there's a deep connection between money as an instrument of change and what
you're doing now at social here's the thing there's about a hundred and fifty
people that run the world anybody who wants to go into politics it's they're
all fuckin puppets okay there are a hundred and fifty and they're all of men
that run the world . . they controlled most of the important assets they
control the money flows and these are not the tech entrepreneurs now they they
are going to get rolled over over the next five to ten years by the people
that are really underneath pulling the strings and when you get behind the
curtain and see how that world works what you realize is it is unfairly set
up for them and their progeny now i'm not going to say that that's something
that we can rip apart but first order of business is i want to break through and
be at that table that's the first order of business and the way that i do that
is by proving that i can do what they do as well as they do it and then do it
better than how they do it because at the end of the day they are commercial
fucking animals okay and they'll open the door out of curiosity and they'll
let me stay because i because i add value and then once I'm there I can open
the door for other people who can try to do the same thing so my entire goal now
is that is to be in a position to aggregate enough of the capital of the
world - then reallocate it against my
worldview and I'm not saying my worldview is the best or right but it is
mine and at the end of the day there are a hundred and fifty other fucking guys
with their worldview and they don't give a shit what you think about their
fucking worldview that's the truth and so why not me
why not why not one of you why not and so in my life now I'm just kind of
like why not why the fuck not
what can you tell us little so you have these 50-year goals for social capital
yeah three of them yeah can you give us your world view in through those goals
so my 2045 ambition for the organization this is as I see it right now 2045 is I
would like us to employ at least 10 million people through the businesses
that we own I would like our businesses to positively affect at least a quarter
of the world's population and I would like us to have made cumulative Li about
a trillion dollars that's my 2045 ambition I think if we do that we are
the modern face of capitalism for the next 50 years so how we do that now
becomes really important so if you think about building businesses and today that
could do any of those three things you have to be technological you absolutely
just have to be you are not going to build a brick and mortar business that
gets anywhere close to those three things number one number two is you have
to think very broadly about building things that can stand the test of time
those businesses are by definition hard and non-obvious and so they compound in
scale very slowly and that's really counterintuitive to the overriding logic
of Silicon Valley which says quick fast go right but that kind of premature
ejaculation doesn't work if you're trying to fucking be around forever like
you've got to be in the flow for decades that is hard it tests people's patience
it tests people's resolve it tests people's really intellectual incision
and this is where everybody gives up everybody gives up I had this moment
today just a total different way of describing this through the warriors
I've met a lot of players obviously one of them who had become unbelievably
close to as David Lee David Lee just got engaged to this unbelievable woman
Caroline Wozniacki tennis player anyways we were working out this morning okay
couples workout me and my wife him and him and his fiance so we're doing this
thing this treadmill thing which my trainer was concocted and I mean I mean
I'm in pretty good shape and then you see what it really means to be extremely
dedicated in their case to something which is physical fitness because
they're professional athletes when I give up when the average human gives up
their brain goes into fucking overdrive okay and they're like there's this next
level burst and so like it's it's that it's like when when things get hard can
you double down a different example we had yesterday we do these things every
quarter called quarterly portfolio reviews we're incredibly intensive
review of our entire portfolio revisiting our strategy talking about
all the things we're doing to make sure we're on the right track and I had this
observation which was I started a diabetes business my dad died of
diabetes three years ago most of my relatives have it I expressed the gene
that makes me disproportionately susceptible to it so it's something that
I personally care about but that business took seven years to get to a
place where we even have a chance of being viable and I think to myself in
that example I embodied a bit of Caroline Wozniacki when things got hard
I pushed through the pain now in my case the pain was the fear of failure
continuing to write more money a belief that I had that this business was going
to work and today that business manages a million diabetics and I think there is
some kid out there whose family will be slightly less dysfunctional because
their parents disease is better managed it's not going to go to a place where
like you know they're getting dialyzed or you know they're on an organ registry
and that value for that kid in our world and all of you that benefits will never
be connected the dots but that's okay but it required just resilience and I'm
proud of that yeah and so I want to bring back a
little bit of that here so that it's not quick fast five million users ten
million flip it sell it great celebrate it's
like hey let's work on some hard shit together let's like buckle down and look
each other in the eye and say we're gonna support each other here this gonna
take seven or eight years but if it works it will really mean something and
it's something that matters to you for something that's other than just simple
motivation of the social capital you get from your friends or money in the short
term and winning bigger longer-term we're missing that and I think like part
of our success will be if we can stay focused on that our education portfolio
is another thing it literally looked like a train wreck for three years
where everybody has always said you never invest in education and my thing
was it's not about education this is about human capital development it's
about for every one of you who's so smart that got into Stanford think of
all the people who could be as capable I'm not asking you to empathize with
them but I as a capitalist want a starting line where all of those people
can run a race so that I can pick the winner no offense to any of you here and
it took us three years where now those building blocks exist and I'm like wow
how many times I'd have to look at my partner's is they know the easy answer
is to walk away the hard answer is to double down we have to support this
business that culture is missing here so part of what we're trying to do to
achieve those goals is like take really big audacious points of view on the
world and then train ourselves to be patient and it's really really hard the
entire society is set up to not be patient anymore what do you want these
future business leaders to do about it once they get into that spot get the
money get the money and then let's get around a table and let's create new
rules literally that simple get the fucking money I'm serious do not get it
it is gonna be made it is going to be allocated and you have a moral
imperative to make sure that if you have a point of view that matters and you
want to reflect it you get it I'm gonna go get it other people are gonna go get
it and then it will be about a competition of
use and don't wrap yourself in all this like you know liberal kind of bullshit
about oh my god money blah no stop here's how the
fucking world works okay it drives the world for better or for worse economic
incentives drive entire swaths of populations to behave in very very
predictable and then when you when you take it away unpredictable ways ask
anybody in your class that's from a developing nation ask anybody in your
class like who has seen that play out from where they're from so that's what
you have to do you got to go and get it if you control the capital and you have
a point of view you can now then the question is don't be a sellout whatever
your worldview is you should be spending time to think about what that is so that
when you control some of these purse strings you push that view into the
world I will never judge you and you should not judge me for what that
worldview is but the point is the more diversity of those views the more
rational actors we have and the more of a balanced fair system that is what
diversity really means to me it doesn't mean like let's manage back
to a quota you know it doesn't mean like ok we need a black guy a brown guy we
need a few but that's not what it means this is what it means right there are
people in this audience that have probably dealt with the same kind of
like life that I've dealt with you have a very unique world view that matters
and in the absence of capital you're irrelevant with capital you're powerful
and then you decide in small ways and medium-sized ways and large ways right
and it just depends on the scale of capital that you have and so that's
what's necessary now in capitalism which is that we have to come back to like
what is it really is it an economic system yes but it is a philosophy as
well right and it's a philosophy a fee that says we will vote for the
change we intend based on the views that we have and when you look at the most
successful people that operate in these tentacles that's what they do look at
the koch brothers that's what they do they have built a network of influence
based on capital their worldview is propagated into the world at an
unbelievably aggressive rate that has been compounding for decades that is
genius it is genius it doesn't matter whether you agree with their worldview
the question is what's the counterweight to their worldview can you name what can
you name a group of people that operate in the exact same way methodically
meticulously assembling Capital influence assets who believe the
opposite irrespective of what you think of the koch's
you want both views out in the world at scale well right now you have this and
you don't have this and there are many examples of that and so get the money
and don't lose your moral compass when you do so I don't want to be one of
those people that stumble into a company and look back and like oh yeah we were
geniuses I want us to be systematic and I want us to be able to deploy tools and
capabilities that get us closer and closer to that and that is what if
you're again a traditionalist freaks you out and that's what allows you to make
these much longer term commitments to businesses that are going to address
healthcare education well no I've got that's just because I'm rich right not I
mean is it to be honest like I I don't need anybody else's money that's like
look this is not like a popular view so the first fucking billion dollars is
mine and then I have to prove it and then other people glom on but I mean
many of them started by caring but I suspect over time if we end up with a
hundred two hundred five hundred billion dollars
how much of that last 50 60 percent really
care that's okay I want the fucking money I will play the goddamn game and
I'll win cuz I want the money because I want to extend my influence do you know
what I'm saying yeah they want to return it's fine he wants the money cuz I want
to win I I so deeply want to win how I'm just gonna say this exactly as it's
coming how do you keep that power from corrupting you I have no idea that's the
honest answer I have no idea I've become increasingly isolated it's harder and
harder for me to connect because I'm so in my own mind like how does this all
play out you know how do i how do i fundraise how do i make how do i help
facilitate good investing decisions which really means how do I help this
great team think about a more platform eyes approach and in that I just get
really isolated and so I don't have a good answer I like things like this and
I like to say the things that I do and maybe it helps you in your own lives but
to be honest it's very selfish it helps me because like it reminds me of when
I'm in a place like it I if the stories like just reminding myself like I've
made for 55 an hour Burger King I would get a $50 check and I'd buy bus passes
that's awesome I just I don't ever want to forget that and I'll go months and
not remember that but now as I say it I'm like okay I'm I was I started a good
earnest person and I need to stay a good earnest person so I don't have a good
answer and I'll tell you of those 150 people maybe it's a little bit more but
I've met a lot of them it's it's it's really hard you it's very easy to end up
really drunk with power it's really hard