Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Entertainment Series 14: Lawrence Levy / Taking PIXAR Public (IPO) / Steve Jobs / Eastern Philosophy / Search for Meaning

Transcript

Entertainment Series 14: Lawrence Levy / Taking PIXAR Public (IPO) / Steve Jobs / Eastern Philosophy / Search for Meaning · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of Come Together.
• 0:14
  Yes. Lawrence.
• 0:17
  Mr. Lawrence Levy, Pinch me. I've said this on the podcast
• 0:21
  before, but as time goes on, I find myself saying it more and
• 0:24
  more often. Pinch me.
• 0:25
  I can't believe we're here. But welcome to the show.
• 0:28
  I'm so happy to have you here. How?
• 0:29
  Are you? I'm really happy to be here.
• 0:30
  You know, so you're the most patient person in the world.
• 0:33
  You must have stayed in touch with me for so long about doing
• 0:35
  this. So I really appreciate your
• 0:37
  patience and I'm I'm really glad to meet you and be doing this.
• 0:41
  Of course, of course. So for a little bit of context
• 0:43
  for background, and I'm sorry if I was just going to brush over
• 0:47
  this real quick and we could kind of dive into it.
• 0:48
  I read your book to Pixar and beyond in you published I think
• 0:52
  2016 or 17, right? Yeah, that's right.
• 0:54
  Yeah. So I must have read a year or
• 0:56
  two after it came out in college.
• 0:57
  And I remember, I remember not only where I was while I was
• 1:01
  reading it, I remember how I felt while I was reading it.
• 1:03
  There's something about the writing and even the topic.
• 1:06
  Forget about, you know, there. There's the writing, of course,
• 1:08
  and the combination of technology, business,
• 1:11
  entertainment, creativity, fun, search for self meaning, search
• 1:15
  for purpose. And like all of it is being
• 1:17
  expressed at one time. I felt like I was kind.
• 1:20
  I, I, you know, and then I, I, I, I, I felt such a visceral
• 1:24
  connection that I had to. I just googled your name, found
• 1:28
  your e-mail and sent you an e-mail telling you how much I
• 1:30
  enjoyed the book and particularly was curious about
• 1:34
  your, your exploration into the Eastern culture, which I've, by
• 1:37
  the way, since developed even more of a you know, I don't know
• 1:42
  if I call it appreciation for rather than understanding.
• 1:46
  But, and then, you know, years and years later, I've started a
• 1:49
  podcast and, and your name, for whatever reason, just slipped in
• 1:54
  time. Oh, I was teaching a class.
• 1:56
  I teach high school English and I'm teaching my students about,
• 1:59
  about the entertainment world a little bit and a little bit
• 2:01
  about the background. And I recommend this book.
• 2:04
  And I say, I haven't read this book in a long time.
• 2:06
  And so I reached back out and read it again.
• 2:10
  I found myself at points relating particularly the way
• 2:13
  that you describe the feeling of succeeding once Pixar IP owed.
• 2:18
  I, I, I was tearing up a little bit.
• 2:19
  I, I, I, I was absolutely there with you in that moment that I
• 2:23
  feel at least. And again, you know, we, you and
• 2:25
  I started talked off camera about the experience of wisdom
• 2:28
  and the, the fact that wisdom and experience are tied hand in
• 2:31
  hand. I related to the feeling of
• 2:34
  like, feeling like I don't know where I'm working.
• 2:35
  I'm working towards something. Oh, this is it.
• 2:38
  And like that, that, that, that it's a break and it just comes
• 2:42
  over you and I'm so honored to have you here.
• 2:46
  I'm so happy to have you here. That's a little bit the
• 2:48
  background. I think we should quit while I'm
• 2:51
  ahead. I think we.
• 2:53
  Should like thank you for having me.
• 2:55
  That was just amazing. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:58
  So I'm here. So I'm actually going to, I'm
• 3:01
  actually so, but the podcast tends to be a little
• 3:03
  unstructured and a little bit more conversational.
• 3:05
  So I kind of want to actually let you decide.
• 3:07
  Do you want to start with tell me a little bit about your
• 3:10
  upbringing coming up or a little bit about your professional life
• 3:13
  and then talking more about the personal stuff.
• 3:15
  What do you how? How do you feel like you want to
• 3:17
  you want to start into this? Whatever you want, I'm I'm happy
• 3:19
  to jump in anywhere. What do you think your your your
• 3:22
  your audience would would be interested in?
• 3:24
  Well, let's let's get up unwrapped in in what you did and
• 3:27
  who you were and, and to talk. And there's so much that I want
• 3:32
  to elaborate on. There's so much that I'm
• 3:34
  interested in that why don't we start with at least the premise
• 3:38
  of your book and the premise of your experience, and we'll go
• 3:39
  from there. Sure.
• 3:41
  Well, I'll give you a little background, I guess.
• 3:42
  So I, I, without going into my whole new life story, but I, I
• 3:46
  grew up in London, England, in the, in the northern suburbs of
• 3:49
  London. I moved to United States when I
• 3:52
  was in my late teens with my family.
• 3:56
  You know, I ended up going to undergrad and then I ended up
• 4:00
  going to law school and I became a lawyer.
• 4:03
  I became a lawyer near you in Miami, FL.
• 4:05
  I was practicing that in downtown Miami.
• 4:08
  And this is in the 80s. I got a bug to understand more
• 4:12
  about what the time was a brand new industry, which was software
• 4:16
  and technology. And I started going around
• 4:18
  learning this. It was a really new field of
• 4:20
  law. No one was doing it and I was
• 4:22
  like no one is doing it. I should be doing it didn't?
• 4:24
  Scare you away? Pardon.
• 4:26
  It didn't scare you away that no one was doing, it did.
• 4:28
  People tell you no, it was the opposite.
• 4:30
  I didn't know it then, but it's turned out I had kind of a sort
• 4:34
  of, you know, entrepreneurial, sort of, you know, risk taking
• 4:37
  spirit even as a lawyer, which, which can be a little more
• 4:40
  conservative. But like I anyway, I, I saw that
• 4:43
  the place to do it, if there was one, was Silicon Valley.
• 4:45
  And, and you know, my wife, Hillary, you've now met.
• 4:49
  We had a one year old baby and we moved out to Silicon Valley
• 4:53
  and I and I went to a law firm here and I said, I, I just want
• 4:56
  to do this new stuff, this new technology software stuff.
• 5:01
  And, and they gave me an opportunity to do it.
• 5:03
  I was a young associate and we built this big legal department,
• 5:06
  the first technology transactions, law practice
• 5:09
  actually ever. And, and then at at the end of
• 5:14
  that, I became a partner at this firm and I came home to, to
• 5:18
  Hillary and I said, I, I think I'm going to move out of this
• 5:21
  field. And she's like, we've been
• 5:22
  working for this for years. We finally made it, you know,
• 5:25
  that big chance and, and you want to leave?
• 5:27
  And I said, well, it's not that I necessarily want to leave.
• 5:31
  I just don't want to do this for the, you know, this is this is
• 5:34
  hard. This is really a grind and I
• 5:35
  want to try something else. And I ended up going to work for
• 5:38
  one of my clients who was F Ryan Mouazi was the founder.
• 5:43
  He was a very famous entrepreneur from Israel.
• 5:46
  And I ended up helping to take that company public.
• 5:49
  And then and then the story that where the book starts, you know,
• 5:53
  it happens a few years into electronics for imaging when I
• 5:56
  it's 1994 and I literally get a phone call in in my office and I
• 6:01
  literally pick up the phone and at the end of the line I hear,
• 6:05
  hi, this is Steve Jobs. I heard about you and I thought
• 6:09
  we might work together someday. And I have a company I'd like to
• 6:12
  tell you about. I was as flabbergasted by that
• 6:16
  call as it will be. You know, hearing about it can.
• 6:19
  You tell me like to I'm sure you remember the the experience very
• 6:23
  vividly, but did you think it was a joke?
• 6:26
  Did you think it was an accident?
• 6:27
  Like what? What was your?
• 6:28
  What was your? No, I mean, I took it at face
• 6:30
  value. I thought I knew that.
• 6:32
  And also the context matters a a lot because at that moment in
• 6:37
  time, you know, Steve was, was probably the low point of his
• 6:42
  career because he'd had a spring of failures over the preceding
• 6:46
  10 years. He had been fired, famously
• 6:48
  fired from Apple. And then he did the Pixar
• 6:51
  imaging computer, which was a failure.
• 6:53
  He did the next computer, which is where he what he was doing
• 6:55
  then that had no commercial success and he was being written
• 6:59
  off. And so this was a moment in time
• 7:02
  when, you know, people would say to me things like, you know, why
• 7:04
  would you want to work for Steve?
• 7:05
  Because he's sort of lost his edge, you know, that kind of
• 7:08
  thing. And so I knew all that, of
• 7:11
  course. And so, you know, I thought he
• 7:13
  was talking about next computer, but he wasn't he was, he was
• 7:16
  talking about Pixar. So, but he was still, you know,
• 7:18
  the the famous wunderkind, you know, what created Apple?
• 7:23
  And so I was like, sure, you know, let's get together and,
• 7:26
  and, and I'd love to hear what you have in mind.
• 7:30
  And in that interim time, you know, it was more time when
• 7:33
  people were like, you know, you wouldn't want to go work for
• 7:35
  him. And, and I was, you know,
• 7:39
  figured I'd sort of judge for myself.
• 7:41
  And then, you know, I met him. I went to the offices of next
• 7:43
  computer and, and we sat across from each other and we just hit
• 7:47
  it off. I mean, there's just two people
• 7:49
  that met and hit it off, you know, forget all the background
• 7:54
  noise around it. And, and so I, I just said, OK,
• 7:57
  why don't I go explore this, you know, explore this company,
• 8:00
  Pixar. That's awesome.
• 8:02
  I, I, I find that I found this with a couple of friends that
• 8:06
  I've had a couple, there's certain people that I've met
• 8:08
  that I've immediately clicked with and felt a real chemistry
• 8:11
  with. And one of the things that I
• 8:12
  find is that I'm very drawn to, and it doesn't make a difference
• 8:16
  in what way it manifests, but people that are very intentional
• 8:20
  about their lives, about the way that they spend their time,
• 8:22
  about the direction that they're heading.
• 8:24
  And they're thoughtful about things.
• 8:26
  And thoughtful in the kind of sense that the way that you're
• 8:28
  describing where you're very successful at a job in the
• 8:31
  industry or a career in the industry.
• 8:33
  And, and, and have the self-awareness to kind of look
• 8:37
  yourself in the mirror and say, is this, is this the kind of
• 8:39
  thing like I, I, I know that I've hit XY and Z achievement by
• 8:43
  someone's standard, by American standards or society standards
• 8:46
  or my parents standards, whoever it is.
• 8:48
  But I myself feel like there's, you know, that that with my I've
• 8:53
  got a life that I have to live and what I've got more to do,
• 8:55
  you know? Well, totally, I, I felt that
• 8:58
  several times in, in my career. And this was a moment of it as
• 9:01
  well because, you know, as I said, like most people were, and
• 9:04
  it's not just that Steve was in a doubt So you sort of moment,
• 9:09
  but, but Pixar was way worse. I mean, this was like over a
• 9:12
  year before Toy Story came out and Pixar had literally lost $50
• 9:17
  million of Steve's personal money.
• 9:19
  It had no money, you know, payroll was being paid out of
• 9:23
  Steve's personal checkbook. It had no business model or, or
• 9:27
  people were sort of writing off Pixar as, as a sort of another
• 9:30
  Steve Jobs kind of graphics kind of, you know, failure.
• 9:34
  And so, so there's no good reason to do it.
• 9:36
  But I went up there, you know, and and and.
• 9:39
  Hey everyone real quick if you're enjoying the show, click
• 9:42
  subscribe and rate the show. 5 stars helps a ton.
• 9:45
  Thanks so much. But I, but this time I was so
• 9:48
  well versed in, you know, Silicon Valley, I, I knew what
• 9:51
  it was to do, you know, the risks involved in startups and
• 9:54
  that kind of thing. And I met the team and the crew
• 9:56
  out there and I watched the first few minutes of Toy Story
• 9:59
  before it was even finished. And at the time, you know, I
• 10:02
  didn't know how rocky of a journey it would be.
• 10:04
  And I was perhaps a little naive about it, but I certainly felt
• 10:09
  that there was that it was a kind of feeling that if there's
• 10:12
  a breakthrough to happen in this field, guys that are going to do
• 10:18
  it right? And maybe it won't happen and it
• 10:23
  probably won't happen. But if it does happen, then
• 10:26
  they'll do it. And so, so, you know, with that
• 10:30
  I said, you know, why not just, you know, let's jump on board
• 10:33
  here. And they certainly don't have
• 10:34
  anybody that brings to the table what I do a kind of financial
• 10:38
  strategic, you know, technology oriented sort of strategic way
• 10:43
  of looking at things. And so, and Steve was busy at
• 10:47
  next so I could go in there and, and, and perhaps help them shape
• 10:51
  it into a company that turned out to be way harder than I ever
• 10:54
  imagined. That was what at least I thought
• 10:58
  going into it. Yeah, hard enough to write a
• 11:00
  whole book of that, I imagine. Yeah, and I want it and I want
• 11:05
  to disentangle and from your perspective too.
• 11:08
  But I would like to get a little deeper and disentangle a little
• 11:10
  bit of the challenges that you overcame.
• 11:12
  Because one thing that, you know, the I, I started this show
• 11:16
  and part, and the big reason why I started the show was A, to
• 11:19
  learn from my own self, but B, to help I, I I, I, I think that
• 11:24
  one of my calling in general is to help teach and help raise
• 11:28
  people up from, you know, and help achieve their potential
• 11:33
  more. And I think that a lot of the
• 11:35
  challenges that you've experienced that you outline,
• 11:37
  especially in the book, are a lot of experiences that, that
• 11:40
  people go through on a regular basis and don't really know
• 11:43
  where to draw from. Because a lot of the especially
• 11:47
  for men in business tech law type of world are not
• 11:53
  particularly inclined to be expressive of doubt and fear and
• 11:57
  insecurity and and and and and, and even.
• 12:01
  Did I even make the right choice in doing this to begin with?
• 12:03
  You know, and, and, and, and I think that these decisions haunt
• 12:06
  a lot of people. And I'm curious as to what the
• 12:10
  tools that you've had. I don't know if this is your
• 12:13
  personality. I don't know if this is your
• 12:15
  relationships with your, with, with your people and wife and
• 12:17
  family around you. What allows you to leap from A,
• 12:23
  the comfortable to the uncomfortable and B, to process
• 12:27
  a challenge. And we'll talk about some of the
• 12:29
  challenges that you've experienced, but to not
• 12:31
  experience the challenge as, Oh my God, I'm going to fail.
• 12:34
  How do I, how do I resolve this? How do I, how do I come to some
• 12:37
  kind of conclusion? And I'd love to hear something,
• 12:39
  some of your thoughts about some of those questions.
• 12:41
  So it's a, that is a really good question.
• 12:44
  If I think about it, I think. Thank you.
• 12:48
  I guess one thing about me that I would say is that I'm unafraid
• 12:52
  of reality. OK.
• 12:57
  I think it's very difficult to sort of base reality and a lot
• 13:03
  of reasons for that because things that are happening to us,
• 13:05
  we it's very hard to sort of put an emotional layer on top of it
• 13:09
  and deny, you know, sort of what's happening.
• 13:13
  So I've always, I'd say, been good at sort of fearlessly
• 13:17
  looking at what's happening. Sometimes it's good stuff and
• 13:22
  sometimes it's really scary stuff.
• 13:24
  And, and I could be in business and it certainly can be personal
• 13:27
  as well. So, you know, when there are
• 13:29
  personal challenges to deal with, you know, health crisis in
• 13:32
  the family, you know, all kinds of things that we all go through
• 13:34
  in life. I'm sort of 1 to sit back and
• 13:38
  sort of draw in, you know, what's really happening, not be
• 13:43
  afraid to, you know, to look at it and with that to get very
• 13:47
  constructive about it, you know, so to sort of take the the
• 13:51
  actually what's happening and be really constructive about OK,
• 13:54
  now what do we need to do? Right.
• 13:59
  And so, and, and that what do we need to do now is born from
• 14:03
  reality. And so, you know, so to use
• 14:06
  Pixar, which is a good example, I mean, and you know, I tell the
• 14:09
  story in the book and it's true. You know, I, I, I knew Pixar had
• 14:12
  problems. I really didn't understand the
• 14:14
  extent of their problems. You know, they, they, they
• 14:16
  really was much worse than I thought.
• 14:18
  I mean, none of its businesses had any promise at all.
• 14:22
  It was making software and it it made these sophisticated
• 14:25
  machines for, for putting, you know, film, I mean, computer
• 14:29
  images on film. It was making that, you know,
• 14:33
  this sort of Toy Story project. But even that was with the
• 14:36
  Disney company that has sort of tied up Pixar and animation.
• 14:39
  Financially particularly right? Actually for like a dozen years.
• 14:42
  And so you could look at that and say, even if this film is
• 14:44
  really successful, you know, Pixar's not going to make
• 14:46
  anything from it. And so there was no hope.
• 14:49
  There was no kind of way out of this box.
• 14:52
  And I came home and I told Hillary, I said, you know, I, I
• 14:56
  really think I've, I've made the biggest mistake of my career.
• 14:58
  I don't think this company has a chance, you know, because I, I'm
• 15:01
  really, I'm like looking at the facts now, those facts were
• 15:05
  correct. So the, the, the businesses that
• 15:10
  I thought have no hope had no hope.
• 15:14
  So it, it wasn't like there was a surprise upside.
• 15:18
  They, it, it really didn't materialize, You know, it sold
• 15:22
  famously rendering software to studios that were doing computer
• 15:26
  animation. Great unbelievable software.
• 15:29
  The the studios really needed it, but there was like 14 of
• 15:33
  them. And so, you know, you couldn't
• 15:35
  see a market outside of that. I mean, how many people are
• 15:37
  really doing, you know, super high end computer animation, you
• 15:40
  know, in, in 1995, a few special effects studios are doing it.
• 15:44
  That's it. So you, you could have a, you
• 15:47
  know, small business that keeps 10 people busy, but you can't,
• 15:50
  you know, build a company on that.
• 15:51
  And so, and then animation was weird because now I'm learning
• 15:55
  about the animation business, which I didn't really understand
• 15:57
  before. And I'm realizing that literally
• 16:01
  no company in history succeeded in the animated feature film
• 16:05
  business. Walt Disney, you know, this came
• 16:07
  close, but he was on the edge of bankruptcy all the time, all the
• 16:11
  time, all the time. By this time, I was reading the
• 16:14
  books, I was going to the museums.
• 16:16
  I understood a lot about Disney in the 1920s and 1930s and I
• 16:21
  could see that they couldn't pave the way that Pixar was
• 16:26
  ostensibly, you know, trying to do.
• 16:27
  So Walt Disney diversified. He, he created, bought land to
• 16:31
  to create the Disney World and, and he went into television, he
• 16:35
  went into live action film. He had to diversify to protect
• 16:39
  himself from the ups and downs of anime.
• 16:41
  So that's literally the business worth facing.
• 16:43
  But, and I was the person, you know, I went to Steve and I
• 16:46
  said, I don't see much of a chance for this company.
• 16:50
  But if there is a chance, it's in animation and it's a very
• 16:53
  small one and no one's going to believe that we can do it
• 16:56
  because no one's ever done it. And so that led to, and Steve
• 16:59
  was the same way, by the way, it's it's interesting.
• 17:02
  I mean, he also was really faced like he wanted to know, like,
• 17:07
  just like me, you know, like what, what we were really up
• 17:11
  against, you know, he, he wasn't someone that you have to sort of
• 17:14
  like pretend that things were better than they were, you know,
• 17:17
  he, he, he, he, he wanted to know.
• 17:20
  And, and so from that reality, we started to build this plan.
• 17:28
  And, and even though that plan was was a long shot, you know,
• 17:33
  it was a launch, but it still was a plan.
• 17:35
  And so that is sort of how I tackle and tackle, you know, a
• 17:38
  lot of things. This is what we're up against.
• 17:41
  This is our plan. Probably won't work, but let's
• 17:44
  go for it and then really go for it.
• 17:47
  Yeah, and it's a real amazing story.
• 17:49
  It's a really amazing story of hope and almost David and
• 17:53
  Goliath type of type of aspect, you know, because the Disney
• 17:56
  company at the time and you know, again, context does matter
• 18:00
  is experiencing the golden age of Disney, you know, Jeffrey
• 18:03
  Katzenberg and Michael Eisner and Joe Roth and and all those
• 18:07
  guys that you that you mentioned, Peter Schneider
• 18:09
  Schneider. Yeah, Peter.
• 18:12
  You know, they, they, they, they brought in, they ushered in some
• 18:15
  of Disney's most remarkable movies.
• 18:17
  And here comes a tech company, really a tech company in San
• 18:22
  Francisco out of Hollywood, out of the scene.
• 18:24
  You know, that that is actually, you know, fighting not to exist.
• 18:30
  I guess kind of to exist for like could just make its next
• 18:34
  movie to be able to turn a profit, to be able to tell Steve
• 18:36
  Jobs who put $50 million into, hey, it's going to take you out
• 18:39
  25 years to get your money back at this pace because you know
• 18:42
  what I mean, They're taking X percent of the revenue, 8090% of
• 18:44
  the revenue. And, you know, best of luck.
• 18:47
  This how Hollywood works. Welcome to Hollywood, Steve
• 18:49
  Jobs. You know, and and you turn that
• 18:51
  in and you turn that into something else.
• 18:53
  Yeah, though that's, that's exactly what it was by the way,
• 18:55
  I felt I fought this dynamic my whole career because when I when
• 19:00
  I came out to Zealous Valley in 1980's, the whole thing was
• 19:02
  David versus Goliath, right? So it was startup companies were
• 19:06
  trying to break into industries. And at the time it was more like
• 19:09
  going up against like IBM and dating on these huge and Kodak
• 19:14
  and Canon and these like huge monolithic companies that
• 19:17
  existed in on the East Coast and in Tokyo or Japan and other
• 19:21
  places. And so we were, I was, I spent
• 19:24
  my career basically representing, you know, the
• 19:26
  startups trying to break into those worlds.
• 19:29
  And the the bad news is that those are really big, strong,
• 19:34
  powerful companies. And the good news is that they
• 19:38
  don't take you seriously. And so they actually don't
• 19:41
  believe that you can do it. And so you have to be pretty
• 19:45
  relentless about it. But, you know, their size and
• 19:49
  success almost becomes your advantage because, you know,
• 19:53
  you're like a family on the side of the elephant and they don't,
• 19:56
  they think they can swat you off until it's too late, until you
• 20:00
  know, you're actually there. And we lived in fear every day
• 20:03
  that the that Disney would just wipe Pixar off the map by
• 20:07
  learning computer animation. I think until it really
• 20:11
  happened, they didn't actually think it was possible.
• 20:13
  And so, you know, we're just chugging along.
• 20:15
  One reason, by the way, I kind of lament a little bit.
• 20:17
  So it could that work the way because it's reversed.
• 20:20
  So now the establishment, you know it's Goliath.
• 20:25
  Yeah. And well, I think that's a it's
• 20:27
  a tribute to its success. I think it's a shame in terms
• 20:31
  of, you know, as I lost it, lost that, you know, sort of like
• 20:35
  that, that spirit a a little bit that, you know, so it's got too
• 20:39
  much to defend. So it's a different vibe now.
• 20:41
  Yeah, and it's really interesting because I, I did a
• 20:45
  very interesting podcast episode the other day with a gentleman
• 20:47
  named Tim Pickens, who's a propulsion engineer.
• 20:51
  And he was, he's worked on some of the 1st commercial as in
• 20:56
  privatized crafts that ever got launched to space.
• 20:59
  And he had some very, very interesting and cool stories.
• 21:03
  But one thing that that that he and I were talking about was
• 21:07
  there's this fun they were talking about.
• 21:10
  There's a spirit that, that, that, that America embodied of
• 21:14
  intelligence, passion and fun. And like you kind of stick all
• 21:19
  those together and, and, and, and all of them do potentially
• 21:22
  have a little bit of a darker aspect to them or darker side of
• 21:25
  them where, you know, the fun could turn into something a
• 21:28
  little bit more malicious or malevolent.
• 21:31
  And the, and the intelligence could turn a little bit into
• 21:34
  haughtiness or a little bit into, into something else.
• 21:38
  And, and the lines are extremely, extremely blurry.
• 21:40
  And so I mean, it's very hard to take a company, for example, and
• 21:44
  just throwing out, you know, open AI growing at the rate that
• 21:47
  they grow with the, you know, with the money that's being
• 21:50
  injected in them. You know, it's, I don't know how
• 21:53
  anyone would be hypothetically able to maintain that same kind
• 21:56
  of spirit, you know, that wholesome, youthful spirit that
• 21:59
  that requires an enormous amount of intentionality.
• 22:01
  You said with Pixar, you know, you had a team of leaders that
• 22:05
  that embody this kind of spirit and that everyone else was able
• 22:08
  to kind of just draw from that. But then as the company gets
• 22:10
  bigger, you have the problem of, hey, I have to scale, I have to
• 22:13
  scale values. How do you scale values?
• 22:17
  You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
• 22:19
  I think you're right on the money and I think it is very
• 22:22
  hard and I think it is a shame because I think the other thing
• 22:26
  it also, I think it's part of the cultural or even the
• 22:30
  spiritual challenge that we have.
• 22:32
  It also dehumanizes us. And so when we feel a loss of a
• 22:39
  sort of a loss of autonomy, a loss of contribution, when we
• 22:43
  feel too much of A cog and a big machine kind of a thing, we not
• 22:46
  only lose our humor, we lose our our sort of sense of purpose
• 22:51
  even, you know, and I think I agree with you.
• 22:54
  I, I'm not in those companies, but I think that growing at that
• 22:58
  rate is very, very chaotic. And my, I imagine it's like
• 23:03
  living in a storm and it's very hard to live in a storm.
• 23:06
  You know, storms should be occasional like, you know,
• 23:10
  hurricanes in Florida need to be like once every two years or
• 23:12
  something like that. But you know, if they're too
• 23:15
  often, it's, it's, it's too chaotic.
• 23:17
  You know, you lose stability And, and I think there's
• 23:20
  probably struggling with stability.
• 23:21
  That's the inside information. That would just be my guess.
• 23:25
  As a as a home owner paying home owner insurance, that's about 7
• 23:28
  times what my father in New York is paying.
• 23:31
  I, I could confirm that that is that is certainly the case.
• 23:34
  Yeah. But yeah, I, I think that I
• 23:37
  think that there's something there.
• 23:38
  There was, there was also a spirit and, and I wanted to
• 23:43
  actually, we're going to talk about this a little bit more
• 23:45
  after. I want to stick on this on, on,
• 23:46
  on the Pixar material a little bit more, if that's OK.
• 23:49
  Yeah, negotiating, negotiating as a little guy with Disney.
• 23:56
  You've said that you've had experience.
• 23:58
  You mentioned, of course, being the underdog forever, you know,
• 24:02
  and being the the fly by the side of the elephant.
• 24:06
  I guess 1 enormous benefit that you have is that you're new to
• 24:10
  the animation world and the and the entertainment world.
• 24:12
  And so you were you, were you at all?
• 24:17
  What's the word by the presences of the people that you were
• 24:21
  negotiating with and dealing with?
• 24:23
  Or did you feel, I feel like I'm new to the game.
• 24:25
  I've done this before. I've had no, you know, and, and
• 24:28
  and, and this is, this is just another round of a familiar
• 24:30
  sport that I'm used to sparring in.
• 24:32
  Well, neither. I think I, I, I certainly not
• 24:38
  really. Oh, you know, there's just not a
• 24:40
  game I'm just going to do this. So I think that in at Pixar and
• 24:45
  working with Steve and, and, and startups and, and generally we
• 24:51
  took negotiation, you know, that negotiation we did with Disney
• 24:54
  and without a company very, very seriously.
• 24:58
  And so nothing about it was cavalier.
• 25:01
  Nothing about it was, you know, like shooting from the from the
• 25:04
  hip or something like that. And so we saw it as a, a, a
• 25:08
  problem to analyze. And so we would very extensive.
• 25:12
  And this is another example of like seeing things for what they
• 25:16
  are, you know, so the first thing in the negotiation to
• 25:20
  understand, and it's, it's a soft thing.
• 25:22
  So it's not easy to understand, but is what's your leverage,
• 25:26
  right? What is your, your relative
• 25:28
  power in that in, in that negotiation, right?
• 25:30
  Where can you seek it? Where can you find it?
• 25:33
  Right? So an example of this, like you
• 25:35
  could say that Pixar had was tied up for 12 years by
• 25:39
  contract. So we had no leverage, right?
• 25:42
  None, none whatsoever. But we learned that in, in, in
• 25:47
  Hollywood, success is leverage. And so there there, there's a
• 25:52
  mentality there that if you've had a success, a hit record, a
• 25:55
  hit book, in our case, a hit movie, that it gives you
• 26:00
  leverage at the table. And you could say, well, why
• 26:05
  it's stupid because Disney has tied you up for 12 years, you
• 26:08
  whether you're success or or failure.
• 26:10
  So why should they pay attention to you if you've had success or
• 26:14
  the reason because Hollywood, Hollywood just disturbed
• 26:17
  Hollywood culture is it wants to cultivate good relationships
• 26:21
  with sources of success, sources of good quality entertainment,
• 26:27
  whatever form it is. And so and so that gives you
• 26:31
  some leverage. And it wasn't obvious to us at
• 26:33
  first because we're like, ah, man, there's a contract.
• 26:36
  There's nothing we can do about it, you know, And so that's just
• 26:39
  one example. So we would dissect the
• 26:42
  situation to, you know, to understand what is the leverage
• 26:45
  that we can have and then what what can we do with that
• 26:48
  leverage. And so that's one part of it.
• 26:51
  And then the other side of the equation is what do we need, you
• 26:54
  know? What do you want from them?
• 26:56
  What do we need in this negotiation?
• 26:58
  And so, you know, you, you have different scenarios for that.
• 27:01
  You, you can have a pie in the sky, you know, I want
• 27:03
  everything, but you never get everything.
• 27:06
  And so it comes down to like, where's the line of that?
• 27:10
  The what we need that if we go, you know, that we need this line
• 27:14
  in order to, to, to accomplish, you know, our goals.
• 27:17
  And if we can't accomplish our goals, it just might not be
• 27:19
  worth it to us. And so we and I spend quite a
• 27:23
  bit of time in the book on this, but we, we, so it's a very
• 27:28
  deeply thoughtful process. So by the time we go into the
• 27:32
  negotiation, we, we are very prepared.
• 27:35
  And so that's one part of it. And the other part of it is and,
• 27:39
  and this is just a tactic. So I I'm not saying it's good
• 27:41
  for all situations, but at least the way Steve and I approached,
• 27:44
  there is no Plan B. No Plan B.
• 27:49
  No. Plans Gary, Steve Jobs as as
• 27:52
  you've. Gone to a negotiation with the
• 27:54
  Plan B, what Plan B is you've basically negotiating with
• 27:58
  yourself and you've realized that, right?
• 28:02
  You know, like, OK, plan A doesn't work I'm going to take
• 28:04
  Plan B. You've already done the
• 28:05
  negotiation for the others, for the other people.
• 28:09
  And, and so we would tend to be just this is it, this is what we
• 28:16
  need, this is what we want. And like, it's like the Holy
• 28:18
  Grail, like like there's nothing.
• 28:20
  It's sacred. You know, this is it, this is
• 28:23
  what we want. And we would go into negotiation
• 28:25
  like that. And, and then when we get pushed
• 28:27
  back or, or, or something like that, only then do we consider,
• 28:32
  you know, whether we might back off, you know, from plan A.
• 28:36
  So it's like we put ourselves into pain, you know, by having
• 28:39
  to being so convinced about plan A and I think this produces a
• 28:44
  better result. It it it can be a little
• 28:46
  painful, but and these complex negotiations get dicey.
• 28:49
  You know, as I described, you know, we did walk away from a
• 28:52
  negotiation with Disney that walking away from it really
• 28:56
  could have destroyed Pixar. I mean, it was like insane, you
• 29:00
  know, to walk away from it, you know, but there was a line and
• 29:04
  we were like, you know, we're just going to have to take off
• 29:06
  chances here. So again, I you know, you have
• 29:10
  to do, there's no rules about it.
• 29:11
  You know you you just have to evaluate each situation.
• 29:13
  Can I add your opinion and speculation?
• 29:16
  And you don't have to answer this if you don't want to at
• 29:18
  all, by the way. No pressure, of course.
• 29:20
  Do you think that Steve didn't make the deal because he didn't
• 29:24
  like dealing with Michael Eisner and and he dealt with Bob Iger
• 29:28
  in a much more collaborative kind of way that he felt was
• 29:31
  more like that? Because I've read that in a
• 29:32
  couple of counts but accounts, but that's from a journalist's
• 29:35
  perspective. And I well, there's two deals
• 29:37
  that I'm talking about. The one you were talking about
• 29:40
  is when Disney bought Pixar. The one that I've been talking
• 29:44
  about is the one where. You renegotiated.
• 29:47
  The pictures, because that renegotiated contract was the
• 29:52
  contract, the deal that put Pixar on the map.
• 29:56
  That was the one that changed everything for Pixar.
• 29:58
  So that happened with Michael Eisner and I was forever
• 30:03
  grateful to Michael Eisner for that because he doing it.
• 30:08
  Eisner sort of got a reputation for sort of taking his eye off
• 30:11
  the ball of animation at Disney. You know, I wasn't there at
• 30:16
  Disney, you know, to that is correct or not, but he
• 30:19
  definitely got a reputation for that.
• 30:21
  A couple of big swings in the non animation department that I
• 30:25
  don't think worked quite as well as you would have hoped.
• 30:27
  That, that you know, that's right.
• 30:29
  So I think when it came time to the to, to Pixar, to the
• 30:34
  acquisition of Pixar by Disney, I think it's correct.
• 30:38
  I don't think Steve would have done that with, I think it'd be
• 30:42
  much harder to have done with Michael Eisner.
• 30:43
  And the change of regime there definitely helped to make that
• 30:47
  possible. But the first deal that we did,
• 30:49
  which in some ways was the Pivotal 1, Michael Eliza
• 30:53
  definitely did that. I'm, I'm actually this is this
• 30:56
  is so funny that I'm talking to you about this, but there's a
• 30:58
  there's a great book I read called Disney War by James
• 31:01
  Stewart. Yeah, awesome book.
• 31:03
  You read it. No, but I know about it.
• 31:05
  Yeah, it's a phenomenal book. It's really it it it's a guy.
• 31:08
  It's a textbook on one of the coolest, one of the coolest
• 31:10
  companies, you know, and all the background.
• 31:12
  And one thing that James Stewart says that Eisner said was I
• 31:17
  wouldn't be surprised if I was the last creative executive in
• 31:20
  Hollywood and and, you know, and Bob Iger, you know, is a
• 31:24
  businessman. And since then, Bob Shay Peck
• 31:26
  and man, I'm blinking his name and I'm it's going to drive me
• 31:30
  crazy. I remember in a minute, but the
• 31:32
  newest the newest CEO Josh tomorrow are both both came from
• 31:35
  parks and famously Dana Walden, who is head of pictures and
• 31:40
  entertainment. A little bit more of a creative
• 31:42
  job was Pat. What you know is passed over.
• 31:44
  And one thing that you discussed in the book is your business
• 31:48
  decision, a thoughtful business decision made by the board and
• 31:52
  Steve and everyone to give creative control over to you
• 31:57
  know, to the creative team. And you can afford to do such a
• 32:01
  thing as a startup. You could do afford to do such a
• 32:04
  thing as a little company with like like a nimble company like
• 32:07
  Pixar bouncing around. What do you think of you know,
• 32:11
  do do you think it's that hard to do because you're a
• 32:14
  corporation? You think there's a certain risk
• 32:16
  aversion in business. What do you think is the is the
• 32:19
  is the because this one was full circle, right?
• 32:21
  Because of what we're talking about over here are are
• 32:24
  decisions that are being made. Listen, there's no coincidence
• 32:26
  that the main revenue that Disney gets, that that's
• 32:29
  reliable year after year is the parks.
• 32:31
  There's no question that the person that's going to run the
• 32:33
  show for the shareholders has to be the face of the person who
• 32:36
  understands the business the most.
• 32:37
  Yeah. But what did the company come
• 32:38
  down to, you know, and that and that really is what the question
• 32:41
  is. Well, I think there's no fixed
• 32:44
  answer to it. Pixar.
• 32:45
  When Pixar did that, I think that it was a crazy bet and, and
• 32:52
  I think there were good reasons for studios to not do that.
• 32:55
  But you know, it is almost like, you know, Pixar had sort of less
• 32:58
  to lose. We, we were, you know, high,
• 33:01
  high risk, high, high reward. And so we, we made this bet, you
• 33:06
  know, deliberately. I, I can't say that, that I
• 33:09
  even, I say this in the book, you know, I can't say that's the
• 33:11
  best decision for every company at it.
• 33:13
  You know, at every time there are very good reasons for
• 33:15
  executives to maintain some controls over creative
• 33:19
  decisions, but I think it's a balance that every company and
• 33:23
  situation has to find for themselves.
• 33:25
  You know, they decided to bet it all on the people.
• 33:29
  And, you know, and we had John Masseter and Andrew Stanton and
• 33:32
  Pete Doctor and Brad Bird who made Incredibles and Toy Story
• 33:37
  and, and, and Finding Nemo and up.
• 33:40
  And so, you know, that was good. That was a good bet.
• 33:44
  And but there are there are all good creative people at all
• 33:47
  these places. So I think every situation has
• 33:50
  to find it's it's it's balance. I'm going to say that's the only
• 33:53
  way to do it, but it's the way that we did it.
• 33:56
  Sure, sure. Yeah.
• 33:57
  And, and, you know, the other side, of course, is that there
• 33:59
  is a corporate responsibility to shareholders.
• 34:01
  And like we mentioned earlier, Walt Disney, when he was putting
• 34:05
  movies first, was constantly bankrupt.
• 34:06
  You know, I mean, how does Hollywood even respond when
• 34:08
  every time you take one of these creative risks, you're on the
• 34:11
  verge of break, you're on the verge of bankruptcy?
• 34:13
  You know, it's crazy. Yeah.
• 34:14
  And I think that's the balance in in, in the creative world in
• 34:17
  general, in music and books and everything like that.
• 34:19
  It's a balance between how how much do you let the creators run
• 34:22
  with it and and how much do you sort of try to take control and
• 34:27
  bring some sort of executive wisdom to it.
• 34:29
  Yeah, certainly. So I teach high school English
• 34:33
  for the last four years. Great.
• 34:34
  And yeah, it's a lot of fun. I teach in North Miami Beach and
• 34:38
  I do it for 2-3 hours a day, four or five days a week.
• 34:40
  And it's wonderful. I, I, it's one of, it's one of
• 34:43
  the highlights of my life and I'm very happy to be able to do
• 34:46
  it and. One thing to teach, Sorry.
• 34:49
  What's your favorite book to teach?
• 34:52
  That's a great question. It depends on the class.
• 34:55
  It depends on the class I had. I struggle with my itinerary
• 34:59
  because I'm throwing away lessons so often.
• 35:02
  I can't keep up with it, you know, and because, you know, one
• 35:06
  thing I've learned is that you can't control the direction of
• 35:09
  the stream, but you can kind of go with it.
• 35:11
  And, you know, you could kind of channel everyone's, you know,
• 35:14
  what everyone's flow is. And listen, what 1 you know, I
• 35:18
  mean, my, my, my freshman from four years ago are seniors now,
• 35:23
  and I've showed them some of their writing from when they're
• 35:25
  a freshman and they can't even believe that they're the same
• 35:28
  people. And.
• 35:29
  It's amazing. But one thing that that that I
• 35:32
  ask everyone every year, there's a couple of things that I always
• 35:34
  come back to that always that always important to me to teach.
• 35:37
  And that is if you woke up tomorrow with all the money in
• 35:40
  the world, you know, and what are you going to do for the rest
• 35:45
  of your life? And then the next question, and
• 35:47
  I had them right on the, on the, and then they have to turn the
• 35:50
  page over. The next question is, now that
• 35:51
  you've told me what you've done for the first five years or 10
• 35:54
  years, what are you going to do for the rest of your life after
• 35:56
  that? You know, because everyone talks
• 35:58
  about going on vacation and owning other houses and boats
• 36:01
  and whatever. And, and there's a question of
• 36:04
  there's a real question of what, what am I here for?
• 36:08
  What's the, what's the, what's the point of my life?
• 36:09
  What, what, what, what, what, what and, and, and, and you can
• 36:12
  tell me it's to provide for my family and I and I and I
• 36:15
  wholeheartedly accept that. In what, in what manner?
• 36:19
  In what direction? How do I, how do I go about
• 36:21
  this? So you found yourself at a point
• 36:23
  in your life where you got a lot to go.
• 36:26
  Oh, you got a long way to go and you can hypothetically ride off
• 36:30
  into the sunset and do whatever you want.
• 36:32
  And you're kind of confronted in real time with this question of
• 36:35
  now what? I got a whole life.
• 36:37
  Yes. Well, remind me to ask you that
• 36:40
  question at the end of this conversation, by the way.
• 36:42
  OK, Yeah, you got that. And I would put it, I think I
• 36:47
  put it slightly differently. I don't think I was confronted
• 36:50
  with that question. I think that most people don't
• 36:54
  ask that question. You know, I live in Silicon
• 36:56
  Valley where there's a lot of success.
• 36:57
  Startups have turned into Google and Facebook and Apple and that
• 37:00
  kind of stuff. And I think the difference with
• 37:03
  me is that I did ask that question.
• 37:05
  I think you're asking that question of your, your, your
• 37:08
  high school students is fantastic, but I think most
• 37:11
  people don't are they just want to keep going, right?
• 37:15
  So, you know, and so most people even in my position didn't ask
• 37:19
  the question. They just kept doing more.
• 37:22
  You know, I'm going to do another company, another
• 37:24
  startup, another IPO, another venture capital fund.
• 37:27
  You know, I want it to be bigger and stronger and better and I
• 37:30
  want to keep this this thing rolling that's the null.
• 37:34
  And so I think the fact that I asked it makes me kind of weird
• 37:40
  or different and sort of thing. And I had been asking myself
• 37:45
  this question for a long time. And so, you know, I was at
• 37:50
  Harvard Law School and when I was 23 and I was at Harvard
• 37:53
  Square and used book stops, used book shops, like looking at used
• 37:57
  books on like meditation and, and, and you know, I was.
• 38:01
  You're always interested. Pardon.
• 38:03
  You're always interested in that, in that.
• 38:05
  Spiritual work, always interested.
• 38:06
  You know, I was 28, you know, like now I've got, you know, a a
• 38:10
  newborn and a three-year old and you know, I'm travelling on a
• 38:13
  plane for business in a reading philosophy and I have a journal
• 38:17
  that I could get real. And it's the, you know, it's the
• 38:20
  sort of understand about reality.
• 38:23
  I was on this quest for a long time and it's one of the reasons
• 38:27
  that I was sort of able to make changes in my career.
• 38:30
  And one of the reasons that I was able to work with Steve is
• 38:33
  because I didn't self identify with with I didn't make my work
• 38:39
  my life. I understood that these were two
• 38:41
  different things, you know, and that is very easy to get caught
• 38:44
  in the trap of self identifying as I'm a lawyer, I'm an
• 38:49
  executive, I'm successful. You know, I'm in the animated
• 38:52
  feature film business. Isn't that cool?
• 38:54
  You know, it is cool, but it's not my life.
• 38:59
  It's not me. I really understood this.
• 39:02
  You know, I understood that you're in the business of
• 39:05
  selling medical equipment, right?
• 39:07
  And there are no red carpets in that, right?
• 39:10
  You don't go to film premieres and, you know, you dress up, you
• 39:13
  dress up like that. So it's not as sexy as, you
• 39:17
  know, what you think of as Hollywood.
• 39:19
  But I always understood that that is a false difference, that
• 39:23
  there's no difference. You know, the fact that it's
• 39:26
  animated feature films or selling medical equipment or
• 39:30
  having a corner grocery store or, or whatever it is, is, is
• 39:34
  not the defining factor. And so I was always able to sort
• 39:38
  of distance myself, you know, from the from the substance of
• 39:43
  the success and understand that my life would, was was not
• 39:49
  defined by that. And this was so it was easy for
• 39:55
  me. You know, it's sort of when I'd
• 39:57
  had a good run, be able to say I don't really need to do this
• 40:01
  anymore, You know, what shall I do?
• 40:05
  Now, answering that wasn't easy, but I did have this very strong
• 40:10
  pulse to go keep answering the question that I asked when I was
• 40:13
  23 and 28, which is like basically, what are we here for?
• 40:17
  What is the meaning of life? You know, what is this?
• 40:19
  What, what is this about, right? What is the, the, the sort of
• 40:23
  deep quest, you know, that we're on?
• 40:26
  I was pretty convinced that the answers lied in, in some kind of
• 40:30
  spiritual undertaking in life. And I, I and so, well, I won't
• 40:36
  get into that more right now, but that's, that's where I found
• 40:39
  myself. And so I was like, that's the
• 40:42
  thing that I want to go figure out.
• 40:44
  Yeah, yeah. I would love to start talking
• 40:47
  about this or or at least dip our toes into it, because one
• 40:50
  thing that I've noticed and I've spoken to a lot of people about
• 40:53
  recently is that is that the generate I I don't really know
• 40:58
  what to call them, but let's say that 20 and unders or 21 and
• 41:01
  unders and I have younger siblings that are that this age.
• 41:03
  I have brother in law's. I have students that are this
• 41:05
  age. I've found that a lot of people
• 41:09
  are disconnecting from the things that have been very
• 41:13
  harmful to my generation. For example, I like social media
• 41:17
  and like avoiding in whatever capacity, spirituality, religion
• 41:21
  and saying that, you know, if you can't put on a chart, then
• 41:24
  it doesn't, it's not anything that's worth looking at.
• 41:26
  And they're rejecting that notion.
• 41:27
  Not only they're rejecting that notion, they're returning to
• 41:30
  what's interesting. They're returning to movie
• 41:31
  theaters, they're putting their phones away on a more regular
• 41:33
  basis. They're, they're, they're,
• 41:35
  they're, they're more inclined to go attend live music concerts
• 41:38
  and stuff like that. Then, then, then a lot of my
• 41:41
  generation growing up has, I think, or a lot of people, let's
• 41:44
  say for those 10 years between the age of 20 and 30 that are,
• 41:47
  you know, so the people that are born from the early 2000s to
• 41:51
  2010, I would say, you know, they there, there, there,
• 41:58
  there's a there's a revival. I believe in, in intentionality
• 42:02
  and awareness and spirituality. I hope that's going on around
• 42:05
  the world. And I think that one of the
• 42:06
  reasons why was because my generation is experiencing such
• 42:11
  a challenging time and experiencing such hardships with
• 42:15
  social media addiction and with a lack of meaning and with a
• 42:18
  lack of, you know, like, and what's really interesting, and I
• 42:21
  don't know if you're aware of the gentleman named Scott
• 42:22
  Galloway, who's at NYU is, is a business professor there.
• 42:26
  He's been on this tour talking about how young, how young men
• 42:29
  have very little meaning in their lives.
• 42:31
  And, and, and, and, and this is, and this, and this is an
• 42:33
  enormous challenge. And I believe and, and you know,
• 42:36
  I've been preaching on the podcast as much as possible,
• 42:40
  embodied experiences, community spiritual experiences, these are
• 42:44
  all things that are waiting for us, you know, but these are the
• 42:48
  things that, that, that, that, that are right here and that
• 42:51
  we're living for. So, and for some reason, for
• 42:55
  many years, there was a stigma to say that you're spiritual.
• 42:57
  There was a stigma to saying that you're religious, you
• 42:59
  believe in God or that you believe in force of the
• 43:04
  universe. And now it seems it feels like
• 43:06
  that's giving way. That's that's becoming a little
• 43:09
  bit more acceptable. So I would love to hear a little
• 43:11
  bit more about your and by the way, as far as you're getting
• 43:14
  real journal, I had my own variation called dear me letters
• 43:18
  where I would often write dear me and I wouldn't know what I'd
• 43:21
  write about. I just date it.
• 43:22
  And then I would just start typing.
• 43:23
  I'd be like, I feel tense. It could be.
• 43:26
  And then I'll just write. And I often found that my
• 43:29
  fingers were typing things that my, my, the front that that, you
• 43:32
  know, my consciousness wouldn't allow myself to even admit to
• 43:36
  myself or or bring forward. So I think that this, this
• 43:39
  combination of this variation of meditation, spiritual practice,
• 43:43
  whatever you want to call it is going, is not only necessary
• 43:48
  aspect to be happy and satisfied in life.
• 43:51
  It's kind of it's, it's, it's, there's a revival of it now, I
• 43:54
  hope. And so perhaps you could, you
• 43:56
  could tell me a little bit about your spiritual experiences or
• 43:58
  thoughts or maybe philosophy's perspective if you're, if you're
• 44:01
  interested. That's all we could spend all
• 44:03
  day on, but let's let's this is my this is my favorite, you
• 44:07
  know, my absolute favorite topic that I've let's do it.
• 44:10
  I'm thinking about. And I've also, you know,
• 44:12
  struggled with this, not struggled with, but you're aware
• 44:14
  that you're like words like spiritual and consciousness, you
• 44:17
  know, it's been like dirty words, you know, this year, like
• 44:21
  20 years ago, you know, that was like, whoa, you know, it's like,
• 44:24
  you know, so sort of some mystical stuff.
• 44:26
  And I sort of had to sort of wade through all that and tried
• 44:29
  my best to sort of not get stuck on the words and, you know, and
• 44:32
  stuff and, you know, sort of see what's really going on.
• 44:35
  And so without trying to sound woo or hokey or, or anything
• 44:39
  like that, and remembering that I'm still this guy in Silicon
• 44:41
  Valley who loves innovation and, and all this kind of stuff.
• 44:45
  I, I, I've long believed. And I, and I think there's
• 44:48
  nothing that's deterred me from this.
• 44:50
  I think at the end of the day, we are spiritual beings, whether
• 44:55
  we, we, we can, you know, it, it, it, it means that there's,
• 45:00
  that there's a, there's an arc to our existence.
• 45:04
  There's an there there, there's a quality of mind, you know,
• 45:08
  within us that once it reaches to feel certain things, among
• 45:16
  those things and top of mind of those things is connection, you
• 45:20
  know, love, friendship. Awe is a big experience.
• 45:25
  Awe is huge. Awe is is something like that we
• 45:28
  we've come to see these as sort of soft things, right?
• 45:33
  These are the things that we sort of become secondary because
• 45:37
  the material things wealth and success and reputation and likes
• 45:43
  and all that kind of stuff come first.
• 45:45
  So the one reason I got into this space is because I think
• 45:49
  there's a dissonance there that has hurt an entire generation,
• 45:54
  right, including including mine, and that the sidelining of
• 46:00
  golden spiritual values or something like that has caused a
• 46:04
  lot of disconnection. And we are suffering from it.
• 46:07
  And, and, and I think actually the hallmark of a, a sort of an
• 46:14
  advanced or mature culture is one that integrates both of
• 46:18
  these things. So it's not one that issues
• 46:21
  innovation and creativity and prosperity and all the things we
• 46:24
  need, you know, to produce the amazing things that we have.
• 46:27
  And it's not one that issues, you know, sort of spirituality
• 46:31
  and these softer things, but it integrates both.
• 46:33
  And this is a very difficult thing because they they feel
• 46:38
  like they push against each other.
• 46:40
  And so I'm thrilled that, you know, people today, you know,
• 46:44
  would, would, would have this kind of awareness.
• 46:46
  And it's 1. You know, I used to say in my
• 46:49
  talks that there's nothing better in life than having a cup
• 46:53
  of tea with a friend. And it seems obvious or it
• 46:57
  seems, you know, people sort of can sort of get that, you know,
• 47:02
  but I say, but what it means is that you really have to show up
• 47:06
  for it so hard to not show up for it.
• 47:10
  It's so hard to be it's so, I mean, it's so easy to be there,
• 47:14
  but not be there to be there, but think, oh, there's something
• 47:17
  better that I should be doing, you know, to be there and not
• 47:21
  pay attention, you know, to the very, very human, you know,
• 47:25
  connection. That's that's that's happening.
• 47:27
  And that is a skill. And not only do I think we have
• 47:31
  to cultivate and learn that skill, I think that school is
• 47:34
  going to become more important in our future as AI and things
• 47:39
  like that, you know, probably start to be able to do more of
• 47:42
  the things that, you know, sort of that that we've been able to
• 47:45
  do. So, you know, underlying this, I
• 47:48
  think it's, it's very deep philosophy, you know, so, so I
• 47:51
  think like, you know, I've gone very deeply into the world of
• 47:55
  philosophy, Eastern philosophy, I studied Kabbalah philosophy at
• 47:58
  the, you know, the very beginning of all this.
• 48:01
  And at the root of these philosophies is, is the idea.
• 48:04
  It's essentially of like, don't take the surface reality
• 48:09
  seriously. You know, living in a kind of
• 48:12
  story that is created by your circumstances and your culture
• 48:18
  and what's happening around you and behind it is something
• 48:22
  deeper. And you want to try to connect
• 48:23
  with that as well as live in the world that you're in.
• 48:27
  And this is the beauty of that of, of, of that philosophy.
• 48:31
  It's not an escape from the world you're in, but it's a
• 48:33
  recognition that there's something out there that that's,
• 48:37
  that, that that's grounding, that's deeper, that goes beyond
• 48:41
  the circumstances of the immediate moment.
• 48:43
  And I think if you can reach and find that it's it'll change your
• 48:47
  experience. Yeah.
• 48:48
  And I think that a lot of times all it really takes is to really
• 48:52
  be present in a moment. It, it does, but this is the,
• 48:57
  the, the thing about this is very easy to say.
• 49:00
  So people will say, you know, be present, be mindful, be this, be
• 49:03
  that, right? And so, but it requires, it's a
• 49:07
  discipline that has to be cultivated because the mind is
• 49:13
  very tricky. You know, the, the, the mind
• 49:16
  will say, oh, I want to be present, but it's anything but
• 49:18
  present. Yeah, you know, it's, I'm aware
• 49:21
  of that. You know, like what it's really
• 49:23
  hard is I'm worrying about this problem.
• 49:25
  I'm worrying about that. And so and so how do we, in
• 49:30
  order to be present, so to speak, or, you know, we, we have
• 49:34
  to sort of like bring the mind down a little bit.
• 49:36
  You know, we, we have to give the mind perspective, allow it
• 49:40
  to, to, to sort of rest. Yeah.
• 49:44
  And that is, that takes some, some effort, you know, some
• 49:48
  work, it's a practice. And so, you know, I start my day
• 49:53
  with, you know, we, we, we have a little meditation room at home
• 49:57
  with some sort of biographies in it, you know, kind of a thing
• 50:00
  and somebody to look at an iconography, whatever it may be,
• 50:03
  the picture of a teacher or the picture of a Buddha or, or, or
• 50:05
  something like that. I'm like, well, the iconography
• 50:07
  itself is just junk. I mean, it's a piece of metal or
• 50:10
  it's, or it's a piece of paper, right?
• 50:13
  Or something like that. But it represents what it
• 50:16
  represents is something beyond, you know where you are in this
• 50:20
  immediate moment. So when you connect with it,
• 50:22
  you're reminding yourself, you know, that there's a perspective
• 50:27
  to be had on your life and your moment that will help you throw
• 50:30
  it. And so, so when I start each
• 50:32
  day, I connect with that perspective.
• 50:34
  And that's a practice that keeps me in that space because every
• 50:38
  day, every day, you know, even just a 5 minutes, every day, I
• 50:41
  come back to it. I remind myself every day.
• 50:44
  And so these kinds of rituals or, or whatever we want to call
• 50:49
  them, have a real potency in our life.
• 50:51
  And I think this is something I've learned in that in, in, in
• 50:55
  the last like 20 years doing this, I used to think like, oh,
• 50:58
  you can just think your way to enlightenment or whatever it is.
• 51:01
  You can just think your way to happiness and Peace of Mind and
• 51:04
  all those things. And I don't think we can because
• 51:07
  I tried and I recognized pretty early on that it's actually a
• 51:11
  way of being. Yeah, yeah, I and it's it's it's
• 51:16
  it's beautifully put. It's beautifully put.
• 51:21
  I think that it's funny because when I think of some of the most
• 51:25
  transcendent experiences that I've had, they weren't
• 51:30
  necessarily something that I intended to be that way.
• 51:35
  So for example, you know, I, I have, for example, very, very
• 51:39
  vivid memories. I lived in Seattle, WA for a
• 51:41
  year. I loved it there.
• 51:43
  And I went through a particular heartbreak over there and, you
• 51:46
  know, particular context. And at the time, I was a big
• 51:48
  Springsteen nut, huge Springsteen fan.
• 51:50
  And especially the live shows I'd find, I'd find, I'd listen
• 51:53
  to hours and hours of his live concerts that I can tell you a
• 51:56
  set list from years to years. And there's something about and
• 51:59
  there's something about the way that he related his relationship
• 52:02
  to what I was experiencing. And I'm listening to this while
• 52:05
  I'm jogging and I'm going around this park that is my comforts
• 52:10
  play like comfort place, you know, And there's a track by
• 52:12
  Lake Washington by Magazine Park and you go around and a couple
• 52:15
  times around is a mile and and I'm listening to this music and
• 52:19
  I'm embody it. My brain is off because I'm I'm
• 52:23
  in the kind of the zone of jogging, but I'm ABS I'm but I'm
• 52:26
  sharing and I'm absolutely having this interaction with
• 52:30
  this Springsteen performance. And he'll never know ever, you
• 52:33
  know, that that that that a fire Hershman, you know, at 20, at 23
• 52:36
  years old, sitting there is jogging around, connecting in a
• 52:39
  most meaningful way. But that moment was transcended
• 52:42
  and I experienced a real, you know, and and I'm curious
• 52:46
  actually, what you think of this kind of stuff as far as like
• 52:48
  consciousness and out of body experiences and stuff like that.
• 52:50
  But I experience, you know, real being beyond myself, rising,
• 52:55
  rising above any particular instant that I felt like was a
• 52:59
  fry Hirschmann I was connected to something that was far more
• 53:03
  deep and far more at its root. And I found that a lot of this
• 53:06
  is like a muscle and a lot of this is you have to exercise it.
• 53:09
  Like you said, it took you 20 years to, to, to work at this,
• 53:13
  but it's a muscle and it takes exercise every single day and
• 53:16
  some days feel better and some days feel worse and some days
• 53:18
  more productive. But then when you have that
• 53:20
  breakthrough moment and you realize that I couldn't have had
• 53:23
  this breakthrough moment had I not put in all that time before
• 53:26
  that, then that's when you start to value the process of building
• 53:30
  muscle along the way, other than just having that final goal that
• 53:33
  you're looking to achieve. I think that's absolutely right.
• 53:37
  I mean, I think that people, there are many, many people can
• 53:41
  have like what I would call like a peak experience, right?
• 53:43
  So you can get it through meditation, you can get it
• 53:45
  through drugs, you can get it through, you know, an EDM
• 53:49
  concert. That worked.
• 53:51
  I did one time. And so and so I think people
• 53:55
  definitely experience it. To me, it, it's like gives you
• 53:58
  like a little glimpse of, of, of, of something that's sort of
• 54:01
  beyond your immediate thing. And when you see it, you know,
• 54:03
  wow, that, that, that really feels good, right.
• 54:06
  And so then the question is like, are you going to be sort
• 54:08
  of constantly on the hunt for that peak experience, in which
• 54:11
  case you got to go jogging through the park with Bruce
• 54:13
  Springsteen playing in your head?
• 54:16
  And the goal of the practice, I think, is to steady the mind
• 54:22
  into that kind of space. And so it's not necessarily to
• 54:24
  have like the, the peak experience, that the peak
• 54:27
  experience is like the motivation, you know, to realize
• 54:30
  that I should do something for my life that sort of takes me
• 54:33
  beyond the immediacy of what's happening and gives me a glimpse
• 54:38
  of some other possibility. I maybe I'm reading philosophy,
• 54:41
  maybe I'm doing meditation, maybe I'm lighting a candle
• 54:43
  every morning for, you know, but I, I'm doing something that
• 54:46
  moves me beyond the, the, the sort of immediacy of the moment,
• 54:49
  because that kind of grounding, when you really feel it will
• 54:54
  transform experience that it will give a perspective on, on
• 54:58
  life. You know, that's different.
• 54:59
  The greatest Buddhist philosophers that I started are
• 55:02
  like, enlightenment is a change in perspective.
• 55:06
  You know, it's not some place we go.
• 55:09
  You know, we're not often excluded from some land of
• 55:13
  enlightened beings. And if if only we could get
• 55:15
  there. It's a shift in perspective on
• 55:18
  where we are, right. And that shift in perspective is
• 55:22
  what I'm talking about is just sort of, you know, just
• 55:25
  connecting with that and, and realizing that our views on
• 55:28
  things might be limited. And so when we open our minds to
• 55:31
  other possibilities, then our experience changing.
• 55:35
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's amazing work.
• 55:39
  And once you do it, you can't undo it.
• 55:42
  You know, once you once you've started and once you once you've
• 55:44
  had that experience of enlightenment where you have
• 55:46
  that, Oh my God, realization where your perception does
• 55:50
  shift. You know, that's enough to that,
• 55:53
  that people remember that the rest of their lives.
• 55:56
  You'll hear people talk about a particular experience and they
• 55:58
  don't know how to replicate it again.
• 55:59
  And they're not to get back to it again, but they'll, they'll
• 56:01
  talk about it forever. People recognize that.
• 56:04
  They recognize it, but what I'm that that's true again, in, in,
• 56:07
  in terms of a particular experience.
• 56:09
  But when you start to integrate at the way that I'm talking
• 56:11
  about, the goal is to sort of shift your perspective for the
• 56:17
  mundane. That's the thing.
• 56:21
  It's not a hunt for peak experience.
• 56:23
  It's like, what are you experiencing right now?
• 56:26
  You know and when things are hard and you know when your kids
• 56:30
  are sick or when you've. Got So how do you do that?
• 56:33
  That's what that's one of these things that are easier said than
• 56:35
  done. But if you know and I don't
• 56:37
  know, the answer might be everyone's different and I'm
• 56:40
  sure that that is a big part of the answer.
• 56:44
  How do you? How do you?
• 56:46
  How do you teach, you know, unless it's a maturity thing?
• 56:49
  Is this an age thing? Is it like, you know, like
• 56:51
  youths wasted on the youth and kids are so busy running around
• 56:53
  and having fun that they're not, you know, that they miss out on
• 56:55
  that and and then only. After you.
• 56:57
  No, no, I think it's a sort of lifelong learning thing.
• 57:00
  You know, I think sometimes we sort of think like, oh, I got to
• 57:02
  the age of 21 or 25 and sort of I'm growing up and I'm done.
• 57:05
  And I think that that's not right.
• 57:07
  I think we've physically grown up.
• 57:09
  And, but I think our arc of life, our arc of learning, our
• 57:13
  arc of, of the development is just beginning.
• 57:15
  Because now the journey will shift from the physical things
• 57:20
  of, you know, I've got to drop develop my brain, you know,
• 57:22
  learn math and English and all that kind of stuff.
• 57:25
  Now it will turn to, to more sort of inner things, right?
• 57:29
  How do I transcend some of the challenges, you know, from the
• 57:32
  past? How I, how do I transcend some
• 57:33
  of these thoughts in my head that drive me crazy from, you
• 57:37
  know, it's just a different kind of learning.
• 57:39
  So, so I think that you're always on this journey, but that
• 57:43
  you find out about it not from the peak experience, but from
• 57:46
  the change in your experience for the ordinary things, right?
• 57:51
  The, the, the, you know, how you treat a friend, the challenge
• 57:54
  you're working out with your wife, The, you know, the
• 57:56
  challenges of raising family. I mean, family is a is family by
• 58:00
  itself, you know, is, is an opportunity for practicing these
• 58:04
  things like no other. Oh yeah.
• 58:06
  Oh yeah. I have to catch myself all the
• 58:08
  time. And particularly because so, for
• 58:09
  example, my wife's family does this.
• 58:12
  I, my family did not. But I'm, I was happy to oblige
• 58:14
  for this particular tradition because it didn't, there's no
• 58:17
  skin off my back. But there's, there's a tradition
• 58:19
  in sex of Judaism that you, that you let your kids hair grow
• 58:23
  until you're 3 for your son. And then at three years old, you
• 58:26
  cut it and there's a lot of really nice potential, you know,
• 58:30
  what it could represent and the ideas that it can embody.
• 58:34
  But we did it for my son. And for me to go from being a 25
• 58:40
  year old, you know, single guy with no direction in my life to
• 58:45
  by the time I'm 30, giving my son a haircut and, you know, and
• 58:49
  watching this kid and thinking to myself, I don't even really
• 58:53
  know what happened, You know, what happened between now and
• 58:56
  then. Like I know that there are a
• 58:57
  couple of significant moments, but I, I, I, I, it, it, I had
• 59:01
  to, I have to periodically remind myself in the moment,
• 59:04
  bedtime is not bedtime is not a burden.
• 59:07
  Bedtime is an opportunity, you know, you know, spending time
• 59:11
  with changing my daughter's diaper is not a burden.
• 59:13
  It's not something, OK, I'll go do it.
• 59:17
  It's an opportunity. And and it's very it's a muscle,
• 59:21
  but it's something that far too often we hear.
• 59:25
  And this is something that I hope, and I don't know how
• 59:27
  education can have an impact. You hear, you know, life goes by
• 59:32
  so fast and then it does. And you're like, whoa, that went
• 59:35
  by so fast. What's going on?
• 59:40
  Changing your daughter's diaper is more than an opportunity.
• 59:43
  Yeah. Life doesn't get better.
• 59:51
  It, it, it, you know, we're all racing after these things.
• 59:54
  And I'm not saying that the other things aren't are, you
• 59:58
  know, are important. But there you are changing your
• 1:00:00
  daughter's diaper right There you are taking care of an aging
• 1:00:03
  parent. There you are, you know, doing
• 1:00:05
  things that seem mundane. You know, you know, I noticed
• 1:00:09
  sometimes, you know, people like, you know, you, they get
• 1:00:11
  burdened with troubles, you know, they're, they're taking
• 1:00:13
  care of, you know, sick people. But it's like, OK, I'll put my
• 1:00:16
  life on hold while I'm doing this.
• 1:00:18
  Yeah. And then when I'm done with this
• 1:00:19
  difficult thing, I'm going to get back to my life, you know,
• 1:00:23
  And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's your life, right?
• 1:00:26
  That's literally your life. You know, So you're either there
• 1:00:29
  for it or you're not. And so, but the mind, you know,
• 1:00:32
  because we're conditioned, you know, to sort of, it's
• 1:00:35
  conditioning, you know, we're sort of conditioned to think
• 1:00:37
  differently. You know, we're conditioned,
• 1:00:38
  prioritize different things. We're conditioned to think that,
• 1:00:41
  you know, listening to Bruce Springsteen is more fulfilling
• 1:00:44
  than changing my daughter's diaper or something.
• 1:00:46
  And it's not, it never was, it never will be.
• 1:00:50
  It's just a question of where the mind is when The thing is
• 1:00:53
  happening. And I think that's what this
• 1:00:57
  connection that what this sort of whatever you want to call it,
• 1:01:00
  spiritual discipline, whatever you want to call it is is is is
• 1:01:03
  all about. But you know why we still have
• 1:01:06
  it here. I got a question for.
• 1:01:07
  You. Yes, please.
• 1:01:08
  Right. So you've made all the amount of
• 1:01:10
  money in the world that you ever wanted.
• 1:01:13
  What are you going to do with the rest of your life?
• 1:01:15
  I am going to keep doing the podcast with all the money I
• 1:01:20
  ever had. I'm going to have a enormous
• 1:01:24
  family, I hope, with all the money I've ever needed.
• 1:01:27
  And I am going to be. I'm going to keep.
• 1:01:31
  I'm going to keep teaching. By the way, my life would
• 1:01:33
  probably look exactly the same as it looks today.
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, except I'd probably cut out sales and I'd replace that
• 1:01:39
  with with piano playing or music playing.
• 1:01:41
  And I think everything else in my life would be pretty much, I
• 1:01:44
  don't think I could handle or do much more with my intentionality
• 1:01:49
  than I'm doing now. I don't know that I could do
• 1:01:51
  more than be his, be a husband that invests in his
• 1:01:55
  relationship, be a dad that invests in my kids, be a podcast
• 1:01:59
  host that invests in authentic conversations that really are,
• 1:02:03
  you know, that I have to prepare for and be thoughtful about
• 1:02:06
  teaching the future generations, teaching the high school.
• 1:02:10
  I fought to teach high school. I wanted to teach college.
• 1:02:12
  I thought that, you know, high school students are boring.
• 1:02:14
  They can't have sophisticated conversations with them.
• 1:02:17
  And then I gave them some assignments and I just gave them
• 1:02:19
  some creative writing prompts. And I just was blown away by.
• 1:02:23
  And by the way, it was also very interesting because I teach an
• 1:02:25
  ultra Orthodox Jewish school. And so the kids are not exposed
• 1:02:29
  to smartphones and they're not allowed to have social media.
• 1:02:33
  And you could watch the difference in their interactions
• 1:02:36
  and in their self-confidence, in their ability to express
• 1:02:38
  themselves, in their ability to play and to and to have fun and
• 1:02:41
  to also, there's a great way to put that Jonathan Hate put this
• 1:02:44
  in a great book called the anxious generation, but low
• 1:02:47
  consequence, low consequence conflict where hey, I want this
• 1:02:53
  candy, you got that candy, I want a snack, you got a snack.
• 1:02:56
  How are we going to work this out?
• 1:02:57
  The both of us are going to, you know, are going to be OK about
• 1:02:59
  it. And at the end of the day, if it
• 1:03:01
  doesn't work out, it's just your candy.
• 1:03:02
  That's not like best case scenario you get yet skills.
• 1:03:05
  Worst case scenario, you lose a candy and everyone's happy.
• 1:03:08
  So I think that I think that the purpose of my life is to help
• 1:03:13
  bring out the best in others. And I do that most by sharing.
• 1:03:17
  And I'm I get intensely passionate about the things that
• 1:03:21
  catch me. You know that I'm that, that
• 1:03:23
  that ignite me. I can't imagine that things will
• 1:03:25
  be too different, except that I hope to be able to.
• 1:03:28
  I work with my father. We've worked together.
• 1:03:30
  I swore my whole life I'd never worked with him until I
• 1:03:32
  graduated college with a creative writing degree.
• 1:03:34
  And then things change. But that, that that's, that's,
• 1:03:38
  you know, I would love to take care of them in my way rather
• 1:03:43
  than be supported by I'm looking forward to that switch in life
• 1:03:46
  where I can help take care of my parents the way they took care
• 1:03:49
  of me my whole life, but my own way not doing it the way that
• 1:03:53
  they've set out for me to, you know, the table they set for me
• 1:03:56
  already. Yeah, well, I'm glad that I'm
• 1:03:58
  interviewing you now and that's a very beautiful and inspiring
• 1:04:02
  answer. And, and and and I think it will
• 1:04:04
  and should inspire others as well.
• 1:04:06
  So it's and I think it's actually think it's quite rare.
• 1:04:09
  So thank you, you know, so so that that's that's just awesome.
• 1:04:14
  That's just anything else you want to tell me I.
• 1:04:16
  Had AI, had a friend. I had a friend that had a
• 1:04:18
  question actually, because I gave me a book as soon as I read
• 1:04:21
  it the first time. And he wanted to know how much
• 1:04:23
  Steve Jobs had to do with your and I know now talking to you,
• 1:04:27
  but how much had to do with your interest in in in Buddhism and
• 1:04:29
  Eastern philosophy? Because yeah, no. 00, yeah.
• 1:04:36
  Is he shocked when you were already interested in it when
• 1:04:39
  you started talking about no? Shocked, you know, I, I think
• 1:04:42
  actually more respectful, appreciative, not shocked.
• 1:04:45
  I think he appreciate, he appreciated Buddhist philosophy
• 1:04:48
  a lot, especially Buddhist aesthetics, but he wasn't a sort
• 1:04:51
  of practitioner of it. You know, his, his wife was in
• 1:04:54
  his work, you know, and you know, and, and the product of
• 1:04:57
  his work was what you saw, you know, at Pixar, but especially
• 1:05:00
  at Apple and, and the sort of aesthetics and the detail and
• 1:05:04
  everything like that. You know, that was, that's what
• 1:05:07
  lit him up. That's what drove him, you know,
• 1:05:09
  that, that, you know, 24, you know, you know, 24/7.
• 1:05:13
  So I'd say he had an appreciation for the, the, the
• 1:05:17
  sort of spiritual engagement in a journey, so to speak, but but
• 1:05:22
  his expression of himself was, was through it through, through
• 1:05:26
  his work and his creativity there.
• 1:05:29
  OK, well then a couple, just a couple more last, last questions
• 1:05:32
  that I think are very important. What are you hopeful for and
• 1:05:35
  what advice do you have for young, young folk that do feel
• 1:05:40
  this world is daunting At the moment?
• 1:05:41
  It is relatively daunting and we're facing a lot of strife
• 1:05:45
  that we haven't probably faced since the 70s, I would probably
• 1:05:48
  say 60s or 70s. And with hardship does come a
• 1:05:52
  lot of beauty. You know, with challenges rises
• 1:05:56
  creativity and greatness. But but those who are nervous,
• 1:05:59
  those who are scared, some advice and some some hope for
• 1:06:03
  the future. Yeah, I mean, I find myself
• 1:06:05
  hopeful for the future, you know, but I think that we're in
• 1:06:09
  a sort of transitional phase for a couple of reasons. 1 is that
• 1:06:13
  the old paradigm is sort of running its course, the old
• 1:06:17
  economic paradigm. You know, I grew up at a time,
• 1:06:20
  you know, you, you, you graduate from college, you got a job.
• 1:06:23
  You 10 years later, you, you know, you got a house, you know,
• 1:06:25
  that kind of thing, right. And so, and that that that
• 1:06:29
  paradigm is, is, is, is not what it used to be.
• 1:06:32
  And now whatever changes is having is being now being
• 1:06:35
  accelerated by tech. So I think AI is causing like a
• 1:06:38
  fear to sort of, you know, descend on, you know what, you
• 1:06:41
  know what, what is, you know, what does this mean?
• 1:06:44
  But I would say something like this, like don't think that the
• 1:06:49
  people before you had it all figured out.
• 1:06:52
  I, I, I don't think they did. I don't think my generation did.
• 1:06:56
  I, I think, you know, we look successful, right?
• 1:06:58
  You know, because we grew up and, and, you know, we were
• 1:07:02
  inventing technologies and, and computers and all this stuff.
• 1:07:05
  But I don't think that's the, that, that, that's the sign that
• 1:07:09
  we sort of had it all together. And I think we're on a
• 1:07:12
  trajectory to find a way of being that ultimately I think
• 1:07:17
  will be more healthy because it will integrate the two sides of
• 1:07:22
  the coin that I'm talking about. You know, an example of this is
• 1:07:26
  I think we are already and we will continue to live more by
• 1:07:32
  community and by extended family.
• 1:07:36
  You know, not just the nuclear family.
• 1:07:38
  You know, the nuclear family is like it's two people against the
• 1:07:41
  world. You know, this is all everything
• 1:07:42
  out. The extended family is a
• 1:07:44
  village. And I tell my family and my kids
• 1:07:46
  these days, and I really mean this, like life is a team sport,
• 1:07:50
  right? It's a team sport.
• 1:07:52
  And you got to learn how to play it as a team sport because
• 1:07:57
  otherwise you're sort of clinging on to sort of your
• 1:08:00
  piece of life. Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:08:02
  And this is a falsity. And so I think that this next
• 1:08:05
  generation Rich and is more likely to appreciate this.
• 1:08:08
  I try to instill this even in my own kids too, right?
• 1:08:11
  Like, you know, we're playing a team sport And and because, you
• 1:08:15
  know, the things that are happening to us, the hardships
• 1:08:17
  and the challenges that we're having are not happening because
• 1:08:20
  of us. They're they're they're
• 1:08:22
  happening because they're happening because world is
• 1:08:25
  shifting and changing. So we have to adjust to succeed
• 1:08:30
  in a new environment. And I think getting a team and
• 1:08:36
  and playing in that way as opposed to just, it's as like an
• 1:08:39
  individual sport. It's me against the world,
• 1:08:42
  right? I got to win, I've got to
• 1:08:43
  succeed. I don't think that's going to
• 1:08:45
  going to work as well anymore. But I think when we do have this
• 1:08:49
  attitude, life will be way richer for it.
• 1:08:52
  But it requires a shift within us, you know, because the
• 1:08:55
  challenge is like, we can really self critique ourselves.
• 1:08:58
  You know, I felt successful enough or I didn't get a job or
• 1:09:01
  I didn't do this or I didn't do that.
• 1:09:03
  And that's no good because what's happening is not our
• 1:09:06
  fault. It's not because we failed or
• 1:09:08
  because we didn't do something right or anything like that.
• 1:09:10
  It's just circumstances is changing.
• 1:09:12
  So we have to let go of the self critique and and get down to
• 1:09:16
  business of how do I cope with what's happening now?
• 1:09:20
  Yeah. And I think what comes out of
• 1:09:23
  that could be way better than than what's been.
• 1:09:27
  It could be richer and deeper, but it will require us to adjust
• 1:09:31
  our sort of values and our expectations and our thoughts.
• 1:09:34
  Yeah, I hope so. It's funny because I I've
• 1:09:37
  noticed I would tell last summer now I went to a friend's wedding
• 1:09:41
  in Israel and along the way stops in Amsterdam and and Spain
• 1:09:45
  on the way home, just briefly. I haven't been to, I hadn't been
• 1:09:47
  to either place. And I wanted to check out what
• 1:09:49
  the world, what the, what the world was like there.
• 1:09:51
  And, and I've been to Ireland, I've been to Dublin, which I
• 1:09:55
  which I absolutely adored. And I went to Galway and I loved
• 1:09:57
  it. And one thing that I've noticed
• 1:09:59
  that people, it feels like, and again, as a tourist, it's just
• 1:10:05
  my experience that my my couple days there, whatever it was,
• 1:10:08
  felt like they were not as isolated in these social bubbles
• 1:10:13
  of technology and phones and air pods.
• 1:10:16
  And I mean, I know that I go to the supermarket.
• 1:10:19
  I said this before and I'll say it again.
• 1:10:21
  And the cashier has headphones in and his mind in their own
• 1:10:24
  business. And I'm walking by and I'm not
• 1:10:25
  paying attention because I'm texting and my headphones and
• 1:10:27
  I'm listening to podcast while I'm shopping.
• 1:10:29
  And the best experience that I've had is when I bumped into
• 1:10:33
  someone said, I'm so sorry. Like that's OK, you know, were
• 1:10:36
  you looking for this? I'm looking for that.
• 1:10:37
  Oh yeah. You know, I love this thing.
• 1:10:38
  It's my favorite thing. And all of a sudden, that two
• 1:10:40
  second spark of connection that that wall just came crumbling
• 1:10:43
  down. And, and, and I think that like,
• 1:10:45
  like, and this is a common theme, Dave and Goliath startups
• 1:10:49
  and, and big companies, you know, it feels like the whole
• 1:10:52
  world is pushing down. Like you're saying it takes very
• 1:10:55
  little to peek a hole of light into it.
• 1:10:57
  Did the poke a hole to poke a little hole into that?
• 1:11:00
  And then who knows how big that hole gets.
• 1:11:02
  So I hope that that that, that, that America rebounds from this
• 1:11:05
  kind of isolation and like you said, become part of a
• 1:11:08
  community. And, you know, there's something
• 1:11:11
  about, especially in recent years with, you know, being
• 1:11:14
  Jewish and, and even really having to re look and re
• 1:11:18
  evaluate, you know, and about my relationship with Israel,
• 1:11:23
  Judaism, not, not in a bad way, but just to say, hey, a lot's
• 1:11:27
  going on. And it does require some thought
• 1:11:29
  and some thoughtfulness and it does require just another
• 1:11:32
  perspective and another looking at from a new from a new lens.
• 1:11:35
  And it's really, really hard to do.
• 1:11:38
  But you find yourself connecting with more people than ever in
• 1:11:41
  the world doesn't become smaller, it becomes larger.
• 1:11:44
  The world becomes, the world becomes more of an opportunity
• 1:11:47
  for people that you didn't even dream of or more similar to than
• 1:11:50
  you ever could have thought. And it's beautiful and it's
• 1:11:53
  amazing. And all we have to do is just
• 1:11:54
  give ourselves that chance to get there.
• 1:11:56
  I think that's absolutely right. I think that there's it's an I
• 1:12:00
  all this is a muscle, right? So I call it the human first
• 1:12:04
  muscle. It's like, and it's it's very
• 1:12:07
  easy to exercise. Like all you have to do is, you
• 1:12:12
  know, like at any point during the day or night or whatever,
• 1:12:14
  you think human first, right? And you just think to yourself
• 1:12:17
  about anybody, anything, anyone that you know that may be going
• 1:12:21
  through something difficult or maybe going through something
• 1:12:23
  good, right, something like that.
• 1:12:25
  And you just have to acknowledge it, right?
• 1:12:28
  So the text that you never sent, right?
• 1:12:31
  You know, because someone went to the doctor or someone, you
• 1:12:34
  know, had a surgery or, you know, somebody, whatever, you
• 1:12:37
  know, you know, whatever it is in that moment, human first,
• 1:12:41
  right? I'm just going to say, hey,
• 1:12:42
  how's it going, right? We sometimes feel almost awkward
• 1:12:46
  doing that. And and I say, step into it, get
• 1:12:50
  burn putting humans by putting people first, Let it let it burn
• 1:12:54
  you because it will produce much more rewards than it does burn.
• 1:12:59
  One out of 10 people might say, Hey, what the hell are you
• 1:13:01
  doing? And I, you know, but one out of
• 1:13:02
  100, I've actually never experienced it, you know, you
• 1:13:06
  know, I'm like when you just pay that little tent, it's just a
• 1:13:09
  little muscle, right? Just pay attention, you know,
• 1:13:13
  get your mind off of yourself and your needs and this and
• 1:13:17
  that. Just pay attention to what that
• 1:13:18
  other personal thing, you know, might want just once a day.
• 1:13:23
  These are the practices that shift.
• 1:13:26
  Building blocks. Building blocks that, that,
• 1:13:28
  that, that, that shift minds. And you know, I, I, I've, I've,
• 1:13:32
  I've read all this fancy philosophy and I could, I'm
• 1:13:34
  happy, you know, I can talk to you all day about it.
• 1:13:36
  But you know, I'm really serious though, when I say that is my
• 1:13:40
  practice, you know, the, the philosophy and everything and
• 1:13:44
  all that is to enable that. It's not really good at
• 1:13:47
  philosophy. You know, which I'm, which I
• 1:13:49
  love and I'm happy to talk about.
• 1:13:52
  It's for that, you know. The philosophy is a
• 1:13:54
  justification to be able to get there.
• 1:13:56
  It's to be able to get there. It's so that I can put a break
• 1:13:59
  in my day and say, no, I'm going to pay attention to this person,
• 1:14:04
  this thing, you know right now. And it's the little things.
• 1:14:07
  It's the way you word a text, the way you word an e-mail,
• 1:14:10
  right? The, the just thinking of these
• 1:14:12
  things and that it's very mundane.
• 1:14:15
  But that's where the that's where the grist of it is.
• 1:14:19
  Mr. Lawrence Levy, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:14:22
  This is again a dream come true and I really appreciate your
• 1:14:26
  time and I hope to be in touch because you are clearly a source
• 1:14:29
  of a lot of wonderful wisdom and ideals and and I and I consider
• 1:14:34
  myself lucky that I got to get in touch with you so.
• 1:14:36
  Thank you very much for staying in touch.
• 1:14:37
  We're friends now and you can call, you can call me anytime.
• 1:14:39
  There we go. Beautiful.
• 1:14:41
  Thank you so much. Have a great evening.
• 1:14:42
  We'll talk soon. Thank you.
• 1:14:43
  Bye everyone.