The Exchanges

Q I haven't heard you talk much about your experience at KKR, but you were there like a decade. I'm curious, like, what did you learn while you were there?

A You're right. Uh, no one has ever really asked me about, uh, my time at KKR. Uh, and I was there a long time. So what did I learn? Uh, one, I learned it is extremely hard to build a real business. I think that when you think about, um, the companies that KKR will try to buy or invest in, There are businesses that have generally been around a long time and they produce a lot of profits, right? But I think that when you first get there, you think that those are just a dime a dozen and they exist all over the place. But anytime you go and study one, you realize that every business is fascinating. If you're willing to go down to the details, every single one, any business that you want to go and learn about. If you go and learn the details, you will find it fascinating. So that was one lesson, which is that every business is hard and every business is fascinating if you go deep. The second thing that this will relate to why I tried to join a tech company is that, uh, growth is extraordinarily hard to come by once you've kind of stopped growing. It is so hard to get something to move up again. It is so hard. We have gotten numb to growth rates like 20%, 40%, 80%, a hundred percent. I mean, this in any sort of day to day company outside of tech, these numbers are insane. And it's quite intoxicating when something is growing. It's so fun. And I think that one of the things that you lo…

AI assessment note: “So what did I learn? Uh, one, I learned it is extremely hard”

Q Uh, you, you, let's switch gears a little bit here. You, you work with a lot of exceptional people. What are the ways, what are the common ways that you see them self-sabotage?

A A very good friend of mine, uh, gave me a book called Ego is the Enemy, um, which it came to mind when you said this. I think that, uh, one way that folks self-sabotage is thinking your past knowledge is enough rather than treating the problem at hand like it's hard and deserves study. I think a lot of times people overly pattern match from the past, particularly in an investing business. Um, And they sort of think that they have the ability to be right because they were right before. And it's like, no, like you gotta go earn it each time. It's like thinking that because you were good at shooting threes in the past, you're gonna be good at shooting threes today. It's like, no, you gotta go do it today. It's not about what you did yesterday. And so I think that sort of having The, a belief that, uh, something is beneath them in the work, or having a belief that the past success will make it possible, I think is a self-sabotage. I think the, another thing that comes to mind is, um, management is really hard, and I think that, I think people sometimes choose to be loved rather than respected. And I think that, uh, when you, when you do that, you, you optimize for people liking you in the moment rather than respecting you in the long term. And I think that what I, what I, what I mean by that specifically is, I think all you can really do as a leader of a company is have people beli…

AI assessment note: “one way that folks self-sabotage is thinking your past knowledge is enough”

Q Well, it becomes the new baseline, right? So the new baseline is like, why would I write an essay? ChatGPT can do it for me.

A Yes. One of the best pieces of advice I got in writing was from Mike Moritz, who's obviously this beautiful writer. But he said, after you read, after you think you have a version, read it out loud. Read it out loud. See how it sounds. And he's like, most of the time you'll be horrified. And until you read it out loud and edit and edit and edit until you like how it sounds, but it really does demonstrate, you know, the quality of the thinking when you can read it out loud and feel good about it. And I think on your point, if it could be written by chat GPT, then maybe it's not that good. Maybe you should try to write something better or more insightful. And I think that, uh, The ones that I am proud of, I think probably would be harder to write by that right now, and maybe the ones that could have been written by that aren't as insightful as I thought.

AI assessment note: “if it could be written by chat GPT, then maybe it's not that good.”

Q you don't feel like doing it. I think that's almost the key to success in any domain is like doing things that are important, even if you don't feel like doing it in the moment, because you know, long-term it's important. How do you motivate yourself or how do you create a ritual around that to, to, in order to be able to do it when your willpower is lacking?

A I would segment it into different components. Cause I, I do think there are different answers for me on different things. So Let's take a physical exercise. Um, you know, some people love exercising. They love it. They, you know, it's their, they say all these wonderfully poetic words about it. I don't particularly enjoy it at all, right? I like the result of it. Um, But a lot of the willpower comes from there of, I really do want to like live a long time so I can see my kids when they're older and spend time with my grandkids and all that kind of stuff. And I want to be able to do things with them now. And I, I'm afraid of, you know, not being able to do active things with the kids. And so a lot of times I just sort of, a lot of the willpower there comes from a want to do stuff. With my kids and my family for a really long time. I love playing sports with them. I love being active with them. And frankly, it's kind of like meeting them where they are, which I know is like a little bit of a statement that doesn't really sound like it means anything, but I actually think it's a real thing, sort of like what they want to do. I kind of want to go do with them, you know, and a lot of times what they want to do is run around and I like being able to do that. And so the willpower there comes from sort of Man, you don't want to be one of those parents that can't do stuff with their kid…

AI assessment note: “a lot of the willpower comes from there of, I really do want to”

Q that a little more because you work with founders. Who live and operate in a reality-based world? Uh, they can't create their own reality. They have to deal with reality. They're in the truth business, if you will. How do you help them see reality instead of misinformation or erroneous information or getting caught up in their own beliefs or their own ideas that may or may not be true?

A I think the first thing is a lot of founders, they're different. Some of them Are amazing at that to begin with, right? That's their wiring. That's the way they are. And so frankly, with those folks, a lot of it is just making sure that you're helping get the right signals to them because by nature, they are such where, you know, they do that. There are some who I think I'm sure you've heard about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, right? I think that's actually been pretty negative overall to the like startup ecosystem, because I think that people have heard that as Steve Jobs didn't embrace reality and Steve Jobs I actually think that his was quite different. That was a representation of ambition. That was a representation of, we need to be great. And I think that that was a representation of, I'm not going to be constrained by what someone tells me can or can't happen. He still was embracing reality as to whether or not people love the product. Right. He still was embracing reality as to whether or not it was selling and things like that. And so I think that, um, I think one aspect is sort of reminding people that the Steve jobs example, which is incredible in so many ways, you kind of have to dig underneath that. The reality distortion field wasn't that he wasn't listening to market signals, right? It was that he was ambitious for his team of, we can do better. We can…

AI assessment note: “a lot of it is just making sure that you're helping get the right signals”