The Power of “How Can I Help?”: A Conversation with Christopher Schroeder

Episode Transcript
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Dina Sherif (00:00):
Music.

(00:09):
Okay, so welcome back to legacyof purpose. I'm super excited to
welcome Christopher Schroeder, arenowned entrepreneur, an
investor, a book author who hasa fascinating journey from
running major tech companies inthe US to championing innovation
in growth markets, likecountries where I come from,

(00:30):
Egypt, Your journey has been farfrom typical, based on what I've
read. There are certain things Idiscovered about you that I
didn't even know after all theseyears, after all these years,
but today, we're going toexplore the values that have
driven you throughout thisjourney, and your thoughts
around the transformative powerof entrepreneurship. And you

(00:55):
know, for me, Christopher, youembody, in many ways what true
leadership means. I've only everseen you walk the talk and your
career, your overall curiosityabout the world and the
dedication that I've personallyseen you have to making this
world a better place issomething that is not common and

(01:16):
always sits with me in a veryspecial way. So I hope that you
all enjoy and take somethinguseful away from this
conversation. So Christopher,welcome. Thank you. I want to
start the conversation from thevery beginning of your life and
ask you a few questions aboutyour upbringing, which, which

(01:36):
seems to be very interesting,because you're you're a child of
Italian immigrants who movedhere to the US and your family
is deeply connected in New York.
And your parents were bothlawyers, and I, having read
about your family history, howdid that impact your own

(01:56):
worldview, and what did it meanto be an immigrant in New York
at that time, and how did thatinfluence your life moving
forward?

Christopher Schroeder (02:10):
Well, firstly, Dina is just such a
treat to hang out with you. Imean, any talk is awesome at
every level. So thank you. Andso much of my journey,
particularly in rising marketsand Lord knows, in the Middle
East has been structured andfounded and educated by you. And
so your patience with stupidquestions and just helping me
navigate so many things has beenno stupid, deeply, deeply

(02:30):
personal to me. So you

said rising markets, that's an interesting
word. Yeah. Well, you know,because I hate the

term global south. I mean, I just
tell you that I hate it. I hateit. So I'm not quite sure how to
phrase something in aggregate.
And since my work takes me fromthe Middle East to Asia to Latin
America, there has to be someway to aggregate the future of
the global economy. But so I'mup for any issues, any ideas you
have. And you know, look, Iguess some of that ties back a
little bit. So it was mygrandparents who were all
immigrants. It was a classicEllis Island story. So my

(02:56):
parents were the real kids ofimmigrants. And it's very funny,
because you and I have so manyfriends who are immigrants. Who
are immigrants and what haveyou. And it's amazing to listen
to some of the things which Idid not really reflect on until
years later, about how sharedthose experiences are, the
pressure that parents put onyou, the expectations of what
you have to do and show up, tothis sort of balancing between
very, very much of your culture.

(03:19):
I mean, whenever my mother wouldtell stories about growing up,
it was always about the Italiancommunity. And all the holidays
were dozens of people, all fromthe Italian community. There was
an expectation, implicit, if notexplicit, that you would marry
an Italian, of course. So thisis all

you all come together. I know when we grew
up, it was like Egyptian sticktogether, nice little community,

my Indian friends. I mean, when you get
talking, it's actually quiteamazing how universal this
dynamic is, and by the way, alsothe expectation. I mean, you
know, my parents were lawyers.
Other kids they grew up with areengineers. Others are doctors. I
mean, it's a very sort ofclassic. If you're going to be
successful, you take three orfour, you know, paths, but what
you don't do is you don't becomean entrepreneur, which is really

(03:59):
sort of strange in that almostevery one of them, by definition
of the act of immigration, areentrepreneurial, make some risk.
There I went this summer,actually, to the little, little
town in Basilicata in the deepsouth of Italy, where my great
grandfather came from. And mygrandfather was born just after
he arrived. And it's, you know,you know the stories, you know

(04:19):
about the complexities and thedifficulties, but when you're
actually there in the middle ofnowhere, Southern Italy, in a
very charming town, by the way,but you knew that 100 years ago,
that the nearest town was 10miles away, and they probably
rarely went there. Matera, whichwas a large city, is an hour
away, they probably never wentthere. And I just had this
image, in a way that I'd neverreally thought about it before

(04:40):
walking the town, that at onepoint my 19 year old great,
great grandfather and his 18year old wife in the same place.
They walked in that place, andat 1.1 of them said to the
other, I said, I have an idealike, let's go to America. And
it's an impossible decision whenyou when you're there,
physically at a time, of course,where there are no cell phones
or anything else. You thinkabout what entrepreneurial drive

(05:00):
made them say they would take onan adventure like this. And so
it's sort of ironic that thepeople take some of the most
gutsy entrepreneurial decisionsonce they get to places like
America, they kind of want thekids to be a little bit more
conservative and what have you.
But you know, having said that,my parents always were very
encouraging of us to do whateverwe want to do. So I never felt

(05:22):
under any stricture. I thinkthat's a general one generation
away thing, but I also thinkit's a reflection what my
parents really discovered oncethey were raised here.

I feel like New York was a landing place for so
many people. That's also wheremy parents landed in the
beginning as well. Both yourparents were and so we were just
discussing the, some ways,champions of the arts,
specifically music. And yourfather co founded education
through music, offering, youknow, music education in to

(05:53):
young people in New York.

How inner city schools, right?

How did that influence you.

There was a soundtrack on in my house all
the time, which was classicalmusic. And I think this goes a
little bit to the immigrantstory. Maybe one of the reasons
why classical music isn't quiteas popular among younger people
today, but when you grew up asthe sons of daughters of
immigrants. Doesn't matter ifyou were from anywhere from
Central Eastern Europe inparticular, but if you're from
Italy, if you're from France, ifyou're from Germany, if you were

(06:23):
from Romania, what was then nowRomania, if you were from Poland
or Russia, it was understoodthat you had a piano in your
house. It was understood thatsomeone was playing violin. You
tried to get to concerts as muchas you could. And very much in
that tradition, you know, therewas like a soundtrack in my
house, there's classical musicon all the time, and it meant a
lot, I think, to both myparents. And I think they felt

(06:46):
like it was a connection to theculture, particularly they liked
Italian opera and some of thatkind of thing that was a part of
it overall, and so it mattered.
But they grew up in anenvironment where everyone
touched this. So I mean, myfather played stickball with a
young kid named AlfredoToscanini, who was the grandson
of one of the most legendaryItalian conductors at the time.
And he met the old man one timeand scared the hell out of him.

(07:09):
But there are things like thatmy father went to now. It was
made into a movie not long ago,but he went, he was actually a
boy at the first concert thatLeonard Bernstein conducted him,
another great conductor thatbecame a legendary figure. And
so, you know, I sit and I'mlike, wow, he got he touched all
these kinds of things, but Ithink he would have told he was
just very normal, like everyoneknew someone who served in a

(07:30):
symphony or whatever. It wasjust kind of part of the
European immigrant experience.

But his decision to do something to allow more young
people to be exposed to music.
That's a demonstration ofparticular values. And I'm, I
think what I'm curious moreabout is, I know you pretty
well, and I feel like that, thatthose values of giving back, you
know, always serving like I havenever asked you for something

(08:02):
where you have said no, or askedyou for help, where you have
said no, and I've seen you do somany things for so many
different people. Do you thinkthat came from your the way your
your parents? Yeah, I

think so.
I mean, you know, my mother waswent to college at 14. She went
to law school at 18, yeah, I

know I read that. I was like, wow, and I knew that
already she's one of two women

in all of Fordham Law School. And then one
of her first clients was a womannamed Lucy Rosen, who was the
wife of a man who made a lot ofmoney on Wall Street at a
beautiful estate in upstate NewYork, and she wanted to make it
into a location of classicalmusic in the arts, and hired my
mother at 24 to be effectivelyher lawyer. And that was a
journey of 50 years of my motherinvolved both in music but also

(08:47):
in building this, what wasreally an education center for
young people. Her father servedand was friends with Mayor
LaGuardia, like it wasabsolutely just sort of
understood that if you're in asituation of any kind, you
should figure out a way to makethat situation better and to
give something back. It was notdiscussed explicitly. It was
there. And so when dad thenformed this thing called

(09:07):
education through music, therewere 2b in his bonnet. I mean,
effectively, he was stunned thatthe arts programs were no longer
being funded in New York City,in many places. The data was
very clear to him that if youstudy music or arts. Generally
speaking, you tend to do betteron SATs. You tend to be more
engaged in school. Lots of goodthings happen, but when their
budget cuts, it's usually thefirst program to go. So he

(09:29):
wanted to marry funding of thesekinds of programs with his
passion for classical music, butand he served on the board of
directors of his of my schoolgrowing up. He but it was never
talked about explicitly. Youjust saw it in action. Just did
it. You just people, just didit. There was you see a problem,
you fix it. You're in acircumstance, in a community,
and if you can sort of wave yourhand and do something, it was

(09:50):
never so much about hierarchy ortitle. It was just simply, like,
I have an opportunity to makesomething a little bit better.
I'm going to do that. Thatsounds very entrepreneurial.
Well, it's interesting. You havetwo. Lawyers who were, in fact,
in a way, almost like you wouldlove social entrepreneurs. Yeah,

totally. I love it.
So, you know, you went toHarvard, undergrad and grad, I
also went to Harvard. And Ithink, you know, universities
are interesting places, butplaces like Harvard are also
particularly interesting becauseof the network that you acquire
and the community that youbecome part of. And you know, I

(10:25):
could talk about all thedifferent communities that
you're a part of, starting fromyour Harvard where, when you
went into very young all the wayto the boards that you sit on,
like endeavor or YPO. I met youand you were doing something
with the YPO in Dubai. For me,it seems that you have this

(10:50):
drive to always surroundyourself with people who will
intellectually challenge you andwho will allow you to be
curious, but who will also beyour friends? And I'm curious to
know where that desire to be apart of these multiple

(11:13):
communities come from, but alsoyou're very dedicated. I've seen
you be very dedicated member ofthese communities. And I feel
like for entrepreneurs,especially entrepreneurs from
what you call rising markets, orwhat we call growth markets, to
be able to be a part of acommunity is often a matter of

(11:35):
survival when you're reallygoing against so many odds, but,
but for you, why? Why is being apart of community so important?
You

know, I think that there's one that's
genetic and one that wasacquired. The genetic thing is
Q, is what you said before, iscuriosity. I can't explain it to
you. I'm just very interested inhow things tick. I try to
understand people and why theydo what they do. And if there's
a problem that's been solved bysomeone, I want to unpack it.
And some of it is because ofapplication, like I think I can

(12:11):
learn lessons from it that maybeI can be better at. And
sometimes it isn't, sometimesit's simply, I'm just fascinated
by the story, and I am justloving to see people who are
passionate about something andhow they did made something with
it, and what have you. And I,there's never a time in my life
where that I was a pain in theass as a kid, people would talk
about this kind of

thing. I cannot imagine. I was apparently true

and was whatever the one that was
acquired, and it startedprobably in college, in part,
probably a necessity, because,as you know, when you go to a
place like Harvard, has got alot of wonderful aspects to it,
and things which are a littlebit less than wonderful, but the
one thing wonderful. But the onething that is true is you are
surrounded by very, very smartpeople who are not shy to give
their opinion. And I learnedvery early on the importance of

(12:52):
forming almost a wonder in beingwrong, that it's actually a
wonderfully exciting, upliftingthing. And I think in the first
days at a place like a Harvardor if you work in whatever your
business is, or wherever youare, you want to spend a
tremendous amount of timeproving that you know
everything. You want to provethat you're not wrong, and you
dig in, and that's my weakestmoments, I think are when I dig

(13:15):
in, it's because I want it's anego thing. It's not really about
trying to get to the answer, butI began having conversations as
a very young kid where I getblown out of the water by people
who simply knew better than Idid, and I went from being
defensive to having a sense ofwonder. It was a sense of
epiphany. I had it wrong, andnow it's right or it's better.
It's never feels entirely right,but it feels better. And I think

(13:38):
I, you know, I fall back,certainly from occasion, but
really, if my career has beenmarked by something, it's not
only a very deep curiosity inthe service of getting things
done, but also an ability tosay, Okay, I got that one wrong,
but how wonderful. Now I get it.
Now I

get it. You actually said that in an
interview. You said thatsomething about Harvard. When
you were a student at Harvard,you said you needed to learn
quickly how to embrace beingwrong, yeah, and, and you said
that when you first get to aplace like Harvard, everyone is
trying to prove that they'reright about everything and that
they know everything, and youget a very early lesson in

(14:14):
humility, but also a lesson insaying that being wrong is
fantastic, because if you'rewrong, you can do better. And,
you know, at MIT, it'sinteresting, because here
there's this incredible cultureof no ego. You have an ego you
can't innovate, yeah, becauseEgo is the Enemy of curiosity.

(14:40):
So I think, I think it'sinteresting, because I think
most entrepreneurs I have metwho are really kind of sucked
into solving a problem, they arethe ones who are most willing to
say, I'm wrong, so that they canfigure out how to get to that
place. That's right. I had this

kid. Who came and visited and went to
school for a few months inWashington, DC High School, kid
from Vietnam, and he was almost,it was almost sort of a cliche.
He was brilliant mathematicianand stem. In fact, he literally
was the number one math studentwithin two weeks in this private
school of very smart youngpeople. You know, he had, he had
a great sense of STEM way aheadof many of the kids around him.

(15:23):
And I asked him once, I said, Soyou come here, do you think like
our system is like pathetic ascompared? He said, Are you
kidding me? So there's nocomparison. It's much better
here. And I said, What do youmean? And he said, Look, I can
actually talk to you veryintelligently about nuclear
power, but I can't apply it atall. We do no application. It's
all rote learning. You can'tmake mistakes actually there is
you have to memorize all thethings. And he said, My eye

(15:43):
opening experience, which Ithink captures what you've said
in so much of the work thatyou've done in entrepreneurship,
was that he learned most in theengineering club of the high
school. Why? Because he watcheda bunch of kids make mistakes
over and over and over again,and no one learned and no one
got pissed, no one got introuble. It actually was the
ability to solve it and makethings better. And he said,
we'll never really competewithout that. And I think your

(16:06):
global experience, my globalexperience, has been very
confirming about that,

yeah, oh my goodness. I mean, Egypt is the
same, right? That type of rotelearning is the same. So I still
want to go back to this idea ofcommunity, and what has driven
you to join all these differenttypes of communities? Because,
you know, I think a lot of ourfellows will come and say, oh,

(16:30):
you know what community shouldbe a part of. Or they'll come to
us and say, this fellowship inthis community has saved my
life. Um, what for you? For you,like when you joined the YPO, or
any of the professionalcommunities that you have joined
and been a part of, what, whatwas your thinking?

So YPO, Young Presidents, organization
of which I'm sure many of thefolks around here have been
members, and what have you, wasinteresting me because it was
global. It was interesting mefor another reason, which is
that you got to meet other womenand men who are CEOs, who you
could have conversations basedon two fundamental principles.
First was completeconfidentiality, and the second

(17:12):
was that in thatconfidentiality, there's no
judgment. And the assumption wasthat anyone who's been a CEO has
looked into the abyss. Anyonewho's a CEO has had personal
problems. They've had problemsof a company almost going out of
business.

We've all had them.
They've made some seriousmistakes, catastrophe and

in some cases, near catastrophic
mistake, I mean, some casestruly catastrophic mistakes. And
to be able to put that aside andin a way, have this sense of a
wonder and being wrong in thespirit of making folks more
effective in society, not justin their businesses, was very
appealing to me. Like any largenetwork, you meet people that
you don't really want to spend alot of time with, but you also

(17:50):
meet people to change your lifevery, very foundationally, a lot
of the yprs that you alluded tobefore in the Middle East, like
Fauci, Gondor, Ahmed Alfie andothers, changed me entirely like
they they completely re educatedthe way that I thought about the
world, about business, abouthumanity, about the perception
of how one thinks of themselvesas an American. I mean, it was

(18:10):
that kind of level of depth. Andin a way, any organization that
I've decided to become a part ofits community. And in a way,
this is an additional add on tothis concept of having a wonder
being wrong, which is to be withpeople that don't view you or
the operation as a transaction.
I've become extremely focused inthe last two decades, and I
almost know within five minuteswho I'm dealing with. You can

(18:32):
almost see it in their eyes. AmI a transaction to you, or is
this the beginning of a coauthorship of doing something or
making something different? Andthere's nothing wrong with
transactions. I ran companies.
You have to sell things. Buteven when I sold things, I
wanted to know the story of theperson my customer was. I did
care about that at the end ofthe day. And we all have
experiences with women or men,that when we can do something

(18:54):
for us, they're right there inthe moment. It's less obvious
what we can do for them. Theydisappear. And I had some early
lessons in that were very clearto me, and it made me understand
that I was absolutely going tooptimize around women and men
who were not driven by thetransaction. In some respects, a
transactional outcome was asecondary thing from the depth

(19:14):
of the relationship that wasformed. And I found in that
depth much more change happens.
Much more change. How

do you? How did you I mean, obviously so many of us
have dealt with that dilemma ofpeople who are very
transactional and just wantsomething from you, versus
people who really want to buildsomething deeper. How do you
deal with those who are comingwith a very transaction,
transactional approach. Now,after these lessons that you've

(19:43):
learned,

well, I mean, first of all, there are
always people who let you down.
Also, life is very complicated.
There are people who are verygenuinely engaged in many
things, but there'll betransactional moments. And as I
said before, that's notnecessarily a bad thing, but
it's just something that iscautionary. But I can remember
that, for example. All hadworked in a presidential
politics, and there were lots ofpeople, I was their best friend

(20:04):
until we lost office. And then,you know, you see it at that
extreme. And I think that wasvery formative. And so I
suppose, implicitly, notexplicitly, when I'm dealing
with someone, I start with theassumption of, what can I do to
be a service to you, regardlesswhether you're transactional or
not, if you're a decent enoughperson, if someone's been you've
been referred to me by someone,then my first mindset, 80% of my

(20:25):
mindsets, what can I do to help

you? It's so interesting that you say that,
because when I think back onmany of my interactions with
you, often say, How can I be ofhelp? Well,

it's interesting that you say that
there was a young entrepreneurwho was I was paying watching
him have a conversation withanother woman, and say, You know
what Schroeder always says atthe end of every meeting. And I
was sort of curious as to whatit was, and everyone, every
time, apparently I say, what doyou need? What can I do? It's
true. How can I help you? Howcan I make your life a little
bit better than it was? I'm

telling you now that I'm thinking about I feel
like almost all of ourconversations, you have always
said, How can I how can I be ofhelp?

So the interesting thing is, with that
mindset and with some filtering,even when I deal with people who
end up becoming moretransactional, I've become
almost Buddhist about it. Idon't it doesn't bother me at
all. I still try to optimizeaway from it. But if I meet with
someone and it's a goodconversation, I've been helpful
to them. And there are people ofintegrity and they they move on

(21:20):
the transaction. Who caresreally?

My mom always says, she says, if you can help, just
help.

It's a great quote. Yeah, I think she's
right. I

think she's right too. She's been right about, how

do you handle because you're this way
in spades. And I think one ofthe things I've not figured out
well, and I'm wondering how youfigure it out, which is, there's
only 20 the one gating factor is24 hours in a day. So how do you
how do you manage all therequests that you get and all
the desires you have to helppeople and still have 24 hours
in a day?

Oh, my goodness, I feel like you just reversed
podcast with me. Um, that issuch a tough question. You know,
I get so many emails every day,I can't answer them all. I mean,
I can't. I have come to realizethat there are limitations to
what I can do. Before I didn't,and I would try to fit in and do

(22:14):
as much as I could, you know?
And I think now I've I realizedthat I can't

live with it. Is the answer or no,

you gate with it.

Are there things that you wish?

There are things that I pace, you know? I kind of
look at those who are coming tome, and I think, you know, who,
whose priority, and who can Imaybe push out a little bit, I
will answer everybody. I thinkthat's like a general rule I
have. I will always answer.
Because I just think that'sbasic respect is to recognize

(22:45):
somebody. I will always answer.
But now I will be honest aboutmy time constraints. So I will
say, you know, if I can make thetime for somebody, I will, if I
can't make the time immediately,I will say, you know, very
honestly, I can make time foryou, you know, at this later
time. And then I say, if it'ssomething urgent, can I offer

(23:09):
somebody else to to support?
Yeah, and I give options, but Iwill always answer, which is
also pressure, right? BecauseI'm sure you're inundated with
emails and WhatsApps and allthese things there. And you do
want to help everybody, but Iget 400

emails a day. I don't. I do not. It's
staggering. And then, you knowWhatsApp is, I'm more efficient
on some of the other signal andother depending on what field of
my work it is, I make it verybut I, I will get back to
people. But I've been shockedhow often I've buried things and
I'm embarrassed by it. Yeah,

it's really hard. I think, I think the commitment I
made to myself is that I willanswer everybody I but I cannot,
like, make time for everybodywhen they need it in that
moment. Good for you. And Ithink, you know, that's just the
way, the way it is, like time isnot infinite, at least the way
we understand it in currentrealities. So I want to talk to

(24:04):
you a little bit about I've onlyknown you since when you started
writing about entrepreneurship,but previous, previously to
that, you were a several timeentrepreneur, and you started
ventures, you know, onlineventures at a time where that

(24:25):
was just coming coming about.
It's not like starting somethingnow you were doing it right in
the beginning of when theinternet came out, right? So I
have a couple of questions. One,you know you you could have
continued your career working infinance or anything you wanted.

(24:47):
Actually, you could have donebut then you chose to go out and
do your own thing. And what was,what was going through your mind
when you made those decisions?
Yeah. You

know, it was a different era in many
ways. And you grow up in NewYork and you're surrounded and
even place like Harvard. I mean,even now at Harvard, by the way,
everyone will say, I want to doa startup in two thirds of them,
or McKinsey, or Goldman Sachs orwhatever. So there's always this
sort of people fighting theirnature versus expectations upon
them and what have you. And Ithink what I'd say is, I was
always very intrapreneurial, andI was entrepreneurial points

(25:22):
like, you know, people don'tbelieve in that because it
sounds much cooler than it wasat the time. But, you know, I
had a DJ business which failedimmensely after two years of
great success. And people don'tthink that I would necessarily
have done that, and but I did,and I did great stories, and I
loved music, and made a lot ofmoney doing it until they
explained. But

I loved it. I don't think we discovered that in our
research is that buriedsomewhere, probably pretty
buried, but there you go,everyone,

DJ, we have a lot of fun, and made
money and and it exploded, andlearned a lot lessons. Okay, so,
so I always had the that sortof, I'm going to do my thing
thing. But I think I would havetold you that in the first
decade of my career, I was moreintrapreneurial. In fact, the
first company of scale that Iran was intrapreneurial. I ran
the Washington post.com youknow, which was not a startup.

(26:07):
It was not a spin out, though.
It was run very separately fromthe legacy business. And part of
the challenge we had to do

was to figure out and it was, what wasn't it one
of the first to go online? Well,all of them

around that time, New York Times had a
great guy who's building one whoI learned, frankly, a lot it's
in a way, goes as a side, goesback to the community stuff.
I've often found that everybusiness I've run or been a part
of, I'm often quite friendlywith my number one competitor.
And I must say, one of thepeople I admired most of that
time was a guy who ran New Yorktimes.com and we actually did
some co authored projects andstuff to raise the industry

(26:39):
overall while we elbowed eachother and that kind of a thing.
So there were no I was hardlythe only one. I also inherited.
I came in at a time when therewas something up and running
that I had to sort of reorganizeand fix, and then we took it to
a different level. But it wasintrapreneurial. I mean, I was
entrepreneurial, but I had abalance sheet, I had a brand, I
had product that existed, whichis night and day from making,

(26:59):
you know, when I made phonecalls as the president of
Washington post.com, peopleand.com people answered them
when I was broke out with, youknow, Sequoia and a lot of very
good investors, and I'd call uppeople and say, I'm Chris
Schroeder from health centrally.
Who the hell are you? And theydon't call you back and like,
you know, you learn that there'sa big distinction. But in brand,
different in brand, different inorganization, different in it's
all the kind of stuff we weretalking about, the transactional

(27:19):
elements of it and all. But Iwill tell you that I had in my
teeth, even throughoutWashington post.com that at some
point I had to do this myself,like it was interesting what I
was doing. And I love news, andit was an interesting time in
history. But then you startedhealthcare. Then I did
healthcentral.com, and

health Central was also backed by some serious, was
serious players, includingSequoia, yeah, and that was
great. And it was also CarlyleGroup,

who's definitely back. Carlisle had a
venture capital wing back then,and they were back. I think the
lesson that I learned there is,you know, the money is
important. It does actually opendoors. But I had unbelievable
board members. I mean, these menjust got up in morning, went to
bed at night, and it was very,very helpful to me. They were
totally of service. I get Alanspoon, who was the president of

(28:04):
The Washington Post and thenbecame a very successful venture
capitalist in Boston. He neverdid not answer an email or a
call within minutes. It wasunbelievable. Mike Moritz, who
became a legend in Sequoia, ifever I needed something, it was
astounding to me, the speed withwhich they would come up with an
introduction or get on the phonewith me to brainstorm a problem
or whatever. And so the pressureof having that kind of money and

(28:26):
just raising money, and thepressure that is a startup was
all there, but I must say, itwas ameliorated by the team, and
it was ameliorated by havingpeople around me who really were
trying to help us succeed.

So what was, what would you say, especially with
health Central, because that wassomething that you co founded
and built from the bottom up.
What would you say was the mostgratifying moment as for you as
an entrepreneur, and what wasthe most difficult?

Well, the difficulties here, because in
many respects, there's so manyof them, I mean, and I mean, and
I say this entrepreneurs all thetime. I mean, the difficult ones
are almost every day often.
They're people related. I mean,I cringe most, and I think a lot
of CEOs cringe most when theyrealize that they probably
should move somebody out muchfaster than they did, and the
ramifications on theorganization, on the culture, on
the person, is brutal, and Ihave tremendous embarrassed

(29:19):
regrets by not doing thosethings better, and those tough
decisions more timely than Idid. You know, so there's always
the people. Issues are alwaysthe hardest. We

don't talk about that all the time. This issue of
you need to fire quickly and getrid of those. It's kind of true.
It is true. It's really true. Itis really hard to do. You get

caught in the cycle that good enough is
good enough, and that the vacuumof not having a role filled,
particularly in an early stagecompany, has got to be worse.
But if I'd looked in the mirrorand said, you know, something
for six months or whatever ittakes, get the right woman or
man, I'm going to be head ofsales or head of whatever. Like,
that's the right answer. Like, Ishould have been that way, and I
thought I could either fix it orget a little. Bit better. I

(30:00):
could find someone in parallel.
And the culture recognizes thatpeople wonder if you are really
on top of your game and for theperson themselves. If it's not a
fit for them, it's not thatthey're screwing up. I actually
think of that as a CEO screw up.
I'm having a baseball playerplaying soccer. We

forget that most people, if you need to get rid
of someone, they're probablyit's probably crushing them too,
crushing

them. And often they really are very
talented, but you got themplaying the wrong game, and so
you have to help them get to theright fit and that kind of
stuff. So that was the toughstuff, the positive moments, I
would say there's a broad one,and then one specific to health
Central. The broad one was whenyou watched people realize they
could make a difference in whatthey were doing, and they did,

(30:41):
like this, aha moment, where youcould watch people self Elevate,
almost by the act of them takingon something that none of us
thought we could actually do, orindividually they couldn't think
they could do. And not only theydid, they did and really well,
like you just the multipliereffect of what that did, also
culturally and to the success ofthe operation, I think, was very
profound. I mean, obviouslywinning big deals and all that

(31:02):
kind of stuff was of stuff was,you know, you get sort of
excited by that. I think themistake a lot of entrepreneurs
made, and I made sure not tomake this mistake, was that when
you raise money, particularlyyour second or third round of
capital, that somehow or other,that's a victory. And it is not
a victory at all. The number ofpeople go public and they think
they can less, go back on theirlaurels, or they just raise
another brand round, and theythink, okay, we kind of won. In

(31:24):
point of fact, this is where itgets even harder, even more
difficult, and so that. But Iwas pretty alert on that kind of
a thing. So, you know, it wasjust very exciting. But you
know, it was tough. It was very,very tough. And I think a lot of
people, you know, they saw, youknow, movies or, you know, HBO
dramas or whatever, and theythink this is all much of
laughs. And, you know, you gotto want to solve a problem. Oh,

(31:45):
yeah, in your teeth, it's

not really all that sexy. No, it's not sexy. So I
know the story of why youfounded health Central, but I'd
love for you to tell those whoare going to listen to this
podcast, because there is astory behind why you Yeah,
there's

a there's a personal story that laid into
a theory of the game from abusiness perspective. And, you
know, I feel that I and a coupleof other people at the time co
founded something, but weactually did, which in many
respects, was a mistake, becausewe rolled up some other health
properties that had good brandsthat we thought we could then
expand. And in many respects,you get so I think everyone

(32:20):
underestimates how tough it isto do even a series of small
acquisitions. And a lot of timeswe got caught in the mire of
different cultures and stuffthat you find under the covers
that you don't find in duediligence that slowed us down.
So it was a co founding, almostof an acquisition vehicle that
became, then a company on itsown. But it started personally.
So this was at a stage Facebookhad just been up and running. A

(32:41):
lot of social media was up andrunning. Was up and running, but
I had two personal experiencesthat were very profound. I had a
very dear friend who eventuallylost his battle to bipolar
disorder after an incrediblybrave battle, very, very gifted
guy who was a great speechwriter and policy guy in
Washington. He was a speechwriter for Carly Fiorina and at

(33:02):
Stanford, and very gifted guy,but he suffered from bipolar
disorder, and eventually hecouldn't win the battle. And
then a little bit earlier thanthat, my mother in law was given
what was clearly a terminaldiagnosis of cancer. And what I
found digging and digging anddigging in the internet at this
time was that there were allthese little groups of people
who'd been there or were in it,and you would not even

(33:26):
necessarily show each other'snames. I don't think I knew any
of the identity of the people Ifound these groups towards,
either you just found them, orthey were part of the
university, or whatever it was,but all of a sudden you were in
a room with people as narrow asfriends of friends of with
people who have bipolar disorderor the son and the son in law of
a woman with adenocarcinoma.
Like, the level of specificityyou found was unbelievable, and

(33:46):
with that, the level of detailedanswers and care and genuineness
was off the charts. And 60% ofit was about, you know,
treatments and medical things,but almost half of it, 40% of
it, was definitely about how youlive your life on a day. Your
life on a day to day basis. Andit was so hard to find these
things, and they were sopowerful. The original thesis of

(34:06):
health Central is, what if wecould aggregate a bunch of these
sites and have experiences wherepeople could find people just
like them, not necessarily carewho they are, the content that
they needed from a very genuineplace of experience. And you
know, you get sucked into, youneed to be another portal of
healthcare stuff, and how manydoctors you have involved and
everything else. And I had tosort of keep that the way it was
done, a bit at bay, to try tounleash something that had not

(34:30):
really existed at scale at thattime before. And we ended up
doing a whole bunch of stuffwith medical things. We did have
doctors and things like that.
But the real thing was, youknow, I'm a 32 year old woman
with a pain in the ass husband,and I've been diagnosed with
breast cancer. Do I tell mychildren? Like, those were the
kinds of questions that werecoming up as much of, what

(34:50):
treatment should I get? And sothat really was kind of the
essence of the proposition. Andwith that came a business model,
because the theory was, there'sa tremendous amount of money in
health. Care, and that moneywould rather not reach 10
million random people, butthey'd rather reach 30,000
people are actually goingthrough the experience, and
you'll get a much more greaterperformance on that and do

(35:11):
pretty well with it. And I mustsay, I was right in part, and it
was such bigger slog than Ithought we had to get through
all sorts of regulatory issues.
The regulators at that time ofthe FDA did not think that
people should advertise druginformation around social media.
It was crazy stuff. Yeah, and Ihad to testify before the FDA
and do a bunch of shit that noentrepreneur should have to
spend time doing. But I had todo it. And the outcome ended up,

(35:33):
though, we built something thatwas impactful. We I think we
saved people's lives, and, youknow, we ended up selling it. So
it was okay,

yeah, well, I'm glad you actually embarked on
it, but I think the reason why Iwanted you to share the that
origin story is because evenwith that, it started by you
still wanting to make the worlda better place. Yeah, right. And
I looked

at the news business that way. I mean
all the to me. I mean in somerespects, like in hindsight, you
and I can look at our career andmake into an arc, and you and I
both know that it's much more ofa sine wave. You have these
highs and these lows andridiculous mistakes and
everything else. And thenhindsight, it looks like an arc,
but to the degree that, inforesight, there was an arc for
me, I was always it goes back tomy curiosity stuff. I found that

(36:19):
if people had betterinformation, they made better
decisions. And the Unleashing,this is why I love entrepreneurs
now, because entrepreneurs areabout unleashing individual
potential. It's about, I've gota problem my teeth, and now I
want to be able to solve it, andthe best way to do that is often
starting with amazinginformation. And I think most of
the companies I ran at the timehad that element to them. Yeah,

I love it. It's it's what we ask of our fellows,
right? You have seen a lot inyour life, and you've seen a lot
of actually, you've seen theentire evolution of technology
kind of take over our life,right? You and I grew up without
without the internet, withoutphones, without cell phones,

(37:00):
without smartphones, we didn'thave any of that. And then all
of a sudden, you know, our liveschanged. And I think, you know,
I've seen you talk about thepower of just the smartphone,
and what happens when you put asmartphone in the hands of a
poor person in a remote ruralarea in somewhere in Africa or

(37:23):
in Asia or anywhere. And youtalk about how technologies
actually power and can actuallybe used to generate jobs and
prosperity, and you've been ahuge voice for the adoption of
technology and innovation withincountries like mine. So my my

(37:46):
question is like, where is thatcoming from? Why are you so
dedicated to that particularagenda, and why also in our
markets?

So there's a foresight element to
the question, and in a way, it'sa cousin to what I said before
about the empowering ofinformation to make better
decisions with technologyunleashed smartphones certainly
did this at scale, but what itreally unleashed was a very
clear and specific, not fluffy,sense of empowerment. And that
definition for me, I saw this atHealth central all the time. If

(38:20):
I see someone like me, lookslike me is from my economic
strata, my age, whatever Iidentify myself in, if I see
someone like me who takes holdof something and it works, that
means I can do it too. And theUnleashing, I think that is so
powerful about smartphones,obviously, being able to buy
things and all that, and havebanking, if you never had it
before, a part of the equation,a massive and revolutionary way.

(38:41):
But I think what is sometimesunderestimated is the act of
seeing people just like me doingall sorts of things. And that
means, if they do it, I can doit, we can all take a swing and
make our lives better in a moreconstructive way. And it was
very, very clear to me that thiswas true in America. It was
certainly the story of so manyof the entrepreneurs, many of
whom, most of whom came fromnothing, many of whom are
immigrants. But then when Istarted getting exposed to parts

(39:02):
of the world, you see it instates. So before I got to the
Arab Middle East, my firstexposure to this was because I
ran companies. I did what gringoCEOs always do, which is I
outsource technology to almostany emerging market. We called
it that then, from Argentina toSri Lanka, yeah. Yeah. And you
get cheaper engineering, yeah.
Unlike a lot of gringo CEOs, Iactually went and visited my

(39:24):
partners on the ground in theseplaces. And it was very clear
within hours that these womenand men were not simply getting
up in the morning go to bed atnight, so I'd have cheaper
engineering. They were lookingaround them and saying, Why is
there no Amazon here? Why isthere not even necessarily, in
the case of the Middle East,there's no email here in Arabic.
Why is it that that 80% of ourcountry can't get a loan other
than going to a loan sharkwithin their community, they're

(39:46):
asking all the obvious, Whyswhy? Because what I said before,
they've either been around theworld or saw the world and said,
people like me are doing it, sowhy can't I do it here?
Secondly, they're greatentrepreneurs, and they knew it
would be an opportunity for mostof them. Very impactful. When
you talk to Marcos at mercadoli,which is a juggernaut e commerce
company, you know, he had in histeeth not only to build the
Amazon of Latin America, but heknew it would revolutionize

(40:09):
lives there. And I came awayfrom that trip saying something
much bigger is going on herethat was different than anywhere
else. Case of the Arab MiddleEast. You know, I was involved
in a group. It was through YPO,of Arabs and Americans talking
about a time when the onlynarrative of the Arab Middle
East in Washington and certainlyAmerica, was conflict. It's just
war and disaster. ISIS was inyour bed. Pick whatever it was.

(40:30):
Here I'm meeting women and menacross the region who are like,
What are you talking about?
Like, yes, of course, there'sthis stuff going on, but there's
something else going on. Andhonestly, I didn't really
believe it, or I thought it wasa sideshow. I mean, there were
engineers in Egypt, I had nodoubt. But, you know, were they
really going to change things inlight of the bigger forces that
I understood them? And, youknow, Fauci and a couple of

(40:53):
other people put together thefirst major gathering, I think
may have been the first time I

met you. That was when we met. So, the celebration
of entrepreneurship. Celebrationof entrepreneurship. 2010

2010 in the fall. And you know, there
are a couple of things that werehappening in parallel. One,
there was like 3500 young peoplefrom around the Arab world who
were there, who did not give adamn about any political stuff
or Obama speeches or Israel oranything from a geopolitical
perspective. They had in theirteeth that they had tools to
solve problems. Secondly, therewas 3500 young people on a

(41:23):
waiting list to get into this.
Third, after that trip, Iactually went to Egypt for the
first time in Jordan, and saw itall in the ground happening
there as well. And I came backand said to myself, something is
happening here, combined withwhat I'd seen in other parts of
the world, that is going toredefine the global economy and
redefine infinite innovationglobally. And needless to say, a
month later, most of those youngpeople were in Tahrir Square or

(41:45):
whatever, protested somethingdifferent. You

you started writing this book, as you know, the so
called Arab Spring was takingfoot. And I remember when you
went to Egypt because I helpedyou, helped organize a visit for
you to go visit tawa so an NGOthat I had co founded with
Yasmina, I remember very well,and where we had built a school
and provided access to incomeopportunities for the people of

(42:13):
that community and and then Iknow that you went into writing
your book, and I just want totell the story, because you
started writing your book. I wasin the US, when the when the
revolution in Egypt started, andI remember you would, you would
every day, you would text me tosee how I was doing, until I
finally made it back home. Andyou every day, how are you

(42:37):
doing, how are you doing? And Ifelt like you were checking in
on everybody. Um, which wasreally beautiful, because I felt
like you had developed this veryunique bond with our part of the
world that was very special. I'mnot even sure that you even
realized how how deep it hadbecome, and how fast it had
become, but you ended up writingthis 200 page book about, um,

(42:59):
what was happening in theentrepreneurship space in the
Arab region, and there was a lothappening at the time. What?
What was it that you found moststriking about that part in time
in the Arab region, with regardsto how entrepreneurship was

(43:19):
evolving, versus what you seenow, almost what 13 years later?
Because I feel like every time Igo back, there's like an
evolution. Things are changing.
Yeah. I

mean, it's interesting. A friend of
mine just told me they it's the10th anniversary of the writing
of that book, and no tech booklast week, let alone 10 years?
No, I feel like you should writea part two. Well, some I know
someone else is running a parttwo, nor SWOT is writing no new
told me about her book, and I'mvery excited for that. I think
it's good that it's now. So, Imean, I think she was one of the
pioneering people also, andshe's of it and in it. And I

(43:57):
think she'll have I'm muchhappier to be helpful to her,
then be kind of an externalreporter on it. I think it'll be
a more genuine book and answersome of the questions you just
raised. But what I would tellyou is a friend of mine just
looked at it for whateverreasons. If you read the
introduction of my book, a Fordwas written by Marc Andreessen,
and the conclusion of it, allthe themes of what was changing

(44:18):
about human interconnection andthe Unleashing talent have held
up entirely the stories whosucceeded or who failed and who
came after the book. All thatthe book is way too dated to be
relevant in its detail, but Ithink it hit a lot of the issues
that were important to the Arabworld, but is important pretty
much everywhere, because it goesdown to this idea that we have
in these tools for all thecriticism people like to give of

(44:39):
social media and what have you,we have an unleashing of
capacity and capability thatsimply was not possible for
them. And even you go to theMiddle East now, and obviously,
the way the political situationplayed out much differently than
people had hoped and aspired inmany ways overall, Saudi Arabia
barely appears in my book.
Barely appears.

Yeah. Now if you wrote today, you'd start there.
You

would be.
Right there Dubai. Dubai was, inmy book, some but even then,
Dubai was very expensive. In alot of respects. Was viewed as
kind of a private equity, notventure capital mentality, big
real estate projects and bigcompanies and what have you. And
then no one could afford to livein Dubai. And of course, that's
changed dramatically. But SaudiArabia was literally like a
market for E commerce. They havemoney, and you could sell stuff

(45:20):
there. But the idea that there'dbe entrepreneurs, let alone
women entrepreneurs, beingunleashed 10 years ago, of
course, was completely off theradar. So now here we are, 10
years later, and I think thecore thing which is shared is
the desire from people who havea problem in their teeth that
they have to solve, has thecapabilities and tools to do so
with a market that's much moreadept to doing it. And we forget
COVID, in some respects, was,for all of its horridness, was

(45:42):
an unleashing of people'sengagement and understanding of
how to use technology in theirlives in a day to day basis. And
a new generation ofentrepreneurs have just leaned
into that to be able to solvesome really big and thorny
questions. And I see nowincredibly exciting companies in
Saudi Arabia and UAE, andthere's still fantastic
companies in Egypt, the ankleweights. The countries who

(46:03):
choose to unleash this talentare making the right choices for
the 21st century. The countriesthat are deciding they still
want to contain this or make ithard for young people to do it,
are missing the greatestopportunity. Which brings

me to an important, important point. So here at the
center, we always talk aboutbottom up growth, through
through venture development,that entrepreneurship can be the
critical pathway to achievingprosperity that is sustainable,
inclusive, but that alsorequires political will. Yeah,

(46:38):
and I don't think any of when Ithink of my country or and what
it's going through now,especially with economic
downturn and the currency issuesand the devaluation and the
fiscal scarcity mindset. If wehad, you know, 3040, years ago,

(46:59):
said instead, we want to investin bottom up venture growth that
is driven by technology. Wherewould Egypt be today? So on many
levels there, there's politicalwill involved. And we saw that
happen live in places like theUAE and Saudi which really was
very recent, when they decidedto the government, decided to go

(47:21):
full force into supportingtechnology and innovation and
entrepreneurship and backingthat with money and providing
capital. But you've traveled,you know across the world.
You've traveled in the Arabregion. You've traveled now in
the ASEAN region. I know you'vebeen to some places in Africa,
Latin America for sure. Why ispolicy and politics so important

(47:46):
when it comes to unleashingentrepreneurship as a and when I
say entrepreneurship, I'm nottalking about like your
traditional SME, but reallythose innovation driven
entrepreneurs who have thepotential to grow fast and
create jobs and completelytransform systems. Why does it
matter so much?

Look, I mean, it matters because it
matters. I mean, at the end ofthe day, the regulatory
environment, the ability to getmoney into an investment and get
a money out, is by definitionrule of law. The ability to bank
people who have never beenbanked before is by definition
going to run into regulatorycircumstances. I mean, the there
was almost a naivete, kind of aSilicon Valley started naivete

(48:23):
that you can move fast and breakthings, and you'll deal with
government later, once you're sobig, they can't, they're not
going to mess with you in thesame way, and you're gonna
always solve problems bigger andfaster than them. And by the
way, I'm not saying that that'scompletely wrong, but I will say
at the same time and thereality, particularly in the
markets where you and I focusoverall, it's really naive. But
having said that, you know, ifyou were to ask me now, who are

(48:44):
some of the top countries whoare really getting ahead of how
to think about FinTechregulation, who think about
FinTech not as an extension ofbanking alone, but are thinking
about what it takes to make themsucceed, to meet with the
entrepreneurs, to meet withventure capital, and try to
actually create both enablingcapabilities, whether that may
be infrastructure or a rule oflaw, to make them succeed. It

(49:05):
would surprise a lot of people.
I think Brazil has been veryforward, I was about to say
Brazil very forward leaning herein a way that I sure America is.
Indonesia has had very positivemoments, and that surprises, I
think, a lot of people. But lookat the end of the day one, a lot
of the leaders are a generationolder than you and me, meaning
that all this stuff they don'tquite understand. I think lots
of generation are too, and theyfeel very threatened by what

(49:27):
they don't understand. There'stremendous lobbying and
political pressure from businessas usual to not have things that
disrupt. I mean, the dynamicsare very, very real and need to
be understood at the end of theday. I think one of the great
capabilities of the bestentrepreneurs you and I have
ever been behind is a sense ofpersistence. They're going to
get tailwind headwindssomewhere, and unfortunately, in

(49:47):
many countries, those headwindscome top down, and that means
that you almost enable a braindrain. And so I look every
leader of every country ismaking a choice, and that choice
is. Do I want to leash this, ordo I want to contain it? And
those who contain it will findthemselves not well in a
competitive position in the nextcentury.

Yeah, and I feel like some and you've heard me
say this many times, is that itrequires a massive mindset shift
to really see that your peoplewho can solve problems are
actually assets. Well,

my favorite quote in the book, my
favorite quote probably in myexperience of the last 15 years.
No, not in your experience inthe last 15 it is because it
summarized so much. And it was,it was from you, and it was this
distinction that you madebetween top down mindset and
bottom up entrepreneurialmindset. And you said that
effectively, top down mindsets.
This is true in America. Youtalk to NGOs and, God knows,

(50:40):
government people very, veryoften, who I think are very well
intended and very decent peoplewho really do care. But top down
mindset looks at people asproblems to be solved. You, poor
people, we will fly in. We willsolve you, tap at you in the
head on our way in and out ofdoing so. But the bottom up
mindset, the unleashing of theentrepreneurial mindset is

(51:01):
people are assets to beunleashed. But the fact of the
matter is, a lot of politicalpower is not happy when people
get unleashed. And by the way,history sometimes is on their
side. But that is the trade off.
You captured that trade offbeautifully in that distinction.

Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, when I think
about companies like M PESA or,and what that did for the people
of Kenya, right, or, and also,more broadly, Africa now, or
when I think about suit.com andyou know you've met Ronaldo,
Ronnie, and one of the thingsthat I Never knew about suit.com

(51:39):
which was acquired by Amazon, isthat in the beginning, in the
early days, of them trying todeliver these products, this
through this e commerceplatform, you know, in our part
of the world, we didn't actuallyhave addresses.

Well, for the Saudi it was almost
impossible deliver. Stories arehilarious, right? And

like even in my country, in Jordan, in Lebanon,
it used to be, you would say myhouse is on the corner of blah,
blah, blah, with the kiosk thathas this written on it, and just
go down. It's four buildingsdown. But addresses were never
used, right? It was done bylike, symbols and things. And he
actually had to actually getaddresses written. And that
created a massive opportunity tobe able to have all these

(52:23):
addresses. I guess the thequestion is if, if you're a
policy maker and you'relistening to this podcast in in
countries that are stillhesitating to really embrace and
adopt technology as a way toachieve their prosperity,
prosperity, but also to developthe kind of regulatory
environment that would allowtheir own entrepreneurs to

(52:45):
thrive in their own countrieswithout leaving what advice
would you give them?

Look, I have to tell you that I'll speak
from America's perspective asthey get involved in this. I
think never in the history, atleast in my lifetime, is the
intersection between policymaking business and technology
overlap more at a necessarylevel. And I just think it's
descriptively true, whetheryou're talking about military
tech, health tech, educationtech, or anything overall. And
having said that, it is verystriking to me how most of the

(53:15):
government institutions one areso swarmed with people who've
never had experience in runningbank, managing or really leading
an organization in a privatesector. View, a lot of them are
have limits on their access touse technology on a day to day
basis because of security issuesor everything else. And they
really speak differentlanguages. I mean, I've brought
some of the real poo box ofSilicon Valley, and certainly AI

(53:37):
to meet very smart very, verytop people in our government and
elsewhere. And I literally willsit in a room with three or four
people and I walk away stunnedat how you have such bright,
such caring individuals. And Ithink for the most part, they
really are who one is speakingcoina Greek and the other is
speaking Latin. Yes, there is amiss of language. There's a
misunderstanding of theanalogies that they make, and a

(53:59):
disconnect. And so my answer toyour question is, and regulators
tend to want to go afterproblems first. They want to
kind of justify their existencefirst. And what ends up
happening is they don't have thelanguage or the experience of
the people who are mostaffected. And part for me, is to
really get embedded. TheBrazilians did this very well
very early on, when they decidedthey were gonna have FinTech

(54:22):
regulation, they brought in theentrepreneurs themselves. They
brought in the expertise whohave to live under these
regulations. Yeah, and madetrade offs accordingly. But

I think with them, they did it at the right time. I
think when Egypt did it, it wastoo late. But well,

you know, I'm gonna be a little bit naive
here to say that it's never toolate, like if you're actually
willing to embrace the feedbackand want to make a choice to
unleash this phenomenon. It'snot too late. But if your
instinct is this thing called AIappears, and I'm going to be the
first out of the box Europe withregulations here, and I'm just
going to sort of jam all my dataprotection learning into a very

(54:56):
different kind of an animal. Andyou know, be able to declare
victory. And like. You sort ofsay to yourself, is that really
in the public good? Andcertainly is that in a good
that's going to make youcompetitive in the world that
we're facing right now? Andthese are the questions people
have to look in the mirror andsay, what is it that I want to
be now? The fact of the matteris, a lot of women and men who
don't care, yeah, that's alsotrue. I mean, let's we, you

(55:16):
know, we can have a wholepodcast just about how
politicians think abouteducation, and at the end of the
day, if you're not serious, ifyou're not trying to do more and
more to help this younggeneration have the tools and
capabilities for the 21st

century, ultimately, it's going to impact
your country. Yeah, it's and you

got to look in the mirror and say that.
But many politicians, obviouslyare more short term focused, and
they have different incentives,and they don't, again, really
understand what you take forgranted, and it makes it hard,
but it's not impossible. Enoughexamples where people know
something's happening, I wouldthink that any country in the
world will look, should look atplaces like Dubai and UAE, and
how they in Saudi Arabia, areleaning into AI and saying, you

(55:53):
know, not unlike what I saidbefore, if they're doing it, why
can't I do I've got a lot ofmoney, or I've got a lot of
energy, or I've got access toGPU or very talented young
people, but you have to, youhave to use your imagination. I
mean,

personally, I'm not sure exactly what led to the UAE
and Saudi really embracing AI.
What was that turning point?
Regardless, they're at a placewhere they're really embracing
it. And I, you know, not to namewhich African president. But,
you know, I spent some time witha president in Africa who very
openly said to me, he's like,you know, for me, AI is very

(56:27):
scary, and, you know, I don'tknow what to do with it, and I
don't know what good it can dofor my country. And, you know,
so a part of it for me became,are we also, you know, when we
think about all the work thatthe World Bank and IMF is doing

(56:48):
educating people abouttechnology, and advanced
technology in particular, andhow to use that to actually
create prosperity, is not ontheir agenda. No. What's on
their agenda is squeeze,squeeze, squeeze, uh, put
everyone in a scarcity mindset,and that doesn't create change,
no, it creates fear, right? AndI'm at a point where I feel like

(57:11):
for Africa, and I know you'vebeen writing a lot lately about
the ASEAN region, and you'vebeen traveling like Vietnam,
Taiwan, China. I mean, that's onmy list. I'm so jealous. But,
you know, we need to find waysto kind of break down that fear
barrier and also overcome a lotof the kind of very structural,

(57:35):
I would say, suffocatingmechanisms that also exist in
these governments. I

don't know how to how to crack it
another suffocation is true. Thelegacy of many of these
governments is heavy. But thenyou have to say to yourself at
one point, a leader, because itreally does boil down to
leadership. The leader woke upone day and looked at the desert
and said, I'm going to build anenormous city here. That's an
economic move of the world. AndI'm going to go study Singapore.
I'm going to study other peoplehave done it, and I'm going to

(58:01):
have my own version of it, andbut I want to study it. And you
without naming names, you and Iknow a leader in Africa who
studied Dubai and studied UAEand studied Israel, and was
going to be that in Africa,hasn't happened yet. And so, you
know, there are all these kindsof trade offs, but I think very
often in life. This is true inrunning a company, and it's true

(58:23):
in assessing a macroconversation like this, that if
you really unpack the incentivestructures in place, you can
almost predict with 100% howpeople are going to act. And the
fact of the matter is thistechnology, particularly now, I
mean, we've had a similarconversation 10 years ago with
mobile capability, but now withAI, we really are in new
territory, and it's quiteunderstandable for people to say
this may move in a place whereeither it could be dangerous for

(58:45):
things that are in my incentivesor my understanding, or I'm
going to get dwarfed. I'm goingto be a pawn yet again in the
China America game or whateverit is. So you have to be
creative, but at the same time,you start asking yourself big
questions, which is, every kidin my country can have a
personal within five years, canhave a personal tutor in their
hand. Like, what does that meando? What

can that do? Future progress of my country, we

will cure cancer with this ability to
manage data in a way that wasunimaginable five years ago. But
I'm just saying it's there. Butyou have to have the mindset
that says, not only do I have toregulate things because of a
reasonable conversation of whatcan get off the line, but at the
same time, I'm going to say tomyself, I'm in a unique position
in the history of the world beable to solve the problems in

(59:29):
theory. That's why I'm there.
But that takes a certainleadership mindset, and they
don't come around that often.
No,

they really don't.
That's That's where there'sscarcity. But since we're on
that topic. You know, you'vebeen traveling a lot in Asia.
You've traveled extensively inthe Middle East, Africa. You've
traveled in Latin America. Andyou know, the US is your
playground. Do you think there'sgoing to be a new playbook for

(59:56):
technology and innovation? Thatmoves away from the kind of
Silicon Valley playbook thateveryone has been emulating,

Christopher Schroeder (01:00:06):
like everything in life is like
talking about the Singaporemodel. I think there are things
that work, and if people aresmart, they will take them and
leverage them, and there arethings which are either get long
in the tooth or they didn't evenwork in the timing you make a
choice to do it differently, oryour culture or society, or
things that you want may bedifferent than a thing overall.
But there's a reason why, aftera period where people are

(01:00:29):
starting to write off SiliconValley and the problems, God
knows, of the tragedy thatbecame San Francisco as a city
and the infrastructure aroundit, and COVID, people moving to
Miami and whatever else, there'sa reason why there's a massive
sucking sound of the mostcapable and talented people from
around the world in AIgravitating back into that area.
Because one of the things thatwe have learned for all the

(01:00:49):
power of virtualness is thatthere really is still, it's
almost back to your communityconversation earlier, a desire
to be in the same room withpeople who are solving big, big
problems, and you want to bearound the best of the best,
that network effect of talentdoes not happen often in
history. And I think everycountry that cares about this
stuff is asking, Can I in someway prime to do that? I mean,

(01:01:12):
it's very interesting when youlook at countries, and we come
back to Saudi Arabia and UAE,and no country is perfect by any
stretch of the imagination. Butwhat's one of the determinants
that they've said they're like,I'm gonna have open visas, so
the best talent on earth willcome here. Like that is a
statement about where you wantyour ambition to go, not only in
theory, but in application. Andthe idea that people would say,

(01:01:33):
well, Silicon Valley's past itsprime, they're just being naive,
because the fact of the matteris, there's still incredible
talent that likes to aggregatethere geographically. Now we can
say that talent is everywhere,which I do believe. But the fact
of the matter is, there'll besome AI companies that come out
of New York and Chicago andAustin and what have you. But
there is a reason why. There isa recipe of the network effect

(01:01:56):
of talent wanting to be arounditself, and that's the secret
sauce that I think in somerespects, we never know how to
do that, except in hindsight.
But it is magic

Dina Sherif (01:02:04):
in Boston, right?
Anybody who wants to do anythingin relation to biotech somehow
finds their way here, even ifit's for a brief moment in time.
I think for us, we just hope tosee more of these hubs in other
parts of the world.

You know?
I think the beauty is, at leastfor a period of time. I mean,
there's a period of time, Ithink, a couple of years, where
more Indians were leavingAmerica to go back to India than
to come to America, which was amajor statement. When you stop
to think about it. I don't knowwhat those numbers are like now,
but at the end of the day, greatentrepreneurs are globalists,
almost by nature, in that I'mnot making this as a
geopolitical statement, but theywill go with the least amount of

(01:02:41):
friction to succeed.

Oh, totally. We have some fellows who are quite,
quite like that. So almost mylast question, but kind of my
last question I'm asking, I'mgonna ask you this question for
Donovan, right? I think, youknow, the world is in a, I would
say, not a great place. And youknow, we were talking, there's
so many things in the worldright now that kind of makes you

(01:03:09):
sad, right for but at the sametime, you know when I read, when
I read your pieces, and yourexperience, what? What your
experiences lately in Asia, andeven if I go back and to your
book that was published 10 yearsago, there's something about
your stories of entrepreneurshipthat has a promise of deep hope,

(01:03:30):
yeah, and I remember somethingthat I will always, always hold
close to my heart, and in Thekind of worst days of Egypt
during the uprisings and therevolution and what was
happening. And, you know, I oncesaid to you, you know, I'm not
optimistic. And you said, it'sokay, you don't have to be

(01:03:53):
optimistic, but you always haveto be hopeful. Yeah, and I've
always kept that in the back ofmy mind. When you look at, you
know, what is happening in theworld, and what is happening
with regards to technology andenormous potential that, like I
feel that AI has the potentialto really help countries

(01:04:13):
leapfrog and completelytransform systems that are
deeply broken, if they justembrace it. But I guess my
question to you is, in the midstof all these terrible things
that are happening in the world,there is this place of hope,
which we call entrepreneurship.
What? What does that mean foryou?

Well, the sense that I've had about
optimism versus hope is actuallystolen from a wonderful quote
that I can't do quite justice toof a really remarkable man,
Vaclav Havel, who's the firstreal president of Czechoslovakia
after the Berlin Wall fell. Andit was interesting because he
became a great leader of thecountry as a playwright. He was
a political activist who was inprison and saw all that, but he

(01:04:54):
actually was an artist first andforemost. And I think thought of
himself that way. And he made adistinction. He said optimum.
Ism effectively, is like it'sall going to turn out well, and
hope is, you know, sometimesthings don't turn out well, but
they made sense. And I've alwaysheld on to that distinction,
because I think at the end ofthe day, and the entrepreneurs
are case study, one of this, orwomen and men coming all the

(01:05:15):
time, of multiple generationswho see a problem in their teeth
and they want to solve it. Andin an almost Buddhist sense, the
macro doesn't slow them down atall, because they can't do
anything about the macro, butthey can do about this,
something about this problem intheir teeth. And when you spend
time with all the amazing peopleof multi generation around your
world, a lot of them areyounger, but not all of them.
And I get to see all the peoplearound the world, you don't get

(01:05:37):
it. Leave those meetings withoutfired up. I just was a wonderful
experience. Actually, I was justa judge for the Schwarzman
Scholar Program. SteveSchwarzman from Blackstone Group
started this 10 years ago, andit's kind of a road scholarship,
but bringing mostly Westerners,but global students to spend a
year at Tsinghua University. Andthey've built a beautiful campus

(01:05:57):
there. And this is anextraordinary group of young
people. I interviewed almost 40of them, and every one of them,
when I read their application inadvance of it, I'm like, we're
going to be okay. Like, theseare just amazing young people.

This is what our future has been stored and
they're not all entrepreneurs.
Some

of them are social entrepreneurs. Some
of them are professors. Some ofthey come from all different
passion, but there's somethingin their teeth, and they come at
it with a sense of that thereare problems out there, and not
solving them does not makesense. Solving them makes sense.
And maybe they'll win, maybethey'll lose, but they're in
and, you know, I think that's avery powerful reminder, because
we forget that throughouthistory, there is terrible war,

(01:06:33):
and there's now breathtakinglyterrible war now, and there's
political abuse and there'scriminality of all sorts of
natures. We try to pretend thatthe norm is not that, when, in
point of fact, with any sense ofhistory, the norm is that, in
many ways, and it is these folkswho are sort of like despite
that I'm showing up that makesall the difference going
forward. I think one of thethings that marks this period

(01:06:55):
different than any period in mylifetime, other than AI and
technology, which is massivelydifferent. And I believe we're
in the earliest innings ofbeginning to appreciate that is
that we're in world order, wherethe world order is being
questioned everywhere. All thebumpers of behavior, to the
degree that there were somebumpers that either were
implicit or explicit, people aretesting them everywhere. There's

(01:07:17):
not a part of the world wherethere's not a woman or man
saying, I know 10 years ago, Inever could have done this, but
I can do it now, and I'm goingto try and America. I just wrote
a blog post on this. I mean,America is having a hard time
understanding that what theyneed to do in the world is not
tell people what to do, but tocompete. Compete for ideas,
compete for execution, competefor great product and services

(01:07:38):
at a great price. Becauseeverywhere around the world.
People are saying, I havealternatives. China is an
obvious alternative. But it'snot just China. It's everywhere
else. A world of choice isactually a very hopeful thing in
the macro scary scenarios thatwe all know we're there. And I
don't pretend that these thingscould not spin out in a way that
is of a historical era. But youhave to remember, I cut my teeth

(01:08:00):
at 21 when the Berlin Wall felland the Soviet Union disappeared
and there was war in the Gulf.
And people now look back on thatas a historical event that
seemed just to happen prettydecently, and they forget how
much everything in the worldseemed to be on its ear at that
time and at this time. Now, allthe ways that we think about
life, and you and I were raisedto expect about them, are at

(01:08:21):
least being pushed on, if notquestioned. And in that it is,
can be disarming, but in that,of course, is unbelievable
opportunity. And I think thatpeople tend to gravitate towards
success. And if people actuallynot say they're great, but
actually show and display andcompete as great, that could be
a very interesting period thatwe're going into. We'll see.

It's interesting that you said that because your
friend Fauci on dur once said tome, you know, competition is a
fantastic thing. It is afantastic thing because
competition leads to excellence.
He's right. And withoutcompetition, what we have left
is mediocrity. The

evidence, I think whether it's in history
or art or dancing orentrepreneurship, is utterly on
his side. And we look at our ownpersonal experiences, there's so
much that we do because we allwork hard and we care, but we
always take it that extra footbecause we have someone coming
up behind us that's just in thatnatural aspect of human nature.
Yeah.

Yeah,

Unknown (01:09:19):
absolutely.

So my last question for you is, you know, you're at
a moment in your life, your kidsare grown up, and you've had an
amazing career, and you'respending a lot of your time, you
know, studying other markets,writing about other markets. I
don't know why you often referto yourself as the in and out

(01:09:40):
Gringo, because I don't actuallybelieve that to be true. I don't
think there's anything in andout about you. I feel like you
always go and deeply immerseyourself and really think about
where you are and with deepcuriosity and humility. Um, so I
would encourage you to stopusing that word. But anyway, um.
Uh, my question is, really, whenyou look back on your life,

(01:10:07):
what, what do you want people tosay is the purpose? What would
you like your legacy of purposeto be?

Unknown (01:10:16):
You know? I

mean, first of all, I am an in and out
gringo. I mean, the and I thinkthe recognition of that is not a
weakness, it's descriptive,meaning the difference between
all the experience I've had inthe Middle East and spending 15
minutes with you is just nightand day. It's just night and
day. It's a night and day when Iget to talk to people like you
and other parts of the countrywho live it and of it have been

(01:10:37):
of it, and I can't myexperience, my questions are
better with each year, but mydepth of understanding or
understanding when i The goodnews is I pattern recognition
across a breadth of experiences,but I am in and out Gringo, and
it's a reminder of me. That termactually reminds myself that
when I start gettingcomfortable, that I think I
understand what's going on, Istill don't know shit. And that

(01:10:57):
demand for every one of us, I'dsay, but absolutely true and
different in whatever form, butwe all should be conscious of
that and remind ourselves of itand a part of that humility of
being wrong and loving beingwrong, because that's how we
evolve. I don't know, I'm notsure yet that I figure out, what
if there's a legacy, if anyone'sgoing to give a damn that I
existed a day after I'm go offto the great startup ecosystem

(01:11:20):
in the sky, I will tell you. AndI said this recently to someone
I didn't even remember that. Isaid it, but it was true.
There's no question that amongthe biggest legacies I'll have
are my three children. I mean,they, you know, were profoundly
interesting and very funny andvery self effacing. They have
deep passions and things thatthey do, but they're not defined
by those things, but they are ofservice. They think of
everything they do every day, ofmaking somebody's life a little

(01:11:42):
bit more informed, a little bitbetter. They have this sort of
wonder of being wrong in manyways. And again, they're very
funny. And

Unknown (01:11:49):
the multiplier impact them all wonderful. The
multiplier impact of

these kids, you know, I think on the
world will be absolutely one ofthe biggest roles that I've
played on the planet. And Ithink, sort of as a corollary to
that, the ability that everyonethat I've touched at one point
can say, not only was he askingme what he could do to make make
something happen or what haveyou, but I'm doing that now too.

(01:12:13):
You know, you'll never measurethat. I'll never be able to look
at a balance sheet or an incomestatement and say the people
that I've touched took elementsof that and and were able to do
that more for others. But Ithink more gets built that way.
I think more success happensthat way. I think we can
leverage understanding in a muchmore profound way that makes
lives better. And so, you know,I'm very proud to have built and

(01:12:34):
sold businesses. I'm very proudto have exit and a company I
invested in that's all nice, butI really think the big key and
the entrepreneurs that I admiremost are the ones who are
constantly learning about howthey can have multiplier effects
among other people's lives. Andyou know, the frustrating part
of it is you can't measure it,but you know, deep down, it's
happening. So that would be it.

Well, I would say that anybody who knows you or
who has interacted with you willalways take away that one
question that you ask everybody,which is, how can I be of help?
What

Unknown (01:13:05):
can I do to help you?
And that's gonna make your lifea little better?

Wonderful, wonderful thing. So thank
Christopher, thank you so muchfor making the time to join us
on the podcast. And you know,for me, I know that I I always
enjoy my conversations with you,and I think it was really
important for for me. The minuteI knew you were coming to town,
I said, Donovan, you know, Iwant to share what I have

(01:13:28):
learned about you over the yearswith others. And so I want to
thank you for being with us, andthank everyone who's listening
for listening, and I hope theytake away from it what I have
been taking away from you overthe years, and if there's a
lesson anybody can learn fromyou is, you know, what can we
all do to help, even if it's asmall thing? So thank you again

(01:13:49):
for being with us. Thank

Unknown (01:13:50):
you for you and your friendship has been wonderful.
Yeah, you.

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