September 29, 2022 • 49 mins
Marc Lore founded two e-commerce startups and sold them for $550 million and $3.3 billion before spending the last five years running Walmart’s online business. Since announcing his departure from Walmart in January, Lore has been on a tear: He bought a stake in an NBA basketball team, launched an upscale food delivery business, and started a venture capital firm that’s invested in everything from a nuclear fusion energy startup to a new “stock market” for professional athletes. But all that pales compared to his passion project: A five-million-person, from-the-ground-up city called Telosa that can serve both as a showcase for new technologies and a new form of private-public governance. Can he make all of it work?
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your
host Malika Kapoor. This week Mark Lore, the former head
of Walmart's e commerce business who's turned the retailer's once
clunky website into a viable challenger to Amazon. Since leaving
Walmart in January, Mark has gone back to his entrepreneurial roots,
(00:24):
launching a venture capital firm with the baseball legend Alex Rodriguez,
buying a stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team, and,
in his most audacious project, trying to build a five
million person city from scratch under a new form of
communist capitalism. If that sounds like a lot, know that
(00:46):
Lore has been juggling multiple side hustles since he was
a teenager in New Jersey. Mark spoke to my colleague
Matthew Boyle, our senior management and workplace reporter. Here's a conversation, So, Mark,
welcome to Out of Office. It's it's it's great to
have you. Thank you happy to be here. Yeah, So, Mark,
(01:09):
I wanted to start off with UM. Usually my questions
for you were around, you know, profit margins for e commerce.
But we're gonna have a little different conversation today. Hopefully
want a little bit more expansive. Um. I was hoping
we could maybe start at at the beginning. I mean,
you were born in Staten Island and then you moved
to to Jersey Lyncroft, New Jersey. I'd love to know.
(01:29):
I mean, what are some of your most sort of
vivid memories of of growing up in Jersey. Yeah, well, um,
you know, and Staten Island was very uh it's not
a very diverse neighborhood that we grew up in. I'm
Catholic Italian and that's basically you had that in Irish Catholic,
you know, in the entire neighborhood. And for the first
(01:50):
ten years of my life, I didn't know anyone that
wasn't sort of Italian or Irish. Um, it was a
very homogeneous sort of community. Um. You know, my parents
had me when they were twenty and nineteen years old,
and and uh we lived very modest means there in
Staten Island, and uh, you know, it's just a very
uh humble beginning. I guess you can say, you know,
(02:12):
I I can relate, I think, and most of my
friends were just most of my friends were Irish and
Italian growing up in in Westchester as well in the
in the late seventies early eighties. Um. You have told
us before, though, Mark, that your your parents sort of
fought a lot. How did that impact you as a kid,
and also how did it influence sort of how you
treat others as a boss. Oh, yeah, that's funny. I've
(02:33):
never got to ask that question, but it is definitely
has influenced my leadership style. So yeah, I mean I
did did witness that a lot, a lot of fighting
and arguing and things growing up. And I was always
the I was the oldest in the family, have a
younger brother and sister. I was sort of the peacemaker
um and trying to um, you know, get both sides
(02:54):
to a common ground in a good place and keep peace.
And you know, just developed I think, you know, uh,
an extraordinary feel for people and reading people, and and
that translated into you know, having empathy and and uh.
And so I think I think I'm a little non
(03:14):
traditional when it comes to CEO leaders and things, and
that I do lead with what sort of empathy uh
as a starting place. I mean, we're hearing a lot
more about empathy these days, Mark, obviously, but most leaders
in the technology space are known more for let's say
their intensity. You know, Steve Jobs famously volatile, Bill Gates
throwing tantrums at Microsoft, and of course Jeff Bezos, you know,
(03:37):
sort of exploding at at underlings who failed to meet
his his standards. I mean, you've you're, you're kind of
known more for being more sort of even keeled um
in your approach, but even you, I mean, do you
ever fly off the handle at times? What sets you off?
I never fly off the handle, which maybe maybe it's
a fault, you know. I mean I I can take
(03:58):
a lot, absorb a lot, you know, and uh, I
always can see where where people coming from and set
you up. Sometimes you could be taking advantage of just
just because you know, you know, you could sort of
excuse any type of behavior at some at some you know,
to some extent, and so being able to, you know,
as you get older, being able to balance that and
(04:19):
know what you know, when it's it's it's truly required
you to to feel and show empathy and other times
when it's it's okay to to make some some hard
decisions that need to be made, but still being able
to do it in a in a kind way. So
Mark we often hear that people are sort of born entrepreneurs.
I mean, your life kind of illustrates that when you
(04:39):
were when you were six, you were charging family members
five cents to watch Casper, their friendly ghost on a
slide projector, and you're borrowing money from your parents to
buy stocks. As a teenager, you know, you sold your
first company to Tops, your second company to Amazon, and
then your third to to Walmart. As we all know, Um,
do you think they can entrepreneurs and be taught and
(05:00):
if so, how would you teach it? I mean, I've
thought about this a lot. I don't think you can
really teach it. But I think there are a lot
of people out there that are an entrepreneurs or didn't
know they were entrepreneurs, and they actually would make great entrepreneurs.
So a lot of it is sort of the mindset,
you know, the ability. A lot of it comes down
to the ability to to take risk and work hard
(05:21):
and and work hard and have conviction in the face
of others telling you it's a bad idea or it's
not going to work. So it's that's that's sort of tenacity,
you know. But but it's that combined with the risk
taking so, um, you have to be willing to take
risk and be able to move when you don't know
(05:41):
what step. You know, make the first step, but you
know what steps two, three, four, or five look like.
There are a lot of people that just need to
know all the steps before they engage in step one,
and that's not how entrepreneurship works. And so you have
to be that type of person that's willing to just
jump and have faith that it's going to work out
if you if you you've at it. And how do
you identify that and others? Because, as you said, some
(06:03):
people might have it, but not really No, So I'm
sure you'd love to work alongside those types of people. Um,
how do you identify Because you've obviously worked alongside several people, um,
in in many various entities throughout your career, you certainly
have a cadre of people that you feel comfortable with. Um,
what did you identify in those types of people that
(06:23):
made you say, Hey, these are people I want to
stick with. Yeah, well, I think it's a little bit
different whether you're sort of a pure founder and you're
out on your own and you have to have have
the vision, raise the capital and hire the people, and
that's like different than you know, hiring people that are entrepreneurial,
you know into a startup. Um, it's kind of two
(06:44):
different types of people. I don't think the people that
you hire in necessarily need to be as as much
of a risk taker, but they do need to be
comfortable with change and ambiguity. UM. So a lot of that.
You know, in a startup. It's not like, Okay, here's
the plan and then we just stick to it. No,
the plan. New information happens every day and you have
(07:06):
to readjust the plan according to the new information. Some
people are uncomfortable with that. Um. Um. You also have
to be um, you know comfortable uh, you know, being
scrappy and you know, not having a big organization and
be able to roll up the sleeves and do things
yourself and obviously work hard. Um. The spot spotic is
(07:27):
an acronym I use for the types of people I
think do well in startups and they're smart, passionate, optimistic.
That's a key being being positive because you have any
sort of negative. There's plenty of things to be negative
about the start up because a lot of things early
on don't seem like they're working in most cases and
then until they do work. And so you have to
be optimistic to get through that tenacity, adaptability, and then
(07:51):
kindness and empathy. Tell me about some of those the
early days that like a Quincy for example. You you
you found in Quincy, which of course is known forepers
dot com, the customer facing site, in two thousand five
and and we had our first kid in two thousand
six and another in two thousand and eight, so we
were huge customers of yours. I remember getting my diapers
(08:12):
dot my diapers dot com delivered to me at work, um,
because we couldn't get it at our house, in our
our apartment in Brooklyn. Um. I mean Quincy was really
known though, for a keen understanding of what customers wanted,
specifically parents. How did you and your team sort of
figure out in those early days what sort of personal touches,
(08:33):
what services would really resonate with with customers. Yeah, I
mean I think a lot of it was just you know, intuition, um.
And you know, I had a newborn baby actually at
that time, I had two kids. Uh. And and you know,
you go through as a parent what every parent dies,
the frustrations of trying to get all the stuff that
(08:54):
you need for for the babies and toddlers and things.
And it's not like it's not a great experiences and uh,
you know, these are commodity goods, and so it seemed
only natural that if you can deliver them, you know, timely, fast,
good prices, that there'd be a really big market for it.
The problem was you couldn't make money doing it, um
and that was sort of the catch and why it
(09:14):
had not been done until diapers dot com. But we've
viewed it as you know, diapers were a lost leader
for brick and mortar to drive traffic and parents into
the stores to buy everything else. While on the internet,
if you can drive people to the store to buy
everything else, it's literally everything else, that's just the hundred
thousand products in the store. So actually you could afford
(09:36):
to lose more money. That was the high level thesis
and it proved proved out um, but a lot of
it was not. It wasn't if you ask customers what
they want, they often don't know until you show it
to them. And so a little bit is just taking
a leap and uh and and pivoting if if need be.
How did you come up like but I remember that
(09:57):
you have like thirty seven thirty seven different types of boxes. Right.
Was that a quitcy or was that a jed? I
forget which one, but that was a quizy, right, So
you know that's involves a lot of analysis, I imagine,
and you've you've always been a numbers guy for sure,
but um, you know, how did you think it's sort
of come up with something like that, or how did
you figure out, Okay, this is really what's gonna matter,
(10:17):
this is one of the things that might move. Yes,
it's a commodity of a little margin business, and we
wanted to have a competitive advantage. And so how do
you you know, uh, you eke out a little margin
here and there, and we're shipping these diapers and these
big boxes diapers and wipes and things, and you're paying
ups and fed x more for empty space in the box,
(10:38):
and you're paying more for the core get the boxes bigger,
and so we saw an opportunity to save considerable amount
of money to get the optimal sized box with as
little air as possible and a little as core get
as possible. And there was significant savings to do that,
both in shipping and packaging, and so and so Yeah,
so we really invested in the analytics to sort of,
(10:58):
um build these algorie of them is to figure out
what we called it box and how to how to
box a certain set of items and the smallest box possible,
and then to have all those boxes available in whereas
a lesson that some some other e commerce companies could
still maybe learn here. Um Mark, you once told this
that you were obsessed with Amazon's culture, but you certainly
(11:19):
didn't adopt all of their practices at the companies you
you founded. What elements of their culture do you think
worked or did you maybe want to incorporate and which
ones did you really want to sort of avoid? Yeah,
I mean I wasn't you know, it didn't The culture
didn't really resonate with me too much because of what
you said before, sort of the softer the softer side
(11:42):
of things and being kindness and skills like that. We're not,
uh what kind of look down upon Um. I think
that that the key it really came to. It wasn't
that people weren't necessarily kind of empathetic maybe in their
day to day life, but I think in terms of
the business culture, it was one that felt like social
cohesion got to the wrong answer that if if you
(12:04):
basically treated people will kind of empathetic in a group setting,
that you'll lead to a suboptimal decision um, which may
be the case, like if you look at it purely
on that specific decision, but if you take a step
back and think about the broader implications of the culture,
the types of people and the talent you're able to
recruit there, and you know how people feel. I think
(12:27):
if you want to get the best out of people,
you want them to be happy and really feel safe
to bring their their best to work every day, and
so maybe you get better decisions made on a decision
by decision basis, but you're not. You don't get the
best that people have to give because they don't feel safe.
So it's a little bit I mean, you can make
an argument on both sides. I'm in more of the
(12:48):
social cohesion camp um and the sort of long term
investing in people, But I don't say that when it
comes to culture, there's really no wrong answer if the
culture is consistent. The worst type of culture is inconsistent,
Like one day your social casion, the next day you're
not social region people. You don't then then who do
you hire? Do you hire this person that either person
(13:10):
will be unhappy. Amazon was able to create a very
consistent culture where they were able to hire people that
worked really well in that in that system, and so
that's why I think they've they've done well. But it's
not a system or culture that I would choose necessarily.
And I haven't you talk about culture being consistent though, Mark,
I mean, obviously the pandemic has made that a lot
(13:32):
harder to maintain a consistent culture. And there's ongoing pretty
fierce debates right now around the you know the impact
of remote work, and many managers and ceo say that
a more remote workforce hurts culture by making it harder
to you know, mentor new employees, or people lose those
informal connections around the water cooler, that cohesion you speak of.
(13:53):
But there's plenty of research that says remote workers are
just as productive, if not more often more engaged, particular
really women, parents, and underrepresented minorities when they're working remotely. Um,
what I mean, what's your take? Where do you come
down on the debate over remote work? And and again,
you know, repercussions that can have on the consistency of
(14:14):
a culture. Yeah, I think. I mean, I've always believed
in giving people the flexibility if they can't make it
in the office for whatever reason on a particular day
or day of the week or things, you know, they
have family obligations or things like that. I think that's always,
you know, the right answer when it comes to just generally,
you know, this idea of of work from home, you
(14:36):
can you can have a similar culture. I don't. I
don't believe in that. I do think there's magic when
everybody's in the same place, feeding off each other's energy,
you're building relationships. I think I've seen numerous situations where
people have have left companies, um, simply because they hadn't
built a relationship with their leader and you know, because
(14:59):
they've been remote, and you sort of like forget how
important those relationships are. Because many times people um, you know,
stay in a company and want to give the best
they've got because they really respect and believe in their leader. Um.
And if if you don't have you know, quality time
with that person on a day to day basis in person,
(15:20):
it's very hard to develop that type of relationship and
that type of loyalty that comes with it. So what
I'm seeing is people seem to be much more flighty
in terms of moving company to company because there isn't
that um camaraderie and that sort of uh sense of
purpose and and belonging that happens when when everyone's together
in the trenches together. What were your first impressions of
(15:43):
a big corporate culture you were part of Mark Walmart's um,
you know, when you arrive there, what did you make
of it? I've always kind of wanted to ask you this,
and you may have been a bit limited before and
being able to answer, But what were your, you know,
your real first impressions of of Walmart's corporate culture and
did you think you were able to change it even
incrementally in the in the years you spent there. I mean,
(16:05):
I like to believe that, you know, it wasn't just me,
but the whole Jet team infused in did did have
a positive impact on the culture. I think, you know,
what I learned and I think some of the team
members as well, is how incredible, um uh the folks
at Walmart art and operating you know, like just absolute
like maniacal focus on the details and operating the business
(16:30):
and day in and day out delivering Um. Uh that
that's really hard to do, and it's it's it was.
It was great to see those types of operators in action,
because in startup land you don't really typically get those
types of people to join. You get more entrepreneurial and
more strategic vision, every kind of thinkers and uh. And
(16:51):
it was great to see the other side because I
think that you know, where I come from now is
a place of really needing to combine you know, both
what upen though when there was a clash, when there
was a clash between the operating focus the operating culture
of Walmart and you know, you're more entrepreneurial bent. I
mean sometimes you could find middle ground, but you were
making many just you know, lots of decisions at the
(17:12):
same time, a lot of money at stake, obviously a
huge competitor, many huge competitors an e commerce. You had
to move fast. Um. You know, were there times when
there were culture clashes you felt over there and how
did you try to resolve them? Yeah? I mean they're
definitely culture clashes, There's there's no question. Um. But I
think it's it's it's true diversity of thought, you know. Um,
(17:35):
and I think, you know, despite the clashes and things,
I think there was mutual respect. UM. You know both ways.
You know that you know being able to um. You know.
I think educate somewhat the people, the folks at Walmart
around this notion of you know, low probability bet with
(17:58):
a big outcome. Um, if you do, lots of those
good things are gonna happen. Big things are going to happen.
As opposed to, you know, the operating mindset is, let's
let's do everything with a nine plus percent probability success
and make incremental improvements. And if you have a really
high probability is making an incremental improvement that seems like
a no brainer. Great, But I equally think it's a
(18:21):
no brainer to take a something that has a shot
at working that will be a hundred x. And that's
a little bit of a different mindset because I think
the operating mindset is chance forgetting wait wait wait wait,
but it's a hundred x. You know, it's that's that's
a very different way of thinking. And I think at
the end of the day, I learned a ton from
the operating mindset. Hopefully the operating mindset learn learn something
(18:46):
from from our team, and I do think we that
that diversity of thinking help get Walmart you to where
it is. I'd like to believe that. Can you give
us an example of one of those little probability bets
you made at Walmart with the potential hundred pay out,
something that uh you recall from your years there, Yeah,
I mean things that didn't work, but I could tell
(19:09):
you like we did Jet Black. Yeah, I wasna I
was gonna mention that, Yeah, which was you know, low
probability thing has I think that is still that Conversational
commerce is the future of of retail that you know,
fast forward twenty years from now. Um, I think search
engines will be something that will will sort of laugh
about things move tend to move slower in retails, So
(19:30):
maybe it's a little bit longer than twenty years, but
at some point in the future, people will be using voice,
primarily in text, to have a conversation about what they
want to buy and the attributes still looking for without
having to to to search something and scroll through you know,
thousands thousand different toasters and read the reviews and things
to try to figure out what toast do you want
to buy? I don't, I don't see that happening. So
(19:52):
I think I think that was one of those uh
Lott probability that's that didn't work out. I'm I was
still waiting for it. I was very offended. I never
got my invitation to join Jet Black. So you know, UM,
maybe I wasn't the target audience. But I mean, Mark,
you obviously had so many ideas as you were growing
to going towards the end of your of your tenure
(20:14):
at Walmart, that we were frantically trying to report on.
But I mean, all of a sudden, then you you
decide to to leave Walmart, you know, still a strategic
advisor of course, but leaving your full time role as
head of the USC e commerce. But you did so
in the in the middle of a pandemic, which of
course nobody could have foreseen. Um, how did that sort
of impact your your plans, your exit, your ability to
(20:36):
do what you wanted to do, because obviously you have
plenty of things cooking right now, But um, how did
the pandemic um and it's impact on the economy and
just sort of how we go about business. Um, you know,
change your sort of you know, your your exit strategy
there from Walmart. Well, the business. You know, Uh, COVID
was a tailwind for for the business and eCOM people
(20:58):
you know, buying more online, so the business was doing well. Um.
More importantly, I felt like we had the right organizational
structure set up. So it took a number of years
to get to the to the right structure of merging
the brick and mortar. The e consil was one business,
one set of merchants, um, and that was really the
most important piece. I felt like the organization was in
(21:18):
a really good spot and didn't make sense to have
to have two leaders. And John Furner was there and
he has a really strong you know background in in
in tech product and felt like, you know, he would
be a great leader to to bring both together. And
I felt like my job was sort of done. Um
I'd been there almost four and a half years, and uh,
(21:39):
I felt like, you know, the walmant was in a
good spot. So now, you, I mean, Mark, You've got
so many plates spinning at at once. Right now, You've
You've got wonder the food delivery and meal kit thing.
You've got your building a five million person city from
from scratch. You've got your VC firm, you co owned
the Timber Wolves and the w NBA's links. I mean,
(22:03):
talk us through a lot of people who listen to
this podcast to have a lot of plates spinning. Maybe
not as many as you or as as big a
plates as you, but you know, how do you prioritize? Um?
You know, how do you manage your day? Yeah, it's like, UM,
I think the key is I outsource everything that's not
basically one of those four things or or relationships, you
(22:26):
know kind of stuff. But uh, but you know, if
you sleep, I sleep eight hours a day, so that's
that leaves sixteen hours. You know, if you're basically you know,
not doing the things that during the day that people
do that take time. Um, you actually have a lot
of time to focus on the things that that you
(22:47):
really want to focus on. And so I've made it
a point to outsource anything and everything possible, and I've
got a great team that helps me do that, um
to free me up. So let's talk about I mean
the city you're building. I mean we did a big
story of it, uh not long ago. I mean when
you think about building a city versus building a company,
(23:07):
obviously a bigger challenge, a different challenge, but do you
approach do you approach some things in the same way
or what's different. Yeah, I mean, so obviously never built
a city before, so you know, I can't say this
is the right strategy neither. But you know, I think
most of the cities that you kind of see start
off really there their real estate projects and their for
(23:29):
profit motives, and I think we wanted to approach it
from a little different angle. And it's it's really you know,
the name of the city's Telosa, and we started a
community foundation and Toulosa Community Foundation. We're coming at it
from a different angle. It's not about about the real
estate project. It's about starting with people at the center
and trying to UM, trying out a new model for
(23:51):
society basically that we think has a shot to be
better than the one we have UM and so our
mission is to create a more equitable sustain the future.
Like that's sort of the starting point. So it's very
similar to a startup. You start with a mission, you
have your vision, you have your set of values UM,
and then you build the culture and figure out who
you are, what you stand for, what you want to be,
(24:13):
and then everything else falls in place. So it's you know,
to my knowledge, there aren't. You know, there's a city
out there that really started with mission, vision, values and culture. First.
You said, though, Mark, that you want to build sort
of this new kind of institution because people have lost
faith in government and there's no doubt about that. Um.
But according to the most recent trust barometer from from Edelman,
(24:36):
I mean we don't. People don't really trust businesses business
leaders that much either anymore. I mean there's this whole
um pandemic of mistrust. So you know, in your opinion,
how can American businesses regain some of that trust? And
you're a businessman, I mean, what's your how do you
do it? What do you think needs to happen here.
One of the reasons why we set this up as
(24:58):
a as a as a charity, not not for profit
foundation is I think it's really important that you know,
I personally have no financial stake whatsoever in the success
of the city that is surely acting in the best
interest of of the citizens and the people that live there. Um.
(25:18):
I think if there if there were a financial motive
tied to it or some benefit, I think that's where
the distrust comes. You know. I think with corporations, they
are in the business of making profit for their shareholders.
And so I think there's an inherent dis trust in
that that, you know, are they doing it for profit
or are they doing it for social good? And that's
(25:38):
a fine line to walk here. There's no line to
walk where it's all you know, social good project. And uh,
I think hopefully that will garner garner more trust. Um.
Also the way we're approaching it, you know, I think
there's a divide, like you said, in this country about
what to do. We know that there's there's an issue
and that that the you know, uh, the country is divided,
(26:00):
and how do you how do you bring both sides together?
And I think we've got a shot here. Um. I
think capitalism, Um, you know, I believe in capitalism is
a great economic model, but it comes with its flaws.
And you know, one of the one of the primary
flaws that we were sort of want one of the
flaws we sort of closed that that gap was and
(26:21):
I trust um competition. You know, in in the past, Um,
you know, you were able to have a monopoly and
basically that was bad for customers and that was bad
for employees. And the government said, wait, we need to
have some And I trust we can't have monopolies. We
need to have competition for capitalism to work well. So
(26:42):
so we sort of fixed that that that gap, and
that made a big difference. I still think there's another
another problem, and that's the gap that we're trying to close,
which is you know, land ownership um and and the
fact that you know, land ownership is essentially um you know,
so that's island monopoly. There's a finite amount of land,
(27:03):
and you can own a piece of land and literally
do nothing, um and And as as people move into
the community and give land value, it appreciates. And my
thinking was, what if we took land that was worthless
in the desert, absolutely worthless, and we had the foundation
by this land, if we can get five million people
(27:24):
to move there, um and create a viable, you know, city,
that that land would be worth close to a trillion
dollars in value, and and that value would accrue to
the foundation, and the foundation's mission would be to take
that create an endowment earned fifty billion dollars a year
and give it back to the citizens in the form
(27:44):
of advanced social services, whether it be healthcare, education, affordable housing, jobs, training.
And that's really the best of both worlds because you
without having to increase taxes, you're able to have this
incredible uh social system and and sort of foundation for
people to sort of uh and create this this this
more equitable base. Um. And then of course once the
(28:08):
land rapidly appreciates to be worth the trillion, then sure
then the foundation could sell the land off. It's not
meant to be the land can't be owned by anyone.
But the idea is that that that initial step change
in appreciation from being worthless to being a city is
where all this this value capture of that appreciation comes
(28:30):
back to the foundation of the people as opposed to
you know, um, you know, five million people moving to
to a place that's owned by people and the lands worthless,
and and the land goes up in value with worth
a trillion dollars, and those people that own the land
didn't necessarily have to do anything to give land its value.
And so I just just a slight tweak there. I'm
(28:51):
not suggesting people shouldn't own land, or the government should
own land or anything like that. This is not meant
meant to be anything in the way of even approaching socialism.
It's capitalism at its best. It is. It is a
foundation buying the land, helping five million people move there
because the foundation will give the money and the appreciation
(29:11):
that the five million people bring back to them. That's it.
You mentioned Mark, this happening in the desert. Have you
settled is it going to be Nevada in terms of
where this will end up? You haven't settled on it yet,
but it does seem to be, uh, you know, one
of the one of the high priority places just because
of the land value and also the laws to be
able to move fast and to to build in a
(29:33):
way that um are there still regulatory or legal hurdles there?
I mean Nevada seemed the most promising, but there were
still some hurdles. Last Yeah, oh, there's so many hurdles. Yeah,
name name one, give me one you're working on now.
I mean, water, for example in the desert is definitely
you know, there's there's uh, that's a that's a big
(29:53):
issue and so you know, one of the things we're
doing there and this again will benefit hopefully other other
cities and countries and things. But figuring out how we
could without limiting people's use of water actually a huge
less water per person um by the way we capture
it and recycle it. And a lot of that technology
(30:15):
I think is is uh, it's something that will want
to we want to test and use and learn from
in other cities. So there have been other attempts at this.
What have you learned from those prior attempts that may
have What we've learned is a couple of things. One,
anytime you want to put the city up as an
edge city against bumping up against another city where a
(30:35):
population center exists, there's there's going to be opposition, you know,
as opposed to going in the desert where it's a
clean slate and there's you know, there's obviously still issues
and environmental issues and things like that. But but if
there's no people around, I think it makes it easier.
So that's that's one big hurdle. The second is um
not leading with technology. I think a lot of these
(30:57):
cities lead with technology and it sounds great, but um,
you know, at the end of the day, like any
any great city is great because it has soul, um
and because it stands for something, It has a culture,
it has you know, and so how do we start
again with people at the center, with a set of
values and a culture and give the city soul and
(31:19):
use technology in the background to make things more efficient,
but not lead with it, and certainly not UM because
that technology is sort of cold, you know. Uh, if
you just sort of like lead with it, I think
on on its own. But but obviously technology can make
things more efficient, and so when it comes to public
transportation and things like that, it could be, you know,
(31:41):
a lot more efficient. But you don't. I don't. I
don't think you wanted to be UM high techiccy you
lose the field and the soul. So Mark, I asked
you earlier about sort of how you playing your day
and such, and in the sixteen hours that you have,
do you leave time in the day just sort of
free to think about new, tough, new ideas or is
there just not enough time for that? I always hate
(32:04):
admitting this because you know, I don't. You know, I don't.
I don't really read UM and I think I find
you know, I've tried to read, and I'm I think
it's interesting. But the amount of time it takes to
read a book, UM, the amount of thinking that could
could happen during that same time. I always choose the thinking.
(32:24):
And so maybe at a time when when when when
others would be reading a book or a newspaper or
or magazine or online I'm thinking so I do spend
quite a bit of time thinking UM to try and
stitch everything together. And I'm not against reading UM. And
I prefer to talk to people and meet people and
(32:45):
sort of you know, um, you know, learn learn from
just asking questions, and it's stitching things together. Is there
an idea you've had recently marked that you've maybe just
sort of tucked away save for later. I mean, I've
done a lot of things since I since I left
Wall start everything from conversational comments we talked about that,
this wizard start up. Yeah, I've probably time to get
(33:06):
into all the different things, but I've done I've done
most of them. I do think there's still a really
big opportunity in healthcare. That's uh, that's just this this
idea of preventative medicine and and people taking control of
their health UM and and there's a lot of um,
you know, ways for people now in their own home
to get more data, information and metrics about their health
(33:28):
UM on a regular basis. And and I think there
will be a future where that's all kept and uploaded
in you into into one central location and machine learning,
and people are able to to know, um, you know,
in many cases things that maybe their doctors don't even
know in terms of what's happening, you know, when when
you piece everything together, your your blood work and your
(33:50):
and your pulse and your oxygen levels and your breathing
at night and all these different different pieces and to
be able to get ahead of and prevent um disease. So, Mark,
I gotta ask you about the metaverse. I mean, it's
all we hear about these days. Everyone has an opinion
on it. You know, what what's yours? What is the metaverse?
And you're in your eyes? What is it for um?
(34:11):
And how do you you know we're we're the biggest opportunities.
It's probably the better question. Yeah, I mean, you know,
sometimes it's it's it's hard to relate, you know, when
it's a you know, it's a generational thing. Um. You know,
it's it's sort of like if if there's a lot
of people I know that just they saying, oh, metaverse,
and they just sort of pushed away at I don't
I don't know that sounds that sounds outrageous, you know,
(34:33):
this idea crypto or something yeah, like crypto or you
just get it away, you know. And I think those
are the kinds of things you have to be open
to it and and embrace because, um, whether you like
it or not, it's coming. And uh, I think the
the idea of you know, augmented reality is going to
really accelerate this, this this idea of the metaverse because
(34:55):
this idea of or even n f T s digital goods. Right,
you know that digital goods are really hot now. People
are are buying and paying outrageous sums of money for
you know, digital baseball cards, digital videos, digital art um
and people don't understand it. But what's gonna happen is
there's going to be a point in the future where
(35:16):
people are wearing you know, what looks like ordinary uh,
glasses that have embedded augmented reality in it that allows
you to see digital objects overlaid in the real world.
And so you could be walking down the street and
with these glasses on and see somebody wearing a digital
handbag or a digital pair of sneakers, and that gives
(35:40):
those items value because of the prestige that's associated with it, right,
I mean, I mean when it comes to fashion and
things like that, or art, it's all it's all about
scarcity and and and and prestige and things like you know,
why why is it? You know, the exact same handbag
is Gucci without the Gucci label on it worth you know,
(36:01):
a fraction of the price that people that the brands matter.
And I think the same thing is going to happen
with these digital goods, where people will would be wearing
these glasses and you can go into an office building
and see a beautiful piece of digital art on the wall.
How far away? How far away mark do you think
we are from this augmented reality? I mean, I think
there's already you know, we have the capability of event now,
(36:24):
but it takes a while for it to be mainstream.
And I think the technology outpaces you know probably um,
you know, people's ability to adopt it. I think the
adoption curve is going to be very slow, and then
it'll start to accelerate. And and probably I would say,
you know, maybe ten years from now, if I had,
(36:48):
you know, ten years from now, it will start to
feel like people will really get it, like people will
be wearing glasses. Not everyone, but enough people that people
will will recognize that, Yeah, this is this is really
the future UM in ten years markets. Besides conversational commerce,
which you've talked a lot about at Walmart and now
currently UM, how else do you think retail and any
(37:09):
commerce will be different ten years from now UM versus today.
So it's conversational commerce form one, and I think the
other is sort of this social commerce, this idea of
this sort of creator economy where where anyone could be
a retailer. You know, so if you've got a if
you've got a TikTok or Instagram or whatever social media
(37:31):
platform you're on, you could like certain brands and very
easily create a video of these brands that people could
shop from, and you make revenue. You know. This idea
of people building their own marketplace is using using using
tools UM to do it. UM. I think that so
it becomes much more fragmented the retail market in the future.
(37:55):
And who do you think, I mean, do you think
companies like Walmart's UM Target will be in the lead
there or do you think, well, you know, we'll see
a new era of companies we've never even maybe thought
much about that maybe more inclined or a tune to
social commerce versus traditional brick and mortar and last mile stuff. Yeah,
I mean I think the company has already engaged in
(38:19):
social media. Now I think have an advantage, um, you know,
just because they've got the platform and they've got the
people on there. I think I just invested in on
a stake in a company called now With which is
building this platform and these tools, and I think there
are other companies as well doing it. I think, um,
those companies will be the accelerant. But but ultimately, UM,
(38:40):
I think there's there's there's a high probability that the
companies are already in social media, um would would be
in the best position to leverage that technology. Mark, a
few minutes ago, you said you'd rather be out meeting
people than let's say, you know, reading a management book. Um,
when you go out and people, I'm sure they asked
(39:01):
for your advice, but you I imagine you often asked
people for their advice. So I asked this of everyone
I interview, Mark, what's the best piece of advice you
ever received, who gave it to you? And and you know,
how have you acted on it? It's funny, it wasn't
It wasn't so direct, I guess in terms of like
the advice as you you typically would I would hear it.
But my my grandfather, I called him Big Pop. Um.
(39:24):
He was had a big influence on my life growing up. Um.
He was the antithesis of sort of the family that
I had, you know, grown up with my parents fighting
and things. He was very um uh you know, uh
kind and empathetic and um it was so incredibly grateful
(39:45):
for his life. He he grew up, you know, came
from Italy and and and and worked as a as
a as a tailor for a while, and then and
then worked for the city you know lane railroad tracks
for his entire life, and said he had the best
job in the world. It was like working twelve to
one in an hour for lunch. Um and uh. He
used to say how he was the richest guy in
(40:05):
the world. And he would count all his daughters and
grandchildren as a million bucks, you know, a million here,
two million, three, who's got it better than me? And
so it wasn't necessarily you know, advice in the traditional sense,
but that really stuck with me, you know. Um. And
what was it that that made him, you know, so
grateful and so giving and so appreciative of his life
(40:26):
even though you know, by by by anyone's you know,
standard definition of success, he wouldn't have been very successful
at all. Um. And so that that advice, that you know,
indirect advice there is is something that's really stuck with
me and really really drives me. And I think about
it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, my my dad tells me
about how my my his dad, my grandfather. Yeah, I
(40:48):
was a milkman in Brooklyn, and you know he would
company would come out with a smile on his face. Um,
you know that's so Mark. I mean, I gotta ask, Mark,
I'm a big New York Mets fan. You try to
buy my favorite team, Um, Steve Cohen got them instead?
What do you think about the job he's doing so far?
I gotta ask, is it? I think I would I
(41:09):
would do it a little differently. Maybe that's the way
the way to say it. I mean, And I think
Alex and I are doing it with the Timberwolves. Now,
it's you know, before you start making moves, you know,
And this is something I just learned and kind of
got whacked on the head many times for making making
moves first and then doing the foundational work. And so
(41:31):
I think it's always best to do the foundational work first,
which is like before you hire fire do anything, figure
out what exactly is the mission of this organization. What
do we stand for? What does U set of values?
What is the culture that we want to build? What
are the attributes of the people that we want in
the organization? Because you need to kind of have that
(41:51):
roadmap so then you can assess the people you have
whether they're good fit, and then new people whether they're fit,
so that you can build the right culture. And then
and then also what is the vision, like what do
you where do you want to be in ten or
twenty years? What's the strategy to get there? What do
the success look like? What are the metrics like? Get
that foundational work in place, communicated to the organization so
(42:13):
that every move you make makes sense to the outside world,
to the inside world, to everyone. Um and you know,
from what I can see, again I haven't been close
to it, it seems like a lot of moves have
been made very quickly. Now they may have done the
foundational work, um, but my my, you know, I think
it usually takes a lot longer to do that work.
(42:35):
You know, it's a it's a twelve twelve week you
much patients. Uh, as Mets fans, they don't have much
pace now, and so so maybe maybe that's what you know,
inspired inspired him to take action. Is the is the
sense of urgency that it's been a long time and
the fans are putting a lot of pressure. But um,
we don't have that same pressure necessarily in Minnesota. But uh,
(42:56):
but I do think, um, you know that that it's
doing that heavy, heavy hard work and heavy lifting up front,
we'll pay huge dividends in the future. Um. So you
mentioned Alex, Um we might know him, our listeners probably
know him better as a rod Um. Just to make
sure we all know we're talking about here. And what
(43:18):
what have you learned from from Alex? And what do
you think he's learned from you? As you guys are
now sort of you know, famous partners on several things. Yeah, well,
I mean I've really enjoyed getting to know Alex and
and uh we share a some common set of values.
You know, we grew up in a similar way. Um,
have a similar set of values, but we have a
very different approach problems from you know, a different way
(43:41):
of thinking. His experience, you know, as one of one
of the best players of all time. UM, you know,
is been incredibly valuable UM to me and to the
team in terms of UM, you know, being able to
really relate to the players and how they're feeling and
thinking and in ways that are super insightful that there's
(44:02):
no way you would know that unless you've been in
a clubhouse and been there and how management, GM the
owners are perceived things that that you can do, that
players appreciate things that that they wouldn't And it's that
deep insight that's been been really helpful. And you know,
I'm sort of bringing that all the experience I have
(44:23):
in the startup land to put in a place this
foundation of vision capital people b c P as I
call it UM and doing doing that that heavy lifting
to get get the foundation strong. And I think the
combination of Alex and I make a good team. Yeah.
Can I ask quickly about the market? I mean it's
it's kind of tanking at the at the moment this
(44:44):
week is is is Jeremy Grantham right? Has the stock markets? Uh?
You know, have we peaked? Where? And where where do
you place your bets? Mark? As an investor, um, and
if we are in a dip. Um. You know, before
my life as an entrepreneur, I was in financial risk
management and I started in investing in stocks in seventh grade.
(45:05):
So like my my m as much as I'm an entrepreneur,
I love I love the stock market and and you know,
follow it pretty closely. And uh, I I've been through
so many crashes, you know, you know, in my in
in my life, like big ones, you know, like everything
from seven you know to two thousand, two thousand, and
(45:28):
people that you know got into the market. I guess
after two thousand, it's been it's been an incredible run,
um the last fourteen years. And uh and I'm I
guess I just have that Um they've been through, been
through a number of them where it always seems to
happen when things look like they can't they can't, like
(45:48):
nothing's gonna stop it. Something stops it. And by all
historic accounts, the stock market is is top heavy and
over value, especially in certain sectors. And so I've been
a little bit you know, um gun shy in getting
getting into the market. Um. It's not to say it's
gonna crash, but I do think there are some warning signs,
(46:09):
you know, the things we're seeing with with inflation, UM
and and everything we've done with monetary policy throughout COVID.
I think the bubble that we're seeing in in in
physical assets and crypto things like that, they don't necessarily
have the same level of intrinsic value exposed the market
and give us give more risks there, especially especially how
(46:31):
wide and for reaching UM some of those UM investments
and things like crypto go. It's not just a small
group anymore, it's it's very mass that concerns me. And
so I am not Uh, I'm not necessarily going to
jump in and short the market, but I'm also not
feeling comfortable being along either. Yeah, what about your investments
(46:53):
at VCP. I mean if the if the appetite for
I P O s is lessened, how does that impact
and influence you know, the decisions you're going to make
as ahead of a fund there. Yeah, in markets and cycles,
so we're starting from the ground, you know, and getting
in at very modest valuations, you know, less than twenty
million valuation and take some number of years before uh,
(47:15):
these companies are worth hundreds of millions or billions of
dollars and so you know, in some ways, it may
be the best time to be getting into startups now,
because you know, in five years from now, we could
be you know, at the bottom or in the upswing.
You know. I think the worst place to be right
now would be sort of you know pre I p
o in my mind, you know, just because of how
(47:37):
how unstable the market is at this moment. So now
I feel great, I think, I think, I think getting
into startups and starting from scratch today's is a sort
of perfect place to be. I gotta ask one question
about food, if I if I can. I mean, obviously
one of your businesses is very much centered around, uh,
you know, high end food, bringing restaurant quality food um
(47:58):
via via trucks and to people's homes and delivery. Um
give me an, what's your favorite Italian restaurant in the
city or in Jersey? I would say I would say
Angelicas in Seabright, New Jersey. Okay, why that The food
is the Italian food is just incredible. And anybody who
(48:19):
who's hearing this that's been there knows what I'm talking about.
The food is is out of this world and we
fortunately just just partnered with them. Um on wonder. So
that's exciting to go to bring that quality Italian food
to Maybe we can break bread there one day or
one of the good spots up here in uh in
Harrison as well, Mark, thanks so much for coming to
(48:41):
speak to us on out of Office. I really enjoyed it.
Same here. I really enjoyed this chat too, and I
hope you did. That was Mark Lauren conversation with my
colleague Matthew Boyle. Remember you can check out more episodes
of Out of Office on Spotify, Apple Podcast, The bloom
Book termin and Bloomberg dot Com. This episode was produced
(49:03):
by Yang Yang. I'm Alika Kapoor. As always, thank you
for listening.
Hello, and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your
host Malika Kapoor. This week Mark Lore, the former head
of Walmart's e commerce business who's turned the retailer's once
clunky website into a viable challenger to Amazon. Since leaving
Walmart in January, Mark has gone back to his entrepreneurial roots,
(00:24):
launching a venture capital firm with the baseball legend Alex Rodriguez,
buying a stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team, and,
in his most audacious project, trying to build a five
million person city from scratch under a new form of
communist capitalism. If that sounds like a lot, know that
(00:46):
Lore has been juggling multiple side hustles since he was
a teenager in New Jersey. Mark spoke to my colleague
Matthew Boyle, our senior management and workplace reporter. Here's a conversation, So, Mark,
welcome to Out of Office. It's it's it's great to
have you. Thank you happy to be here. Yeah, So, Mark,
(01:09):
I wanted to start off with UM. Usually my questions
for you were around, you know, profit margins for e commerce.
But we're gonna have a little different conversation today. Hopefully
want a little bit more expansive. Um. I was hoping
we could maybe start at at the beginning. I mean,
you were born in Staten Island and then you moved
to to Jersey Lyncroft, New Jersey. I'd love to know.
(01:29):
I mean, what are some of your most sort of
vivid memories of of growing up in Jersey. Yeah, well, um,
you know, and Staten Island was very uh it's not
a very diverse neighborhood that we grew up in. I'm
Catholic Italian and that's basically you had that in Irish Catholic,
you know, in the entire neighborhood. And for the first
(01:50):
ten years of my life, I didn't know anyone that
wasn't sort of Italian or Irish. Um, it was a
very homogeneous sort of community. Um. You know, my parents
had me when they were twenty and nineteen years old,
and and uh we lived very modest means there in
Staten Island, and uh, you know, it's just a very
uh humble beginning. I guess you can say, you know,
(02:12):
I I can relate, I think, and most of my
friends were just most of my friends were Irish and
Italian growing up in in Westchester as well in the
in the late seventies early eighties. Um. You have told
us before, though, Mark, that your your parents sort of
fought a lot. How did that impact you as a kid,
and also how did it influence sort of how you
treat others as a boss. Oh, yeah, that's funny. I've
(02:33):
never got to ask that question, but it is definitely
has influenced my leadership style. So yeah, I mean I
did did witness that a lot, a lot of fighting
and arguing and things growing up. And I was always
the I was the oldest in the family, have a
younger brother and sister. I was sort of the peacemaker
um and trying to um, you know, get both sides
(02:54):
to a common ground in a good place and keep peace.
And you know, just developed I think, you know, uh,
an extraordinary feel for people and reading people, and and
that translated into you know, having empathy and and uh.
And so I think I think I'm a little non
(03:14):
traditional when it comes to CEO leaders and things, and
that I do lead with what sort of empathy uh
as a starting place. I mean, we're hearing a lot
more about empathy these days, Mark, obviously, but most leaders
in the technology space are known more for let's say
their intensity. You know, Steve Jobs famously volatile, Bill Gates
throwing tantrums at Microsoft, and of course Jeff Bezos, you know,
(03:37):
sort of exploding at at underlings who failed to meet
his his standards. I mean, you've you're, you're kind of
known more for being more sort of even keeled um
in your approach, but even you, I mean, do you
ever fly off the handle at times? What sets you off?
I never fly off the handle, which maybe maybe it's
a fault, you know. I mean I I can take
(03:58):
a lot, absorb a lot, you know, and uh, I
always can see where where people coming from and set
you up. Sometimes you could be taking advantage of just
just because you know, you know, you could sort of
excuse any type of behavior at some at some you know,
to some extent, and so being able to, you know,
as you get older, being able to balance that and
(04:19):
know what you know, when it's it's it's truly required
you to to feel and show empathy and other times
when it's it's okay to to make some some hard
decisions that need to be made, but still being able
to do it in a in a kind way. So
Mark we often hear that people are sort of born entrepreneurs.
I mean, your life kind of illustrates that when you
(04:39):
were when you were six, you were charging family members
five cents to watch Casper, their friendly ghost on a
slide projector, and you're borrowing money from your parents to
buy stocks. As a teenager, you know, you sold your
first company to Tops, your second company to Amazon, and
then your third to to Walmart. As we all know, Um,
do you think they can entrepreneurs and be taught and
(05:00):
if so, how would you teach it? I mean, I've
thought about this a lot. I don't think you can
really teach it. But I think there are a lot
of people out there that are an entrepreneurs or didn't
know they were entrepreneurs, and they actually would make great entrepreneurs.
So a lot of it is sort of the mindset,
you know, the ability. A lot of it comes down
to the ability to to take risk and work hard
(05:21):
and and work hard and have conviction in the face
of others telling you it's a bad idea or it's
not going to work. So it's that's that's sort of tenacity,
you know. But but it's that combined with the risk
taking so, um, you have to be willing to take
risk and be able to move when you don't know
(05:41):
what step. You know, make the first step, but you
know what steps two, three, four, or five look like.
There are a lot of people that just need to
know all the steps before they engage in step one,
and that's not how entrepreneurship works. And so you have
to be that type of person that's willing to just
jump and have faith that it's going to work out
if you if you you've at it. And how do
you identify that and others? Because, as you said, some
(06:03):
people might have it, but not really No, So I'm
sure you'd love to work alongside those types of people. Um,
how do you identify Because you've obviously worked alongside several people, um,
in in many various entities throughout your career, you certainly
have a cadre of people that you feel comfortable with. Um,
what did you identify in those types of people that
(06:23):
made you say, Hey, these are people I want to
stick with. Yeah, well, I think it's a little bit
different whether you're sort of a pure founder and you're
out on your own and you have to have have
the vision, raise the capital and hire the people, and
that's like different than you know, hiring people that are entrepreneurial,
you know into a startup. Um, it's kind of two
(06:44):
different types of people. I don't think the people that
you hire in necessarily need to be as as much
of a risk taker, but they do need to be
comfortable with change and ambiguity. UM. So a lot of that.
You know, in a startup. It's not like, Okay, here's
the plan and then we just stick to it. No,
the plan. New information happens every day and you have
(07:06):
to readjust the plan according to the new information. Some
people are uncomfortable with that. Um. Um. You also have
to be um, you know comfortable uh, you know, being
scrappy and you know, not having a big organization and
be able to roll up the sleeves and do things
yourself and obviously work hard. Um. The spot spotic is
(07:27):
an acronym I use for the types of people I
think do well in startups and they're smart, passionate, optimistic.
That's a key being being positive because you have any
sort of negative. There's plenty of things to be negative
about the start up because a lot of things early
on don't seem like they're working in most cases and
then until they do work. And so you have to
be optimistic to get through that tenacity, adaptability, and then
(07:51):
kindness and empathy. Tell me about some of those the
early days that like a Quincy for example. You you
you found in Quincy, which of course is known forepers
dot com, the customer facing site, in two thousand five
and and we had our first kid in two thousand
six and another in two thousand and eight, so we
were huge customers of yours. I remember getting my diapers
(08:12):
dot my diapers dot com delivered to me at work, um,
because we couldn't get it at our house, in our
our apartment in Brooklyn. Um. I mean Quincy was really
known though, for a keen understanding of what customers wanted,
specifically parents. How did you and your team sort of
figure out in those early days what sort of personal touches,
(08:33):
what services would really resonate with with customers. Yeah, I
mean I think a lot of it was just you know, intuition, um.
And you know, I had a newborn baby actually at
that time, I had two kids. Uh. And and you know,
you go through as a parent what every parent dies,
the frustrations of trying to get all the stuff that
(08:54):
you need for for the babies and toddlers and things.
And it's not like it's not a great experiences and uh,
you know, these are commodity goods, and so it seemed
only natural that if you can deliver them, you know, timely, fast,
good prices, that there'd be a really big market for it.
The problem was you couldn't make money doing it, um
and that was sort of the catch and why it
(09:14):
had not been done until diapers dot com. But we've
viewed it as you know, diapers were a lost leader
for brick and mortar to drive traffic and parents into
the stores to buy everything else. While on the internet,
if you can drive people to the store to buy
everything else, it's literally everything else, that's just the hundred
thousand products in the store. So actually you could afford
(09:36):
to lose more money. That was the high level thesis
and it proved proved out um, but a lot of
it was not. It wasn't if you ask customers what
they want, they often don't know until you show it
to them. And so a little bit is just taking
a leap and uh and and pivoting if if need be.
How did you come up like but I remember that
(09:57):
you have like thirty seven thirty seven different types of boxes. Right.
Was that a quitcy or was that a jed? I
forget which one, but that was a quizy, right, So
you know that's involves a lot of analysis, I imagine,
and you've you've always been a numbers guy for sure,
but um, you know, how did you think it's sort
of come up with something like that, or how did
you figure out, Okay, this is really what's gonna matter,
(10:17):
this is one of the things that might move. Yes,
it's a commodity of a little margin business, and we
wanted to have a competitive advantage. And so how do
you you know, uh, you eke out a little margin
here and there, and we're shipping these diapers and these
big boxes diapers and wipes and things, and you're paying
ups and fed x more for empty space in the box,
(10:38):
and you're paying more for the core get the boxes bigger,
and so we saw an opportunity to save considerable amount
of money to get the optimal sized box with as
little air as possible and a little as core get
as possible. And there was significant savings to do that,
both in shipping and packaging, and so and so Yeah,
so we really invested in the analytics to sort of,
(10:58):
um build these algorie of them is to figure out
what we called it box and how to how to
box a certain set of items and the smallest box possible,
and then to have all those boxes available in whereas
a lesson that some some other e commerce companies could
still maybe learn here. Um Mark, you once told this
that you were obsessed with Amazon's culture, but you certainly
(11:19):
didn't adopt all of their practices at the companies you
you founded. What elements of their culture do you think
worked or did you maybe want to incorporate and which
ones did you really want to sort of avoid? Yeah,
I mean I wasn't you know, it didn't The culture
didn't really resonate with me too much because of what
you said before, sort of the softer the softer side
(11:42):
of things and being kindness and skills like that. We're not,
uh what kind of look down upon Um. I think
that that the key it really came to. It wasn't
that people weren't necessarily kind of empathetic maybe in their
day to day life, but I think in terms of
the business culture, it was one that felt like social
cohesion got to the wrong answer that if if you
(12:04):
basically treated people will kind of empathetic in a group setting,
that you'll lead to a suboptimal decision um, which may
be the case, like if you look at it purely
on that specific decision, but if you take a step
back and think about the broader implications of the culture,
the types of people and the talent you're able to
recruit there, and you know how people feel. I think
(12:27):
if you want to get the best out of people,
you want them to be happy and really feel safe
to bring their their best to work every day, and
so maybe you get better decisions made on a decision
by decision basis, but you're not. You don't get the
best that people have to give because they don't feel safe.
So it's a little bit I mean, you can make
an argument on both sides. I'm in more of the
(12:48):
social cohesion camp um and the sort of long term
investing in people, But I don't say that when it
comes to culture, there's really no wrong answer if the
culture is consistent. The worst type of culture is inconsistent,
Like one day your social casion, the next day you're
not social region people. You don't then then who do
you hire? Do you hire this person that either person
(13:10):
will be unhappy. Amazon was able to create a very
consistent culture where they were able to hire people that
worked really well in that in that system, and so
that's why I think they've they've done well. But it's
not a system or culture that I would choose necessarily.
And I haven't you talk about culture being consistent though, Mark,
I mean, obviously the pandemic has made that a lot
(13:32):
harder to maintain a consistent culture. And there's ongoing pretty
fierce debates right now around the you know the impact
of remote work, and many managers and ceo say that
a more remote workforce hurts culture by making it harder
to you know, mentor new employees, or people lose those
informal connections around the water cooler, that cohesion you speak of.
(13:53):
But there's plenty of research that says remote workers are
just as productive, if not more often more engaged, particular
really women, parents, and underrepresented minorities when they're working remotely. Um,
what I mean, what's your take? Where do you come
down on the debate over remote work? And and again,
you know, repercussions that can have on the consistency of
(14:14):
a culture. Yeah, I think. I mean, I've always believed
in giving people the flexibility if they can't make it
in the office for whatever reason on a particular day
or day of the week or things, you know, they
have family obligations or things like that. I think that's always,
you know, the right answer when it comes to just generally,
you know, this idea of of work from home, you
(14:36):
can you can have a similar culture. I don't. I
don't believe in that. I do think there's magic when
everybody's in the same place, feeding off each other's energy,
you're building relationships. I think I've seen numerous situations where
people have have left companies, um, simply because they hadn't
built a relationship with their leader and you know, because
(14:59):
they've been remote, and you sort of like forget how
important those relationships are. Because many times people um, you know,
stay in a company and want to give the best
they've got because they really respect and believe in their leader. Um.
And if if you don't have you know, quality time
with that person on a day to day basis in person,
(15:20):
it's very hard to develop that type of relationship and
that type of loyalty that comes with it. So what
I'm seeing is people seem to be much more flighty
in terms of moving company to company because there isn't
that um camaraderie and that sort of uh sense of
purpose and and belonging that happens when when everyone's together
in the trenches together. What were your first impressions of
(15:43):
a big corporate culture you were part of Mark Walmart's um,
you know, when you arrive there, what did you make
of it? I've always kind of wanted to ask you this,
and you may have been a bit limited before and
being able to answer, But what were your, you know,
your real first impressions of of Walmart's corporate culture and
did you think you were able to change it even
incrementally in the in the years you spent there. I mean,
(16:05):
I like to believe that, you know, it wasn't just me,
but the whole Jet team infused in did did have
a positive impact on the culture. I think, you know,
what I learned and I think some of the team
members as well, is how incredible, um uh the folks
at Walmart art and operating you know, like just absolute
like maniacal focus on the details and operating the business
(16:30):
and day in and day out delivering Um. Uh that
that's really hard to do, and it's it's it was.
It was great to see those types of operators in action,
because in startup land you don't really typically get those
types of people to join. You get more entrepreneurial and
more strategic vision, every kind of thinkers and uh. And
(16:51):
it was great to see the other side because I
think that you know, where I come from now is
a place of really needing to combine you know, both
what upen though when there was a clash, when there
was a clash between the operating focus the operating culture
of Walmart and you know, you're more entrepreneurial bent. I
mean sometimes you could find middle ground, but you were
making many just you know, lots of decisions at the
(17:12):
same time, a lot of money at stake, obviously a
huge competitor, many huge competitors an e commerce. You had
to move fast. Um. You know, were there times when
there were culture clashes you felt over there and how
did you try to resolve them? Yeah? I mean they're
definitely culture clashes, There's there's no question. Um. But I
think it's it's it's true diversity of thought, you know. Um,
(17:35):
and I think, you know, despite the clashes and things,
I think there was mutual respect. UM. You know both ways.
You know that you know being able to um. You know.
I think educate somewhat the people, the folks at Walmart
around this notion of you know, low probability bet with
(17:58):
a big outcome. Um, if you do, lots of those
good things are gonna happen. Big things are going to happen.
As opposed to, you know, the operating mindset is, let's
let's do everything with a nine plus percent probability success
and make incremental improvements. And if you have a really
high probability is making an incremental improvement that seems like
a no brainer. Great, But I equally think it's a
(18:21):
no brainer to take a something that has a shot
at working that will be a hundred x. And that's
a little bit of a different mindset because I think
the operating mindset is chance forgetting wait wait wait wait,
but it's a hundred x. You know, it's that's that's
a very different way of thinking. And I think at
the end of the day, I learned a ton from
the operating mindset. Hopefully the operating mindset learn learn something
(18:46):
from from our team, and I do think we that
that diversity of thinking help get Walmart you to where
it is. I'd like to believe that. Can you give
us an example of one of those little probability bets
you made at Walmart with the potential hundred pay out,
something that uh you recall from your years there, Yeah,
I mean things that didn't work, but I could tell
(19:09):
you like we did Jet Black. Yeah, I wasna I
was gonna mention that, Yeah, which was you know, low
probability thing has I think that is still that Conversational
commerce is the future of of retail that you know,
fast forward twenty years from now. Um, I think search
engines will be something that will will sort of laugh
about things move tend to move slower in retails, So
(19:30):
maybe it's a little bit longer than twenty years, but
at some point in the future, people will be using voice,
primarily in text, to have a conversation about what they
want to buy and the attributes still looking for without
having to to to search something and scroll through you know,
thousands thousand different toasters and read the reviews and things
to try to figure out what toast do you want
to buy? I don't, I don't see that happening. So
(19:52):
I think I think that was one of those uh
Lott probability that's that didn't work out. I'm I was
still waiting for it. I was very offended. I never
got my invitation to join Jet Black. So you know, UM,
maybe I wasn't the target audience. But I mean, Mark,
you obviously had so many ideas as you were growing
to going towards the end of your of your tenure
(20:14):
at Walmart, that we were frantically trying to report on.
But I mean, all of a sudden, then you you
decide to to leave Walmart, you know, still a strategic
advisor of course, but leaving your full time role as
head of the USC e commerce. But you did so
in the in the middle of a pandemic, which of
course nobody could have foreseen. Um, how did that sort
of impact your your plans, your exit, your ability to
(20:36):
do what you wanted to do, because obviously you have
plenty of things cooking right now, But um, how did
the pandemic um and it's impact on the economy and
just sort of how we go about business. Um, you know,
change your sort of you know, your your exit strategy
there from Walmart. Well, the business. You know, Uh, COVID
was a tailwind for for the business and eCOM people
(20:58):
you know, buying more online, so the business was doing well. Um.
More importantly, I felt like we had the right organizational
structure set up. So it took a number of years
to get to the to the right structure of merging
the brick and mortar. The e consil was one business,
one set of merchants, um, and that was really the
most important piece. I felt like the organization was in
(21:18):
a really good spot and didn't make sense to have
to have two leaders. And John Furner was there and
he has a really strong you know background in in
in tech product and felt like, you know, he would
be a great leader to to bring both together. And
I felt like my job was sort of done. Um
I'd been there almost four and a half years, and uh,
(21:39):
I felt like, you know, the walmant was in a
good spot. So now, you, I mean, Mark, You've got
so many plates spinning at at once. Right now, You've
You've got wonder the food delivery and meal kit thing.
You've got your building a five million person city from
from scratch. You've got your VC firm, you co owned
the Timber Wolves and the w NBA's links. I mean,
(22:03):
talk us through a lot of people who listen to
this podcast to have a lot of plates spinning. Maybe
not as many as you or as as big a
plates as you, but you know, how do you prioritize? Um?
You know, how do you manage your day? Yeah, it's like, UM,
I think the key is I outsource everything that's not
basically one of those four things or or relationships, you
(22:26):
know kind of stuff. But uh, but you know, if
you sleep, I sleep eight hours a day, so that's
that leaves sixteen hours. You know, if you're basically you know,
not doing the things that during the day that people
do that take time. Um, you actually have a lot
of time to focus on the things that that you
(22:47):
really want to focus on. And so I've made it
a point to outsource anything and everything possible, and I've
got a great team that helps me do that, um
to free me up. So let's talk about I mean
the city you're building. I mean we did a big
story of it, uh not long ago. I mean when
you think about building a city versus building a company,
(23:07):
obviously a bigger challenge, a different challenge, but do you
approach do you approach some things in the same way
or what's different. Yeah, I mean, so obviously never built
a city before, so you know, I can't say this
is the right strategy neither. But you know, I think
most of the cities that you kind of see start
off really there their real estate projects and their for
(23:29):
profit motives, and I think we wanted to approach it
from a little different angle. And it's it's really you know,
the name of the city's Telosa, and we started a
community foundation and Toulosa Community Foundation. We're coming at it
from a different angle. It's not about about the real
estate project. It's about starting with people at the center
and trying to UM, trying out a new model for
(23:51):
society basically that we think has a shot to be
better than the one we have UM and so our
mission is to create a more equitable sustain the future.
Like that's sort of the starting point. So it's very
similar to a startup. You start with a mission, you
have your vision, you have your set of values UM,
and then you build the culture and figure out who
you are, what you stand for, what you want to be,
(24:13):
and then everything else falls in place. So it's you know,
to my knowledge, there aren't. You know, there's a city
out there that really started with mission, vision, values and culture. First.
You said, though, Mark, that you want to build sort
of this new kind of institution because people have lost
faith in government and there's no doubt about that. Um.
But according to the most recent trust barometer from from Edelman,
(24:36):
I mean we don't. People don't really trust businesses business
leaders that much either anymore. I mean there's this whole
um pandemic of mistrust. So you know, in your opinion,
how can American businesses regain some of that trust? And
you're a businessman, I mean, what's your how do you
do it? What do you think needs to happen here.
One of the reasons why we set this up as
(24:58):
a as a as a charity, not not for profit
foundation is I think it's really important that you know,
I personally have no financial stake whatsoever in the success
of the city that is surely acting in the best
interest of of the citizens and the people that live there. Um.
(25:18):
I think if there if there were a financial motive
tied to it or some benefit, I think that's where
the distrust comes. You know. I think with corporations, they
are in the business of making profit for their shareholders.
And so I think there's an inherent dis trust in
that that, you know, are they doing it for profit
or are they doing it for social good? And that's
(25:38):
a fine line to walk here. There's no line to
walk where it's all you know, social good project. And uh,
I think hopefully that will garner garner more trust. Um.
Also the way we're approaching it, you know, I think
there's a divide, like you said, in this country about
what to do. We know that there's there's an issue
and that that the you know, uh, the country is divided,
(26:00):
and how do you how do you bring both sides together?
And I think we've got a shot here. Um. I
think capitalism, Um, you know, I believe in capitalism is
a great economic model, but it comes with its flaws.
And you know, one of the one of the primary
flaws that we were sort of want one of the
flaws we sort of closed that that gap was and
(26:21):
I trust um competition. You know, in in the past, Um,
you know, you were able to have a monopoly and
basically that was bad for customers and that was bad
for employees. And the government said, wait, we need to
have some And I trust we can't have monopolies. We
need to have competition for capitalism to work well. So
(26:42):
so we sort of fixed that that that gap, and
that made a big difference. I still think there's another
another problem, and that's the gap that we're trying to close,
which is you know, land ownership um and and the
fact that you know, land ownership is essentially um you know,
so that's island monopoly. There's a finite amount of land,
(27:03):
and you can own a piece of land and literally
do nothing, um and And as as people move into
the community and give land value, it appreciates. And my
thinking was, what if we took land that was worthless
in the desert, absolutely worthless, and we had the foundation
by this land, if we can get five million people
(27:24):
to move there, um and create a viable, you know, city,
that that land would be worth close to a trillion
dollars in value, and and that value would accrue to
the foundation, and the foundation's mission would be to take
that create an endowment earned fifty billion dollars a year
and give it back to the citizens in the form
(27:44):
of advanced social services, whether it be healthcare, education, affordable housing, jobs, training.
And that's really the best of both worlds because you
without having to increase taxes, you're able to have this
incredible uh social system and and sort of foundation for
people to sort of uh and create this this this
more equitable base. Um. And then of course once the
(28:08):
land rapidly appreciates to be worth the trillion, then sure
then the foundation could sell the land off. It's not
meant to be the land can't be owned by anyone.
But the idea is that that that initial step change
in appreciation from being worthless to being a city is
where all this this value capture of that appreciation comes
(28:30):
back to the foundation of the people as opposed to
you know, um, you know, five million people moving to
to a place that's owned by people and the lands worthless,
and and the land goes up in value with worth
a trillion dollars, and those people that own the land
didn't necessarily have to do anything to give land its value.
And so I just just a slight tweak there. I'm
(28:51):
not suggesting people shouldn't own land, or the government should
own land or anything like that. This is not meant
meant to be anything in the way of even approaching socialism.
It's capitalism at its best. It is. It is a
foundation buying the land, helping five million people move there
because the foundation will give the money and the appreciation
(29:11):
that the five million people bring back to them. That's it.
You mentioned Mark, this happening in the desert. Have you
settled is it going to be Nevada in terms of
where this will end up? You haven't settled on it yet,
but it does seem to be, uh, you know, one
of the one of the high priority places just because
of the land value and also the laws to be
able to move fast and to to build in a
(29:33):
way that um are there still regulatory or legal hurdles there?
I mean Nevada seemed the most promising, but there were
still some hurdles. Last Yeah, oh, there's so many hurdles. Yeah,
name name one, give me one you're working on now.
I mean, water, for example in the desert is definitely
you know, there's there's uh, that's a that's a big
(29:53):
issue and so you know, one of the things we're
doing there and this again will benefit hopefully other other
cities and countries and things. But figuring out how we
could without limiting people's use of water actually a huge
less water per person um by the way we capture
it and recycle it. And a lot of that technology
(30:15):
I think is is uh, it's something that will want
to we want to test and use and learn from
in other cities. So there have been other attempts at this.
What have you learned from those prior attempts that may
have What we've learned is a couple of things. One,
anytime you want to put the city up as an
edge city against bumping up against another city where a
(30:35):
population center exists, there's there's going to be opposition, you know,
as opposed to going in the desert where it's a
clean slate and there's you know, there's obviously still issues
and environmental issues and things like that. But but if
there's no people around, I think it makes it easier.
So that's that's one big hurdle. The second is um
not leading with technology. I think a lot of these
(30:57):
cities lead with technology and it sounds great, but um,
you know, at the end of the day, like any
any great city is great because it has soul, um
and because it stands for something, It has a culture,
it has you know, and so how do we start
again with people at the center, with a set of
values and a culture and give the city soul and
(31:19):
use technology in the background to make things more efficient,
but not lead with it, and certainly not UM because
that technology is sort of cold, you know. Uh, if
you just sort of like lead with it, I think
on on its own. But but obviously technology can make
things more efficient, and so when it comes to public
transportation and things like that, it could be, you know,
(31:41):
a lot more efficient. But you don't. I don't. I
don't think you wanted to be UM high techiccy you
lose the field and the soul. So Mark, I asked
you earlier about sort of how you playing your day
and such, and in the sixteen hours that you have,
do you leave time in the day just sort of
free to think about new, tough, new ideas or is
there just not enough time for that? I always hate
(32:04):
admitting this because you know, I don't. You know, I don't.
I don't really read UM and I think I find
you know, I've tried to read, and I'm I think
it's interesting. But the amount of time it takes to
read a book, UM, the amount of thinking that could
could happen during that same time. I always choose the thinking.
(32:24):
And so maybe at a time when when when when
others would be reading a book or a newspaper or
or magazine or online I'm thinking so I do spend
quite a bit of time thinking UM to try and
stitch everything together. And I'm not against reading UM. And
I prefer to talk to people and meet people and
(32:45):
sort of you know, um, you know, learn learn from
just asking questions, and it's stitching things together. Is there
an idea you've had recently marked that you've maybe just
sort of tucked away save for later. I mean, I've
done a lot of things since I since I left
Wall start everything from conversational comments we talked about that,
this wizard start up. Yeah, I've probably time to get
(33:06):
into all the different things, but I've done I've done
most of them. I do think there's still a really
big opportunity in healthcare. That's uh, that's just this this
idea of preventative medicine and and people taking control of
their health UM and and there's a lot of um,
you know, ways for people now in their own home
to get more data, information and metrics about their health
(33:28):
UM on a regular basis. And and I think there
will be a future where that's all kept and uploaded
in you into into one central location and machine learning,
and people are able to to know, um, you know,
in many cases things that maybe their doctors don't even
know in terms of what's happening, you know, when when
you piece everything together, your your blood work and your
(33:50):
and your pulse and your oxygen levels and your breathing
at night and all these different different pieces and to
be able to get ahead of and prevent um disease. So, Mark,
I gotta ask you about the metaverse. I mean, it's
all we hear about these days. Everyone has an opinion
on it. You know, what what's yours? What is the metaverse?
And you're in your eyes? What is it for um?
(34:11):
And how do you you know we're we're the biggest opportunities.
It's probably the better question. Yeah, I mean, you know,
sometimes it's it's it's hard to relate, you know, when
it's a you know, it's a generational thing. Um. You know,
it's it's sort of like if if there's a lot
of people I know that just they saying, oh, metaverse,
and they just sort of pushed away at I don't
I don't know that sounds that sounds outrageous, you know,
(34:33):
this idea crypto or something yeah, like crypto or you
just get it away, you know. And I think those
are the kinds of things you have to be open
to it and and embrace because, um, whether you like
it or not, it's coming. And uh, I think the
the idea of you know, augmented reality is going to
really accelerate this, this this idea of the metaverse because
(34:55):
this idea of or even n f T s digital goods. Right,
you know that digital goods are really hot now. People
are are buying and paying outrageous sums of money for
you know, digital baseball cards, digital videos, digital art um
and people don't understand it. But what's gonna happen is
there's going to be a point in the future where
(35:16):
people are wearing you know, what looks like ordinary uh,
glasses that have embedded augmented reality in it that allows
you to see digital objects overlaid in the real world.
And so you could be walking down the street and
with these glasses on and see somebody wearing a digital
handbag or a digital pair of sneakers, and that gives
(35:40):
those items value because of the prestige that's associated with it, right,
I mean, I mean when it comes to fashion and
things like that, or art, it's all it's all about
scarcity and and and and prestige and things like you know,
why why is it? You know, the exact same handbag
is Gucci without the Gucci label on it worth you know,
(36:01):
a fraction of the price that people that the brands matter.
And I think the same thing is going to happen
with these digital goods, where people will would be wearing
these glasses and you can go into an office building
and see a beautiful piece of digital art on the wall.
How far away? How far away mark do you think
we are from this augmented reality? I mean, I think
there's already you know, we have the capability of event now,
(36:24):
but it takes a while for it to be mainstream.
And I think the technology outpaces you know probably um,
you know, people's ability to adopt it. I think the
adoption curve is going to be very slow, and then
it'll start to accelerate. And and probably I would say,
you know, maybe ten years from now, if I had,
(36:48):
you know, ten years from now, it will start to
feel like people will really get it, like people will
be wearing glasses. Not everyone, but enough people that people
will will recognize that, Yeah, this is this is really
the future UM in ten years markets. Besides conversational commerce,
which you've talked a lot about at Walmart and now
currently UM, how else do you think retail and any
(37:09):
commerce will be different ten years from now UM versus today.
So it's conversational commerce form one, and I think the
other is sort of this social commerce, this idea of
this sort of creator economy where where anyone could be
a retailer. You know, so if you've got a if
you've got a TikTok or Instagram or whatever social media
(37:31):
platform you're on, you could like certain brands and very
easily create a video of these brands that people could
shop from, and you make revenue. You know. This idea
of people building their own marketplace is using using using
tools UM to do it. UM. I think that so
it becomes much more fragmented the retail market in the future.
(37:55):
And who do you think, I mean, do you think
companies like Walmart's UM Target will be in the lead
there or do you think, well, you know, we'll see
a new era of companies we've never even maybe thought
much about that maybe more inclined or a tune to
social commerce versus traditional brick and mortar and last mile stuff. Yeah,
I mean I think the company has already engaged in
(38:19):
social media. Now I think have an advantage, um, you know,
just because they've got the platform and they've got the
people on there. I think I just invested in on
a stake in a company called now With which is
building this platform and these tools, and I think there
are other companies as well doing it. I think, um,
those companies will be the accelerant. But but ultimately, UM,
(38:40):
I think there's there's there's a high probability that the
companies are already in social media, um would would be
in the best position to leverage that technology. Mark, a
few minutes ago, you said you'd rather be out meeting
people than let's say, you know, reading a management book. Um,
when you go out and people, I'm sure they asked
(39:01):
for your advice, but you I imagine you often asked
people for their advice. So I asked this of everyone
I interview, Mark, what's the best piece of advice you
ever received, who gave it to you? And and you know,
how have you acted on it? It's funny, it wasn't
It wasn't so direct, I guess in terms of like
the advice as you you typically would I would hear it.
But my my grandfather, I called him Big Pop. Um.
(39:24):
He was had a big influence on my life growing up. Um.
He was the antithesis of sort of the family that
I had, you know, grown up with my parents fighting
and things. He was very um uh you know, uh
kind and empathetic and um it was so incredibly grateful
(39:45):
for his life. He he grew up, you know, came
from Italy and and and and worked as a as
a as a tailor for a while, and then and
then worked for the city you know lane railroad tracks
for his entire life, and said he had the best
job in the world. It was like working twelve to
one in an hour for lunch. Um and uh. He
used to say how he was the richest guy in
(40:05):
the world. And he would count all his daughters and
grandchildren as a million bucks, you know, a million here,
two million, three, who's got it better than me? And
so it wasn't necessarily you know, advice in the traditional sense,
but that really stuck with me, you know. Um. And
what was it that that made him, you know, so
grateful and so giving and so appreciative of his life
(40:26):
even though you know, by by by anyone's you know,
standard definition of success, he wouldn't have been very successful
at all. Um. And so that that advice, that you know,
indirect advice there is is something that's really stuck with
me and really really drives me. And I think about
it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, my my dad tells me
about how my my his dad, my grandfather. Yeah, I
(40:48):
was a milkman in Brooklyn, and you know he would
company would come out with a smile on his face. Um,
you know that's so Mark. I mean, I gotta ask, Mark,
I'm a big New York Mets fan. You try to
buy my favorite team, Um, Steve Cohen got them instead?
What do you think about the job he's doing so far?
I gotta ask, is it? I think I would I
(41:09):
would do it a little differently. Maybe that's the way
the way to say it. I mean, And I think
Alex and I are doing it with the Timberwolves. Now,
it's you know, before you start making moves, you know,
And this is something I just learned and kind of
got whacked on the head many times for making making
moves first and then doing the foundational work. And so
(41:31):
I think it's always best to do the foundational work first,
which is like before you hire fire do anything, figure
out what exactly is the mission of this organization. What
do we stand for? What does U set of values?
What is the culture that we want to build? What
are the attributes of the people that we want in
the organization? Because you need to kind of have that
(41:51):
roadmap so then you can assess the people you have
whether they're good fit, and then new people whether they're fit,
so that you can build the right culture. And then
and then also what is the vision, like what do
you where do you want to be in ten or
twenty years? What's the strategy to get there? What do
the success look like? What are the metrics like? Get
that foundational work in place, communicated to the organization so
(42:13):
that every move you make makes sense to the outside world,
to the inside world, to everyone. Um and you know,
from what I can see, again I haven't been close
to it, it seems like a lot of moves have
been made very quickly. Now they may have done the
foundational work, um, but my my, you know, I think
it usually takes a lot longer to do that work.
(42:35):
You know, it's a it's a twelve twelve week you
much patients. Uh, as Mets fans, they don't have much
pace now, and so so maybe maybe that's what you know,
inspired inspired him to take action. Is the is the
sense of urgency that it's been a long time and
the fans are putting a lot of pressure. But um,
we don't have that same pressure necessarily in Minnesota. But uh,
(42:56):
but I do think, um, you know that that it's
doing that heavy, heavy hard work and heavy lifting up front,
we'll pay huge dividends in the future. Um. So you
mentioned Alex, Um we might know him, our listeners probably
know him better as a rod Um. Just to make
sure we all know we're talking about here. And what
(43:18):
what have you learned from from Alex? And what do
you think he's learned from you? As you guys are
now sort of you know, famous partners on several things. Yeah, well,
I mean I've really enjoyed getting to know Alex and
and uh we share a some common set of values.
You know, we grew up in a similar way. Um,
have a similar set of values, but we have a
very different approach problems from you know, a different way
(43:41):
of thinking. His experience, you know, as one of one
of the best players of all time. UM, you know,
is been incredibly valuable UM to me and to the
team in terms of UM, you know, being able to
really relate to the players and how they're feeling and
thinking and in ways that are super insightful that there's
(44:02):
no way you would know that unless you've been in
a clubhouse and been there and how management, GM the
owners are perceived things that that you can do, that
players appreciate things that that they wouldn't And it's that
deep insight that's been been really helpful. And you know,
I'm sort of bringing that all the experience I have
(44:23):
in the startup land to put in a place this
foundation of vision capital people b c P as I
call it UM and doing doing that that heavy lifting
to get get the foundation strong. And I think the
combination of Alex and I make a good team. Yeah.
Can I ask quickly about the market? I mean it's
it's kind of tanking at the at the moment this
(44:44):
week is is is Jeremy Grantham right? Has the stock markets? Uh?
You know, have we peaked? Where? And where where do
you place your bets? Mark? As an investor, um, and
if we are in a dip. Um. You know, before
my life as an entrepreneur, I was in financial risk
management and I started in investing in stocks in seventh grade.
(45:05):
So like my my m as much as I'm an entrepreneur,
I love I love the stock market and and you know,
follow it pretty closely. And uh, I I've been through
so many crashes, you know, you know, in my in
in my life, like big ones, you know, like everything
from seven you know to two thousand, two thousand, and
(45:28):
people that you know got into the market. I guess
after two thousand, it's been it's been an incredible run,
um the last fourteen years. And uh and I'm I
guess I just have that Um they've been through, been
through a number of them where it always seems to
happen when things look like they can't they can't, like
(45:48):
nothing's gonna stop it. Something stops it. And by all
historic accounts, the stock market is is top heavy and
over value, especially in certain sectors. And so I've been
a little bit you know, um gun shy in getting
getting into the market. Um. It's not to say it's
gonna crash, but I do think there are some warning signs,
(46:09):
you know, the things we're seeing with with inflation, UM
and and everything we've done with monetary policy throughout COVID.
I think the bubble that we're seeing in in in
physical assets and crypto things like that, they don't necessarily
have the same level of intrinsic value exposed the market
and give us give more risks there, especially especially how
(46:31):
wide and for reaching UM some of those UM investments
and things like crypto go. It's not just a small
group anymore, it's it's very mass that concerns me. And
so I am not Uh, I'm not necessarily going to
jump in and short the market, but I'm also not
feeling comfortable being along either. Yeah, what about your investments
(46:53):
at VCP. I mean if the if the appetite for
I P O s is lessened, how does that impact
and influence you know, the decisions you're going to make
as ahead of a fund there. Yeah, in markets and cycles,
so we're starting from the ground, you know, and getting
in at very modest valuations, you know, less than twenty
million valuation and take some number of years before uh,
(47:15):
these companies are worth hundreds of millions or billions of
dollars and so you know, in some ways, it may
be the best time to be getting into startups now,
because you know, in five years from now, we could
be you know, at the bottom or in the upswing.
You know. I think the worst place to be right
now would be sort of you know pre I p
o in my mind, you know, just because of how
(47:37):
how unstable the market is at this moment. So now
I feel great, I think, I think, I think getting
into startups and starting from scratch today's is a sort
of perfect place to be. I gotta ask one question
about food, if I if I can. I mean, obviously
one of your businesses is very much centered around, uh,
you know, high end food, bringing restaurant quality food um
(47:58):
via via trucks and to people's homes and delivery. Um
give me an, what's your favorite Italian restaurant in the
city or in Jersey? I would say I would say
Angelicas in Seabright, New Jersey. Okay, why that The food
is the Italian food is just incredible. And anybody who
(48:19):
who's hearing this that's been there knows what I'm talking about.
The food is is out of this world and we
fortunately just just partnered with them. Um on wonder. So
that's exciting to go to bring that quality Italian food
to Maybe we can break bread there one day or
one of the good spots up here in uh in
Harrison as well, Mark, thanks so much for coming to
(48:41):
speak to us on out of Office. I really enjoyed it.
Same here. I really enjoyed this chat too, and I
hope you did. That was Mark Lauren conversation with my
colleague Matthew Boyle. Remember you can check out more episodes
of Out of Office on Spotify, Apple Podcast, The bloom
Book termin and Bloomberg dot Com. This episode was produced
(49:03):
by Yang Yang. I'm Alika Kapoor. As always, thank you
for listening.
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