's, and Gilmour is certainly one of those guys
link |
that's an incredible guitar player.
link |
And yet another chapter of an amazing life.
link |
You love football, like you mentioned.
link |
You play football?
link |
What position do you play?
link |
So, maybe we can talk a little bit about your love
link |
of football and the fact that you are part owner
link |
of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
link |
So, I mean, where do we start?
link |
You start at the beginning, let's start at the end.
link |
What attracted you to the, first of all,
link |
I think not to be controversial,
link |
but one of the best uniforms in football
link |
in terms of just the black and gold, just.
link |
Decal only on one side.
link |
Look, I've bled black and gold since I was a little boy.
link |
I grew up in upstate New York.
link |
And the first football game I ever saw
link |
was the Steelers in the Super Bowl is a really little kit.
link |
And it just, I mean, Jack Lambert and Joe Green
link |
and Franco Harris and those guys were like,
link |
came down from Olympia, Mount Olympus or something.
link |
And I just was enamored with the team.
link |
And because we only had three channels,
link |
the only time I'd get to see them is occasionally
link |
when they were the game of the week or something.
link |
And I just loved to me what they stood for, the toughness
link |
and they played football the way that I thought was great.
link |
I was a huge Jack Lambert fan,
link |
our Hall of Fame linebacker who just intimidated everybody.
link |
So that was like the,
link |
that was the decade of the steel curtain.
link |
I mean, arguably one of the great sort of defensive
link |
in football history and also one of the greatest
link |
football teams period of in football history.
link |
I've been a lifelong fan and was very fortunate
link |
to meet Mr. Rooney.
link |
The Rooney family started the team in 1933,
link |
got to know him and just was asked to be part
link |
of the ownership group.
link |
I think it was the end of 2007,
link |
first year as part of the group in 2008,
link |
we won the Super Bowl.
link |
And it was like beyond surreal and just beyond surreal.
link |
And it's amazing to be able to do.
link |
I mean, the Rooney family is one of those most revered
link |
in sports for the way they conduct themselves.
link |
Mr. Rooney passed away, I think five years ago now
link |
and we lost him, but was a champion, helped build the league.
link |
I mean, put the league as we know it together.
link |
More importantly, it was a civil rights champion
link |
who created what we now call the Rooney rule
link |
to make sure that we're being fair
link |
about giving minority coaches a chance to get hired.
link |
And just is one of the most kind
link |
and amazing human beings I ever met.
link |
It's incredible what sport does.
link |
Like to bring out the best in people,
link |
to give people hope, to inspire people.
link |
There's something about football
link |
that has all the elements of a great sport.
link |
It's the teamwork, it's the sort of the combat aspect of it.
link |
It's like, it's the purity of it.
link |
It's of like strength and power and speed
link |
and all the elements of like last minute,
link |
close calls required to win the game.
link |
And where referee decisions, of course,
link |
that's essential for a sport can screw up the whole thing.
link |
Just got all of it together.
link |
I think just, I don't know, it gives the drama
link |
and the triumphs are just beautiful.
link |
Like some of my favorite memories,
link |
I don't know if it's an accident
link |
or this is common with people,
link |
it's just with friends watching football
link |
and connecting over that.
link |
Yeah, well, look, it's an incredible game
link |
because there's nowhere to hide, right?
link |
You're out there on the field.
link |
You know, it's a great game that requires
link |
not only all those attributes that you said,
link |
but it's incredibly complex game.
link |
So if you don't know what you're looking at
link |
and you don't understand how complex
link |
defenses are trying to disguise what they're doing,
link |
offenses are trying to overcome that
link |
and you can set up one play the entire game,
link |
but a team that plays well together, right?
link |
Knows their plays inside and out,
link |
knows their assignments inside and out,
link |
can overcome and beat a more physically gifted team
link |
because of that aspect of working together.
link |
One of the things that I always loved about sports
link |
is just you're out there, there's a set of rules
link |
and there's a scoreboard.
link |
So at the end of that game, it says,
link |
and you can make excuses about the refs
link |
or this happened or that happened,
link |
but at the end of the day, did you go out and compete?
link |
And when you went out and were a competitor,
link |
how did it work out, right?
link |
And the simplicity of that and the purity of that
link |
is something that I always have been drawn to.
link |
What about the business of sort of owning a team
link |
or putting together a team or trying to like build up a team
link |
that's going to be a great team?
link |
Like what are some interesting aspects
link |
that people might not realize that you can carry over
link |
from all the other experience you have in business?
link |
I think the hardest thing about professional sports,
link |
right now it's individuals getting paid money
link |
to play a sport, which is different than,
link |
it's certainly different than amateur.
link |
And the decisions that are hard
link |
is when you get to know somebody
link |
who's a player on the team
link |
and either they're at the end of their career
link |
or you need to go in a different direction
link |
and that person who's done everything that you've asked,
link |
whatever the coaches have asked of that person
link |
and you get close to them.
link |
And then when they have to be traded,
link |
released or whatever happens, it's, that's sad.
link |
And being able to stand back and in some ways
link |
be dispassionate and not be a fan, right?
link |
There's a, I'm on the baseball hall of fame board
link |
and one of the guys that's on the board of me
link |
is Jerry Reinsdorf.
link |
And I think it was Jerry who said,
link |
if you act like a fan, you'll be sitting with them,
link |
which I thought was kind of funny.
link |
Well, I got to push back on that a little bit
link |
as a, by way of a fan asking a dumb question.
link |
Okay, let me just give some examples.
link |
It's very common in sport.
link |
It's funny you said this example of like
link |
certain great players going to another team
link |
right at the end of their career.
link |
And it always makes me sad.
link |
It almost makes me want to wish
link |
that he kind of retired right there from a perspective
link |
of just like, do you ever, as a owner,
link |
but just in that space, think about like the Steelers
link |
in the full arc of human history.
link |
So not like as a business.
link |
I mean, okay, this question might be absurd.
link |
I don't have to think about it as a business.
link |
You know, I'm a minority owner,
link |
so I can think about it almost as a fan,
link |
but I'm sorry, go ahead.
link |
Yeah, well, that's what I mean.
link |
I suppose this is a dumb question to think of,
link |
like of a business in that way, not just investment,
link |
but like legacy of like what footprint
link |
would you leave on this world, on this history?
link |
That is one thing that I can say unequivocally,
link |
and I only have the experience that I have.
link |
But one of the things that I'm so proud of
link |
about the way the Steelers conduct themselves is,
link |
and that's the Rooney family,
link |
that's the legacy of the Rooney family,
link |
is asking constantly about what's right for the league,
link |
what's right for the players,
link |
what's the right thing to do here?
link |
And that's something that I would hear Mr. Rooney say
link |
So I think that legacy is important
link |
because ultimately the team belongs to that city, right?
link |
Belongs to those fans and the owners
link |
are the custodians of that.
link |
So I think, and when you realize what sports teams mean
link |
to the fans, the memories that it creates,
link |
the bonds that it creates, it's a responsibility.
link |
And I think that you do have to think beyond the,
link |
certainly not just dollars and cents,
link |
but just sports is a very big deal in our society.
link |
And it has to be, I think, held to a standard
link |
that's not just, well, were we profitable this year?
link |
That's, there are other businesses for that.
link |
It is certainly a business.
link |
I don't mean to romanticize to the point that it's not,
link |
but to me, it's more than that.
link |
Or at least my experience has been that it's more than that.
link |
It's a source of meaning for millions of people.
link |
And you see that most, like during COVID, for example,
link |
when there's so much desperation,
link |
so many people losing their jobs,
link |
so many people having to deal with the uncertainty
link |
of what the future holds.
link |
There's something about those sports that just unites us
link |
that again, the tragedy and the triumphs of sport,
link |
of united, of gathering together with your friends,
link |
with family, shared experience of over like this,
link |
yeah, over just team, over rooting for your team,
link |
for your city ultimately.
link |
And the access, again, as I alluded to,
link |
we didn't have anything when I was growing up,
link |
but I would pour through the box scores.
link |
I was a huge Yankee fan and Steeler fan
link |
and feeling some ownership of that, right?
link |
That I could read the box score and relive what they did
link |
and occasionally see them on TV
link |
and feel like I was part of that celebration
link |
when they won and everything.
link |
It's a very powerful thing.
link |
You've been exceptionally successful in a bunch of avenues
link |
and a bunch of efforts.
link |
What advice would you give to a young person today,
link |
a high school student, a college undergraduate
link |
that's thinking about career, maybe advice,
link |
not about just career, but about how to live a life
link |
they can be proud of?
link |
You know, we talked earlier about intellectual honesty
link |
and to me, that's the first step of just saying
link |
to the best of your ability, who am I?
link |
And what's important to me
link |
and what do I wanna do and accomplish?
link |
If you can start with that
link |
and develop some sort of rules based philosophical,
link |
here's what I'll do, what I won't do.
link |
And that way you can be flexible and pliable
link |
and you're gonna need to be,
link |
but if you still have a compass that tells you,
link |
hey, at least I know this is the path I'm gonna take,
link |
I think that's very important.
link |
The rules you're referring to, the principles,
link |
that's kind of like underlying integrity.
link |
So knowing what lines you don't cross on this path.
link |
Exactly right, because if you have those absolutes,
link |
there are many decisions that come into focus very quickly
link |
because hey, that's not for me, or hey,
link |
I'm willing to do whatever it takes to do X, Y, and Z.
link |
And it has to do with the thing you were talking about.
link |
It's kind of interesting, you mentioned earlier
link |
in the conversation about slippery slope
link |
and that's how often it happens,
link |
like how the slipping into unethical behavior happens.
link |
It's a slippery slope of little adjustments,
link |
you put stuff off and I found that to be,
link |
I've been fortunate to not have to encounter these moments
link |
very much in my life, but I still encounter them.
link |
That's what integrity I think looks like,
link |
is as the slippery slope is happening,
link |
those little things is without drama,
link |
without making a show of it,
link |
making a decision that stands behind your principles
link |
and just walking away.
link |
Yeah, and besides the big ideas,
link |
I'm gonna change the world, I'm gonna innovate,
link |
I'm gonna do all those other things,
link |
I also start, if I'm giving any advice,
link |
which we can debate whether or not I should be giving advice,
link |
but just in terms of, well, let me start with this.
link |
Are you a good friend?
link |
Can you be counted on?
link |
Do you do what you say you're going to do?
link |
Are you accountable to what you sign up for
link |
and do you hold others accountable?
link |
What does all that look like?
link |
And then I think it's being as intellectually curious
link |
and well read as you can be.
link |
We live in a world that is designed to distract you, right?
link |
And being able to sit with your thoughts
link |
or go on a walk and think deeply about something
link |
and not just surface area, you text me, I text you back
link |
and we decide the fate of the world
link |
based on a couple of text messages or something.
link |
You don't wanna lose touch, I think, with being well read
link |
and understanding and standing on great thinkers shoulders
link |
and learning from those works.
link |
And then I also think that there's resiliency
link |
and then there's grit.
link |
And I heard someone say one time
link |
that those are slightly different.
link |
And I'm also, I know that there are all kinds
link |
of challenges in life, right?
link |
That are tragic, that are unfair.
link |
There's no question that's the world we live in.
link |
But for me personally, to try as much as possible
link |
not to be in the victim mindset
link |
because unfair things are gonna happen.
link |
And we all wanna live in an idealistic, just world.
link |
That should be what we aspire to.
link |
I haven't seen that yet, I haven't experienced that yet,
link |
but yet you still have to function in that world.
link |
So I think that that resiliency thing is very important.
link |
And then putting yourself out there, right?
link |
Because if you play scared and you're always afraid to fail,
link |
you know, this is probably a dumb way
link |
to get to the end of the podcast,
link |
but there are times, especially I'm out West,
link |
I love the big sky out in Montana, Idaho, places like that.
link |
And when you look up at night, it's almost like
link |
I've never seen anything like this before
link |
because there's no light pollution, so to speak.
link |
And sometimes when I look up,
link |
the most daunting problems that I'm experiencing,
link |
I'm like, those things have been there
link |
for a billion years or whatever,
link |
and I'll be gone and it doesn't,
link |
the most famous person on earth 200 years ago, eh.
link |
So it's pretty fleeting.
link |
And so make sure you have a good journey
link |
and especially coming out of COVID,
link |
I think telling people that you care about them
link |
and maintaining and cultivating your friendships
link |
and relationships and they're not just transactional, right?
link |
And making sure that someday when you're laying there,
link |
you can say, yeah, I was a good family member.
link |
I was a good friend.
link |
I was someone that could be counted on.
link |
I think all those things go into the mix of, you know,
link |
however you wanna take the journey.
link |
So when you look up to the stars,
link |
do you think about that quickly approaching end of yours?
link |
Do you think about your own mortality?
link |
Do you think about your death?
link |
Are you afraid of your death?
link |
I'm a huge fan of stoicism, right?
link |
I read a lot of stoicism.
link |
I think Ryan Holiday's done a great job
link |
of bringing some of that back into the forefront.
link |
It's just really thought provoking to me
link |
and rings, a lot of it rings, just hits me
link |
and says, I think that's right.
link |
And that Momento Mori thing, which is,
link |
hey, we're all gonna die, so you should contemplate it.
link |
There's a finality to this thing.
link |
And so I think if you can rightly frame that
link |
between fretting about it every day and being afraid
link |
and being so laissez faire that you think, you know,
link |
you're gonna live forever,
link |
it'll influence some of the decisions you make.
link |
It'll influence the way you attack things
link |
and hopefully the way that you live your life.
link |
So yes, I wouldn't say I obsess over it
link |
and I wouldn't say it's omnipresent,
link |
but because I read a lot of stoicism
link |
and just, I think it's right to pause and say,
link |
There's gonna be an expiration date.
link |
And if it happened tomorrow,
link |
have I done the things I wanted to do?
link |
And am I the person I wanted to be?
link |
And I think it's important along the way
link |
to check those things.
link |
Yeah, I try to make sure that I actually visualize this,
link |
that I'm okay dying at the end of the day,
link |
at the end of each day.
link |
Like, if this is the last thing I do in my life
link |
is talking to you.
link |
I know you're joking, but I, you know,
link |
that, yeah, I'm happy I get to live the life I do
link |
and I think momentum more,
link |
I think the stoics have it right.
link |
So you, and you have it right in saying,
link |
meditate on death enough to remember
link |
that this ride ends pretty quickly,
link |
to help you appreciate every day
link |
and the people you love, the people close to you
link |
and the cool shit that you're doing in your life,
link |
the cool shit you're creating.
link |
And the fact that you, Mr. Thomas Tall,
link |
are playing with the motherfucking Rolling Stones tomorrow.
link |
You are the man in so many disciplines,
link |
so respected, so successful.
link |
It's truly an honor that you sit down
link |
and talk with me today.
link |
Thomas, thank you so much for showing up in Texas
link |
and for talking on this silly little podcast.
link |
Oh, it's great, man.
link |
I'm a huge fan of the show
link |
and have had a great time hanging with you
link |
and really appreciate it.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Thomas Tall.
link |
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
link |
in the description.
link |
And now, let me leave you with some words
link |
from Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.
link |
You can't always get what you want,
link |
but if you try sometimes,
link |
you might find you'll get what you need.
link |
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.