The Exchanges

Q What was the right attitude about their work?

A Well, they weren't thinking about how to promote it. They were thinking about how to make it, you know, and, um, it's kind of what I liked about Steve Jobs when I met him, you know, I met a lot of these guys since the year, 2000, you know, cause I'd gone on the road. Once, once Napster came out, I was like, oh shit, what's going on? I better learn something new, you know, I mean, cause this trick isn't going to work anymore, you know, the whole music business I felt was going to be upside down, you know, and it has been, but Um, but in those days, I wanted to get a feel for what I called at that time, the other side. So I met with a bunch of tech companies, then I started to get, and then I met Steve. And he was the only one that had soul. And.

AI assessment note: “They weren't thinking about how to promote it. They were thinking about how to make it”

Q Apart from who was on the board, how was it, how did Steve manage the board differently than other CEOs?

A You know, we had a, a few of the critical issues out of the company. Uh, we were a production-only company. Uh, we, all of our films were marketed through Disney. So, um, and then there was a limited time span in our contract with Disney. So there are a number of things we have to do to figure out where the company's going, what the relationship is, how we make it strong or where's it threatened. And, and, uh, at the time through a lot of this time, uh, uh, Michael Eisner was the CEO and the, and the, and the CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner did not get along well with With Steve. Steve hated him. The real reason for that, well, there were, there were two things there. One of them was that, um, Michael testified before Congress about ripping, because there was some testimony about it with audio. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “we had a, a few of the critical issues out of the company.”

Q If Devin could work for a year without any human assistance, what would you have it do right now? Destroy your competitors.

A All sorts of things. I mean, no, I mean, I, I still wake up and think about this in every different, like, you know, every little thing that I run, you know, dumb example. Yesterday I was sending out, like, a bulk email. And I was, like, trying to get the, like, email formatter to work, and it was, like, kind of painful. You know, some of these things are still, like, kind of hard to use, or it doesn't support a certain, like, styling of the email that you wanted to go do. I think the thing, I, like, had pasted something with indents, and then it was, like, I just couldn't, like, un-indent them, because the editor, like, I don't know, there were some weird things where the editor, like, would not allow you to un-indent one part, but not the other, or whatever. And I was just thinking, like, It's really crazy that like, that I'm still doing this basically, right? Like in as much simplicity or honestly more as it would take you to explain this to another person, like, hey, here's what I want to do. I just like, I'm just trying to make it look like this and then this and then that, like the rest of that execution should just be done for you, you know? And then you get to the point where you actually really just to get to spend all your time thinking about, well, what do you want to do? You know, what, what do you want to build? What do you want to create? Like, what are the things…

AI assessment note: “All sorts of things. I mean, no, I mean, I, I still wake up and think about this”

Q Absolutely. Five years from now, do you think we're gonna have AI, complete AI-created music that is at the top of the charts? Isn't it already happening?

A I don't know. Let me tell you, I don't fucking know. If I could predict the future, ma'am, you know what I mean? I wouldn't have health insurance. You know, it's like, you know, I have fire insurance in my house. I can't predict the future. I have no, I, I, I overpaid for everything. I'm a retail guy. But, you know, it's like, I do know one thing that I don't understand. I hear a lot of these artists coming out against AI. So I come from a place where to get a record deal, going back to my, when I was a kid, right, in the music business. You have to sing. You have to really sing. Sometimes you had to write, but if you're Barbra Streisand, you had to sing. Frank Sinatra, you had to sing. Those people could really sing. You know, Sam Cooke, whoo, could he sing? He could sing and write, you know what I mean? Incredible, right? Stevie Wonder. There's a lot of people out now on the charts right now of being really successful, selling out arenas, that can barely sing Happy Birthday. So, what I say to the people that are challenging AI, and they're doing that because of technology.

AI assessment note: “I don't know. Let me tell you, I don't fucking know.”

Q It's like, I will fly across the country just to have like lunch or dinner with another podcaster. They're like, I want a download of your thoughts on how you think about your business and like what you're doing. What did you, did you notice as you're building this network and you're meeting all these other people in all these different regions, did you think you were different from them?

A Sure. I mean, but that, One of the things I liked about your, you know, since I just listened to on the drive here with your Michael Dell, which was impressed. I know, I know Michael. Of course, we both live in Austin. For a long time, we were the two big entrepreneurs in Austin before it became kind of an entrepreneurial hub in the last decade or so, and so I followed his career closely, and I know him, and he's a really good guy. Um, Michael talked a lot about, um, Continuous learning. Remember how he talked about, you asked him, I said, well, you had to reinvent yourself like three or four times. He said, no, more like seven or eight times. Yes, because every time there was a new revolution, he had to adapt his business, right? So, I continued to learn.

AI assessment note: “Sure. I mean, but that, One of the things I liked about your”

Q like over time, you're still working a lot, but you're not as, it's not even fanatic because you're definitely fanatic, fanatical. And I want to ask you about your great quote about that, but you're just, You're more measured. You're going to live to survive the next day. So what are you like, how do you compare like the hours you're working now compared to when you started this thing?

A So when I started up and I give young entrepreneurs this advice, I'm like, imagine how hard it is to start your business, then multiply that by infinity. And if you're still committed to do it and you have the stamina to stick with that, then you'll be successful. Obviously you have to have a good product and, and concept, and you have to have something that's going to work to make something go. Which is often hard for people to see. The vision of chicken fingers down here in Baton Rouge was like, just chicken fingers, you know, just chicken fingers. Like, we like our plate lunches. We, we want variety, things like that. I'm like, wait till you have this product.

AI assessment note: “So when I started up and I give young entrepreneurs this advice”

Q How much profit do you think you were making on a, on a monthly basis out of that million?

A Barely. It was, it was a little bit profitable, but the, I mean, back then, nowadays, like ARR ramps are astounding, but, and as our valuations, back then, to build a business in mobile and have it go from zero to twelve million dollar run rate in that short amount of time was really phenomenal. And so, Once we did that, it was easy to recruit investors in November. I mean, it's like, okay, looks pretty good. It was more around for a few folks that I had just known for a while and a few other folks that I thought could be helpful to the business and to mark my own dollars in. And so we did that round in November and then we didn't raise another round. So back to the board point, and we did raise another round, there was more liquidity later, but back to the board point, um, I didn't have a board in this business until 2018.

AI assessment note: “Barely. It was, it was a little bit profitable, but the”

Q like, How does that, how does what you're suggesting we do influence directly or even indirectly growing organic revenue growth or increasing the margin? And if it doesn't, wah, wah, it's a waste of time, waste of money. You only, you have limited time and you have limited capital. You've got to be Directing that time and deploying that capital that things have the greatest returns. Otherwise, it's Watt Watt.

A And I'm so glad, first of all, it's hilarious. I'm glad that you, you said that you actually have other people around you doing this too, because I, I am kind of skeptical that no human can, can hit their goals and what they want to do, you know, a hundred percent of the time. I can't imagine, you know, the complexity of running FedEx, and this guy's just like, no, you have to be brutal. There's a word, like that, he picks it, absolutely brutal is the word. Absolutely brutal in your time management. Yeah. I think there's a lot of things. There's another thing that Fred Smith said, um, that again, like when I'm reading about Fred, um, when I was going through and rereading all my highlights from his biography, I wasn't really thinking about Fred. I was thinking about you, you know, like this to me feels like a lot of what I've learned from you. And this is a direct quote from Fred. He says, I believe that a man who expects to win out in business without self-denial and self-improvement stands as about as much a chance as a prize fighter would stand if he started a ring battle without having gone through intensive training. Natural ability, even when accompanied by the spirit to win, is never sufficient. If I look at the way you were building businesses when you were 23, compared to, you know, you can pick first billion dollar company, then you look at the second, or the third, o…

AI assessment note: “There's another thing that Fred Smith said, um, that again, like when I'm reading”

Q No, it's not, they're not boring to, to me and to people listening. Wait, Why do you hate the way that they were doing competition in the industry?

A What I love about entrepreneurship is the, is, is the level of responsibility, personal responsibility people take. I said as much earlier when we talked about the founders who have been responsible for people's livelihoods, it changes you, it does, right? Like, so, like, I, I don't work myself well in an environment where sort of, like, everything is pre-described. I, I don't like joining other people's games, I, and so on. All these kind of things are my biases, and again, you're implementing my biases here. So, in COVID, like, this is, I think, or twenty-twenty-two, I think, or 21, suddenly Shopify went down 80% of stock value, right? Like, that's a, like, again, I didn't think that was a problem because, like, I think The stock market is basically like polymarket. It's sort of a betting market on a future value, right? Like, it's like, it's not like you guys, when, when you guys are wrong, then you just bad at betting. Like, in fact, so I work on a real market value of a company, which you guys are betting on, but I don't know. So like, there's such a discrepancy from the way I see people talk about stock price and, uh, and, and how I, or have ever, or inside of companies, this is perceived.

AI assessment note: “What I love about entrepreneurship is the, is, is the level of responsibility”