Tony Fadell: Innovation Must Never Stop (Even If You’re #1) | E46

do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities and surroundings. We all have different routes and how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Tony Fidel. Tony is an incredibly successful engineer, designer, entrepreneur and investor. He is known as the father of the iPod where he oversaw all iPod hardware, software and accessories

development. He is the CO creator of the iPhone, which has sold 2.2 billion units since he invented it 15 years ago, and which has generated $1.5 trillion in lifetime earnings

for Apple. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest thermostat, which sold to Google for $3.2 billion, four years after he started it, and is the founder of future shape a global investment and advisory firm, which has coached more than 200 startups, Tony has more than 300 patents issued in his name, and in 2014 was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential

people in the world. In 2016, Time named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod or the iPhone, as three of the most influential gadgets of all time. Tony is also the author of the best selling book build in unorthodox guide to making things work, which is which was released in May of last year. Tony, it's a true pleasure to have you on my show. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.

schools and 15 years. I want to start by talking about an important lesson you learned from your dad about sales and building trusting relationships? What did he tell you about the relationship between the two? And how did learning these lessons at a young age influence your future? And In Search of Excellence? How important is trust to our success?

would be with him sometimes. And he would sit there and and I would watch him and he would show like different clothes, and then this then the buyer who would be on the side of the store one and say oh, I want to buy that one. And he's like, look, my dad would go look, no one's bought that one, I don't think you should buy that one. I don't think that's going to be a hit this year. Literally don't buy that one. If I if you want to know my opinion, buy these because these are what's seems

to be selling really well. This is the trend that you want to be able to, you know, use. And I was like, and then my dad and I left the meeting and I was like Dad, why did you do that you could have made the guy wanted to buy that. But you said that he goes look if he and his job is to buy things, but it's also his job to make sure the things

he buys sells. And if he's buying things that aren't going to sell, and I don't give him the advice of what to make him look great, then that is not going to be a great and happy

relationship. I'm in this further relationship, not just a transaction, that one that one sale, but really something that you know, they can trust me, the buyers can trust me that I'm going to tell them and steer them right so that they look good and that they keep their job and you know, then the company does well the department store what have you as well. And he's like we you all have to be aligned. And sometimes you don't always make that sale even though that they might want it.

You're going to tell them what's the right thing to do because you want to make sure that you have a long term relationship with them. And so that is about building trust. Right? So if you just think about transactions transactions, don't build trust you buy and sell stocks but doesn't mean you necessarily

trust the company. If you build have a relationship with a company, then you start going, oh, I want to long term, you know, I want to hold this stock long term and you learn more about the company, you build a relationship. And so then you can really, you know, you believe you trust what's going on there. So that you can you feel, you know, invested in it, and you want to really take it

to the next level. So that's what he really taught me was, it was about that human connection, relationships, not transactions. And that's what really propelled me in you know, into excellence further on in my my life, because I wouldn't have never gotten my the job at Apple, to do the iPod, if I didn't have a relationship that I kept over a whole decade of just, you know, going to, to lunches and meeting with a guy, Ollie, I lost it, who I worked with at an early, early time, you know, 10 years

earlier, at General Magic. And so those are the kinds of things where you learn that relationships mean a lot, and they may not end up in any kind of, you know, exchange of value at that moment. But who knows what will happen in five or 10 years. And if they're good people, you know, you collect good people, and you help them out, even if they can't help you at the time, and vice versa. And

you never know what happens. And that's really one of the big things that I've that I've learned in my career, which is 50% is of what you know, and your excellence of what you know, but the other 50% is the excellence of who you know, and your network. Because those two

things come together. And then you can multiply what you know, with all the people who you know, and trust, and then they can tell their people about you and, and, and find opportunities that way outside of your yourself and your day, day to day existence.

college junior at Cornell. And she got a rejection from one of the top investment banks in the country probably in the world. private equity firm, actually. And I said to her, the end can only be the beginning in most of the time, meaning right back, say, All right, I'm sorry, I'm not working there. I really love my time getting to know you. And I think she had three rounds there, right? Everybody a ladder, because the world is such a small place. You know, we used to talk about Kevin Bacon

six degrees of separation. Now there's wonder you've got LinkedIn and you can find anyone's contact information online. I mean, yours was a little hard to get, we have a service called Lucia. But this is not creepy, but actually have your cell number and didn't even know you. I don't recommend people texting people when they don't get a job. But I do recommend sent follow ups and sent follow ups earlier. Every year. Nobody does this, you should do things that no one

else does. So what what's your advice to not like kids coming out of college graduate school, but you know, that person who interviewed you is going to move on and probably stay in the same business, that person you may be working with one day, and frankly, this happened to me, you may be that person's boss one day.

that connection warm. And so you know, I was really interested. And I was, you know, I believe I'm a great candidate. Maybe I have to do some other things. But I hope I'm going to be able to work with you or work with this company in the future. Keep that line open. And so it's really just about, you know,

having those contacts. And remember, it's not, it's also about getting together with these people like in a not always about that transaction, you're trying to complete of getting into the company and going like, Hey, do you know somebody at another company that I could do? Like, there's always ways of creating a conversation to keep going and maybe they'll know some people like, oh, yeah, my friend is hiring over at this company, you should go talk to

them. So there's a lot of times it's like, oh, you're not right for me, but do you know somebody who so there's always some way that you can continue the conversation and don't avoid that and don't think that just because the rejection don't take it personally, there might be another reason or maybe you just just to you're not experienced enough yet. And he said what could I do to improve that's the other thing is follow up. What could I do that you saw that in my my interview that I could do

to improve? So the next time I do this one Whether it's at your company or anywhere else, what can I whatever can teach me, right? Don't just take it as a rejection. But take it as a learning exercise to see what else you can do to better yourself so that you know the next time around, maybe you're more likely to get that and keep that connection alive.

country club. He tell us about the Apple two computer how you invented a new processor for a successful Apple two computer in high school, got a patent on it, and sold it to a company that use your process. Are you going back a little bit before then? Okay, can you tell us how selling eggs in the third grade when you were 10 years old? And the feeling of freedom it gave you at such a young age influenced your future?

them having fun or whatever. And then they had money in their thing. And they were buying whatever it is they wanted to buy. And I was like, I like that. Let me try that. And so I just talked to the kids in the neighborhood. I said, Hey, what are you doing? And like, oh, yeah, and you know, there's this thing called an a grab, maybe you want to do that. And so literally, I was like a grout, what's that and literally learned about it in like a day. And I was like, hey, I'll try

it. And so my brother and I went around the rent around the neighborhood selling eggs once a week, to the neighbors and you know, they have their order, and we'd fulfill it. And I didn't know necessarily how to do change, or I didn't think I knew how to do change. So they just gave me all the change as tip. And so my mom didn't like that. So she taught me all about how

to give change. But again, it started and then when you have that money in your pocket, it is its freedom, its empowerment, and saying I can do what I want with this money. And I earned it. And I was like, wow, like it was a drug in a way. And it just led me to more and more experiences along the route going, Oh, I like being my own boss. And I like to be, you know, self reliant. And so it just continued from, like the egg route to the paperboy to

teaching computers. Like I literally would teach or set up computers and teach people computers. I was being a caddy. There was always some kind of job I always have, because I wanted to be empowered to have my independence, and didn't have adults telling me no.

$1,000 are $1,100. And this is in 1981 I think it was and he doubled it and I was able to buy an Apple two plus, which was like $2,500 at the time, which is incredibly expensive in this day and age. And then ultimately, I fell in love with that computer. And then when I was in college, I was in electrical engineering and computer science and dual major at University of Michigan. Go Blue. And we're gonna talk

so I was a sophomore. In it was my sophomore summer, and literally in college with another guy he was I think, William he was I think 23 or 24 and he and I put together a whole processor did all kinds of crazy stuff to make it happen and we even had it fabbed and then we showed it to Apple and Apple actually bought some parts from us and wanted to try it out and put it in a computer and made it work and it did work and it made the apple to go like eight times faster or Apple TV

or Apple two Gs eight times faster. And they were astonished and but then they canceled you know the any new Apple two's but we made a processor and I was literally under 20 years old and I never taken a processor design class. That was actually the neck semester. But I got to learn when I was, like really learn what I did you know, the quarter or two before that. So that was that was an amazing

experience. It was very tiring, tiring, but it was an amazing experience to actually build your own computer chip and have it fabricated and it worked in the computer that you love. Like that was just amazing.

skills we can have in our career. Can you talk about the value of cold calling, because I think a lot of people are afraid of it. They're afraid of rejection. And my dad taught me something at a very young age. And he said it in a dating context. Because you know, you like someone who you want to date? And you're afraid she's gonna say no. And he said you ask 100 women out on a date, and the hunt and the first 99 Not

making you feel so great. But on the 100 That said, Yes, you forget about the other 99 Tell me about the value of cold calling skills? And what's your advice to people who have never done it? And who are afraid to do it?

get them all the time. But it's so you won't get you won't get any action if you don't ask for it. Right. So you're, it's you know, it's the it's the chance you didn't take. And so you're always going to lose. So you have to understand you have to make your own opportunity. People don't know who you are. So you have to present yourself and you have to have that not just the cold call. But you also have to have that elevator pitch to say, Why am I calling and why am I going to make your life

better? Right? Not just, I'm calling you and I need you to do this for me. There's so many people that get in DMS and LinkedIn messages and all these things. They just send emails, they send me something and they say I want to talk to you about this. I'm like, What's in it for me? Right? Like they forget that they're trying to build a relationship. They just think there's a transaction with this person that's on podcasts, right? Like, oh, he'll help me.

Just if I ask, it's like, no, no, no, no, you have to just it's not it's one overcoming the fear of doing the cold call. But then the second thing is really understanding how to tell a story about why they should be talking to you and what value you can bring to them. And, and what a pain killer in some way that you can bring to them for the pain that they have. So you have to really understand your

audience. So what is getting into a conversation and to them is really being able to tell a nonfictional story to get people to want to engage. And those two things are very critical. And that's about anything in life. But really that storytelling component, once you get that door open, or maybe even if somebody introduces you to someone, it wasn't even cold calling that you got to have that story there. So you have to

have both. And that's a really important those two things are very important skills you need to learn. And I know that you know there's these, there's wisdom in, in VCs, they're like, who are your best sales, you are your best VP of sales. It's the ones who grew up as cold callers. Because they understand what it takes to really make a sale and how to make, you know, make opportunities happen.

Because you really want somebody with that resilience and that determined determination to say I'm going to do it just like your dad said you 100 times or 99 times and then the 100th time you feel really good about it, but you got to make sure you You understand that you know, and then you learn about qualification before you make the cold call, like making sure you're like in the right subsets you, the 99 becomes nine, right instead of, you know, staying

100. So there's all kinds of things to learn through that process of that journey to create a relationship with a potential customer.

education, which I think is one of the most important ingredients to our success, and our future. It was probably the best investment we can make in ourselves, US Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, and then attended the greatest school on Earth, the University of Michigan in 1991, a year later than me, you're not with I'm not bias. A year later than me with a BS in engineering, computer

science. How important was your education to in terms of preparing you for success, both academically and in other ways. And In Search of Excellence in a world where 65% of college graduates have on average $34,000 of student debt when they graduate, which on average will take them 22 years to pay off? What value should we place on education? Okay.

and then learning. So my mantra is do fail, learn. And so if you're doing and you fail, then you learn the things that you should go and learn at school. So most people just take a program and say, Oh, they're teaching me everything I need to learn about this thing. And then you come out and you're like, Oh, I learned all this stuff.

But you never really applied it, you really didn't know why you were learning and you didn't know what the real, you just say, if I put one foot in front of the other, and I do all these tests everything, I will No, I did it the other way, which is do first like I did the processor, then learn how to do it the right way. Right. So I could understand what it is I was learning and have the context, right. And so through that, each year, I would be in internships and do these things.

And then I could understand what I didn't know or wanted to know more of, so that when I selected my electives, or the other things that I made sure I was tailoring that to the things that really resonated with me, as opposed to just taking some standard set of classes that people said and what interested me, you know, that seems interesting, but it didn't know that it was necessary applied.

So if you're going to go and take on that kind of debt, and everything, make sure you understand why you're taking those classes and make sure you understand the context. And that means you need to do some of it before you actually take the classes. So you can understand take those internships, like I can't tell you how many people go through pre law or pre med or whatever else. And then they don't, then they start to take their first job between their

bachelor's or master's. And then all of a sudden they go, I hate this job. I hate this industry. I'm like, Well, why don't you try that when you were like at getting out of high school or when you were an intern, you could have been an intern in your freshman year. So you can learn and make the change. You just wasted four years of your life now obviously getting you

learn stuff. But it was really You didn't also build the connections, the networks and everything to understand what you really want to do in a given discipline. Because you just went along with the program and said, Oh, yeah, that's what I want to be because you had some image of what it was and you didn't have any reality of it. And so you need to know early on and iterate and get there and fight and adjust. If you pick

wrong that's okay. But don't pick wrong four years later because you were you didn't go and do the job. Go do it early as possible. I was doing things well before college to know what it was I wanted to do in college and then even in college, I was still adjusting because I was doing all these other startups and everything on my off time.

do. And my advice to them is, go try something that you think you're interested in. Frankly, some people don't have a choice to do that. It's a tough job market. They didn't go to Harvard or Michigan, and don't have a lot of job opportunities. You take what you can get. But my advice to them is go try something and it all works out in the end doesn't work out in the end.

that. They find unexpected things in themselves, because they're trying, right? So you need to try. And so what if you didn't like it and you failed at it, that's fine, you learn that bad thing is you don't want to do so you're now you can constrain your decision making set smaller and smaller to find that thing. So as far as I'm concerned, you need to try and do a lot of things to figure out what you don't want to do in

life. Right? Like I dug in Dallas, Texas, I was digging pools, I did it one day, and I would never do it again. I literally quit that evening, one day. And that was enough. I'm not doing that I was doing stuff in grocery stores quit. Like I did a lot of things. And I was like, and then it learned that I didn't want to be in certain types of businesses, right, or to certain types of industries. And it also forced me to want to take more and more knowledge work or kind of things, right?

So you got to do a bunch of this stuff, even if it seems like you know, a lot of times that's the other thing is, graduates are soon to be graduates they go I can't take that job that's beneath me. I'm a Harvard educated, it's like Dude, give me a freaking break. Go work with a team that you can learn from because you're not you haven't, you don't have almost any experience. Even if you have internships, you have almost no experience and you have no

network. If you can go into one of these great companies, small or big, that have great people in it that you can go learn from, think of your first job as you're getting your PhD, or your masters in whatever you're trying to do and go in at the lowest rung if that's what they're offering. So you can go learn from the experts so you can build up there like I'm so and so and blah, blah, blah, like get the hell out of here. That's the first thing I signed that I don't want to hire that person.

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for three weeks I worked on the weightwatchers world headquarters on Telegraph Road. I thought it was cool. Okay, sure. I just graduated or I guess I was going to my senior year in college. I thought it was really cool. I have the skinny, scrawny kid I had my shirt off. I was getting tan hanging out with the guys and I also bagged groceries at Kroger my senior year of high school at Country Day by the way we played you

consumer electronics. And one of the things you tried to create was a small hard disk player and an online store for music. It also failed, you couldn't find a second round of funding. So you started looking for other companies where you can continue to work on the project. You found one a few months later, a company called Real networks was all the rage at the time, but left after only six weeks, before we move on, let's go back in time, 23 years to 1999. Most people today can't even imagine

this. But Apple was a very different company. Back then that year, Apple sold 3.5 million Macintosh computers, and had only a 2.7% market share for personal computers. And there were stories that was being generous. That yeah, there were there were stories, tons of headlines, and every business magazine, every newspaper that question whether Apple was going to make it as a company impossibly got a business.

timeless story. And it really applies to anybody doing anything. And so I had a big failure, General Magic, that I had big failures the next six years inside of Silicon Valley. And so you would think most

people would give up. But all during that time, I kept doing the same thing, which was investing and working in my investing myself my time and working in companies who were trying to create handheld products, whether that was entertainment products or, or productivity products, whatever, because I believed that was the future. All right. And I just

stuck with it. Most people when that fails, they go to a different industry, they go wherever I just kept sticking within everybody's like Fidel, you're not you're not you're not it's all about the internet. Nobody needs these digital little things. It's not going to happen. Stop. And so in in, in 99, I wanted to set out to keep working on that. And the internet was going crazy. It was internet 1.0 Everyone's going crazy. And then in 2000, April

2000. What happened last year happened in April 2000, which was the the freaking Internet stocks tanked. Like literally 80% of the value was lost on I think it was April 12 or something 2000. And so it was a frozen, it was totally frozen, nothing was going on anywhere. And I couldn't get any more funding. And I had already been through enough failures. And it was always at the end of the

rope. And then literally, I got a call because like I said I had a long term relationship from somebody at General Magic, Alia, lusty, who worked with Jon Rubinstein, who was working at Apple, who was head of hardware at Apple, and they had lunch. And John was looking for somebody who knew how to make small handheld products. I had lunch with Ollie the day before. So Lee and I said, I said, Well, things aren't working out. I'm

trying to figure this out. The next day, he has lunch tells and John said Who do you know who and I'll he goes talk to Tony, I just had you know, he's in the middle. He's got this little company and he's been working on this stuff. And, and seven days later, last six days later, John called me up and I happened to be on a ski slope, pondering my what my next move was going to

be. Because I had already, you know, weird exhausted resources, and there were no more funding because of the, the, you know, the, the basically the frozen market for any kind of funding because of the internet collapse. And so that's how it all came together. And I was brought into I thought it was to build a PDA for Apple, because that's what I mainly was doing for most of my personal digital

assistant like a palm pilot. And Apple had just had killed the Newton and they I thought maybe that's what they wanted to do. But then they were they had iTunes and Apple was just still at that point, like $250 million in kind of revenue In cash in the bank $500 million in debt, barely break even. And the iTunes which was the way you could listen to digital music back then on a Mac was taking off and they wanted to be able to take that music instead of just putting it on CDs make your

own CDs. How do you put it on a little handheld player? Like a Walkman the next generation Walkman to then you could carry around the songs in your pocket so that iTunes wasn't about CDs anymore, but iTunes was about this, you know? Next Generation Walkman.

valuation. And a firm in New York hedge fund private equity firm basically gave us almost double the valuation, I think 18 or 19 million pre money. It was a Hail Mary. And we went with a venture capital firm that we thought was going to offer the most value. Local firm in Boston called battery ventures that was definitely not what it is today, they had two huge homeruns, our company and one other company,

but Apple came back. And so then we raised $175 million, or sorry, we raised another 30 or $40 million, right behind that something like six weeks later, so went from 22 million, there was this one, this was 1999. And and

months later. And then some apple, which was a ton of money at the time, invested $25 million in our company at huge 10% of their cash, which is crazy, at a $250 million pre money valuation. And interestingly, you know, our company went public. It was one of these crazy rides where we filed to go public a year after the day we started the company. And then three months later, we went public on October

27th 29th 1999. And two months later, our stock closed the day before the last trading day of 2019 with a $35 billion market cap, which is greater at the time then and you'll appreciate this greater than the total combined value of Ford, Chrysler and GM combined. But ultimately that investment I mean,

at Apple on a six week contract to research and design the iPod. And two weeks after that Apple hired you full time to create a lead the implementation team, where you created the concept and initial design of the iPod and worked on the first generations of Apple's 18 generations the epic Apple Music Player. So here we go here for another one of my props here. This was I think, fourth or fifth generation iPod. Yeah, yeah. And it's super cool. Has my name engraved on the back of probably, oh,

devices like it. But I said, I don't know if you're going to market it because the other products I had didn't do well, because they weren't marketed. Well, they were good products, critically, but they were not marketed and sold well. And he said, I'm going to do that. And we had a conversation. So I signed on because of that. But the other one reason is that I didn't, I didn't know it was going to be successful because I had 10 years of failure in

Silicon Valley. So I had been tempered that like, let's be hopeful that there's a thing but not know, there was because when I was at General Magic, we were told by everybody that we were going to be successful no matter what. And so I was like, you know, I had been through that. I've heard that story too many times. So at Apple, I was hopeful we would, I didn't know that we would and to actually see at that time, that was going

to change everything. It wasn't until really the third or fourth generation when the iTunes Music Store was there, the Windows Compatibility was there. And it entered the mainstream sports and, you know, sports, sports people, celebrities, actors, they were all having them in showing them off. And that's when I was like, Oh, my God, this is well beyond that and became a cultural revolution in a way. And that's where it all

happened. Because after we worked for like three or four years to tweak everything to get it right for the masses, then it just took off. And you know, you could never imagine that that was the that was the case, starting in 2001.

never rest on your laurels. You tell us about Steve Jobs dropping a prototype of the iPod into the water and inserting bubbles coming out

in water. And then he pulled it out and said look at all the water coming out of it. It is clearly there's still room in there to be you know, to come down. So that was a Walkman story that got recast as an iPod start, but that never happened.

right? They think it's just successes guaranteed, because they climbed up that that mountain years and years ago, but the culture has completely changed, and they don't know how to, you know, innovate anymore. If you're an innovator, if you're an innovator, and your company is existing, because you initially innovated, you need to continue to innovate, you can't just stop innovating. And that's innovation at all levels, operations, finance, all the different, that's sales,

marketing, all that stuff. But it also means you can't stop your foot on the gas for the innovation of the product or the service itself, you have to continue even if you're the number one in the share, you need to keep leapfrogging yourself, one, so that customer still believes in your brand, that it's an innovative cutting edge brand, since they buy it, buy the products or services, but then also that you keep the best teams, you keep the best people who want to work on

innovation. Because what happens as soon as you take your foot off the gas of innovation, those people will leave because what drives them is the passion, to innovate, to disrupt and to do new things, not just to maintain older things and just kind of go

through the motions. So the if you're an innovator and most companies, you know who are on top of the game or challengers are innovators, they need to stay keep that innovation culture throughout and always be scared, you know that there's someone in the back in there, behind them going to eat their lunch, right? So you want to

always leapfrog yourself. And that's why with 18 generations, the iPod, we kept leapfrogging ourselves because I was really worried Sony was coming for our lunch, right or another competitor was going to come for lunch. So we kept going so fast and out innovating ourselves that the competition was so dejected, they could never even catch up. Right? Because they would they would play in something. And I know this first story for sure. Because I heard this because I used to work at

Philips before Apple. And Philips was a Digi they made CD players just like Walkmans, right, and they were very successful digital at CDs, CD players and stuff like that. So they had their best audio teams working on an iPod killer. And they were like, Oh, we have the feature set to make it. And then what we would do is we would come out with ours and like three months later, and it would have maybe those features or more, and they'd have to go back to the drawing board and go, Oh,

that's not going to win. And that's not going to win. So ultimately, we also killed the team spirits and all these competitors, because they could never get ahead of us. Because we always kept staying ahead of ourselves. And so that was truly if you're going to be an innovator that's the right way because you keep your customer, you keep your products and you keep your teams at the cutting

edge of innovation. And anything less than that you're gonna lose your customers, you're gonna lose your team and you're gonna lose your product way.

are not tech companies. On a related note as a guest as On a related note, I was a guest on the Spencer lodge show recently when it's the best podcast in Dubai. And we were asking what

is in some entrepreneur and I went back and said a couple things. I think as someone who takes a risk to solve a pain point and gives up something of value. And I also made the case that a plumber at any age who leaves a plumbing agency and goes off on his own his or her own to start his own or her own plumbing company is an entrepreneur, that person Yes. I mean every company starts with one person leaving to create another company and that one person could grow into a 500

person company. What's an entrepreneur in your view? How do you define an entrepreneur?

real innovation. I've seen people like, like, take your plumber example, they just do a better job at customer support and service and scheduling and being there on time. And the plumbing work they do is good quality, just like anyone else's, but they had a better job, and they innovated on the customer support angle. So, to me, an entrepreneur is not just somebody doing the job or building a business, it's someone who's doing it differently, to show the

differentiation. And customers appreciate that, to me, that's someone who's thinking beyond just doing the work independently, but somebody is trying to change the game. And that's what I love. That's what I think about an entrepreneur,

and unboxing the product. on Apple's product, you need bazooka to get through some of it all consumer touch points where you need to look at it as much detail as you do the product. user interactions. Can you tell us about the marketing line of 1000 songs in your pocket and a Search of Excellence? How important is marketing to the success of launching a new product? And then on a related note, you are an entrepreneur and investor a

venture capitalist? I have a short attention span I've looked at I don't know how many business plans in the last 20 to 23 years, five 5000. And I always want the one liner. What's your advice to the founders who can't explain their business? And what they're doing is a one liner? And how important is it to getting meetings and explaining what you're doing when you're looking for funding.

And what is the painkiller for that. And so if you tell them and communicate to them a pain that they have, that is either they understand each day that they have it or that it's been habituated away. And you reawakened in a reawakening that pain, then you already have something like, Oh, I'm listening. And then you say, and here's how I'm going to solve it for you. Here's what the

painkiller is. That's the greatest hook to me, is being able to articulate that you can say all these great things I'm working with so and so and I have these investors. I don't fucking care about any of that stuff. I care about, what's the pain? What's the painkiller, and then we can get into all those other details. Stop telling me how great you are, stop, you know, all these great people we have just tell me what it is you're who it is you're solving

for, what what's the pain? And and and why does that pay need to be solved and how you're going to sell that pay. And so if you can do that, that is the perfect thing. And that's the customer touchpoint not just for an investor, but it's also a customer touch point. When people discover your brand or discover your product for the first time or that press release that goes out to launch things. You need to have that crisp as a

story. And if you can't resonate, then it means you're not working on your story enough. A nonfictional one of course, that can resonate because you don't have the customer right or the customer psyche, right? You don't understand the pain point well enough, or you don't have a painkiller. That's it's more of a vitamin than a painkiller. It's like yeah, that's nice, but I don't know if it really helps me. So you gotta you gotta be able to have all of those

things. And it's not just when they bought it or just before they bought it, but well beyond when they see the first marketing, whether that's in print or online or somebody just communicating it to them in verbally.

inventing it? Did you ever think that it would change the world and that had the remote possibility of selling 2.2 billion units and earning $1.5 trillion in lifetime profit for Apple? And we you're alone, and you're looking out your window and reflecting in a moment of Zen to ever say to yourself, Holy fuck, I can't believe I did that.

So it was a lot of morphing to get to the first product, and then more years after that, and so, so there was a lot riding on the line. But at the end of the day, it was like the iPod, the first couple of generations, we were just figuring out what the iPhone was and what people liked about it, we knew that there was a lot there. And we got a few things, you know, a lot of things right. But we didn't have

an app store. Right? We the business model was wrong about how you bought it, it wasn't available everywhere, there was all of these things that needed to get tweaked. And then it took off, it took off like crazy, you know, with apps and everything starting really, in 2010 910 is when it really took off, because he had data networks that could work well, and everything was

there. But we were just at the right time not too early and not too just slightly early, because the data networks weren't there, really. And probably because it was 2.5 G. So but do I but it was trying to solve the pain. The iPhone was really trying to solve the pain and this was

classic. In caustics, steeps, iPhone introduction was, you carry a communications device, a mobile phone with you, wherever you go, you carry a mobile entertainment device that was an iPod with you and you carried a productivity device that did let you know, spreadsheets and email and you know, web browsing and everything. And that was called a laptop. So what if you took those three things and combined it in one device, and you could

use it anywhere, right. And so we were thinking about those kinds of applications that we knew then. And then fast forward, when all the networks were prevalent, and you had the App Store, and all those things, then in 2008 910, that's when social mobile took off and

everything else. But at the time, we weren't thinking that we were thinking we were combining those devices and making it making those applications on the go wherever Internet access or whatever to make it easier and kill the pain of carrying three devices around with you, and have long battery life and not worrying about Wi Fi, you know, having Wi Fi and cellular connectivity and all

those other things in it. So that you could, you know, truly be anywhere and connected anytime to get the data or make that communications that you wanted.

night to connect to anything. We used to have only four channels of TV now you have unlimited channels of TV, and you can watch anything you want, anytime. So society has dramatically changed since the time when we grew up in you know, we're University Michigan even. And so you don't have to think of like, this is like discovering the atom, right and splitting the atom, I can do something incredible with it. But I can also see do something

disastrous with it. And you have to ride that fine line because it's technology's neutral. It's what we choose to do with it as a society. So a lot of times you're like, oh my god, this is brought light to the world. Right? You got information, and everybody has access. And I've been into all kinds of different countries all around the world. And you can't believe how good the mobile networks are and how

cheap they are. And everybody has a smartphone, even kids in low GDP countries like no, they're not gonna have a smartphone, of course, they have a smartphone. So that's amazing that we gave people that access information. But we also could, you could do the wrong things and weaponize things and and create ads in and deep fakes and push around in, you know, fake content to program people to do

things. So that's the other that's the flip side of these incredibly powerful technologies that can really help people but they can also hurt if they're used wrong.