Latest / Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact / Naveen Jain - Serial entrepreneur & CEO of Viome

Transcript

Naveen Jain - Serial entrepreneur & CEO of Viome · Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact

0:07
Speaker 1: My feeling is the day you become an expert in
0:10
Speaker 1: any subject, any industry, you become useless or I would
0:15
Speaker 1: say incrementalist in that industry. That means the best you
0:18
Speaker 1: can be is ten percent better than anyone else in
0:21
Speaker 1: the industry, but you'll never be ten times better. To
0:24
Speaker 1: be ten times better, you have to challenge the foundation
0:28
Speaker 1: of everything that expert has taken for granted.
0:33
Speaker 2: Navin Jane has built his career by doing exactly that,
0:37
Speaker 2: challenging assumptions, rethinking industries, and refusing to settle for incremental progress.
0:42
Speaker 2: A serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, Navine's journey began with humble
0:46
Speaker 2: beginnings in India, led him to a career at Microsoft
0:49
Speaker 2: and ultimately to taking the leap to found Infospace and
0:53
Speaker 2: later Yome, an AI driven health platform focused on preventing
0:57
Speaker 2: chronic disease. Today we'll hear how he landed on his
1:00
Speaker 2: feet after leaving Infospace, why he believes entrepreneurs should hate risk,
1:05
Speaker 2: and how he measures success not just in wealth, but
1:08
Speaker 2: in impact. I'm furnished to Rabi and this is leading
1:12
Speaker 2: by example, executives making an impact. Navin Jane, Welcome to
1:18
Speaker 2: leading by example. It's a pleasure to have you on
1:21
Speaker 2: the show Varnished.
1:22
Speaker 1: What an honor and a pleasure to be speaking with you.
1:24
Speaker 2: I have so many questions for you. I love to
1:27
Speaker 2: start at the beginning of beginnings, going back to before
1:31
Speaker 2: you stepped on us soil, when you were just a
1:34
Speaker 2: boy living in India. I was reading I think it
1:37
Speaker 2: was in Fortune you were talking about your father's influence
1:41
Speaker 2: on you. One big memory is how your father, who
1:45
Speaker 2: was a worker for the Indian government, he refused to
1:49
Speaker 2: take bribes, which I guess was an unusual thing, and
1:53
Speaker 2: as a result, your family moved around a lot and
1:56
Speaker 2: you attended schools that were not so great. So I
2:00
Speaker 2: just want to go to that moment in your life
2:02
Speaker 2: and understand what you were witnessing, how it was making
2:06
Speaker 2: sense to you, and the influence that your father had.
2:10
Speaker 2: I know that one of your mantras is choose service
2:12
Speaker 2: over money, and I wonder if it started at that memory.
2:16
Speaker 1: You know, It's really interesting is that when you are
2:18
Speaker 1: growing up, everyone believes that the things that you don't
2:24
Speaker 1: have is what you end up desiring. And if you
2:27
Speaker 1: don't have money, all you want in life is to
2:29
Speaker 1: just have more money, because you somehow think that's the
2:32
Speaker 1: most scarce thing you have. And what you realize is
2:36
Speaker 1: that once you let go of need of having somehow
2:40
Speaker 1: the money is what brings happiness, you start to find
2:44
Speaker 1: happiness in everything that's happening around you. And to me,
2:48
Speaker 1: having that family unit that was together, saw my mom
2:52
Speaker 1: working very very hard doing odds and ends job just
2:57
Speaker 1: to make sure we were fed, that was the best
3:00
Speaker 1: thing that could have happened to me is learning that
3:03
Speaker 1: nothing about money that's going to bring you happiness. It
3:06
Speaker 1: is the love of your parents, the love of your family,
3:10
Speaker 1: the joy you get in having the smallest things in
3:14
Speaker 1: life brings you that happiness and the things that you
3:18
Speaker 1: would have wondered that since my dad refused to take bride,
3:21
Speaker 1: and the way it works is that you know, he
3:23
Speaker 1: takes a bribe, he takes a piece of it, gives
3:25
Speaker 1: it to his boss, His boss takes his piece and
3:27
Speaker 1: gives it to his boss, and everyone gets fed from
3:30
Speaker 1: that bride. And if he does not take it, no
3:33
Speaker 1: one in the system is going to get it, and
3:35
Speaker 1: that means he has to go because no one above
3:37
Speaker 1: him is getting it right. And we moved every year
3:40
Speaker 1: year and a half, and looking back, I think I
3:43
Speaker 1: would have found that to be really disturbing because you
3:46
Speaker 1: never found some place you called home. But to me,
3:49
Speaker 1: that was the best thing that my dad could have
3:52
Speaker 1: possibly offered me, or not my dad by choice, but
3:55
Speaker 1: the universe actually offered me because I got so comfort
4:00
Speaker 1: being in a new place that means nothing ever rattled me.
4:05
Speaker 1: Having to make new friends, it became a common thing.
4:08
Speaker 1: Not knowing what's going on became a common thing. Not
4:11
Speaker 1: having a school to go to and simply sitting on
4:14
Speaker 1: the floor and some elderly person coming in and just
4:17
Speaker 1: wanting to teach you and learning from that. You know,
4:19
Speaker 1: that means you can learn something from everyone. And today
4:23
Speaker 1: when I look back at my life and I say,
4:25
Speaker 1: you know, that's exactly what I have become that there
4:28
Speaker 1: is not a person I talk to where I say,
4:30
Speaker 1: my god, I can't learn anything from this person. Every
4:33
Speaker 1: person can teach you the smallest thing that you say,
4:36
Speaker 1: my god, I wish I knew that when I was Yeh.
4:39
Speaker 2: Did your parents reinforce this to you when you were
4:41
Speaker 2: a child. I can only imagine some kids sort have
4:43
Speaker 2: had a very different appreciation, a lack of appreciation right
4:48
Speaker 2: for that. But you saw it differently. Do you think
4:50
Speaker 2: that says more about who you are innately or I
4:53
Speaker 2: guess I'm really asking was it nature or nurture.
4:56
Speaker 1: I would believe it has to be a nurture because
4:58
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, parents have a tremendous
5:02
Speaker 1: influence on children, not by telling them what to do,
5:09
Speaker 1: but by showing them what to do. And it is
5:13
Speaker 1: about leading by example. So children don't do what you
5:18
Speaker 1: tell them to do. Children do what they see you do.
5:22
Speaker 1: And when I saw my dad willing to take hardships
5:26
Speaker 1: but not losing the integrity, and that is really what
5:30
Speaker 1: you learned that you're never going to compromise on the
5:33
Speaker 1: values you have, despite what you think is in the
5:37
Speaker 1: immediate gratification that's going to bring you. Because in a
5:41
Speaker 1: long term, my brother and my sister we look back
5:44
Speaker 1: and saying, all growing up in this family that has
5:48
Speaker 1: very little, and the society would have said this family
5:51
Speaker 1: must not amount too much. And here I look back
5:55
Speaker 1: and saying, my sister did her post doctorate in applied
5:59
Speaker 1: mathematics from Indiana, and my brother who is a double
6:03
Speaker 1: PhD in computer science and statistics, and I was the
6:06
Speaker 1: least educated person in my family as an undergrad from
6:09
Speaker 1: my IT and MBA. And really at this point, not
6:12
Speaker 1: only the God has been kind to us when we
6:16
Speaker 1: came to the United States, really watching our three children
6:19
Speaker 1: growing up in an affluent family this time rather than
6:23
Speaker 1: poverty and still doing the same audacious. Thing that is
6:28
Speaker 1: really to me is something about nurturing rather than nature.
6:31
Speaker 2: Wow. Love that perspective. And so you arrive here in
6:35
Speaker 2: the States, and I understand this was during a time
6:37
Speaker 2: when there were a lot of immigrants moving here to
6:42
Speaker 2: pursue school, and many of them stayed. You included what
6:46
Speaker 2: was the goal when you came here? Initially for my parents,
6:50
Speaker 2: for example, it was just to get educated, and then
6:52
Speaker 2: the thought was we're going to go back to the
6:54
Speaker 2: Middle East, but they ended up staying. What were your
6:57
Speaker 2: intentions when you came to the US.
7:00
Speaker 1: Actually I did not want to come to US, and
7:02
Speaker 1: I didn't really plan to come to US. I was
7:05
Speaker 1: just finishing up my MBA. In my MBA had nothing
7:09
Speaker 1: to do with anything that I ended up doing, and
7:13
Speaker 1: it was really in the personnel management and industrial relations,
7:17
Speaker 1: which is managing the labor. And there was this computer
7:20
Speaker 1: company called Burrows in those days, a very large mainframe
7:24
Speaker 1: company like IBM, they came to the campus and they
7:27
Speaker 1: were interviewing people for a programming job. And obviously I
7:31
Speaker 1: have never seen a computer in my life, so what
7:32
Speaker 1: am I going to do. I'm not going to apply
7:34
Speaker 1: for a job. And here I'm having a lunch with
7:36
Speaker 1: a bunch of my friends and one of the friends
7:39
Speaker 1: during lunch said they would do this aptitude test like
7:43
Speaker 1: sat before they even interview you. And my friend says,
7:46
Speaker 1: this is the hardest test he has ever taken. And
7:49
Speaker 1: I said, like, how how can this really be? And
7:51
Speaker 1: he said, have you taken it? So you don't get
7:53
Speaker 1: to talk to me unless you get to go take it.
7:54
Speaker 1: And I'm like, God, damn it, I'm going to go
7:56
Speaker 1: take their damn test. So I went there, took the test,
8:00
Speaker 1: and absolutely asteed. And next day I get a call
8:03
Speaker 1: from this company and say they want to interview me.
8:06
Speaker 1: And I say interview me for what? And he say
8:09
Speaker 1: for computer programming. I said, what's the computer? And he says, oh,
8:13
Speaker 1: you're playing with us because you obviously know everything about computers.
8:16
Speaker 1: And I say, I've never seen a computer in my life.
8:19
Speaker 1: And they honestly believe that I am so good that
8:22
Speaker 1: I'm just joking with them. They say, you must obviously
8:25
Speaker 1: know the difference between bit and a bite. I say,
8:27
Speaker 1: even a moron knows that bittich is small and a
8:30
Speaker 1: bite is big. And they think I know everything and
8:32
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that because I'm just trying to minimize
8:36
Speaker 1: what I know. They say, great, you know what, We're
8:38
Speaker 1: going to hire you. We're going to teach you everything
8:39
Speaker 1: about computer and I said, great, I'm hired.
8:43
Speaker 2: So what is the lesson there?
8:44
Speaker 1: Honestly, the lesson really is be so confident in yourself. Well,
8:51
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm talking about faking it. I could
8:53
Speaker 1: give you a humble answer that you know, I'm really
8:56
Speaker 1: not that smart and in all that, but the truth
8:59
Speaker 1: really being too, I was pretty smart kid, i' mean
9:01
Speaker 1: on top of my class, right, And the fact really
9:04
Speaker 1: is having that confidence that you can do anything. And
9:09
Speaker 1: literally they brought me in New Jersey you probably would appreciate.
9:13
Speaker 1: I ended up in a very very small town near
9:16
Speaker 1: Flemington called french Town. I know it, tiny, tiny town.
9:20
Speaker 1: And in those days I'm talking about nineteen eighty two,
9:24
Speaker 1: and I don't believe they have ever seen anyone who
9:27
Speaker 1: was not white. And I ended up in this town
9:31
Speaker 1: and they have seen the first person who was non Caucasian,
9:35
Speaker 1: and they thought that some alien have landed. And I
9:39
Speaker 1: was that alien that they were fascinated by. And someday,
9:43
Speaker 1: when we have more tell the stories about you, talk
9:46
Speaker 1: about discrimination. I mean, it is a serious issue, at
9:50
Speaker 1: least in that time. And now I look back and saying,
9:54
Speaker 1: you know what it is now a reverse discrimination. If
9:58
Speaker 1: you happen to be a Indian immigrant, they automatically think
10:03
Speaker 1: you are smart. You know everything about math and science
10:07
Speaker 1: and computer you are a genius.
10:09
Speaker 2: Wow wow wow. All right, so you started this first company,
10:13
Speaker 2: they teach you everything about computers, and you work for
10:16
Speaker 2: several tech startups, eventually moving up the ranks to Microsoft,
10:21
Speaker 2: and you worked pretty closely with Bill Gates. How close?
10:24
Speaker 1: Yes? So actually it's really an interesting story. We just
10:27
Speaker 1: got married in eighty eight and my wife suggested that
10:30
Speaker 1: we should visit Pacific Northwest, and at that time I thought,
10:35
Speaker 1: my god, you know it is going to be an
10:37
Speaker 1: expensive trip. What if I can just fax my resume
10:40
Speaker 1: to Microsoft? They will of course call me for an
10:42
Speaker 1: interview and that might get me a fee trip.
10:44
Speaker 2: That's a good hack.
10:46
Speaker 1: So fax my resume and they said we'll put you
10:49
Speaker 1: up for a week and you come enjoy the place
10:50
Speaker 1: and if you like it, come interview. Anyway, ended up
10:53
Speaker 1: getting a job. It was very early days of Microsoft.
10:56
Speaker 1: I'm now I'm talking late eighties. Microsoft was a very
11:00
Speaker 1: very small company in those days, and I was working
11:02
Speaker 1: on something called MS DOS and most people will now
11:05
Speaker 1: look at me and it's like, what are you talking about?
11:08
Speaker 1: So anyway, so that were the early early days of Microsoft.
11:11
Speaker 1: Worked very very closely with Bill. But interesting thing really
11:15
Speaker 1: is that from there on, as you start to look
11:19
Speaker 1: at now nineties, and I saw this new phenomena coming
11:25
Speaker 1: up that obviously the Microsoft was leading the desktop revolution,
11:29
Speaker 1: a computer on every desk, and the Windows was taken off,
11:32
Speaker 1: and obviously the office is taken off, and this whole
11:35
Speaker 1: new idea of the Internet was coming along. And if
11:39
Speaker 1: you remember in the nineties, they were like five or
11:42
Speaker 1: six companies that were on the Internet. And I decided
11:45
Speaker 1: that it's time for me to go do something on
11:47
Speaker 1: my own. And now I look back, I wish I
11:50
Speaker 1: had not done that. I ended up doing an interview
11:52
Speaker 1: when I was leaving, and I told the trade pass
11:55
Speaker 1: that I'm leaving, and you said, why are you leaving?
11:57
Speaker 1: And I gave this. Really I would call this awful quote.
12:01
Speaker 1: They say, I'm tired of making billions for Bill Stanton
12:04
Speaker 1: had to make some for myself.
12:06
Speaker 2: So hot take here, I want your hot take on
12:09
Speaker 2: working with Bill Gates. He has a book out now.
12:11
Speaker 2: He's trying to be very transparent about his early days,
12:14
Speaker 2: and before we were recording, you even said that he
12:17
Speaker 2: was sort of that personality where he didn't know really
12:21
Speaker 2: when he was doing. He had a curiosity and he
12:24
Speaker 2: was obviously smart, but he didn't have all the answers
12:27
Speaker 2: working close to him though. What was a leadership style
12:30
Speaker 2: that you liked and you would emulate and one that
12:32
Speaker 2: you would say, no, I'm going to leave that here.
12:34
Speaker 1: Bill was one of the few people I know who
12:38
Speaker 1: would in any meeting. You could prepare for a month
12:41
Speaker 1: for that presentation and you think you have everything answered
12:45
Speaker 1: and he will ask you a simple question and you
12:48
Speaker 1: look and it's like, oh, my god, didn't think about that, right.
12:51
Speaker 1: He just got to the root of the problem that
12:54
Speaker 1: you have not even thinking about yet. And that intellectual
12:57
Speaker 1: curiosity was something that I have really on every single
13:01
Speaker 1: thing I do, I go back and understand what is
13:04
Speaker 1: it that people actually haven't thought about yet, because everything
13:08
Speaker 1: they're telling me they have obviously answered the question. But
13:10
Speaker 1: what is it they're not thinking about and asking those questions?
13:13
Speaker 1: Is really what you learned from him? And I would
13:15
Speaker 1: say that Microsoft culture in those days was extremely aggressive culture.
13:21
Speaker 1: I mean Microsoft was a company where people prided that
13:25
Speaker 1: how rude they could have been to each other or
13:27
Speaker 1: any vendor. They took pride in tearing down people. And
13:32
Speaker 1: we were supposed to be a terrible partner. Nobody wanted
13:35
Speaker 1: to partner with Microsoft, right. That was true for Apple also.
13:38
Speaker 1: I mean if you read the Steve Jobs biography, and
13:41
Speaker 1: if you look at the autobiography of Bill, I really
13:44
Speaker 1: think you start to learn a lot of things. What
13:48
Speaker 1: drove Steve Jobs to be Steve?
13:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a whole other quo. But I appreciate what
13:53
Speaker 2: you were saying about Drive. That's a great transition for
13:57
Speaker 2: us because I want to get into Navine's drive. You
13:59
Speaker 2: have built an empire across industries, infospace, Moon, Express, biome.
14:05
Speaker 2: It's rare to find an entrepreneur who's made such vast shifts.
14:09
Speaker 2: I've interviewed billionaires, I've interviewed top CEOs and entrepreneurs, and
14:13
Speaker 2: they don't always stay in their lanes, but they tend to.
14:15
Speaker 2: And you have definitely explored many frontiers.
14:19
Speaker 1: Why my feeling is, the day you become an expert
14:24
Speaker 1: in any subject, any industry, you become useless or I
14:28
Speaker 1: would say incrementalists in that industry. That means the best
14:32
Speaker 1: you can be is ten percent better than anyone else
14:34
Speaker 1: in the industry, but you'll never be ten times better.
14:38
Speaker 1: To be ten times better, you have to challenge the
14:41
Speaker 1: foundation of everything that expert has taken for granted. And
14:45
Speaker 1: that's the fundamental problem is non experts come along challenge
14:50
Speaker 1: everything that you have taken it for granted, completely, rethink
14:54
Speaker 1: and recreate and reinvent the industry, and the whole industry
14:57
Speaker 1: gets disrupted. And that, to me is the power of
15:01
Speaker 1: thinking like a naive person. So I've now done seven
15:05
Speaker 1: companies and no two companies have ever been in the
15:08
Speaker 1: same industry is because of that. And I really think
15:12
Speaker 1: this idea of counterintuitive thinking applies to not just if
15:17
Speaker 1: you talked about parenting, It applies to leadership. It applies
15:20
Speaker 1: to companies that you do that everything that people will
15:24
Speaker 1: tell you that before you do anything, you have to
15:26
Speaker 1: spend ten thousand hours becoming an expert. But the problem is,
15:30
Speaker 1: by the time you spend ten thousand hours, you have
15:33
Speaker 1: actually now become so useless because you're no longer thinking
15:37
Speaker 1: like someone who is from outside the industry.
15:40
Speaker 2: All right, let's double click on this. What are some
15:43
Speaker 2: other counterintuitive leadership skills mindsets that you really think are important?
15:50
Speaker 1: So I would say that number one thing is what
15:53
Speaker 1: questions are you asking? The questions you ask are the
15:58
Speaker 1: problems you solve. And I think I'm going to give
16:00
Speaker 1: you a couple of examples because that really defines the
16:03
Speaker 1: fundamentally why people fail. So if you say, I want
16:08
Speaker 1: to solve world hunger problem, let's just start with something simple, right,
16:11
Speaker 1: I want to solve world hunger. And if you talk
16:14
Speaker 1: to any expert, they will tell you, oh, as we
16:17
Speaker 1: have the larger population, you have to increase the yield
16:22
Speaker 1: of the crop. A lot of the food gets wasted
16:25
Speaker 1: during transportation, so you have to actually change that we
16:29
Speaker 1: transport our food to reduce the wastage. And how we
16:32
Speaker 1: need to grow the food vertically, and how we need
16:34
Speaker 1: to use the aeroponic and the hydroponic to reduce the UNBLA.
16:38
Speaker 1: But no one will ever ask a question why do
16:41
Speaker 1: we eat food? Because when you ask a question why
16:44
Speaker 1: do we eat food? You realize the reason you need
16:47
Speaker 1: to eat food is two things. You need energy and
16:50
Speaker 1: you need nutrition. What are the different ways can you
16:53
Speaker 1: get energy? The plants get energy from photosynthesis, and there
16:56
Speaker 1: are bacteria that are growing up in the radioactive nuclear waste.
17:00
Speaker 1: Not only they have figured out how to protect their
17:02
Speaker 1: DNA against radiation, now they in fact use radiation as
17:05
Speaker 1: a source of energy. What if you can take a
17:07
Speaker 1: genetic material, use crisper in VVO to modify our own genes,
17:12
Speaker 1: and now you can say, honey, do you want to
17:13
Speaker 1: go out for radiation? Is there? Honey? Do you want
17:15
Speaker 1: to go out and have a pizza?
17:16
Speaker 2: Right?
17:17
Speaker 1: You fundamentally change the problem by asking a different question,
17:21
Speaker 1: and the solutions now that are available to you would
17:24
Speaker 1: have never been available to you unless you ask those questions.
17:27
Speaker 1: And that's really the beauty of a person, a leader
17:32
Speaker 1: who is asking a different question than everyone else in
17:35
Speaker 1: the industry, is asking.
17:37
Speaker 2: How do you assemble a team that gets behind this.
17:40
Speaker 2: This can be terrifying for especially younger workers. They're not
17:43
Speaker 2: used to thinking outside the box like you are. They
17:46
Speaker 2: may not be able to support you, how do you
17:49
Speaker 2: interview people in the way that you need to to
17:52
Speaker 2: get them to be on your team.
17:55
Speaker 1: Well, actually, that is very interesting, is that your team
17:58
Speaker 1: really need to be team of experts. That's it is
18:00
Speaker 1: so counterintuitor. You have to be a non experts. You're
18:04
Speaker 1: challenging them, but you do need the set of experts
18:07
Speaker 1: who knows what to do, and your job is to
18:10
Speaker 1: challenge them. Why can't you do it this way? Tell
18:13
Speaker 1: me why this won't work? Okay, I'm constantly challenging our
18:17
Speaker 1: scientists not knowing anything. Why can't we just do it
18:21
Speaker 1: this way? And he looks at me, rolls his eyes
18:23
Speaker 1: and says, because that will never work. Can you explain
18:25
Speaker 1: to me why that won't work? And halfway through explaining
18:29
Speaker 1: and he said, I don't know. I have to try
18:30
Speaker 1: it and see and it comes back and says I
18:32
Speaker 1: can't believe it actually works. And that is the thing
18:35
Speaker 1: is that once you keep challenging them and keep asking them,
18:38
Speaker 1: because your job is to keep understanding what they're saying
18:42
Speaker 1: and ask more and more in depth questions until they say,
18:45
Speaker 1: you know what, let me try it. It just might work.
18:48
Speaker 2: So would you say that your leadership type is best
18:50
Speaker 2: described as visionary.
18:52
Speaker 1: You know, this visionary label is being so misused, right,
18:58
Speaker 1: and people think of visionary are the ones that are
19:01
Speaker 1: not grounded and they see these things that are out
19:03
Speaker 1: there that are just impossible and they have no concept
19:06
Speaker 1: of reality. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm
19:09
Speaker 1: talking about. It's still being grounded, but really looking at
19:13
Speaker 1: the problem not from outside the box, but in a
19:17
Speaker 1: completely different box. So you always have to think in
19:20
Speaker 1: a box, but you're bringing the knowledge of a different
19:22
Speaker 1: industry into another industry and that's what allows you to
19:26
Speaker 1: challenge the things. Right, So I'm not talking about the
19:28
Speaker 1: visionary is someone who says, you know, I think we
19:31
Speaker 1: can live on Mars and this is going to be
19:34
Speaker 1: no problem, and here's how you're going to do that.
19:36
Speaker 1: And my answer is, of course, we can live on
19:39
Speaker 1: Mars or Venus anywhere we want. And this is the
19:42
Speaker 1: second part of really you're asking me. The leadership style
19:45
Speaker 1: is that you take every complex problem. You don't focus
19:49
Speaker 1: on how you focus on what are the subset of
19:54
Speaker 1: problems you have to solve for this big problem to
19:56
Speaker 1: be solved. Basically, what I'm saying is take a complex problem,
20:01
Speaker 1: break it down into small problems and they all start
20:04
Speaker 1: to look very solvable. And then you see the what
20:06
Speaker 1: is the biggest problem that's unsolvable, and that is what
20:10
Speaker 1: you work on to make it solvable. And so when
20:13
Speaker 1: people say the entrepreneurs are risk takers, I can tell
20:16
Speaker 1: you that entrepreneurs hate taking risk. What is the first
20:20
Speaker 1: thing they do, what's the biggest risk? Let me minimize
20:23
Speaker 1: that risk. So they are the risk mitigation people. They're
20:26
Speaker 1: not risk takers. So anyone who tells you entrepreneurs take risks,
20:29
Speaker 1: they don't understand.
20:30
Speaker 2: Entrepren right right right. Success as a side effective service,
20:35
Speaker 2: it's more than a motto for Navine, it's a business model.
20:39
Speaker 2: When we come back, we dive into biome the moonshot
20:41
Speaker 2: company using AI and microbiome science to transform how we
20:45
Speaker 2: understand and prevent disease.
20:48
Speaker 1: Making money is simply a byproduct of doing things that
20:53
Speaker 1: improve people's life. So every day when you wake up,
20:56
Speaker 1: ask yourself, what should I do to make other people's
21:00
Speaker 1: life better.
21:02
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. So I want to walk through
21:14
Speaker 2: some of your companies and have you provide some takeaways
21:17
Speaker 2: big lessons learned in each of these milestones in your career.
21:21
Speaker 2: Infospace was one of your earliest successes, a tech giant
21:25
Speaker 2: in the dot com era. So I'm going to express
21:27
Speaker 2: you check from software to space exploration.
21:30
Speaker 1: Yes, And my belief still is the humanity's biggest problems
21:35
Speaker 1: are going to be a clean source of energy that
21:40
Speaker 1: is so abundant that it's almost free. And the only
21:44
Speaker 1: way to do that is a fusion energy. And now
21:47
Speaker 1: people say the fusion people have been talking about fusion
21:49
Speaker 1: for twenty years and it's always ten years away. I'm
21:53
Speaker 1: about to tell you another controversial thing. In the next
21:56
Speaker 1: one to two years, you're going to start to see
21:59
Speaker 1: a net fusion reactors. That means they're going to be
22:02
Speaker 1: delivering the net energy out of the fusion reactors, and
22:06
Speaker 1: that's a game changer. All you do is from there
22:08
Speaker 1: on is scale and once you can do that, you
22:12
Speaker 1: literally have an energy source that is non radioactive. That
22:17
Speaker 1: means the waste of fusion is not a radioactivity. It
22:20
Speaker 1: is safe, it is abundant, and all it needs is
22:24
Speaker 1: a small amount of helium three that can power this
22:27
Speaker 1: planet for decades, if not generations. Now we knew the
22:33
Speaker 1: biggest source we would need will be helium three. Helium
22:36
Speaker 1: three is an isotop a helium which is abundant on
22:39
Speaker 1: Moon and it's very rare on planet Earth. And we thought,
22:42
Speaker 1: what if we can actually start working on mining the
22:45
Speaker 1: Moon for helium three. And by the time we are
22:48
Speaker 1: ready to do that, there'll be someone out there building
22:52
Speaker 1: the fusion reactor and say does anyone have helium three?
22:55
Speaker 1: And you want to be the first one to say, yep,
22:57
Speaker 1: got some helium three. And that really was to see
23:00
Speaker 1: that how could we intercept the technologies of tomorrow rather
23:04
Speaker 1: than actually looking at what is available today. And that
23:08
Speaker 1: is going to be my next theme in terms of
23:10
Speaker 1: your asking me about how do you think about leadership?
23:14
Speaker 1: So this is really about when you are building a company,
23:18
Speaker 1: you look at what had changed in the last couple
23:21
Speaker 1: of years, but more importantly, you want to look at
23:24
Speaker 1: what is going to happen in the next three, five
23:27
Speaker 1: and ten years. And you want to be able to say,
23:31
Speaker 1: what could I do to use these exponential technology that
23:35
Speaker 1: are going to be available to me in three, five
23:37
Speaker 1: or ten years to be able to use them at
23:39
Speaker 1: scale in three five years and the thing that I'm
23:42
Speaker 1: trying to do was not possible five years ago. That
23:45
Speaker 1: means I'm not using yesterday's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
23:48
Speaker 1: But I'm intercepting tomorrow's technology to solve tomorrow's problem.
23:53
Speaker 2: What do you use for research to know what is
23:57
Speaker 2: happening in the next like, I want that because I
24:00
Speaker 2: don't know if that's so accessible to everybody.
24:03
Speaker 1: It is very accessible. That is the beauty. So now
24:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk to you about why because it literally
24:08
Speaker 1: fits into your question you're asking me now, as you
24:10
Speaker 1: can imagine, I was not a rocket scientist. I don't
24:13
Speaker 1: have aeronautical degree. And then eight years ago I saw
24:18
Speaker 1: my dad was diagnosed with stage four pen credic cancer
24:21
Speaker 1: and he was given three months to live, and unfortunately
24:25
Speaker 1: that's all he got. I didn't even know that he
24:28
Speaker 1: was sick. Let alone is stage four cancer, And I'm thinking,
24:31
Speaker 1: it is it? Why is it? We don't have anything
24:34
Speaker 1: out there that can allow us to detect these diseases early.
24:38
Speaker 1: And what really shocked me was how much I had
24:42
Speaker 1: taken it for granted that he was turning eighty. You know,
24:45
Speaker 1: of course he's gonna have diabetes, he's getting old. Of
24:47
Speaker 1: course he's gonna have high blood pressure. Of course he's
24:50
Speaker 1: gonna have hard disease. Of course he's gonna have all
24:52
Speaker 1: these chronic diseases because he's getting older. And then I
24:55
Speaker 1: sat back and saying, there's nothing in the human body
24:59
Speaker 1: that is written that as you get forty you're going
25:01
Speaker 1: to start gain weight. You turn fifty, you're gonna have diabetes.
25:03
Speaker 1: You turn sixty, you're gonna have alzheimer. And yet more
25:07
Speaker 1: and more people are getting sicker and sicker at younger
25:10
Speaker 1: and younger age. What if, and this is really the
25:14
Speaker 1: beauty of every company. You ask yourself, what if? What
25:17
Speaker 1: if we can actually understand what changes in the human
25:22
Speaker 1: body at the onset and during the progression of these
25:25
Speaker 1: chronic diseases. And if we can do that, we can
25:29
Speaker 1: actually diagnose the disease early, prevent them from happening, and
25:33
Speaker 1: we can outright reverse them. And this is where I'm
25:36
Speaker 1: going to give you a framework that I use. So
25:39
Speaker 1: before you start any project and farnush, this is for you,
25:43
Speaker 1: ask yourself three questions. Why this? Why now? Why me?
25:49
Speaker 1: Why this is? Ask yourself, if I am actually successful
25:55
Speaker 1: in solving the problem that I set out to solve,
25:58
Speaker 1: would it help a bit billion people live a better life?
26:02
Speaker 1: Not because I'm a philanthropist, Not because I want to
26:05
Speaker 1: do good in the world. Yes, and yes, but I
26:08
Speaker 1: am a capitalist at heart that tells me if I
26:11
Speaker 1: can build any product, any service that can help a
26:15
Speaker 1: billion people live a better life, I can create one
26:17
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollar company, because now those billion people whose
26:21
Speaker 1: life is better become my customer. But you never wake
26:23
Speaker 1: up in the morning saying what should I do to
26:25
Speaker 1: create a hundred billion dollar company? Knowing the making money
26:29
Speaker 1: is simply a byproduct of doing things that improve people's life.
26:34
Speaker 1: So every day when you wake up, ask yourself what
26:38
Speaker 1: should I do to make other people's life better? And
26:42
Speaker 1: this is where I'm going to stop for a second
26:44
Speaker 1: and give you my compliment for what you do, because
26:48
Speaker 1: what you are doing is helping millions and billions of
26:52
Speaker 1: people bring these ideas in these wisdom with the people
26:57
Speaker 1: that they may not have a chance to talk to.
26:59
Speaker 1: And what you doing is going to impact lives of
27:02
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of people. So I want to thank
27:05
Speaker 1: you for what you do.
27:06
Speaker 2: Furnish, thank you so much. You're the first person I've
27:09
Speaker 2: interviewed to thank me. You're very generous. Absolutely, you did
27:13
Speaker 2: an interview about ten years ago where you told your
27:17
Speaker 2: oldest son ancore that success is not about how much
27:20
Speaker 2: money you are going to have, but how many lives
27:23
Speaker 2: you're going to improve. So echoing what you just shared,
27:25
Speaker 2: but then you know there are people out there again
27:28
Speaker 2: in our capitalist world, who are chasing the money, and
27:32
Speaker 2: to some extent, money is important. Right, there is a
27:36
Speaker 2: need for money. What is your biggest piece of advice
27:39
Speaker 2: for that person, other than just it's a mindset shift.
27:41
Speaker 2: You have to focus on the helping of the people
27:43
Speaker 2: and being in service. The money will follow. Some people
27:46
Speaker 2: are skeptical of that because we don't live in the
27:48
Speaker 2: world necessarily that rewards hard work and effort and good intentions.
27:53
Speaker 1: So, first of all, I'm going to say something that
27:55
Speaker 1: I'm going to regret saying making money is like having
27:58
Speaker 1: an orgasm. If you focus on it, you're never going
28:00
Speaker 1: to get it. So you just have to learn to
28:02
Speaker 1: enjoy the process.
28:03
Speaker 2: Right.
28:04
Speaker 1: The money comes as a byproduct of doing things that
28:08
Speaker 1: improve people's lives, and if you keep doing it, there
28:10
Speaker 1: is no way you won't make money because people whose
28:14
Speaker 1: life you're making better, they become your loyal customer. That
28:17
Speaker 1: is how you make money. And now I'm going to
28:19
Speaker 1: come back on the thought about you mentioned Ancore. So
28:23
Speaker 1: I have three children, and my oldest is Uncore, who
28:27
Speaker 1: is now thirty four, and very early I start to
28:30
Speaker 1: work with him on rethinking the mindset. And I'm going
28:34
Speaker 1: to give you some of the ideas about how this
28:37
Speaker 1: will come about, counter and you to parenting. But they apply.
28:40
Speaker 1: Everything that I'm talking about leadership also applies to parenting.
28:43
Speaker 1: And everything I'm going to talk about parenting will also
28:45
Speaker 1: apply to leadership. Right, so let me give you first
28:48
Speaker 1: my qualifications to talk about parenting.
28:50
Speaker 3: Right.
28:51
Speaker 1: So, Uncore is thirty four. As you probably know, he
28:54
Speaker 1: was on the cover of Forbes, and he is already
28:56
Speaker 1: a billionaire on his own for doing things that he
29:00
Speaker 1: wanted to solve. One of the most audacious problems, how
29:04
Speaker 1: do you reward people when they're young and they're renting
29:07
Speaker 1: their places. Our daughter went to Stanford. She became the
29:11
Speaker 1: Stanford stem Fellow, Stanford Mayfield Fellow, and first company she
29:16
Speaker 1: did was using AI to remove gender bias. And now
29:19
Speaker 1: she has a women's health company called av Evvy. It
29:22
Speaker 1: is completely rethinking women's health because she realized women want
29:27
Speaker 1: to be allowed to be in clinical research that miss
29:30
Speaker 1: every drug that women take were never tested on women.
29:32
Speaker 1: Women are diagnosed for the same deceased seven years later
29:35
Speaker 1: than man are. There is a massive gender gap, and
29:38
Speaker 1: she's filling the gender gap with using avvy. And when
29:41
Speaker 1: she was sixteen she did not want to think anything
29:44
Speaker 1: about science and technology, and how I changed her mind
29:47
Speaker 1: to think of his science and technology as a set
29:50
Speaker 1: of tools for you to do the things you care about,
29:53
Speaker 1: not as a destination in itself. My youngest also went
29:56
Speaker 1: to Stanford and he's a Shortsman's scholar. Three kids, amazing
30:00
Speaker 1: kids grew up unlike me in an extremely affluent family.
30:05
Speaker 1: They had no reason to work for a day, and
30:09
Speaker 1: we never told them that we were poor. In fact,
30:12
Speaker 1: there were times when they were very young my wife
30:14
Speaker 1: told me that maybe we should move into a small
30:16
Speaker 1: place and tell our children that we really don't have
30:18
Speaker 1: much money and they will be fine. I say, sweety.
30:21
Speaker 1: Someday they will learn to read. And when they learned
30:24
Speaker 1: to read, they know the dad is not poor. So
30:26
Speaker 1: let's not do that. Let's rethink about what parenting is
30:29
Speaker 1: going to be. And that's where we start to talk
30:31
Speaker 1: to them about what success means. That means your self
30:35
Speaker 1: worth never comes from what you own. Your self worth
30:39
Speaker 1: comes from what you create. And if you haven't created
30:42
Speaker 1: anything and you still own a lot, then you still
30:45
Speaker 1: a parasite on society. So don't be a parasite. Now
30:49
Speaker 1: in terms of the biggest thing you can do as
30:51
Speaker 1: a parent or as a leader is to create intellectual curiosity.
30:55
Speaker 1: And this is a counterintuitive approach. So when Pharnush, your
30:58
Speaker 1: son looks at you and says, mom, mom, look at
31:01
Speaker 1: such a beautiful blue sky, what do you tell him?
31:05
Speaker 1: Your first reactions you look up and say, wow, it
31:08
Speaker 1: is indeed a very beautiful blue sky. Now imagine what
31:11
Speaker 1: if you challenge that and say, son, do you know
31:14
Speaker 1: that sky doesn't really exist? A sky is simply a
31:18
Speaker 1: figment of our imagination, is simply the blue light that's
31:21
Speaker 1: being scattered, and it looks like that barrier called sky,
31:24
Speaker 1: but it doesn't really exist. And that you mentioned color blue,
31:28
Speaker 1: you know there is no blue, right. It's simply the
31:30
Speaker 1: electromagnetic waves hitting our retina, and our mind is converting
31:34
Speaker 1: these electromagnetic waves into these colors. But the color doesn't exist.
31:39
Speaker 1: And it's not about teaching him the signs. It is
31:43
Speaker 1: about allowing him to think that something that he's so
31:47
Speaker 1: certain about that he sees with his own eyes, and
31:50
Speaker 1: what if that is even wrong? What if everything that
31:53
Speaker 1: you're seeing can be challenged because it may be wrong.
31:57
Speaker 1: And that is what intellectual curiosity is about, not to
32:01
Speaker 1: take anything for granted and say, what if that is wrong?
32:04
Speaker 1: What would the world look like? What if that could
32:06
Speaker 1: be changed? What would the world look like? Never look
32:09
Speaker 1: at the world as is, Look at the world what
32:12
Speaker 1: it can be. So when they were young, most parents
32:17
Speaker 1: read them the stories. I would ask them to create
32:20
Speaker 1: stories and say, tell me a story about a monkey
32:23
Speaker 1: and an ocean and a palm tree. And they have
32:25
Speaker 1: to connect these things together in a coherent way. And
32:29
Speaker 1: then say, now dad, you turn, tell me a story
32:31
Speaker 1: about this, this, and this, And they come up with
32:33
Speaker 1: the three weirdest thing possible. And my job is to
32:36
Speaker 1: connect them. And what I'm teaching them is everything in
32:39
Speaker 1: life can be connected if you think in the right
32:42
Speaker 1: abstract terms. And that is really the beauty is how
32:46
Speaker 1: you create these intellectual curiosity in young children.
32:50
Speaker 2: Who are your mentors? Where do you find the wisdom?
32:53
Speaker 2: Because I don't know if the lived experience is enough
32:56
Speaker 2: to have the wisdom that you have.
32:58
Speaker 1: I would say life is your big mentor life never
33:01
Speaker 1: stops teaching. What happens is we stop learning. The trick
33:05
Speaker 1: is that every person you meet has something to teach you.
33:09
Speaker 1: And what happens is we get so caught up in
33:11
Speaker 1: our own world we believe the only people we can
33:14
Speaker 1: learn from are the people, somehow who are in our mind,
33:18
Speaker 1: more successful than us. And what I realize is that
33:21
Speaker 1: you learn something from everyone. If you stop by and
33:25
Speaker 1: talk to that homeless person and ask him what happened
33:29
Speaker 1: and the lessons you can learn from, that is probably
33:31
Speaker 1: more meaningful than someone who has been a billionaire for
33:34
Speaker 1: a hundred years and they're trying to tell you how
33:36
Speaker 1: to be ability there.
33:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you feel levin that having a certain amount
33:41
Speaker 2: of wealth comes with a different kind of responsibility, a
33:45
Speaker 2: corporate responsibility, a different way of managing your money.
33:49
Speaker 1: I don't really think about money as anything other than
33:54
Speaker 1: simply a tool that allows you to do the things
33:58
Speaker 1: that you actually care And a lot of the times
34:02
Speaker 1: people say that money changes you, And all I can
34:05
Speaker 1: tell you is money does not change you. Money simply
34:09
Speaker 1: allows you to become who you really were to begin with. Yes,
34:12
Speaker 1: so if you were an asshole, money simply allows you
34:14
Speaker 1: to be a bigger asshole. But it does not change
34:17
Speaker 1: you if you were really truly a good human being,
34:20
Speaker 1: money doesn't really change you. And my wife always hates
34:23
Speaker 1: my saying that you know no one or nothing outside
34:27
Speaker 1: you can ever bring happiness to you. The happiness really
34:31
Speaker 1: comes from inside you. And if you are happy, you
34:34
Speaker 1: could be sitting in a dark corner and still be happy.
34:37
Speaker 1: And if you are unhappy inside, you could be in
34:39
Speaker 1: a paradise and you still be unhappy. So looking for
34:43
Speaker 1: happiness from someone or somewhere is really not where the
34:46
Speaker 1: happiness will ever come from.
34:48
Speaker 2: I said this exactly to my ten year old yesterday.
34:52
Speaker 2: We have this conversation a lot in my house. It
34:54
Speaker 2: has to be taught young and it has to be reinforced, yes,
34:57
Speaker 2: because there are too many adults still that don't understand
35:00
Speaker 2: this very important concept. Before we go, a couple more questions.
35:05
Speaker 2: So those who are very successful and wealthy in our
35:09
Speaker 2: country and globally, there's a lot of interest in the moon,
35:11
Speaker 2: there's a lot of interest in space. Why is that
35:14
Speaker 2: you think?
35:15
Speaker 1: I think humans are just explorers. I mean, you think
35:19
Speaker 1: about it. We were in oceans and we explored the land,
35:24
Speaker 1: and then when we were in Africa, savannahs of Africa.
35:27
Speaker 1: We explored the rest of the land. We went to
35:30
Speaker 1: west and say, son, go west right until we hit
35:33
Speaker 1: the ocean. And then we crossed the ocean and we
35:35
Speaker 1: went to the next land. And we are explorers and
35:38
Speaker 1: we look up and we see these things to be
35:40
Speaker 1: explored and the only most visible, the big thing is
35:45
Speaker 1: our eighth continent, so to say, is moon. And you know,
35:48
Speaker 1: coming back to Wyome is explore the thing in the outside.
35:52
Speaker 1: I wanted to then explore the thing inside you, right,
35:55
Speaker 1: because there are a one hundred trillion micropes that are
35:58
Speaker 1: living in your gut and living in your mouth, living
36:00
Speaker 1: all over us, and just very similar to the number
36:03
Speaker 1: of stars and the number of galaxies. What are there?
36:06
Speaker 1: So I said, look, what if we can actually now
36:08
Speaker 1: look inside us as a explorer and find what is happening?
36:13
Speaker 1: And that journey that I was telling you about my
36:16
Speaker 1: dad being sick, I'm going to just take you on
36:18
Speaker 1: that journey eight years later. So we have now analyzed
36:22
Speaker 1: one million people. With these one million people, we have
36:27
Speaker 1: now collected one hundred quadlion biological data point. So it
36:31
Speaker 1: starts really simple, Pharnush. You go to voume dot com.
36:34
Speaker 1: You order a kid, give us a spit of your saliva,
36:37
Speaker 1: four drops of your fingerprin blood, a touch of your stool.
36:41
Speaker 1: We in fact now analyze not hundred, not thousand, not million,
36:45
Speaker 1: one hundred million biomarkers, and we tell you what's your
36:50
Speaker 1: biological age, is your cognitive health, your heart health, your
36:54
Speaker 1: gut health, your oral health, your immune health. And if
36:57
Speaker 1: you want to go nerdy, we tell you everything about
36:59
Speaker 1: the things about LPs production or ammonia production, and then
37:03
Speaker 1: we say, you know what, far nouche. Don't eat broccoli
37:06
Speaker 1: right now because your selfide production is too high. It
37:09
Speaker 1: is going to harm you. Or don't eat avocado, even
37:11
Speaker 1: though everyone thinks is healthy, it's not good for you
37:14
Speaker 1: right now because your uric acid production is too high.
37:17
Speaker 1: Or don't eat spinach despite Popeye telling you spinach is
37:20
Speaker 1: good for everyone. Your oxalates are not being metabolized. The
37:23
Speaker 1: spinach is not good for you. But you can eat
37:25
Speaker 1: red meat if you want, because the colleen in the
37:27
Speaker 1: red meat is not being metabolized into TMA and your
37:30
Speaker 1: liver is not making tmaoh using enzyme called FMO three.
37:34
Speaker 1: So now we can tell you you can eat these foods,
37:36
Speaker 1: and here is why don't eat these foods. Here is why.
37:38
Speaker 1: And then we say, in addition to the food, you
37:41
Speaker 1: should take twenty two milligram of lic open every day.
37:44
Speaker 1: And we literally create a formula for each individual every month.
37:49
Speaker 1: And every month I get a new formula made for me.
37:52
Speaker 1: I get my gut biotics that are made just for me,
37:56
Speaker 1: as prescribed just for me. I have my aural loszenses
37:59
Speaker 1: to add just my oral microbiome. And then I even
38:02
Speaker 1: have my personalized toothpaste for morning and evening just made
38:06
Speaker 1: for me.
38:06
Speaker 2: Wow.
38:07
Speaker 1: And having done this in six months, we published the
38:10
Speaker 1: research that shows that your diabetes comes down by thirty percent,
38:15
Speaker 1: your anxiety down by forty two percent, your depression down
38:18
Speaker 1: by forty seven percent, and fifteen percent of population that
38:21
Speaker 1: suffers from ibs like stomach ache, constipation, digestive issues down
38:26
Speaker 1: by forty nine percent in six month. Think about that,
38:29
Speaker 1: just using food as a medicine. So when Hippocrates says
38:33
Speaker 1: let food be thy medicine, he really you are the
38:35
Speaker 1: real scientist.
38:36
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, we could do a whole episode on this.
38:39
Speaker 2: I find it so frustrated that the medical industry is
38:41
Speaker 2: reluctant to give you a food diagnostic because they say, well,
38:46
Speaker 2: there haven't been enough studies. But here you are a
38:49
Speaker 2: million people studied.
38:51
Speaker 1: And by the way, you publish the peer reviewed, double blanded,
38:54
Speaker 1: placebo controlled results. Right. But here's why our medical industrial
38:58
Speaker 1: complex makes money. When you and I are sick. Everyone
39:03
Speaker 1: makes money.
39:03
Speaker 2: I don't like preventing you from getting sick.
39:06
Speaker 1: No one makes money when you're healthy. That is why
39:09
Speaker 1: I really believe we have to rethink healthcare where we
39:12
Speaker 1: really believe each person has to become the CEO of
39:15
Speaker 1: their own health. They just have to know what foods
39:18
Speaker 1: are good for them. What we learned is there's no
39:21
Speaker 1: such thing as universal healthy food. However, they are universal
39:25
Speaker 1: unhealthy food. As someone says, one man's food is another
39:28
Speaker 1: man's poison.
39:29
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. All right, final question, and then I'm
39:32
Speaker 2: going to go on viol and order a bunch of kids.
39:34
Speaker 2: The title of this podcast is leading by Example, so
39:37
Speaker 2: of course we have to ask you what does leading
39:39
Speaker 2: by example mean to you? And You've sort of touched
39:42
Speaker 2: on this, but I really want to drive it home.
39:44
Speaker 1: So I think, to me, the leading by example means
39:47
Speaker 1: is be the person that you want your employees to be.
39:51
Speaker 1: Be the person that you want your children to be.
39:54
Speaker 1: Don't tell people what to do, show them what to do.
39:58
Speaker 1: And the only leaders the one who lead from front
40:02
Speaker 1: by showing what needs to be done, by being the
40:06
Speaker 1: person they want you to be, not someone screaming at
40:09
Speaker 1: the back and see run up the hill, run up
40:11
Speaker 1: the hill, and having never run up the hill themselves.
40:15
Speaker 2: Excellent, Navin Jane, what a privilege, what a joy to
40:18
Speaker 2: spend time with you. Thank you so much for coming
40:21
Speaker 2: on our show.
40:21
Speaker 1: Thank you for I really appreciate you, and I'm looking
40:24
Speaker 1: forward to our next conversation, hopefully soon.
40:28
Speaker 2: So Kia, thank you for booking Navine. He is one
40:33
Speaker 2: of the most fascinating people I've ever come across in
40:35
Speaker 2: my life. And we were just saying, like, imagine leading
40:38
Speaker 2: your country. You were born in poverty and now you
40:42
Speaker 2: are a billionaire and you're creating generational billionaires.
40:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, that family line is going to be good for
40:48
Speaker 3: a couple of generations for sure.
40:51
Speaker 2: And not for nothing. But I don't know him that well.
40:53
Speaker 2: I spent only an hour with him, but I have
40:56
Speaker 2: interviewed other billionaires and I will say that if they're
41:00
Speaker 2: there's going to be someone in this world that has
41:02
Speaker 2: the privilege of billion dollars to their name. I wanted
41:07
Speaker 2: to be someone like Navine right, who seems to be
41:10
Speaker 2: completely driven by the desire to help and the desire
41:15
Speaker 2: to solve problems. I mean, if you had a billion
41:18
Speaker 2: dollars to your name, what do you think you would
41:21
Speaker 2: be doing with your life?
41:23
Speaker 3: Like now? Because I'm a certain age and like, if
41:26
Speaker 3: I grew into a million dollars, that's a different story.
41:28
Speaker 3: But if I had a billion dollars now, I'm definitely
41:31
Speaker 3: living the good life, like travel everywhere, make sure my
41:35
Speaker 3: family's good, and then definitely goes to a financial advisor
41:38
Speaker 3: talk to Pernage.
41:39
Speaker 2: About how to keep I'll only charge one percent, but
41:43
Speaker 2: I think, yes, there are lifestyle changes we'd make, and
41:46
Speaker 2: we want to live the good life. But I think
41:48
Speaker 2: there comes a lot of pressure. And my question to
41:50
Speaker 2: him about that sense of responsibility that comes with having
41:54
Speaker 2: this enormous amount of wealth which was helped and built
41:58
Speaker 2: by Yes, your vision and your determination, but also like
42:01
Speaker 2: teams helped you get there, right, Like he said he
42:03
Speaker 2: was tired of helping Bill Gates make billions. Yeah, so
42:07
Speaker 2: I'm going to go make my billions, but then you
42:09
Speaker 2: also need people to help you make your billions. But
42:12
Speaker 2: I think also what he would agree with probably is
42:15
Speaker 2: that he is where he's at because he's had also
42:19
Speaker 2: the opportunity to work with the right people.
42:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like how he acknowledged that, because I think
42:24
Speaker 3: that's really important. It's like, unless you're a solo entrepreneur,
42:27
Speaker 3: which you can only get so far, you obviously need
42:31
Speaker 3: people to help you in certain ways. And like he said,
42:34
Speaker 3: you can't be an expert in just one thing that
42:37
Speaker 3: you need people that are experts, And like, oh, that
42:39
Speaker 3: was fascinating.
42:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:40
Speaker 2: I loved his counterintuitive way of thinking through leadership and
42:46
Speaker 2: even parenting, and to his point, parenting, leadership, business, it's
42:51
Speaker 2: all very similar in how you frame it. And I
42:54
Speaker 2: think what he was saying about risk was really interesting.
42:57
Speaker 2: Like people often think that people who are entrepreneurial, who
43:01
Speaker 2: are leaders they love risk. No, no, no, actually all
43:05
Speaker 2: they think about is risk, but not because they're always
43:07
Speaker 2: like I want more of it. It's actually, yeah, I
43:10
Speaker 2: need to control for risk, which is true. I also
43:13
Speaker 2: loved what he said about once you become an expert
43:16
Speaker 2: in your field, that is sometimes the sign the clue
43:20
Speaker 2: that you're ready to move on to something else that's
43:24
Speaker 2: going to continue to further you along and allow you
43:28
Speaker 2: to have a bigger impact on the world, because once
43:30
Speaker 2: you're that expert, it's very hard to sort of step
43:33
Speaker 2: outside of that and see what's next and see what
43:36
Speaker 2: the problems are in the next year that you want
43:39
Speaker 2: to solve that you're sort of like, I don't know
43:41
Speaker 2: if you've got complacent, but while you're the expert, you
43:44
Speaker 2: know it all, so you're just like I'm here, I've arrived.
43:47
Speaker 3: I think people think it's easier when you're up the expert.
43:49
Speaker 3: That's like you can, I guess in the corporate role,
43:51
Speaker 3: like move up in the ranks, but you definitely think
43:53
Speaker 3: it limits your mindset. And I also think when you
43:56
Speaker 3: get higher up, people don't want to criticize you as
43:58
Speaker 3: much in a way. Yeah, so like I'm sure that
44:01
Speaker 3: doesn't help either. But I also liked how he said
44:04
Speaker 3: you can learn more from life and like people's life experiences,
44:08
Speaker 3: like you should ask the homeless person, how did you
44:10
Speaker 3: get here?
44:10
Speaker 2: Because that is so.
44:11
Speaker 3: Smart, Like the quote it's like we're only like a
44:13
Speaker 3: medical surgery and like one mist payment from being on
44:17
Speaker 3: the streets It's really not that hard to become that
44:19
Speaker 3: in America. So I think it was really smart that
44:21
Speaker 3: he's like, I actually listened to people that have certain
44:23
Speaker 3: life experiences, not just the.
44:25
Speaker 1: Bill Gates of the world.
44:26
Speaker 3: It's nice to hear that from someone at his caliber,
44:30
Speaker 3: because I think we just think that the bigger you are,
44:33
Speaker 3: the more important your life is, and that's just not
44:35
Speaker 3: the case.
44:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, what he was saying about expertise and the importance
44:40
Speaker 2: of being open to changing lanes and trying new things,
44:44
Speaker 2: it reminded me of Shannon Skuyler. Actually, she's with PwC.
44:47
Speaker 2: We interviewed her on this podcast and she was talking
44:50
Speaker 2: about how she held almost every kind of job at
44:52
Speaker 2: PwC before she became at the Helm of Human Resources
44:56
Speaker 2: there and I saw a little bit of a parallel there,
44:58
Speaker 2: and like, I feel like she would also appreciate that
45:01
Speaker 2: mindset with no firsthand the benefits of getting outside your
45:05
Speaker 2: comfort zone, trying new things, your goal not to be
45:09
Speaker 2: the expert, and then folding your hands you know that
45:13
Speaker 2: you want to continue to challenge yourself.
45:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. What did you think about rich people being mean?
45:20
Speaker 1: Oh?
45:21
Speaker 2: I loved that. I wanted to give him a big
45:23
Speaker 2: giant hug when he said that, because this is a
45:26
Speaker 2: philosophy that I have always believed in my work as
45:30
Speaker 2: someone who has studied personal finance and met a lot
45:34
Speaker 2: of people and helped a lot of people with their money,
45:36
Speaker 2: I believe that money makes you more of who you are.
45:39
Speaker 2: Not to be confused with if you're in poverty and
45:43
Speaker 2: you make money and you're out of poverty, that doesn't
45:45
Speaker 2: make your life better and you don't get happier. My
45:49
Speaker 2: point is that I think Navean's point was that if
45:51
Speaker 2: at the core you are a generous person, or if
45:54
Speaker 2: at the core you are a greedy person, you can
45:58
Speaker 2: be greedy and still be in your car without money
46:02
Speaker 2: to your name. Right, Greed is not something that is
46:05
Speaker 2: a financial construct. It's sometimes just your personality. Yeah, And
46:09
Speaker 2: to his point, when you have more money, which is
46:11
Speaker 2: what is money, it's a resource, it's a tool. When
46:13
Speaker 2: you have that, you have choices now to make and
46:18
Speaker 2: are you going to make good choices or bad choices?
46:20
Speaker 2: Sometimes it is based on the person inside of you.
46:24
Speaker 2: If you've got someone who's really rich and unkind, it's
46:27
Speaker 2: not that their money made them unkind. Maybe they use
46:30
Speaker 2: their money to disassociate and they don't have awareness anymore,
46:33
Speaker 2: They don't have empathy. Money didn't make that choice for them.
46:36
Speaker 2: They made that choice with their money. So I love that. Yeah,
46:40
Speaker 2: I also think that we didn't discuss it. But you know,
46:43
Speaker 2: at his age and stage in life, he could just
46:46
Speaker 2: be enjoying his life. And I would think he is
46:49
Speaker 2: enjoying his life. I think that's the point, Like he
46:52
Speaker 2: enjoys life by not sitting still. You know, he's a
46:54
Speaker 2: get up at four am kind of person, multi hyphen it,
46:58
Speaker 2: serial entrepreneur. That's what actually makes him happy. And I
47:03
Speaker 2: don't think that he's the type of person that will
47:06
Speaker 2: ever quote unquote stop working. Probably not, yeah no, but
47:10
Speaker 2: we will all benefit from.
47:11
Speaker 3: That, yeah, exactly. So it's his destiny, it's his journey,
47:14
Speaker 3: which is great.
47:17
Speaker 2: Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much
47:19
Speaker 2: as we did. If you like what you're hearing, please
47:21
Speaker 2: follow and subscribes you don't miss out on any new episodes,
47:25
Speaker 2: and as always, we want to hear your thoughts to
47:26
Speaker 2: make this the best show possible, so please leave us
47:29
Speaker 2: a review. In the meantime, you can find me at
47:32
Speaker 2: farnwosh Charabi on Instagram, and I'm always on the So
47:35
Speaker 2: Money podcast. I'll see you next time. This podcast is
47:39
Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio. Our executive producer is
47:43
Speaker 2: Matt Stillo and our supervising producer is Nikiah Swinton. This
47:47
Speaker 2: podcast was edited by Sierra Spreen.