What’s up guys! It’s Jason here and welcome to my YouTube channel, Company Insight. As
an entrepreneur, one of the things that has always amazed me is how others balance being
an entrepreneur with having a relationship and even more difficult – also being a mother
or father. Personally, I’ve never been able to manage that, which is probably why I’m
still single. Ladies, take note. (Wink. Wink.) It’s a truth universally acknowledged that,
“behind every great man is a great woman.” Well, based on my experience meeting some
incredible entrepreneurs, their significant others and some sharp-eyed observations, this
is mostly true. Anyone who even remotely reads or watches the news knows who Elon Musk and
Jeff Bezos are because they’re super rich and super successful entrepreneurs. However,
just because they’re in the headlines doesn’t mean that they achieved their success alone.
After all, no one creates alone and is often the case with spouses, they act as each other’s
sounding boards to sort good ideas from not feasible ideas, and just plain bad or impractical
ideas. Given that, we can probably learn as much from billionaires’ wives as the billionaires
themselves, who, while self-made, can also attribute much of their success to their other
halves. Today, we’ll go over advice from Billionaires wives and how the significant
others of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg have contributed to their
success. By the end of the video, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for why two is
better than one.
But first if you wouldn’t mind just hitting that LIKE button for the YouTube algorithm,
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each week. Thanks for doing that and now let us continue on with the Great Women behind
Great Men.
Elon & Justine Musk: What Does It Take to Become a Billionaire
Let’s take Elon Musk as one of the most prominent examples of having at least one
great wife, the first and perhaps most significant of whom knew him before he was THE Elon Musk---Justine
Musk. Justine and Elon Musk met at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, where Justine
was already working towards being a professional writer and Musk worked on successfully transferring
to the Ivy League, UPenn. According to Justine’s accounts, he pursued her and they eventually
married amidst his success with his first company, Zip2. While Justine and Elon have
since parted ways, it’s clear that she played a large part in his ability to go from success
to success with Zip2 to PayPal and more recently to Tesla and SpaceX.
So what Does It Take to Become a Billionaire? Just ask Justine. She understands that becoming
a billionaire requires grit and some luck. In fact, Justine responded to a Quora question,
“Will I become a billionaire if I am determined to be one and put in all the necessary work
required?” with, “No. You’re determined. So what? You haven’t been racing naked through
shark-infested waters yet. Will you be just as determined when you wash up on some deserted
island, disoriented and bloody and ragged and beaten and staring into the horizon with
no sign of rescue?”
She continued to advise that anyone who wants to become a billionaire should, “Shift your
focus away from what you want (a billion dollars) and get deeply, intensely curious about what
the world wants and needs. Ask yourself what you have the potential to offer that is so
unique and compelling and helpful that no computer could replace you, no one could outsource
you, no one could steal your product and make it better and then club you into oblivion
(not literally). Then develop that potential. Choose one thing and become a master of it.
Choose a second thing and become a master of that. When you become a master of two worlds
(say, engineering and business), you can bring them together in a way that will a) introduce
hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea S and make idea babies that no one has
seen before and b) create a competitive advantage because you can move between worlds, speak
both languages, connect the tribes, mash the elements to spark fresh creative insight until
you wake up with the epiphany that changes your life.
The world doesn’t throw a billion dollars at a person because the person wants it or
works so hard they feel they deserve it. (The world does not care what you want or deserve.)
The world gives you money in exchange for something it perceives to be of equal or greater
value: something that transforms an aspect of the culture, reworks a familiar story or
introduces a new one, alters the way people think about the category and make use of it
in daily life. There is no roadmap, no blueprint for this; a lot of people will give you a
lot of advice, and most of it will be bad, and a lot of it will be good and sound but
you’ll have to figure out how it doesn’t apply to you because you’re coming from
an unexpected angle. And you’ll be doing it alone, until you develop the charisma and
credibility to attract the talent you need to come with you. Have courage. (You will
need it.) And good luck. (You’ll need that too.)” According to Justine then, it’s
a bit of author Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice observation --- meets dedicated
problem-solving and luck. While some might be skeptical about her advice simply because
she isn’t a billionaire of her own making, Justine is a published writer who was also
tasked with raising their five young children while Musk focused on his businesses.
Jeff & MacKenzie Bezos
While Justine was not directly involved in her then-husband’s business, MacKenzie Bezos,
the ex-wife of the world’s richest person, Jeff Bezos, was truly integral to the success
of Amazon. MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos were married for 25 years and after a quarter of a century
together, MacKenzie only took 25% of Bezos’ fortune. It’s arguable that she was his
right-hand woman in the early and formative years of Amazon, when it went from their garage
to having their own offices and logistics facilities. Perhaps most importantly, MacKenzie
had enough of an entrepreneurial spirit to support her husband’s idea for the startup,
even though both were working at the same hedge fund and making enough money to live
comfortably on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. In 2010, during his remarks at his alma mater,
Princeton University, Bezos himself acknowledged that his wife supported him from day one.
He explained that after having been married only a year, at 30-years-old, he told his
wife, “I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work
since most startups don’t” and to his pleasant surprise, she told him to go for
it. That level of support is unfortunately uncommon. Many entrepreneurs would probably
say that their closest family and friends dismissed their ideas as pipe dreams. Having
a support system in the form of his wife directly led to them driving cross-country to Seattle
and finding a house with a garage large enough to serve as Amazon’s de facto office.
In terms of the hands-on work that MacKenzie did during Amazon’s early days --- she wrote
checks and served as their first accountant, shipped the initial orders through UPS, and
brainstormed names for what became “Amazon”; she also negotiated Amazon’s first freight
contracts. In a much publicized Amazon review that MacKenzie left for the book, “The Everything
Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Brad Stone, she made it clear that she
had been irreplaceable to Amazon when it was a start-up. She points out that the book is
full of inaccuracies and that in fact, she had insider access to every aspect of Amazon
because she was an insider. MacKenzie, in her own words, “was there when he wrote
the business plan, and I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage,
the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centers,
and the door-desk filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon’s history.
Jeff and I have been married for 20 years.” All of the moments when MacKenzie was there
for Amazon also meant that she wasn’t able to dedicate that time to her own career as
an aspiring novelist. After all, at Princeton, she had worked as a research assistant for
famed novelist, Toni Morrison. In short, she had made sacrifices to give Amazon room to
succeed and Jeff Bezos himself breathing room to take an entrepreneurial chance.
Warren & Susan Buffett
Perhaps most notably, before even Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, there was Warren Buffet. He
may not be in the headlines these days as much as younger billionaires, but he’s still
ranked the fourth richest person in the world and is entirely self-made. His first wife,
Susan Buffett, was essential to fueling his ambition to succeed and focus on solidifying
Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett has even advised people to, “Marry the right person.
It will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all kinds
of things.” As testament to that, he’s pointed out that his life has had only two
turning points, “One when I came out of the womb and one when I met Susie” and “What
happened with me would not have happened without her.” As individuals close to Buffett have
noted, he didn’t build his fortune by being all fun and games. Instead, he’s not the
easiest person to live with simply because he’s all business.
Susan Buffett did not necessarily help her husband make stock picks, but she took care
of their three children in Omaha Nebraska, as well as taking care of most of her husband’s
day-to-day needs. She gave him what he needed, which she had analyzed to be, “needing to
feel loved and never criticized.” She supported him in his quest to earn more money, in the
ballpark of between 8 and 6 million, because she figured that once that benchmark had been
met, he would become more of a present figure in their family life. However, that never
came to fruition and once their children grew into adults, she left the household to continue
being involved in music and charitable activities.
Unconventionally, though they lived apart for half of their 52 years of marriage, the
Buffetts remained close and often talked on the phone. It should not come as a surprise
then, that Susan influenced Buffett’s long-term perspective on how he should spend his wealth
throughout his lifetime. By Susan’s example, Warren eventually became more concerned with
philanthropy. Susan publicized the fact that she believed they should be giving away more
of their wealth, but also noted that she understood Warren’s position - he was running a business,
not a charity. During his first wife’s lifetime, Warren may have been focused on his business,
but two years after her death, her commitment to philanthropy inspired him to promise to
gradually donate all of his Berkshire Hathaway stock to philanthropy. In 2010, he even joined
the Giving Pledge with the Gates to donate 99% of their fortune to charitable causes
throughout his life.
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook,
and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have been married since 2012, the day after Facebook’s IPO,
but they actually met at a frat party in 2003. They’re both in
their late thirties, but they’ve been together for 18 years already. Since then, their relationship
has been going strong, with Chan having influenced Zuckerberg’s decisions to be more philanthropic.
From the very start, Chan was one of the first people to even register for Facebook in November
2004. Her confidence in Facebook and its mission of connecting people has anchored Zuckerberg.
For instance, in 2006 when Zuckerberg was faced with the dilemma of keeping Facebook
or accepting Yahoo’s $1 billion buyout offer, Chan served as her husband’s sounding board.
After talking through their life goals and what they simply enjoyed doing, they made
a joint decision to not sell. Considering that Facebook is now worth an estimated $800
billion as of 2021, from a financial perspective they made a terrific decision.
Once their first daughter was born in 2015, Chan once again showed how much she impacts
Zuckerberg’s thinking. Despite being a pediatrician by training, Chan retired from her medical
role to run a new company that the couple founded, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Through the company, the couple intended to donate 99% of their Facebook shares for philanthropic
causes close to their hearts, namely eradicating disease and improving education for children.
Since 2015, Chan has run the day-to-day of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and has used
it to focus especially on interests that reflect her career in medicine, as well as education.
After all, in 2016, she started a school, The Primary School, that is funded and operated
independently, essentially as a charter school. Unusually, it experiments with new ways to
accommodate students’ different styles of learning, such as blending students’ health
care needs and nutrition with their school load.
Both Chan and Zuckerberg are always eager to learn and long-time friends of the couple
describe their relationship as a total partnership. Another clear example of their symbiotic relationship
is that Facebook now dedicates money and attention to the very specific issue of donor organs.
Why so specific? Because it’s a pet interest of Chan since when she was in medical school,
she often saw desperately sick children whose lives were turned around with an organic transplant.
She would share her experiences during her dinners with Zuckerberg, who as a consequence,
took this on as a cause. Interestingly, Chan has also influenced the
workplace culture of Facebook. She was a major factor in his publicized decision to take
two months of paternity leave at the tech company. In a public Facebook post, Zuckerberg
explained that his paternity leave is a “very personal decision” and cited that, “studies
show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better
for the children and families.” Keeping with Zuckerberg and Chan’s philosophy towards
child rearing, the company offers American employees up to 4 months of paid paternity
or maternity leave. It’s an uncommon perk in the cutthroat world of tech. Even when
offered, workers at super competitive companies shun taking off so much time because it could
be detrimental to their careers. Zuckerberg walked the talk to encourage individuals to
enjoy a better work life balance. And that brings us to today. That focus on
being empathetic has also been influenced by Chan, or at least anonymous sources close
to the couple say so. While Zuckerberg has sometimes been portrayed unpopularly in the
media, especially thanks to the movie “The Social Network,” which portrayed him to
be cunning and arrogant, Chan has been perceived to be the more relatable and publicly talkative
of the two. It’s a classic case of a complimentary couple, strikingly similar to the other billionaire
couples we’ve discussed. Elon Musk was more outgoing than Justine, while Jeff Bezos didn’t
shy away from the spotlight while MacKenzie had described herself as an introvert. While
Warren Buffett and his first wife Susan were not opposites in terms of being outgoing with
strangers, they were opposites in terms of patience, with Warren being patient in his
financial dealings and Susan being too impatient to wait for the benefits of compound interest.
Regardless of the money involved, it seems that it’s still true more often than not
--- opposites attract. So with that said, thank you so much for watching
my video as this is a brand new YouTube channel I started this year. There was a significant
amount of research and production that went into making this video possible, so if you
wouldn’t mind giving the video a LIKE and leaving a comment in YouTube section below,
it would really help out a lot. Do you agree with the common saying behind every successful
man is a strong woman? Be sure to check out some of my other videos, like the Rise and
Fall of Rainforest Cafe and the Rise and Fall of New York. Thank you again for watching
and stay tuned for another episode of Company Insight next week.