Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Kiip CEO Brian Wong on New Book, 'The Cheat Code' (Audio)

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Kiip CEO Brian Wong on New Book, 'The Cheat Code' (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: bloom Bread business flash. You're listening to Taking Stock with
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  Speaker 1: Kathleen Hayes and Pim Box on Bloomberg Radio. We all
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  Speaker 1: know that cheating is bad, particularly someone has cheated us.
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  Speaker 1: It's something we think everyone should avoid. But the author
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  Speaker 1: of a new book has a different spin on it,
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  Speaker 1: and his book, The Cheat Code, explains why it's one
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  Speaker 1: of the reasons certain people seem to get ahead just
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  Speaker 1: a bit faster than everyone else. And of course he's
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  Speaker 1: a good example. Uh. He graduated from college by age eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: he raised four million adventure capital, started company before he
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  Speaker 1: turned five, and then grew that company into a global
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  Speaker 1: mobile advertising in just four years with the cheat Code.
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  Speaker 1: Brian Wong, Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: what's the cheat Code? Yes, I mean the title is, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: a bit controversial on purpose, but the whole point of
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  Speaker 1: it was, you remember back in the day with playing
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  Speaker 1: video games, you have these cheat codes you could use
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  Speaker 1: to get ahead, right, And the whole premise of this was,
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  Speaker 1: what if there are cheat codes for real life? And
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  Speaker 1: so there's so many one of these cheat codes embedded
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  Speaker 1: in the book, and as an entrepreneur for the past
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  Speaker 1: six years as I built my company, I figured, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there might be something that we could do that our
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  Speaker 1: actionable tips and tricks that you can actually do in
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  Speaker 1: the next ten minutes, that or even tomorrow, that could
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  Speaker 1: help you get in the habit of getting ahead. I
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  Speaker 1: feel like a lot of self help things that are
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  Speaker 1: trying to get you to be motivated, or a lot
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  Speaker 1: of really kind of generic advice like follow your passion
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  Speaker 1: and all these things we've all heard that it's more
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  Speaker 1: what can I do tomorrow? And that is what I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to get folks that were entrepreneurial in their mindset
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  Speaker 1: to be able to do right away. All right, So
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  Speaker 1: why don't you offer some of the tidbits of advice
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  Speaker 1: and some of the experience that leads you to it. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So one of my favorites is the cheat, uh know,
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  Speaker 1: your superpower, which is basically on the point that as
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  Speaker 1: you get older, you kind of had a point where
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  Speaker 1: you stopped focusing on fixing your weaknesses and really focusing
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  Speaker 1: on just your strengths. And you know, when we're in school,
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  Speaker 1: get bs and cs and you get tutors to fix
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  Speaker 1: all that, and it's you know, why not just go
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  Speaker 1: to the things you already know you're gonna be good
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  Speaker 1: at and highlight that as your superpower. For example, my superpowers.
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  Speaker 1: I'm very good at getting people really excited about stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and that's what I do every day with investors, customers,
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  Speaker 1: you name it, and I folks that are complementary and
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  Speaker 1: their superpowers that have superpowers that I don't have, like
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  Speaker 1: in math and anything quantitative, they'll have that covered. So
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  Speaker 1: that's one. The second is actually tapping into the power
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  Speaker 1: of email. One of my personal favorites cold email. Adding
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  Speaker 1: a cold emailing cold LinkedIn adding are two ways to
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  Speaker 1: basically get whatever you want in business. Now, of course
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  Speaker 1: I'm being half serious, half kidding, but the whole point
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  Speaker 1: is if you're able to ask, get to people, get
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  Speaker 1: network to use the power of technology, you have the
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  Speaker 1: ability to get ahold of anyone you want to potentially
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  Speaker 1: work with in business. So I know who's the boss?
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  Speaker 1: What does that? What part of the cheak code is
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  Speaker 1: that it's really understanding that everyone has someone they're essentially
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  Speaker 1: responsible to, even the top of the top, right the
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  Speaker 1: president being the American people you know for us, uh,
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  Speaker 1: I think what happens is when you're pitching, when you're
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  Speaker 1: going into a meeting, it's really important understand what the
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  Speaker 1: power structures are. And for me, I had a political
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  Speaker 1: science background, so it's really important to understand power structures
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  Speaker 1: and I figured that that would be something that would
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  Speaker 1: be worth analyzing when you go into these scenarios. I
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  Speaker 1: was gonna say, get a haircut, but that is in
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  Speaker 1: the book, isn't it Get a trademark haircut. It's one
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  Speaker 1: of my favorites. It's really about it's representing personal branding,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, it's, I guess kind of appropriate trump that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, people who seem to have the best personal brands,
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  Speaker 1: the best being the most memorable, happen to seem to
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  Speaker 1: have trademark haircuts, um facial hair. I mean, it's crazy,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it. But the point is, when you're out there
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  Speaker 1: in the world of business, it's important to develop your
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  Speaker 1: own brand, whether it be the personality you convey, the
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  Speaker 1: way you communicate, visuals a part of it. It's all
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  Speaker 1: part of the package. Now I want to hear more
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  Speaker 1: about you. You grew up in British Columbia. You graduated
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  Speaker 1: from college very early, so tell us what is it
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  Speaker 1: about your background? Is it your parents you mentioned tutors.
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  Speaker 1: Did they just pound you into getting good grades? Where
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  Speaker 1: you sort of did you just you know, jump into
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  Speaker 1: the world born like this crazy little toddler that that
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  Speaker 1: ran around and never stopped and met people on the street.
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  Speaker 1: I get told I have a lot of energy, but
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I don't think my for example, i
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  Speaker 1: Q levels or intelligence were necessarily higher than anyone else's.
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  Speaker 1: I think that it was just my perseverance, as cliche
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  Speaker 1: as it sounds, just there's a lot of things that
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  Speaker 1: don't actually take a lot of skill, like not giving up,
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  Speaker 1: not taking no for an answer, these types of things,
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  Speaker 1: and I think I just I had this itch. I
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  Speaker 1: felt like I needed to do things a bit faster,
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  Speaker 1: mainly because I realized now even looking back with technology,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of timelines that we used to always think
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  Speaker 1: would take a certain amount of time have compressed. And
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  Speaker 1: this is to get promoted and work to getting head
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  Speaker 1: in school. A lot of things were built in an
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  Speaker 1: era or just processes and structures and things that they're
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  Speaker 1: sort of normal or the status quo came from an
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  Speaker 1: era where not necessarily the access to technology and knowledge
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  Speaker 1: that we have today existed. So what also, I advocated
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  Speaker 1: in the book is you can learn almost anything online today. Anything.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, there's like this Olympic pole vaulter or something
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  Speaker 1: I think learned how to do it on YouTube, right,
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  Speaker 1: so that you have no excuse now to not learn
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  Speaker 1: these things. Pick it up. They say, the next Bill
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  Speaker 1: Gates is probably gonna be a little girl in rule
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  Speaker 1: India if she's got an Internet connection in a tablet.
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  Speaker 1: That's why you have no excuse now to not learn
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  Speaker 1: these things and try to get ahead faster, Bryan. The
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  Speaker 1: book is filled with things that you should do. Tell
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  Speaker 1: us some of the things you should not do. So
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  Speaker 1: actually one of them in there, and I think on
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  Speaker 1: on sort of a business angle is uh, don't treat
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  Speaker 1: your investors like God or anyone that has money or
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  Speaker 1: seems to represent money. One of the reasons why I
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  Speaker 1: describe that is because a lot of entrepreneurs they'll pitch
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  Speaker 1: a vc uh and then they'll get feedback, and then
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  Speaker 1: they'll like change everything and try to appease that person.
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  Speaker 1: And I try to remind them you were the one
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  Speaker 1: that came up with this idea. You're the one who
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  Speaker 1: knows it the best. Someone who's designed to be mild, wide,
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  Speaker 1: inch deep isn't necessarily going to have the best advice
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  Speaker 1: for you, and you're supposed to be as confident and
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  Speaker 1: secure that as possible, so essentially represents don't you know,
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  Speaker 1: take all this advice at face value and make sure
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  Speaker 1: you understand where their motivations come from. Well, don thank
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  Speaker 1: you very much for your motivation. Appreciated. Brian wat He
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  Speaker 1: is the chief executive and the co founder of Keep,
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  Speaker 1: a mobile advertising network, and his book is called The
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  Speaker 1: Cheap Code, Getting Off Script to get more, go faster,
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  Speaker 1: and shortcut your way to success. Thanks for listening to
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  Speaker 1: taking stockhim pim Fox my co host Kathleen Hayes. This
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