So let's see, when I was actually quite young, um, I started down this path. My dad was a exceptional engineer and professor professor, and, uh, he just was an inspiration to me in so many ways. And at some point when I was about 17 at a dinner table, something that I'm sure he thought was a very casual comment, uh, just set me on a path. He said that there are a lot of remarkable engineers in the world. Um, but there aren't enough people to turn what those engineers build into real products and real businesses. And I thought, that's what I'm gonna dio. I'm gonna go be the business side of technology companies. Um and, uh, you know, when you're 17 how can you really know if that's what you want to do? But I started just picking away at Well, wait, what does that even mean? And, um, tried to find jobs that might help me understand what that might mean on thin. As I went along through college, um, I started to try and see and understand and pay attention to what does business mean And what's a technology business and, you know, the most simple ways. Just paying attention to the business news. When I finished college, I went to work for ah company called the Boston Consulting Group a consulting company because it seemed to me at the time that a business like that must give you a pretty good view inside what's happening in real companies. Um, uh, and I think it does in some ways, and it doesn't in other ways, but it let me know. By the time I was finished doing that, that yeah, I really wanted to go be inside companies, operating companies, um, trying to build real companies. Um, went to business school after that, uh, went to Stanford, and, um, Stanford was right in the middle is right in the middle of Silicon Valley. My heroes were were around there. People like Steve Jobs, who wound up marrying a classmate of mine, Um, Scott McNealy, people that I really, uh, respected. And I thought, wow, when I grow up, I wanna be like them. And I guess I got enough of a feeling at the time that, um, they weren't superhuman. They it was possible to do things like they were doing them, and they were encouraging Generally. Like pushing, uh, me and others to say, Yeah, go do this. Go, uh, lied and build technology companies. So I think the most valuable thing I left business school with was actually just the confidence and determination. I am going to go build technology companies and, uh, almost right out of school. That's what I started trying to dio. I started trying thio find engineers and technologies and things that had really promise in, uh, maybe an academic environment or maybe in a lab, but weren't companies yet and try to figure out how to go make that into a company. What's the rest of what was needed? Um uh, was it capital was a talent. Was it, uh, product ization? Was it finding the right product market fit? And, you know, interestingly, I think that's what I've been doing since 19 92. Just really working on how do you build something into product and a company that solves riel customer problems. And I'm happy to go into more detail about all the steps along the way. Um, if that's the right thing to Dio. Ah, but anyway, there you go.

Okay, So, um, you know, along the way, uh, those questions I think are are just so right on because you learn that every day and you keep learning that those types of things are the keys to doing your job. Well, so anyway, right out of business school, I I, uh, ran a U. S. Senate campaign actually way back in the 1992 election cycle. Um, but then I started getting right into building companies. Um, first company was a hearing technology company, uh, company called Sonic Innovations, which built for a while, went public and was eventually acquired by a European conglomerate. Then I got right into the internet industry was part of a group of people building, um uh, company called citysearch in the mid nineties, uh, then wound up leading a company. Ticketmaster, Um, at the time, didn't sell tickets over the Internet, and that was a big opportunity. It seemed to be a big opportunity, and it turned out it waas we sold. We went from selling a couple of $100,000 of tickets a month to selling $100 million worth of tickets a month in a really short time so just explosive growth. Um, then went to run a company called ancestry dot com, which was is an online subscription business around genealogy. Each time, Uh, these things were happening. I kept, like, maybe understanding my job a little bit better as, ah, leader. And, um uh, all these things kind of led me to where I am now building another technology company. Um, uh, but it when you have a job where you are the leader of a new organization. And by the way, this is something you can learn in your very, very first job before you're even in college. Um, you are identifying something that maybe should be different. Why do we do this this way? We shouldn't do it this way. Um, we should do it this other way. And you're figuring out what it takes to convince the people around you, your boss, your peers, people who are touched by that part of the business, um, that it's worth doing differently. And, um so the very first step is you've gotta outline some path that other people can understand that you know enough about to understand. Um, Thio paint a picture of both. Why It's understandable the way it is today, but that it should be better. And, um, you know that doing that well plays then into what? Of the both the responsibilities and the top three priorities, the top three priorities are. Do you have people around you who have the skills and, um, talent and understanding to go make things happen differently? That's one people to is Do they understand the goals? Um, not, you know, if you ask them why they do a job, they would tell you what the goal is, not what the job is. And it could be something as simple as, um uh, truly it can be incredibly simple, something as simple as if you ask someone who was working in a yard. What what is their job? And they told you, for my job is to mow the lawn. Um, but really, the job is to make the yard look nice, that it's just it's an adjustment. And the, you know, people have to understand the goal, not like the task. So right, people understanding the goal, not just the task and how then do you get the resource is in place for your group of people so that they can succeed. And, um, when you're the CEO, the resource is that you're responsible for thinking about are both inside the company and outside the company. It's just in whatever way it's. This broad set of of resource is which maybe people it may be money. It may be systems. It may be partners. It may be, um, uh, press lots of different things. But are you getting the highest priority? Resource is the resource is that air going toe do the most to help people succeed in place on. Then you asked whether the weekly work hours, um, you know, I think in doesn't matter what your role is, it doesn't matter what your responsibilities are. You decide what you're hours are and, um, how you allocate them. And I think that for most people, for motivated people, there are way more things to do in any given week than there are hours to do them. So you have to decide how toe allocate hours. What are the most important things to get done? And, um, how are you going to spend those hours? And it's of course, it's with work. It's with family It's with friends. It's for your personal health, all sorts of things. Um, but I spent a lot of hours working. Um, on, I hope, not too many, and I'm constantly working on that balance.

really, If you're going to take on the role of leading an organization causing it to do something different than it was doing previously, your major challenge is resistance. Um, people are going to say, Well, first people aren't going to understand clearly why they should do things differently and what should be done differently. Um, on. Then, as they start to understand it as they hear and see the articulation of the problem, they're just going Thio resist. They're gonna say, maybe it's pads of Excuse me. Um, it may be a simple and passive as I don't understand why we should do things differently. Or it may be, um, no, we should not do things differently. That's a bad idea. And, um, your job, their point of view. Why air they resisting? Is it because you're not clear enough? Is it because they believe that the answer is different? Is it because you haven't thought about something that is like an important part of why things were done the way they are now, and it actually shouldn't be different? So, you know, your first part of your job is understanding. You know why the resistance, But then this relentless push tow overcome the resistance. And frankly, that's it's hard. That's tiring. And, um, most people aren't don't really want to do that. That's, like painful. Um, uh, if everyone around you is always going to tell you why you're wrong or why that thing isn't the right thing to dio that can be draining. Um, but you can also get energy from it, like when you see how like things are evolving and things are improving and people are starting toe Say, wow, that is better that way. That gives you an energy about that, too. Um uh, so in the end, the approaches that are most effective are this balance off? I hear what you're saying. It could be a whole market. It could be people in your company. Here is why the alternative that I'm proposing or the product that I've built is better. And we'll make your life better and Theun listening for that feedback and watching and showing people how and why. It's really it is better. Um and the number of examples are just their examples everywhere around us, and almost all of us have experienced some form of this in some way uh, people around. You don't want to do something. You convince them they should do it. And on it goes well, in which case, everyone's excited about it or it does not go well. And, uh, you better be ready to take responsibility for that. If you convinced everyone to do something and it didn't go well, um uh, like, hey, this is how we're gonna make it better next time on. This is what we learned from so anyway, there you go.