Latest / The Action Catalyst / Talent, Hunger, Wonder, with Bob Bush (Business, Leadership, Risk, Tesla)

Transcript

Talent, Hunger, Wonder, with Bob Bush (Business, Leadership, Risk, Tesla) · The Action Catalyst

0:00
Bob Bush: I'm enjoying this. So until you kick me off, I'm good
0:35
to go.
0:39
Adam Outland: Awesome. I know you are a contributor to Forbes
0:42
Middle East. And Jeff Bezos said, and I'm heavily
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paraphrasing that he mentioned, how the US is such a good
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fertile ground for business, partly because of the risk
0:53
tolerance of the money in the US that that there are many
0:57
organizations that are have a high risk attitude towards
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venture and taking bets that isn't as common in other
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countries. But I think you have an interesting perspective,
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because I'd be curious your thoughts about the risk
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tolerance in the Middle East for investments from an uninformed
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perspective over here, it seems that it's quite high, but you
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might have a different perspective on that so. And I
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think even your greater comment on the economics of risk, risk
1:29
in general would be interesting.
1:31
Bob Bush: Yeah, I'm familiar with Mr. Bezos comments. There
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are a couple of things there. I think venture capital and PE do
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not have a high risk tolerance and so and it seems that I'm
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going against one of the world's richest man when I say this. So
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let me really sort of unpack that. Yeah, what you find when
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you talk to sophisticated investors, it's all about the
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risk mitigation. These guys don't make money by taking non
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risk adjusted risk. It is all about a risk adjusted risk. And
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so because of the size of the capital pool, you have different
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kinds of risk players who are comfortable with certain kinds
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of risks for startups or certain kinds of risks for growth
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companies or certain kinds of risks, right? And so what are
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the things that and I'm sure that that Bezos would agree that
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when you look at a capital stack, you will find that there
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is ample capital for whatever risk level that you want,
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sufficient enough to have a very robust, robust market around. So
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it's not so much that the US has a super high risk tolerance, but
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that there is enough, there are enough players, wherever you
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want to be on the risk spectrum who are comfortable with
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understanding that particular risk at that development, and
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the mitigants for that risk, and that's who they bet on. They
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don't bet on the guy who's taking the most risk, or, you
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know, the company, or the team, or the woman who's taking the
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most risk. They're betting on the company, the woman, the team
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that knows how to mitigate the most risk for that type of risk.
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That's the bet.
3:15
Adam Outland: And I think you're probably dead on that, that
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Bezos would agree on that. I think his, he probably operates
3:20
with a different definition of risk that the average person and
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probably lines up with what you just described.
3:26
Bob Bush: Right? So let's, let's dig that a little bit deeper.
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What we have, you know, this kind of links to the Middle
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East, and it links to Europe, where I've been fortunate to
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have done some work with the European Commission and other
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capital providers across the world. And so one of the things
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that the United States has is reasonably patient capital. Very
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little capital is patient, and certainly not PE and hedge fund
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capital, but it's reasonably patient, meaning, meaning that
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it can be sticky, that if, depending on where you are in
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that capital structure, if you need three years of capital, or
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if you need five years of capital, or you need seven years
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of capital, or you need 10 years of capital, right? There are
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capital providers that are willing to take that turn,
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provided that Dominicans are there and that, you know, I had
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the pleasure, I was asked to advise a particular group,
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several groups of the European Commission around this very
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point. I know if you just saw recently where the commission
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has now allocated $200 billion for AI development, and it was
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100 almost 100x and what they had internally thought they were
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going to put into AI just a year ago. And so I've lived in
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Germany. I've spent a lot of time in in Switzerland and
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Austria and talking to Europeans where these sources of capital
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are. Spend a lot of time in London as well. One of the
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distinctions between sort of European risk taking and the US
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is and I. Take it from the entrepreneurial side. So the
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European Commission asked me to go around Eastern Europe, to the
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Balkans and all these Eastern European countries, including
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Ukraine, and meet with entrepreneurs and accelerators
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and incubators. So this was, just may have been about 10
5:14
years ago, on this very question of, you know, you know, appetite
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for risk, etc. So from the European Commission perspective,
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they had the Chinese and the Asians, tons of capital, very
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assertive, very aggressive to their East. And then they had
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the Americans, very end of that innovative, very assertive, very
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aggressive. And the Europeans were getting bookend and
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squeezed. And so having been an American that had lived in the
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Middle East, who was now living in Europe, I was living in
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Europe because my former wife is European, German, and so we were
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started a family there. And you know, you're at a dinner party
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here and there, and people start asking you questions. And before
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you know, if you're saying, Can you come to Brussels? So I ended
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up doing some work in process. So the point is, is that the
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entrepreneurs, the best, most innovative talent that's coming
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out of these countries is, I would say, superior to the
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talent coming out of US universities. But the
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incentives. So think about it this way. I had the pleasure of
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getting a philosophy degree at a liberal arts school. You don't
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have that kind of luxury in many of these eastern Europe. It is
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physics, it's math, it's engineering. You make stuff.
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Adam Outland: You make stuff, right.
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Bob Bush: And so the pragmatic and practical pool of talent at
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that university, at that mindset level, they make great stuff.
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And guess where those the best and the brightest go up until
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recently, they become PhD students. And when you talk to
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them as PhD students, and then you talk to them, I spoke at
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dozens of universities, and talk to professors and departments,
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those departments and professors eschew their best and brightest
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doing something as pedantic is making money. Yeah, interesting.
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So there's this stigma that if you're that smart, why would you
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want to do what those 120 IQs guys do in London? So you got
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culturally, this issue of not supporting innovation in that
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sense. So you've got a lot of by best people not being trained
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and how to truly be innovative. They can be inventive. They can
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make, you know, you know, test is a wonderful example that's
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exceptionally invented, but he got out maneuvered by Edison
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others around how to make the business model being truly
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innovative around those inventions. That's a historical,
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culturally relevant point. Even today, his level of
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inventiveness is top notch, but his ability to meld the capital
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get the business model around it, he got out maneuvered. He
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got outgunned by Edison and CO, right? And so when you're really
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thinking about the fertile ground for risk, or fertile
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ground for talent, or matching capital to talent, etc, there's
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some really interesting things that I've personally had to
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observe going from the just on the talent side, exceptionally
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talented kids. And so what ended up happening is how they started
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bridging and learning from the Americans. Then you had a lot of
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and Ukraine was a perfect example of this. They started
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doing it, outsourcing to some of these countries, because these
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kids could code and they had good math skills and they had
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good engineering skills, etc. So that's transition. And now they
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realize, well, wait a minute, why am I doing the code for that
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Silicon Valley company? I want to be that Silicon Valley
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entrepreneur. So organically, there's sort of this shift
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around all of that. So Do not underestimate a bright person
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who shows up every day without the best resources and their
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ability to create something that is world changing.
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Adam Outland: That's right. Well said. A question I ask
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everyone, but one that I just love, in general, is, you've had
9:08
a wealth of experience. Let's say you were able to just sit,
9:12
sit on that bus from Illinois to St Louis and talk to that young
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man who's riding to school every day. What advice would you
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provide him, knowing all the things that you know now?
9:25
Bob Bush: Well, as you've already picked up on, and I'm
9:28
not trying to be unorthodox, we think the young man has
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something to tell me less than me telling him. And I'm going to
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tell you why. Because as you start having the weight of the
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world on your shoulders, you got kids, you got wives, you've got
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employees, you've got bigger problems, right? You think
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keeping the same level of curiosity and inquisitiveness
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and maybe naivete that you can do anything you want that
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should. Me, I want to make sure that this world does not beat
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that out of me and beat that out of other entrepreneurs, because
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it can happen. Man. You know, I remember reading very early on
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about an immigrant that came out of Europe during the 30s in New
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York in the middle of the Depression, and 50 years later,
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he was this super rich industrialist. And they asked
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him, How did you do it? He said that I never read the papers,
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right? So what I would say to anyone that asked this question
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is, those aspirations that we all have, those that that sense
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of wonder, etc, don't lose that keep that young man and that
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young woman in your spirit, because before you know it, the
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world will do its best to take it out of you. So I think that
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young man has a lot more to teach me than I probably do him.
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That's a real value to me. Of course, I got more skills and I
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got more people, etc, but the heart of that matter, that
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talent, that God given hunger, that God given inquisitiveness,
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don't want to lose that, because that's your spark.
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Adam Outland: Yeah, the a plus player is the person that's
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humble, hungry and smart, and you could replace hungry with
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curious, right? But the more these interviews that I've done,
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I couldn't agree more, right? The humility and the hunger is a
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good combination with intelligence. And the more I've
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learned about business, the more I realize I don't know. So it's
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pretty easy to remain humble in this business when you're
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learning all the time.
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Bob Bush: None of us are smarter than the market, brother.
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Adam Outland: That's right. That's right. For our listeners,
11:39
please share Mutombo coffee, which I know we didn't spend
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probably nearly as much time on this as we could have, because
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you have such an interesting and colorful life. But where can
11:50
people learn about the Mutombo coffee, the respective social
11:54
initiatives, and how can they participate?
11:57
Bob Bush: Mutombocoffee.com of course, we have a website, M, U,
12:01
T, O, M, B O, coffee.com we also have launched an Amazon store,
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and so that will will start doing more with that. Primarily,
12:09
we've been B to B for the last few years, so we're now just
12:13
starting to which is why I'm sticking my head up and doing
12:17
more podcasts like yours, because we want people to know
12:21
that that we exist, etc. The one of the other things we will do
12:26
for your listeners is we'll create a VIP code for them, and
12:30
anyone that puts in their code when they go to the website,
12:34
they will get a VIP preferential pricing for our product as a way
12:38
for us to say, thank you for introducing us to your listeners.
12:43
Adam Outland: Yeah, love that. Well, thank you. Wow. This
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great, really great interview. I mean, really good for our
12:47
listeners. Hopefully you've enjoyed it too. Great
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conversation.
12:51
Bob Bush: I did. Make me look good, fellas, make me look good.