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Masters in Business: Founder and CEO Jim McCann (Audio) · Masters in Business

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this is Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters in Business
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I have a guest this week that
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm really especially thrilled to have on because he's been
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: very influential um to me personally in my career. You'll
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: hear us talk about this, uh in great detail during
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the podcast part. But Jim McCann as a person I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: saw give a speech at a conference in the I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: want to say mid to late nineties that was really
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: fascinating and informative. And he's just a great public speaker. Literally,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Public speaker of the Year might have been the year
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I saw him UH terrific rock on tour, and I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: remember seeing him speak and saying to a friend, that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: looks like fun, I'd like to learn how to do that,
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  Speaker 1: and O and behold. Some years later, I'm actually giving
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a speech in Las Vegas about the book Bailout Nation,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and and lo and Behold. Later that day, I'm online
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  Speaker 1: to get some food somewhere and they're standing right behind
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  Speaker 1: me is Jim mccannon. It turned out he's a reader
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of mine. He reads the blog for many years and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: was kind of a little bit of a fan, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: we started chatting. It turns out we live a town
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: or two apart. We ended up going out to dinner
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  Speaker 1: a couple of times. He's just a really, really interesting guy,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and he is extremely insightful in how to run a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: small innovative business, how to motivate employees, how to just
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: keep some really interesting things happening with your business. And
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: you'll hear his approach to building a company was not
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: typical and very very successful. I find him to be
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a fascinating guy. Find him to be a person who
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I would hope to emulate eight some of his abilities
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and successes both as a business person and a communicator.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But really interesting guy who does some fascinating things. That's
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the bottom line. So, without further ado, here is my
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: interview with the founder and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Jim McCann. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I am thrilled to have my special
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: guest here today. He is Jim McCann. He is the founder,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: former CEO and current chairman. Is that correct, Flowers? I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: didn't get the notice yet about the dismissal, but I'm
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: still the CEO. You are Apparently you and the board
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of come to some of the brothers were talking to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: me about this and he said, no, no, Jim, is
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: just the chance. I know you guys are up there.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Actually at the holiday party at your home, I think
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: we briefly discussed whether or not you're gonna become chairman
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and give up the CEO. So that was sticking in
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: my head anyway. Jim is the founder and CEO of
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers, which is a company that has
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of first it's the first company to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: have its name being eight hundred dial up number. You
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: were the first company, first retail company really that cut
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: a big deal with A O L. Back when they
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: were one of the biggest internet providers. They were the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: comer at that time. I think the big internet provider
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: was Prodigy exactly. And it was a big decision for
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Chris and I way back when Barry to decide do
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: we go with Prodigy? And Prodigy they had an office building,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: they wore suits, they were owned by IBM and c
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: S and they were established. Where do we go with
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: this upstart UH called A O L. And the decision.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: In your book you describe having a meal with them
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: where they couldn't even afford That's right, but there was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a decision based on people and and in that case
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it was Steve Case and Leonsis. We knew to Chris
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and I knew ted from other careers that he had had,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: so after we met with them, even though I didn't
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: understand what Lloyd's name they were talking about, I just
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: made a bet on people, and so we went with
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  Speaker 1: this startup A O L. And it was a very
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  Speaker 1: fortuitous decision that that, by the way, is a theme
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  Speaker 1: that I picked up throughout your book about making a
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  Speaker 1: bet on people. Whether it's technology or what have you.
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  Speaker 1: It's the people behind it that sell you on that process,
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  Speaker 1: which I think we do that every day and all
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  Speaker 1: our decisions. You've got to visit a doctor. You don't
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  Speaker 1: know really how good they are, but if you feel
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like they care and they have a nice manner about them,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you feel very good about them. I'd like to review
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the board scores. You've got seventy questions seventy two wrong?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: How did you miss that? I'm not surprised at your response. Well,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: but it's you are a data driven fellow, I am,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but sometimes you have no choice but to rely a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: little bit on your own instinct and you read of people.
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  Speaker 1: The problem them that some of us run into is
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that we're gullible and we believe what people listen. The
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  Speaker 1: only reason I became kind of a data wank is
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  Speaker 1: that I'm an idiot, and anytime somebody says something to me,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I believe it, and then I would go to the data.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Wait a second, that's not what the data. Now you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: say global warming isn't happening. You look at the data.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: You see global warming. It's lower left, upper right. That
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: was amazing when you pointed that out back a couple
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of months ago, and you're on your blog. I said, wow,
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  Speaker 1: that it's irrefutable data. It's only if you believe that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the n O A A, you know, or NASA. Right,
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  Speaker 1: they're not they're not faking in. And and look, the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: bottom line is what's gonna be is gonna be this this.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You know you and I were talking earlier. I have
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a boat, I have too many cars. I'm the last
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: person in the world to lecture anybody about being green, right,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not telling people, Oh, you shouldn't do this but
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I am telling people, if we're going to discuss this,
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  Speaker 1: at least let's be honest about the data to and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: not pretend you may come to a decision that there's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: nothing we could do anyway, it's too expensive, or we
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  Speaker 1: can let technology figure out a way to fix it.
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  Speaker 1: But it's amazing how few times data is the grounding
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: principle of our argument, our conversation. But and how many
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: times will say I don't care what the data says.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: But now I noticed one of the things that I
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  Speaker 1: read in your book is how significant data becomes to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: running a large company that has a lot of far
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: flung locations, places, retail outlets. Tell us a little bit
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: about how you guys use data. Well, I would say
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: data is frankly more important to a smaller business. Uh.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: We were chatting the difference between entrepreneurs and small business
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: people and how lots of times people confuse those things
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  Speaker 1: in the multiple roles that small business people have to play. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: But data, data is harder to get when you're a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: small business. But I think much more important because the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: consequence is your decisions are much more leveraged. Right it
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  Speaker 1: does you can a big company can absorbs and they
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: have people who were gathering data for them. It may
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: not be the right data, but at least as data
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: are available. So now let's let's step back and take
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a look a little bit about your background. I recall
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: reading you were in social services, You're working at the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: St John's Home for Boys and moonlighting as a bartender,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and decided that one day a customer had come in
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: was selling his Flora's shop, and you said, yeah, I'd
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: like to try that. That's uh, that's pretty much the case.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a little more around the angles there.
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  Speaker 1: I've been very fortunate. I really only had two careers.
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  Speaker 1: The first was in the Social services and that was
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  Speaker 1: an accident that I got into that and h and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: an accident in the sense that being an Irish Catholic
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: kid from South Queens, I had a genetic requirement to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: be a bartender, but I don't count that as a career.
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  Speaker 1: And working in neighborhood place. I had a guy who's
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  Speaker 1: a friend who worked at this home for boys, and
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  Speaker 1: I'd asked him about it all the time when he
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: came into the bar, and I just thought it was
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: really interesting work. And one night he said to me, cheez,
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  Speaker 1: you ought to come visit us. He had a group
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  Speaker 1: home with ten young men in it and said, you
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: ought to come visit us, have dinner with us one night.
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  Speaker 1: Sounds to me like you have an interest in this work.
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  Speaker 1: Well I did, and we had a great dinner together.
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  Speaker 1: And after dinner he said to me, Geez, would you
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  Speaker 1: like to give this work or try? I was going
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to school part time, tending Bob part time, and I said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'd like to give it a try. Bob, you flip
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: into keys and said, okay, you're on duty tonight, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he left. And how you started literally how he started,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It's literally how I started. And it was a great
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: for a young man. I was just turning twenty one.
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  Speaker 1: It was a great opportunity for me because look, I
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  Speaker 1: learned so much more about myself living in a group
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  Speaker 1: home with ten ten fellas ages fifteen to twenty years old. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: then I could learn a hundred years of psychotherapy. It
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  Speaker 1: was I mean, if if you were inconsistent in any way,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it would be pointed out to you. If you if
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: your left bicep was a quarter of bins smaller than
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: your right by sap, it would be pointed out to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you and there was nothing. This mirror was very unforgiven
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and get away with anything with these kids could not.
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  Speaker 1: We were talking about your experience essentially running a small
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  Speaker 1: home for boys. How did that impact your subsequent management
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: style when you were running a substantially larger company. Well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you know, it's people. People think it's two completely different careers,
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  Speaker 1: and I overlapped for ten years doing both, you know.
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  Speaker 1: So I started my flower shop crew, as you mentioned, uh,
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  Speaker 1: four years into my social service career. So for ten
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: years I did both. And it was I found after
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  Speaker 1: a while that when I got better at my work
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  Speaker 1: at St. John's, the tools I learned, the the method
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  Speaker 1: methodologies I employed, those were the same things I was
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  Speaker 1: doing in the group home as I was doing in
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  Speaker 1: the office, dealing with people the way you deal with
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  Speaker 1: in the group home. It was getting people who were
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  Speaker 1: tough kids from tough backgrounds to realize that we had rules,
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  Speaker 1: and we had rules because I cared about them, and
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  Speaker 1: I was going to treat them all well, that I
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  Speaker 1: really did care about them and uh, and that if
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: we worked to a common goal, that they'd be We'd
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: measure ourselves along the way. We'd set up some benchmarks
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and some rewards. We try and make it fun, try
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and make it interesting. We'd keep score and there'll be
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: a celebration if we hit our goal. That's the same
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: things we all do in the workplace every day. Here's
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: our goals. Let's let's measure ourselves, let's make it public,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: let's keep track. Let's uh, let's set up rewards that
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: are intermittent along the way, and let's have a celebration
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: when we get to our victories. So the same things
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  Speaker 1: I learned working in that group home with ten young
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  Speaker 1: men are the same things I do in a workplace
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  Speaker 1: every day, trying to get people to work together to
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: achieve more than they thought they could on their own.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Did you have any early mentors in either venue? Well,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: certainly at St John's the isn't run by an order
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  Speaker 1: of religious priests and brothers and rockaway beach and queens.
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  Speaker 1: And the brother who ran the home as a mentor
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  Speaker 1: of mine and was for many years, even beyond when
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I stopped working in St. John's. But yeah, he was
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a Mentor's name is Brother Tom. He's still he's still
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: in that work and a terrific guy. And he told
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: me a lot about organization and uh, I just quoted
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: him when someone said to me, we had We were
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: just talking about a time about a year or two ago.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: My brother Chris and I were looking around. We had
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: about four or five projects and we had to pick
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: leaders for them, and I had to be sort of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a quick kind of thing, and we got done. Someone said,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: did you realize that you just picked four young mothers? Oh? Really?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And we hadn't. And people here remembering this, and I
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: hadn't realized it, and he hadn't realized it. And so
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: one of them, name was Leslie, turned to his and said, well,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of course you did, because we don't have time for
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the bs. We don't have time for stuff, you know.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: We just gotta get it done. We gotta we gotta
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: get the kids out, we gotta get in the car.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: We gotta make use of that time in the car
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to get all work done. We don't have time for
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: nan to be organized. They have to be structured, and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of balls in the are at once.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And his quote was, if you want to get something done,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: give it to a busy person, and if they're not busy,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it is a reason. So now let's talk about one
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: other aspect of your backgrounds how I first came to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: know you, which was through public speaking. I was telling
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the story not too long ago about a conference I attended,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and I want to say this was at Silicon Alley Insider.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: It was all the way downtown and I saw you
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: speak to a room full of young tech entrepreneurs and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking to myself, what the heck does anybody
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: who runs a floral shop know about young tech entrepreneurs
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and venture investing? And you realize nothing, But but you
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: managed to craft a compelling story that you know, the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: whole crowd was hanging on your every word. How did
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that come about? So many of us of fear of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: public speaking? And uh? And I you know it was
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: for me. It was a part of my ongoing recovery
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: from being a shy person. So as a kid, I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: was a shy kid, but I grew out of it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and and trying to grow out of it. It was
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: confronting your fears. And when I got involved with the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Entrepreneury Year program back in, all of a sudden, you
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: had to be on stage a lot and be in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: front of the public a lot, and I realized, Ay,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge of it, and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I realized that I could be I could be pretty
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: good at it if I just didn't try to be
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a public speaker, if I just told my story or whatever.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Stories make the point because people, hey, when you when
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you're asked to give a talk, you really has to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: entertain people. And if you come from genetic background, I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: do humor as a part of our lives. And you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: look at all the comedians who come from Long Island
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: barrier in front of mine just doing a a a
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: story on that for a newsday and now just doing
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a little feature film on that. But when you come
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: from that background, you learn to use humor and your
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: real stories. You found out while this isn't very hard
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: because I would tell this around the dinner table. Now
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling it on stage. But they had to
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: entertain to make a point. And uh, and you don't
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: have to remember very much if you just tell a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: story of what actually happened. Right, That's the old joke.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: It's I tell the truth because it's so much easier
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to keep track trying to keep the lie straight. And
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: what a wonderful thing here I am. Anytime I spoke
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to an audience or anytime I do speak to an audience,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I'm speaking to customers or potential customers. You especially because
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: of the nature to business we're in, right you. You actually,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: again back to your book, you say, every person I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: meet is a potential who isn't going to buy flowers
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: over the next thing, some flowers or any kind of
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a gift that we sell. So so for us, I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: would say, wait a minute, people are gonna pay me
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to come and get to know potential customers. This is
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty good idea. So that's how it came about.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So from doing the Entrepreneur of the Year group in
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: nine seven becoming Toastmaster of the Year. How does that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: progression happen? Well, it went kind of quickly. I didn't
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: even know that had been nominated, and it continues today.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I mean the opportunities I have, you know, I don't
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: have time to do it as much as i'd like
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to anymore, but the opportunity to be in front of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: really interesting audience is now. I do it as favors.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I do it as a favor for a company of
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: trying to build a relationship with some good potential partner.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: For us, I just did one for a big technology
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: partner of ours. I did their did their conference in
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: South Florida because it's a it's my currency that I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: can invest to help build a relationship between our companies
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that I think will be good for us and for them.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: That's quite fascinating. So let's get back to the original
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: concept of conversation. And I'm pulling another quote of yours.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Conversation is the unsung supertool of human interaction. Explain that, Well,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it sounds so obvious that it's a toss away,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: but I don't think it is. In a sense that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: when we do what you do every day, and what
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you do with this program is you get to know
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: some about it. You get to learn about them, you
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: get to learn about how they think, and you're imparting
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that information to your audience in a way that's interesting,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that's informative, that's entertainment. But by the way, it's conversational.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And uh, and I think that too often we don't
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: realize that the conversational activities that we have every day, uh,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: off a little nuggets of learning, off you research. We
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: were chatting recently about how long in an interview do
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you have before you realize, Hey, this isn't gonna work out?
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And how much is it? Before you had polite time.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: You guys went public some years ago, and since that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: time we've heard a lot of complaints from venture investors,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: from some entrepreneurs, from some people running companies about the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: burdens of running a public company. How how has running
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a public firm treated you? Well, I can understand, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: lots of times people are going to see the burdens
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of it, and it's like anything else's two edges to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the sword. We went public, as you say, very a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: long time ago, gust. We were a floral and gift company.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: We embraced the online world early, you know, first we
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: were first we went with a telephone when eight hundred
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: flowers is our primary access modality. And then just a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: couple of years later, when my brother came into the business,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: we went online and then then barely and it was
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: when Netscape came along, created the browser, organized the internet
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and started to really matter to us then and by
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: nine we had one finance competitors from zero. Uh So
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: we were advised and we took the advice to get
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: public because we didn't know how long the fight was
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: going to be and whether or not we'd have enough
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: powder to do it on our own. So we in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: public in August of ninety nine, just as the window
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was closing on all of the dot com companies. So
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: we didn't realize it then, but it was. Yahoo missed
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: their earnings that morning for the first time, and the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: market created We limped out. We did well. But the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: good news is, although many banks advisers to dribble out
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the I P O H. Just raise a little bit more,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: now walk it up the ladder, we take everything we
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: needed to build out our business at one shot. So
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: that was very good advice. Goldman took us public. Lawrence
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: scout Cantall, a partner there still a friend, still a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: board member, gave us that good advice. So while the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: rest of the world was going crazy, we had all
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the cash we needed. We built out our business. Those
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: twenty of those twenty one competitors disappeared and we were
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: in good shape. Uh from a business point of view.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So being public, well, there are days I'd rather I wasn't,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: But net net the chance for us to share equity
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: with our employees. The credibility gives you the public relations
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: opportunities that gives you you also have access to capital UH,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and if you get to be a little bit larger,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you can use your currency. So for those reasons, but
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: mostly for the discipline that it imposes on us, it's
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: been a net good thing. That's a very interesting thing.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Speaking of currency. You recently did the largest acquisition UM
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: in company's history. Harry and David, that was your biggest
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: acquisitions so far. It's been our largest acquisition ever. It
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: was a four million dollar company. We acquired it on
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: September two thousand and fourteen. We just went through the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: holiday season. It's a company, Verry, we've looked at four
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: times over the last twelve years. The stars finally aligned
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: for us. It was a good acquisition for us from
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a timing point of view. We're in the same business.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: We looked longingly at their capabilities and areas that we
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: weren't in. We were building our way towards categories that
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: they that they were in that we wanted to be in.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And so when they came available for sale and we
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: entered the process and it worked out that we were
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: able to acquire to what we hope was a good price.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: UH twelve year twelve year ago, finally accomplished and they're
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: a great name brand. People know who they are and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that should should work nicely together. We've been in a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: flower gifting business now for almost forty years and we've
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: been adding different food lines throughout the years. We have
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a company called the Popcorn Factory. We have several of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: different chocolate brands and the most well known Fannie Mae
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and Fanny Farmer, Harry London. We have a bakery company
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: called Cheryls which does those great cookies. So we've been
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: adding to our food offering as our customers say we'd
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: like more food type gifts, and we had a big
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: overlapping customers between our one Flowers customers and Harry and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: David customer base, so when it came available to it
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was just a natural and they have so much untapped
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: potential for an eighty year old company. They have a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: wonderful brand called wolf Aman's, which are the best English
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: style muffins you've ever had in your life. They're just fantastic.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I know, the the chocolate covered popcorn, Harmel chocolate popcorn,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the Moose Moose Munch, what a great product. I was
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: just doing research on it yesterday afternoon with my wife.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So let's let's bring it back to while we were
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: watching the uh the Grammy's Last Night the So, how
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: often does the stock price get in the way of
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: your long term planning? You know, a lot of people
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: use Amazon as an example. Hey, they don't care about profits.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: They just keep building for the future, and Wall Street
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: has been really tolerant of it. Do you do you
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have that same luxury? No, we don't. Very few companies
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: achieved that luxury. They frankly have earned it so far.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I think I heard Bill Gurley, who's a great venture capitalist,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: baumer analyst, being interviewed on this network over a weekend
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago. Betty Lou was interviewing him,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and she I think she asked him about Amazon, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: he said, it's not a problem as long as it's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: not a problem. In other words, as long as Wall
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: streets buying that there's a that they got the secret
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: sauce there, there's not an issue. But the moment they
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: start to doubt Amazon, they'll be an issue. I think
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that's probably accurate. He knows a lot more about the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: world than I do, but I think they've earned the currency.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: With Wall Street, we aren't in the same position. We're
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: much more judge now by our earnings now. And uh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: but I'll tell you what, when it's going well. Our
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: stock has really performed well since the acquisition, people say, oh,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: my lord, look at the synergies here. Uh, it feels good.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It's like a vote of confidence from Wall Street that
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you've done something good. My guest today is the founder
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers, Jim McCann. We
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: were talking about the acquisition you had done um with
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers taking over Barrian David. Let's talk
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit about what you described as the four
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: waves that your company has gone through, and that was retail,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the eight hundred, eight hundred number Internet, and the fourth
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: one being what, well, the fourth one is one we're
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: going through right now, Marry. That is you know, we
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: started with stores. We changed the name of our company
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: to one eight hundred Flowers, changed the name of our
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: stars to one eight hundred Flowers, which people thought was
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: really nuts. And then uh, and then having changed the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: industry by embracing this new eight hundred number concept, we uh.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: As Andy Grove wrote, only the Paranoid survive. We were
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: paranoid about what the next emerging technology would be that
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: might disrupt us. So that's why we were early to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the internet. Right now, I think the most exciting of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the four waves, uh, is the way that's crashing on
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a beach now. And just like those beautiful waves out
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: on Jones Beach on Long Island are oftentimes three headed waves,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: this one is too, and it's what we call it
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: is social, local, and mobile, and that three headed wave
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is crashing on our beaches big time now. It's probably
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the biggest of all those waves, and socially and certainly
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: having the most impact on us. And mobile is exaggerating everything. Uh.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: You know, clearly, the smartphones we all carry now are
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: changing all of our lives. They no longer phones. There
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: their remote controls for the rest of our life, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it's changing how we connect with one another, how we
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: express ourselves, and how we purchase anything. So it's we're
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: fortunate that we've been investing in mobile uh for a
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: lot of years now, and so that's why we're a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: leader in the mobile space. We're a leader in the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: social space because we sort of have it just part
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of our culture now. And not accidentally, Barry that that
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: being early two things to new technologies as a part
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: of our d NA. Let's let's talk about social a minute,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: because again, back to your book, there's a charming story
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: about you writing an email to a number of people
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: about what's going on in social or it wasn't even
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: cold social then, and you get a scathing response from
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a new employee who essentially marked up your email and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: corrected it and said, I completely disagree with you. You
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. His name is Steve
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: lou and he wrote me this note back and I
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: went out, I knew where he sat and left my office.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: He was a new employee, right, it was only there
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a couple of months, I think. So I go over
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to him and I put it down on his desk.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I say, how dare you disagree with the CEO around here?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: And he's like, what the heck is going on here?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And he was like almost trembling, and I pad him
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on the back. I said, Steve, I'm only again, And
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I said, this is terrific. But I saw that more
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is emblematic not just of social and the tools, but
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of the new millennial generation in terms of how they
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: view their place, their ability to say things, their ability
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: to participate, and I saw that as a very good
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: sign for our culture, the kinds of people we were
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: hiring and the freedom of expression that they had. By
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the way, he was right on everything. He corrected me
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: on so that. But he got you very involved in Facebook,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: fairly or early for a commercial entity, very early, and
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: frankly so early. It was still uh it was still
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: only available to you if you had any du address.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And we I do these dinners all the time around
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the shop, call what have you learned lately? Dinners? And
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: we invite you know, a dozen people to sit around
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: a table in a restaurant mostly uh I. Half the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: people are going to be very new to the company.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Half are going to be from different different parts of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the company. And the idea is you're gonna come to dinner,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to sing for us, up us,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: what have you learned? Different? What's new? And one of
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: those dinners early on, probably eight years nine years ago, UH,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: young lady who just graduated from Hofster University on Long
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Island was talking about how she spends her time on Facebook,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and as the first I've ever heard of Facebook, so
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I asked her about it. The next day, I went
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: side of the desk, and because I didn't have an
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: E d U address, she showed me what she was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: doing on Facebook, and I said, this is going to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: be a big deal. And so that's how we got early,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: early to Facebook. And that's I still do those dinners
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and its still where I get to hear early things.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And now we've we've formalized that we have a We
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: took a group of people who are creative department, a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lot of young people, interesting piercings and tats and things,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and great talent, but eager for new knowledge. So I
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: asked them to officially be our trends team. And what
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they do is are looking all the time what's new,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and they put it up on We use Google Plus
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and our shop to gather all those trends and they
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: post them with their commentary on why this will be interesting,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: how it's going to affect a lot of conversation over
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: this past weekend about Microsoft's new advisors, the focus UH
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and about the new Oculus devices. Yes, yeah, so I
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: was reading all weekend long about all these people people
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: in our shop. So finally I said, I said to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the fellow who runs that department, about three months ago,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I said, who else is reading this? This is great
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: stuff coming from your team. And he said, well, you know,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: just you and your brother and to or three other people.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I said, well, why do I share it with everybody?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: We have ten thousand people work in a company. Why
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: don't we share it with Well, I'm telling you, it's
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: so rich in content. Now it's almost like sipping out
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of a fire hose. You can't keep up with all
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the commentary. But and and now some of our employees
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: kids are commenting because they're at home. They're talking about
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it at dinner. And the kid goes on and as
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a post and says, why he thinks that the Rift
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: device is going to be way different than that just
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: six months from now. And you realize it's a fourteen
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and a half year old kid from from Medford, Oregon
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: who's opening here and has some unbelievably insightful thoughts. That
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that was my criticism of Steve Balmer, who used to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: run Microsoft, who wouldn't let his kids use an Apple,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: iPod or Google Search. Hey, you're just cut off the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: greatest research team in the world, your kids. Why would
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you stop them from that? And that's the power of conversation.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Let's let's just get it going and you don't have
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to have a research department. Your research department can be
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: your fourteen in fourteen and a half year old driver's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: son who's opening on the conversation because he wants to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: be a part of it. So, so we know what
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you think about emerging technologies and how important they are
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: to entrepreneurs. Let's talk a little bit about competition. Now
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you've outlasted a lot of your competition, but how do
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you deal with someone fresh that comes into your space
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and its potentially a threat to the company's bottom line. Well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I think first and foremost is we were that person
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: one time. So we did disrupt FTD, who was you know,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: had a market share, and now we're quite a bit
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: larger than they are. Uh So we have it in
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: our nature to understand that that can happen again. So
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: we take seriously all the competition and we use that
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: whole team of people. Is what are they doing? It's good,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Let's really look at it. Let's not just dismiss them
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and well, wait a minute, we're already doing that. Maybe
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: we're not putting enough publicity on what we're doing that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: people think it's so novel that that's the only thing
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they do when it's one of so you have to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: look at it as as good UH as they're all
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: going to be successful or going to get funded, And
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you say, is there a lesson there for us? Or
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: should we be doing something we're doing differently, should we
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: be offering another alternative? And I think that's what keeps
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: us whole shop is that anyone can enter any of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: our businesses. But if we're not, if we're not paying attention,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: then someone can get a start. What about one of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the giants in the space suddenly deciding we want to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: do flowers, like hypothetically Amazon, They have a huge footprints.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: They could sell whatever they want if they decide they
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: want that space they do. Amazon's a company we respect,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a great deal. We work with, We compete with and
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: UH and they've been in and out of our category
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: five or six times now and we work very closely
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: with them. We work a lot with the logistics people
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: in terms of delivery. We've been doing same day and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: last mile for a long time, so we're collaborating all
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the time. And if they're going to compete with us,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we have to be better than they are at what
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we do, and so working with them is a good
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: way to keep them close. So your experts in in social,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: your experts in local, what do you do with mobile?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I think the whole world is mobile. I think it
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: changes everything. Uh, and it's changed so fast it's incredible.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But it also exaggerates social. I remember back in two
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, you might have
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: read about it. There's this little recession thing went on.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Um it was much younger than but you did predict it. Well.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: There was that. There was a time when we had
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to cut back. We got hit by the recession too,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and we found out, wow, we are a little bit
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: more ephemeral than we thought. And we had a first
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: time in thirty something years and we actually went backwards
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: a year. Did you have to let people off? We
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: did one time and it was painful and we didn't
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: want to do it again. And we also had but
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: we never were unprofitable, and we had to cut back
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: from eighteen different development projects to four. But when the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: four was mobile, because we knew social and mobile, and
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: then some internal development projects for for technology, how to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: go on because we were going to survive this, we
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't do all the development projects we want, but those
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: are the four that we had to continue. So we
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: invested in mobile right throughout that. And our job is
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to be convenient. When a customer wants to express themselves
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: and connect to somebody important to them in their lives,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: we have to be convenient. And what's more convenient than
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: a device it's on your on your belt or in
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: your pocket, whether you can access anytime seven to send
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: anything anywhere around the world. So mobile is now the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: primary driver of all of our business. So you say,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: on your belt, that's how I know you're from Long
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Island Because you walk through home depot. They're like hulsters.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: You see people walking out right, So I wanna I
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: want to throw a quote back at you that I
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: found really interesting about entrepreneurs and small business owners. You
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: function as three people at once, an entrepreneur, a manager,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and a technician, all vying for time in the owner's
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: stress field day. The inevitable conflict is the primary reason
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: why most startups fail. And then you go on to
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: add entrepreneurs need to learn to fire themselves from some
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of these duties. Explain that if you would, well, I'm
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: just thinking of all the mistakes I've made and continue
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: to make. But in the early days, the biggest mistake
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I made was when I had my first flower shop.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I was the best designer. Can you imagine, I was
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the best floral designer. I was the best sweeper. I
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: was the best uh window tremor. I was the best
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: delivery person. I was the best well first because I
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: was the only one. And then you know, but I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to be good at all those things. It wasn't
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: until I broke the mold and said, I don't need
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: to be the first one in the morning the last
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: one every night, which I still do. Uh, but I
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: don't need to do that because I was just being
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the best flower shop manager. And that was a waste
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: because I could hire someone who is actually better than
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: me at those things. And once I realized that I
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: could hire people better than I could focus on the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: things that only I could do. And the time I
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: look away from doing the things that only I could
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: do retarded my business. So for me, learning to get
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: out of the way and let other people do what
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: they can do well freed me up to do things
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that only I could do, which are about growing the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: business and expanding the business. I've been speaking with Jim McCann,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: founder and CEO of One Flowers. We continue the conversation.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: You can listen to the rest of it on either
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com or iTunes. You can check it out
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or at
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: The Big Picture at Dholts dot com, or follow me
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Dhults. I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: portion of the show where we get to throw the
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: script away and just shoot the breeze a little bit.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: That one actually went in the garbage. Um, So a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: little background for people. Interesting where you hit that shot
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: into the garbage without even looking, without my Tumbo coming
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and batting it away on you. So when I when
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I picked up Jim on the sixth floor, a Kembe
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Matumbo walks by. He's all of seven foot something by here.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: A few times he's you can I don't know how
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: you recognize. We can't see his face over the So
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: a little background I mentioned I alluded to in our
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: earlier conversation. The first time I saw you speak was
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: at Silicon Alley inside and do you remember who the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: big star that day was all right. So I remember
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Deb Solomon, who was a woman I knew who was
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: doing um pipes and working with a lot of small companies,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: is the one who said you should come to this event.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: So she dragged me there. She may have been the
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: only woman in the whole room. That's right. It was
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: all the way downtown and it was um. It was
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: like you know, flies to honey. It was incredible. I'm like,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you go through this every time you go to an event,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: just like swatting these guys away. It was crazy. And
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: then we saw you speak and I turned to her
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: afterwards and said that looks like fun. I'd like to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: do that. She's like, go ahead, No, no, I'm not
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: asking your permission. I'm just saying, that's really cool to
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: step up, stand up in front of a room of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: five hundred thousand people, and over the course of thirty minutes,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: regale them with a story that entertains, elucidates, provide some information,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and then sends them off to either forget about it
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: or or act on it. It was really intriguing. And
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: then I don't know if you recall the next time
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: we bumped into each other. Was that the Scarbridge event.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: That's Salt conference, which our mutual friend Anthony Scaramucci puts on.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I'm online that So it was at the Bellaggio, which
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: is huge. The pool, the whole area around the pool
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: is the mass. Right. They rope it off. You needed
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: your your ID tag to get in, and they had
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: this massive barbecue. And I'm standing online afterwards. I'll tell
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you a story about Tim Seymour that's hilarious, but I
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: won't tell it on the air. But um, I'm on
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the I'm online to get some food and I hear
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a voice behind me, and I go, I know that voice,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: And I turned around and I had done a panel
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: actually on Bailout Nation with Austin Goulsby, the gentleman who
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: was a congressman whose name I couldn't remember. I just
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: remember he went on way too long, and Asby who
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: worked for President Obama in his back at the University
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of Chicago. Right he was the chairman of the Council
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of Economic Advisors. There was a congressman who I recall
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: took a breath in the middle of a long diet
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: tribe and I requested with the congressman from Oklahoma yield
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the floor and the filibus board was it No, No,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that was the other one. He was from Tennessee. There
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: was the older gentleman with the shock of white hair,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: hefty guy who who was on I think the Financial
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Crisis Investigation Committee. By the way, I love being the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: lightest weight person. Meaning in terms of resume on a panel,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: it means I fooled somebody that I ended up on
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a panel. I'm like, I don't belong here. I wrote
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: a book, I I have not. These guys are real
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: serious guys. The fact that I got here is is
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: either good fortune or or I fooled somebody. But that's
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: where I um. That's where we bumped into each other.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And we started chatting at that event, and I couldn't
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: believe that I didn't connect that I was reading your
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: blog all the time at that time, and then I
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: knew you. I didn't connect the name of the blog
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: with you. And it was like a huge revelation for
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: us when we're sitting there, choweling down in a on
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a cluster of some couches there right in what seemed
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: like decadent world. Well, anytime you go to Vegas, it
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: is decadent world. There was no respect for money out there.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: There's no respect for what a great conference has become.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: It's monstrous, it's huge. What I remember about the Blaggio
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: this is a true story. So I spend a lot
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: of time doing research into behavioral issues and psychology of investing.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And the Blaggio was famous for having a pair of
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: monies in the lobby. And these now go for thirty
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: million dollars each and I, you know, there's like a
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: lot receiving line to go see them is actually paid
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to go. Look. Oh no, you you go, You just
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: walk up. All you have to do is lose enough
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: money that so I'm admission. So I'm behind these two
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: big tourists that have a little bit of an accent,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm watching the two of them look at this,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and the husband says to the wife, come on, honey,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: let's let's go in the casino and win ourselves the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: mone and um, I remember thinking myself, no, you have
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: it backwards. They have the money because you're not gonna win.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: You gotta understand. There's a reason why it's on the wall.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: It's talking about data that's pretty firm evidence. Hey, forty
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: million dollars hanging on the wall behind glass. They have
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to be doing something, and that includes not paying you
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of money in the in the casino. But
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I found that that conference was a boatload of fun.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: It's um filled with hedge fund managers and others. Um
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the letter. That year was the year I actually saw
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, after his bypass surgery, walk into a very
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: hostile room of three thousand hedge fund managers who were
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: all not fans of his. It was like the golf applause.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: He walked out to a like the definition of a smattering.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Later he walked out to a standing ovation, and if
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: he would have asked for money, they would have broken out.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: I remember saying to myself, Oh, that's how that guy
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: became president. If he said I need ten thousand mills
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: from each of you, he would have walked out of
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: there with andrew million dollars like that. He no notes,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: He's completely extemporaneously had a conversation and then the Q
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and A whatever was asked. He knew this stuff dead
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: to right. So much details. He's amazing, And we're gonna
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: see a lot more on them again pretty soon, anythink,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: probably in the next in the next election. Although um
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: our mutual friend Scaramucci. I think he at one point
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: in time was a fan. I don't think so anymore. Well,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: he was a big order from last time. I think
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: he was an Obama supporter, lost faith and then became
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a Ronnie Sport. Will be interesting to see what what
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: happens with this. So aside from the SULT conference, what
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: other events like that do you end up going to?
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Not A lot is one that I'm going to coming
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: up soon that Allen and Company puts on out in Arizona.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: That is uh. It started as a small and MidCap conference,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: but it's now been taken over by the technology folks. Uh.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So it's a big Silicon Valley crowd, but I find
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: it to be very stimulating. They run an amazing event
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and it's not a lot of people, but you get
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: to hang out for a few days in the desert
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: down the north of Tucson, uh, down a Dove Mountain,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a rich Calton on that and the conversations are all
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: unbelievably stimulating. I remember sitting, uh i'd say two years
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: ago at lunch with Alex Rampel, who created trial pay
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and Max Levchin, who's the prince of payments in Silicon Valley.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: UH Max created a company called Slides, sold it to
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: uh Facebook and other company sold to Google. He became
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Google CTO for about six months and said I don't
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: belong in corporate. I start companies. And he left there
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and then the launched Yelp and uh and now he's
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: got a new company. So I'm sitting there at lunch
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and then we we had it just came from a
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: great presentation on everything mobile and he said to me,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: how importantly think mobile would be for you? So I
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: told them and and he said it's massive, massive, and
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: uh he said what's the big return? And I said, well, geez,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I'd like there's a whole audience of teenagers who were
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: carrying mobile devices and if they don't have a credit card,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: they can't be a customer of mine. So he started
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: sketching on an envelope assume me on the back of
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: a place. Matt an idea for a business plan. Now
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: we which he launched about a year and a half ago.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: But I watched him created on this on this so
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: you got, we got, we invested. We did, and it's
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: company called The Firm and it uses social media to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: make a credit decision. So he said, So, if someone
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: presses a button on a mobile device that they want
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to buy from you, how do you confirm with the
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: credit that put it in? Now you don't have to
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: do that. They just said, you want to you want
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to pay through a firm, and an algorithm doesn't computing.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: What they look at is what's your behavior in social media,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: what are your friends behavior in social media? What kinds
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of interactions, what's the qualitating interactions? And this algorithm that
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: he wrote can make that determination sub second and then
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: take care of the building information later on. So it's
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: opening a whole new world of customers. And they're not
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: using traditional scoring data at all. They only using social
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: profile bare. So the thought process of who's going to
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: go through the process of faking cre in an entire
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: social profile and behaving and having people interact with them.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: That sounds really difficult to ford to save a bouquet, right,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: do you think about You could create that with bots,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: but you should be able to tell what's real and
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: what's fake. That's amazing. But but to see we were
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: sitting in the same conference, listening to the same speakers
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and just to see how their minds work. It's an
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: example of why I locked like that event because you're
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: with people who think differently and think openly and open systems,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: and it's just a stimulating to ask you a question.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: You run a business, why can't you sell to teenagers? What?
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: What do you need? That that's really tremendously in The
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: question is really insightful, as is the answer. You know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I go to this conference every other year in San Diego,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: just because it's overwhelming to go every year. And it's
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: a bunch of literally kids in college and all their
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: new projects that they want to have funded and they
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: want to and you cannot go to one of these events.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And I remmember being there, right, And you mentioned the
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Great Recession, right in the middle of the Great Recession,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and you come out of that thinking, I don't care
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: how bad the economy is, There's no way we have
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a bleak future. What's coming out of these kids. Look,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a churmudgeon, I'm a skeptic. I'm not you're not.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody's going to confuse me for a happy, go lucky cheerleader.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: But you go to one of these events and you
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: look at the new technologies coming along, you can't walk
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: out saying, well, you know, we might have screwed it up.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: They got a better shot at running the country than
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: we did. It's it's that sort of optimism. And all
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: you want to say is, let's make sure we don't
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: screw up that flow, that creativity. Let's not narrow the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: broadband availability, let's not put any rules up. The only
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: way that the Internet has had such a big impact
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: on the lives. And we'll continue too because we know rules. Well.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: The last bit of administrative announcements about the Internet very
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: much was pretty much what the big tech companies were
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: looking for, which is you can selectively um retard broadband.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: That's right, and I think that's gonna be huge. You know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you don't realize how so many of the companies that
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: exist today, think YouTube and Facebook and go down the list,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: how they built on what came before. And the only
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: reason they were capable of doing that is there was
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: zero restrictions and never ending increases in bandwidth. Well, you know,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: the first time at this conference that I go do
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I heard it was less than six months old, Airbnb present.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: And you hear that, and then you see also probably
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: within its first three or four months of birth, I
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: saw them present was Uber so you see companies like that,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and you say to yourself, you could never have been there,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you Barry Ridholts, who never could been there at the
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: start of those companies because you have a law degree,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: and those companies could not have been born if there
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: was someone in the room who was a lawyer, because
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: they would have tell you, oh, that's not impossible. The
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: insurance exposure to risk, and they went ahead and plowed ahead.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And now these companies are reshaping how we think about
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: stuff and about transportation. Well, let me tell you something
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that a very wise man one said to me, which is,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: whenever anybody says never, say why never, why not, let's
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: let's let's try it. Let's see what happens never. And
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: from a stock and investing perspective, I can't tell you
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: how many times I've had a conversation with someone about
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a given stock or a sector and when the response is, oh,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: why would anyone want to own that? Piece of that? Terrible?
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: So what's so of the iPod? Is the new Sony
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Walkman Apple is toast? They're done. Whenever you get that response,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that never response, he usually means that there's a lot
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: of negative stuff already worked into the stock price. Something
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say before, though, is the best ideas
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that you've heard of the first time you heard of them,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: you thought were a joke. Oh yeah, absolutely, So stop
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: and think about Uber right as an example. So not
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I just actually had a debate with someone about this
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and it's it's a whole long conversation. But what Uber
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: did that was fascinating was identify a market where there
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: was a limit of competition, almost a monopoly limit, posed
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: by some regulatory scheme. So here in New York City
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: we have the Taxi Limousine Commission and they get to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: set a limit on how many medallion cabs there were,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: which at one point in time we're worth a million
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: plus dollars. Since Uber and Lift came to town, oh
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: they've dropped and every city they go to they end
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: up impacting whatever the restriction is. So I like to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: use the New York City cabs because they're so awful
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: as an example. But stop and think about it. There's
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: there's rarely a cab when you really want one. The
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: second it starts to reign, the supply is immediately gone.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: You can't you can't get one. And because there's not
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: true competition, the cab industry has decided, you know what,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: even though it's rush hour, we're gonna turn the shifts
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: over at five o'clock, seven, five o'clock. Sorry, I gotta
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: go back to Queens or the Bronx to swap drivers. No,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: it's rush hour, pick people up and take them places.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: You could. You could do it at four o'clock. You
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: could do it at eight o'clock. Five o'clock is right out.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Make it midnight to noon. Pick some rational five. You
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't pick a worse time. And the only reason they
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: get away with that is there wasn't true competition. Uber
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: has forced that competition. So let me ask you a question.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Since you're always looking at technology and always looking forward,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: what other industries might be ripe for that sort of
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: artificial restriction of supply being broken? Well, I I think
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I think when you look at Uber, it's clearly not
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: going to stay in the transportation space. The technology to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: concept works in all different kinds of spaces. Read in
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: all article over the weekend UH by fellow uh Reid
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Hoffman sent out a list of things here from from
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: LinkedIn sent out a list of things he'd read recently
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: over the weekend. UH and one of the articles I
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: read that he pointed out was about the uh not
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the blue collar workforce, not the white collar workforce, but
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the collar is workforce, and that is using Uber like technology,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna have a world of independent producers all
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: carrying their own badge, which is their rating and their
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: list of capabilities and its transparency and UH and and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: customer comment their own ratings, and you can have all
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: these people task grabbing kind of people. They're driving Uber
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: four hours, they're doing errands this other hour, they're a repairment,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and so they're selling their skills in a very efficient,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: frictionless kind of marketplace. So I think if you look
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: at that, that's going to happen to a lot of industries. Uh.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: You know why can't And you're starting to see it
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: now in pet care. You know, if why do I
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: have to take my dog to a kennel that I'm
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: a little concerned about with with a message board, I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: can find out who in the community does it in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: their home with maybe only two dogs and has a
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: great rating from their customers because they really do care
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: for the dogs and they take great care of them,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and it's in a home setting. Isn't that something? So
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I would say, if I'm a kennel operate, I'm gonna
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: have a little bit more concerned as this could start
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to erode my business where I'm competing with everybody else
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood as they should. We haven't put a
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: dog in the kennel and since the first time he
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: came back with cannel cough, that was it. There you go.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: So you're you're you know, no, you're gonna get thirty
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: or forty dogs and you know everybody's had their shots. Um.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: We also, and I don't know if you do this,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: we also find someone from the vets office who wants
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: the house hits. So this way the dogs are where
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: they are. It's but I love the idea that technology
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: is enabling just a disruption of industries that aren't really
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: servicing their clients. All well, what might and we didn't
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: know that, we weren't a shrug it. Look, I'm waiting
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: for the airlines to get disrupted. You we tolerate so
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: much nonsense when we flot you fly a decent amount.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I fly all over the country. You kind of just
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: grit your teeth and bear with it. Or you could
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: pay ten thousand dollars and and do a net jets
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: or one of those and fly a couple of times.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: But unless you're gonna pay, and why barely steep dollar amounts.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: I guess it's not something popular to talk about, but
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: that the whole private jet industry is not quite been
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: uberized yet, but it will be. It will be. There's
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a company called Blade Yes, that's trying to uberize helicopter
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: travel from New York City to the Hamptons or New
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: York City to the airport. So not quite a full
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: on uber it's it's aiming at a real narrow slice.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: So in your business, are you worried about being uberized?
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Are you concerned that someone could come along and disrupt
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: floral delivery the way you did? I'd say yes and no.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: The yes is yes, we watch for everything that we
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: think can be disruptive. The no is I think what
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: we see is this more opportunity. So we've been crowdsourcing
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: deliveries for forty years. That is, Uncle Joe, if he
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: wants to be invited for Thanksgiving dinner, is going to
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: be at our shop and take a personal day from
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: IBM on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, to help us do
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: our deliveries. Well that's sort of crowdsourcing our deliveries. But
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: now the ability to use that technology. What I get
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: excited about is we have these floorists all over the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: country who are part of our network. You know what
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: a shame on us, But grub hub gets busy about
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: six o'clock at night, When do all our trucks come
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: back and get put down for the night? Put away
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: from the evening six o'clock. We have this fleet, what
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: else can we do with it to serve our customers,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to serve our florists, to leverage assets. We already have
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it and paid for, so we spend more time thinking
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: about what can we do to disrupt ourselves? What can
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: we do to serve our customers? Differently, what can we
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: do to serve So if we're in if we have
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the end cap in a shopping center in uh in
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Sioux City, Iowa, and we'en cap being the in cap
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: of retail store, so you're the last. So we have
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: a franchise e in the last beautiful two thousand square
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: foot flower shop there and he's got three trucks. And
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: then there's a dry cleaner who has a truck that
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: he uses once or twice a day, and then the
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: food shop doesn't have a truck because it doesn't really deliver.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: So my conversation with that franchise he recently was what
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: if we look differently about having those trucks on the road,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: what do we do service the whole center and became
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the delivery operation. Same number trucks, same number drivers. We're
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: just gonna be much more efficient now, and that rolling
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: inventory of media, of inventory of those trucks, that will
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: be much more president in those communities now. And there's
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: a new revenue source for us. So we're starting how
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: do we disrupt ourselves? That's really quite fascinating. Let me
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: shift gears on you and let's talk a little bit
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: of baseball. So you are a is that right? I'm
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: a small owner, a small investor in the New York Mets, right,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: So let me do we want to start talking about
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the pitching the hitting? Where do we want to begin
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: our list of complaints? Well, not complaints, Let's look about
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: how exciting this is now. Next week is pitches and catches,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: but who's counting? And we're going to have a fellow
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: by the name A Wheeler, a fellow by the name
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: of Harvey to Grum the Rookie of the year. Returning
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: veterans like nice and uh uh g, what an exciting
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: spring this is going to be for us. How did
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: you ever find your way into the Mets ownership? Well, uh,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: been friends for a long time. My wife Marilyn and
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I have been friends for a long time with Fred
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and Judy. Will pond this on Jeff and when they
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: went through their challenges, obviously post Bernie made off that
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: persona made off problems that they confronted. There, you know,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: obviously we're close, so we're gonna be talking about it.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: And uh, we were helping him. I was helping him
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: think through his alternatives to whatever extent I could. And then, uh,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: finally when they decided to syndicate the team, Fred invited
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: me to think about says, I know how much you
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: love the team and how how close you and I
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: r B. I'd be thrilled to heavies to partner. So
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: it was a wonderful phone call to get one. That's
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: been great fun for my family that I can imagine.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I know a number of people, including David Iinhorn was
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: hoping to pick up some or all of the Mets
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and the Wilpons managed to um. Some people said they
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: pulled a rabbit of the hat. It looked like they
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: just did some pretty basic blocking and tackling, not to
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: mix sports metaphors, to basically unwind that that mess that
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and now they're good for them. They're a good family
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and they're back on top and UH, and they're very
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: excited about spring. We're just chatting UH on Friday about
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the dates we're gonna be together down at spring training,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: you know. And I can bring my two grown sons
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: down and we can spend the weekend just talk baseball
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and watch the players train and sitne stands and watch
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: a game. It's such good clean fund for a family.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, when you have grown sons who have
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: their own families now, or one of the two have
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: started his own family, when you can get time away
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: like that, it's just sort of like a whole renewal
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: ritual and the whole rebonding. When you get back and
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you're at the airport and you're go in three different
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: ways and you say that, how is a good weekend?
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: They give you a hug and say, no, Dad, this
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: was a great weekend. You say, baseball has been verty
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: verty good to me. So the Mets have always been
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: in the shadows of the famous New York Yankees. That's right,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: and we played one another twice this year. Serious, but
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: it looks when you look at the prospects of the team.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: We have Jeta retiring, we have a number of very
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: well known people on the Yankees a little past their
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: sell by date. Are we actually looking at a possibility
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: of the Mets significantly outperforming what the New York Yankees
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: can do? I think what the Mets are gonna do
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: is they're going to outperform what they've done in the past. Well,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: but now you're setting the bar very love. And I
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: say this, by the way, I say this as a
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: long suffering New York Mets I know, I know. So
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: it's we improved our win record last year by five games.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: We had the gold Glover of the Year in center
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: field who came out of the system, and one La Garris.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: You had the rookie of the year out of your
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: farm system, and you're pitching, which you've got in a trade,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: by the way, a thoughtful trade and trading away are
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: a Dickey. So you had good things to come there.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: So you had Rookie of the Year, you had the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: center Fielder of the Year, you had development of other
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: kids coming up, Like hitting is gonna be weird challenge.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: But I think I think David Wright is going to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: have a better year. He's going to be healthy this year.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Grandison had a pretty okay year last year, not as
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: bad as people said. But I think it's gonna be
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: a very good year this year. The dimensions are now
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: back to Shay Stadium dimensions now in the new City Field.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Can I tell you something, and I know everybody always
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: raves about Yankee Stadium. I've been to both stadiums, both nice,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: both different, more comfortable. City Field is much more comfortable.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: The food is the Yankee Stadium is a stadium that concrete.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. No, listen, it's Yankee Stadium. Don't get
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: me wrong. Shay Stadium, the Mets Stadium was always the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: weaker system. Now it's as nice. If it's nice, wholate
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: They're both nice, very different. You're very diplomatic, you know.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: I That's how I feel. I I feel I really
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: like City Field. I think very Can I tell you
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: they did a burgers are very good. Well, they just
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: won public and the food is as far as fast
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: food goes, that's gonna be your best burger. I saw
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the it was it might have been the first concert.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Um I think it was the first concert after it opened,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: because he had said on stage that they were the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: last concert ever at Shay. It was Paul McCartin and um.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: So beforehand we were hanging out and one of the
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: lounges I forgot which one it was. They all have
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: different names. The space was fantastic and it was a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: great place to see a show. It was just a
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I came away saying, I gotta go see a ball
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: game here because this was really so much fun and
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: used to by the way the old Schase Stadium if
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: you were unless you were behind first play home plate,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: the way the stadium was shaped, and how long and
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: flat the bleachers were off of from your a long
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: way from the field. You were thousands of miles away.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: The feld there is there's almost like there's no bad
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: seats in the stadium, and there's a lot fewer seats
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: on really that explains why there were no so you
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: got rid of the sixteenth that well back then half
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: the seats were terrible, but but this is just look,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium is a cathedral. That's right. This is just
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: a fast once a stadium. Win's a field, I think
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: it says at all, and that's that's exactly right. But
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be fun time in that field this year.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Uh to say the least that any blockbuster trades coming up,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: any thoughts of I don't you know, to see the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: nature of the team away has been built and I
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: think Sandy Oldison's and his team have done a remarkable
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: job of saying, look, we have a game plan, we're
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: gonna stick to it. And they have and all these
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: young people coming up are coming up through the system.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the system is the healthiest it's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: ever been. Uh if the minor league performance best of
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: any team in baseball. Uh number of wins, strikeout ratios,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: every way you measure. They've really stepped up in a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: money bowl? Guy, do you like very much? Very much,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: very much? And uh? Because Sandy introduced that out in
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Oakland many years ago and taken to other levels by
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: other people. But Sandy his team to say, as an example, yeah,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: well Boston they moved away from it a little bit,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: but certainly every team now has embraced every team. So
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Sandy has had a huge impact on the game, and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: we think a huge impact on the Mets. So why
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: don't we um, I know you have places to go.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want to keep you too much longer. Why
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: don't we um leave it at that that we're gonna
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: actually theoretically have a plus five hundred winning season for
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the Mets this year. I think so, all right, and
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: I'll see you at City Fields, at and at some
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: other places around town. Uh, go forward. My guest today
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: has been Jim McCann. He's the founder and CEO of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers and a minority owner of the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: New York Mets. Jim, this was great. Thank you for
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: spending so much times. Always fun to be with you. Berry. Well,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: thank you so much, and be sure and check out
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: all of our other interviews that will be If you're
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: listening to this part of the show, you're listening to
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: the podcast, so look like a half inch up or
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: half inch down on Apple iTunes and you'll see all
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the rest of these. I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Masters in business with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio.