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The Bigger Why is a long-form podcast exploring meaning, growth, mindset, purpose and the decisions that shape a life and drive behavior.
Hosted by Sam Weber, the show features unhurried conversations with founders, CEOs, authors, creators, artists, actors, investors and thought leaders about focus, ambition, failure, regret, triumph, philosophy, personal growth and the stories behind success, sacrifices made, lessons gleaned and wisdom embodied along the way.
Compressed FINAL EPISODE
00:00:00 Speaker: We're taught this myth. I think about innovation being this cool thing that we should be doing, and then we feel weird when we actually come into a situation where we have to be innovative and it doesn't feel cool or comfortable. And then what happens is find yourself in a situation where there's something you want to do and there's no YouTube video, there's no expert, you've reached the level of human knowledge. So humans have done a lot of stuff, but we haven't done this one thing that you want to do. So now you have to be innovative, now you have to invent stuff. And that's really difficult, demoralizing. It's scary. And you'll start to question yourself because you'll sit there and say, well, gosh, every other time in my life where I felt this way, I probably should have quit. Jim McKelvey is an American billionaire businessman who in two thousand and nine co-founded square, now Block, Inc. with Jack Dorsey. Huge company came into the space and tried to essentially rip off. Exactly what you were doing. The company that I'm talking about is Amazon. And they came out with something called Amazon Register. Oh yeah. How was square able to beat Amazon? Jim has been featured in numerous media outlets from Forbes to TEDx. They asked me to stand on the Dot is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis and is the author of The Innovation Stack. This is actually the reason I wrote the book a year after. So the story was I started writing it because Herb Kelleher, who was one of the guys I interviewed, right, basically said to me, how are you going to share this information with the world? Like, I was not intending to write a book. I met with herb. He got very excited about some of the stuff that I'd seen, and he said, you need to share this. And I thought, well, I don't want to do a boring business book because they suck. And so I decided to do a graphic novel, which I thought would be more fun. Um, worked on it for over a year. And then when I got to Hertz chapter, I Chapter. I called him up and said, hey, herb, I'm going to do this thing as a graphic novel. And he didn't like that idea at all. He, he said, look, if you're going to do that, just leave me out. And I wasn't going to leave her out of the book. So I redid it as as this, but I saved oh my God. Chapter nine. No way for you as in it's graphic novel format. So this this is actually what the book originally looked like. It, it was all like, oh, this is a burning city. Oh, there's a murder, this protective instinct that's wired into you that says, oh, if I'm doing what everybody else is doing. And as soon as you start doing something that nobody else is doing, all the people who love you are going to say, hey, what are you doing? Yeah, where are you going? And they'll start pulling you back. Don't do that. You got a good job at a law firm, you know, or don't you know, don't move out there. You know, they'll they'll they'll pull you back. Not because they're jealous of you or anything. Because they love you. Because they want to protect you. You know, and those are the people you've, you've, you put the most weight probably on those people's opinions and they're all saying, come back. Don't. You're counting nothing but failure. Like it's failed. It fails again. Because if you're if it's succeeding, you don't work on it. But it's failure after failure. And this continues until you quit. And my book, if you read it, it's not going to give you any tricks. But what will happen? I hope. Today's guest is Jim McKelvey, entrepreneur, investor and co-author of Black Ink, alongside with Jack Dorsey. What started with a simple problem not being able to accept a credit card payment turned into a company that reshaped how millions of businesses get paid. Jim is also a prolific creator and author of The Innovation Stack, where he explores how truly disruptive companies solve problems in ways no one else can. In this conversation, we talk about entrepreneurship, innovation, and how to build something truly meaningful when the odds and the numbers are stacked against you. But before we begin, I want to remind you, as you watch or listen to this, please bear in mind that the Bigger Why is an independent podcast in which I explore topics that are meaningful to me in my own personal capacity? The Bigger Why is not sponsored by or affiliated with any company or other outside interests. Please also bear in mind that these discussions are for informational and entertainment purposes only. They're absolutely not legal, financial or investment advice. I would recommend that you consult with your own advisors and do your own independent research, and arrive at conclusions on any topics discussed today. After all, helping you shape your worldview is kind of what the show is all about anyway. So stay in the driver's seat at all times. And thank you so much for listening. I don't take your attention for granted. All right, we're rolling. We are rolling. Okay. Thank you so much for for joining me. Coming in. Um, full disclosure, this is my first podcast interview. Really? Yeah. First time since thing can be an absolute epic disaster and I will one hundred percent blame it on you, but you like operating outside of the city walls. So yeah, I'm, uh, I'm a risk taker outside of the city walls. Um, so I read your book. You actually read it, I can tell because it's beat up. Yes, I read it, I read it, I, I'm still one of the last few people that still like to actually read. I like real books. Yeah, yeah. There's something I'm a visual learner. So there's something about seeing the words on the page, thinking about it, getting lost in it. That I think is very different than listening to audiobooks, which I do from time to time. Yeah. So, um, I brought you a present, but, you know, this was not originally supposed to be a book. It was supposed to be a graphic novel. Was it really. Did you. Did you. I think I remember here. I remember if I read that. Yeah. So the story was I started writing it because Herb Kelleher, who was one of the guys I interviewed, right, basically said to me, how are you going to share this information with the world? I was not intending to write a book. I met with herb. He got it very excited about some of the stuff that I'd seen. And he said, you need to share this. And I thought, well, I don't want to do a boring business book because they suck. And so I decided to do a graphic novel, which I thought would be more fun. Um, worked on it for over a year. And then when I got to Herb's chapter, I called him up and said, hey, herb, I'm going to do this thing as a graphic novel. And he didn't like that idea at all. He said, look, if you're going to do that, just leave me out. And I wasn't going to leave her out of the book. So I redid it as as this, but I saved, oh my gosh. Chapter nine. No way for you as in it's graphic novel format. So this, this is actually what the book originally looked like, it was all like, oh, this is a burning city. Oh, there's a murder. You know, it's unbelievable. No, like the guy gets shot and, uh, this is absolutely unbelievable. So, yeah, why don't you. So why don't you now? It would be just it would be disrespectful. Her. So. So. Okay. Herb was right. So first of all, herb died like my plan. My plan was to. And by the way, this is yours. Oh, thank you so much. But that is amazing. My plan was to was. Yeah, well, he's he was long dead, so I figured he wouldn't get too upset. Um, plus, the guy's just a total badass and just seems like a hero for a comic book. But, um, herb was right in, in in probably the most fundamental way, which is if you think about the protagonist of this, right, a comic book. I mean, it's these are heroes. Like, I mean, this here's the guy, like he's wearing a cape. Now that happened to be the fashion of the eighteen hundreds. Guys wore capes, right? But you know, like if you think about who's the center character, it's always somebody who's got superpowers. You know, at the very least, they got, you know, irradiated in a positive way and they can run fast or jump high, or at least they're rich, like Batman, like Batman, super rich. And yeah, so, um, the story of the innovation stack, like all of my heroes are just very normal people who ended up in these weird positions. And then because they had to respond, uh, developed these things that made them super powerful. But it wasn't, it's not a superhero story. So if I told it in the graphic novel format, I think I would have lost a lot of the people who've related to the book, which is this idea that, look, everybody is pretty much the same when we're doing innovation. Like there is nobody who's built for it better. I mean, there are some traits you can develop, but it's it's not like you need to be irradiated magically to be an innovator. It's it's sort of a last resort that humans are wired with, but we don't typically do. And so it's not that someone possesses these unique skills and they're just kind of going through it. Um, it's more that as you go through it, you have to adapt and figure out. Yeah. Challenges as you go. The way I liken, um, innovation is it's, it's a survival instinct. It's this thing that I like, like I'm not a very good fighter. I've never been like very good in a street fight. Um, but if you come at me, like, I'll defend myself, like any human would defend themselves. Uh, you would think. Yeah, well, I think, you know, like, you're not going to lie passively. I certainly wouldn't. Um, but the, you know, uh, the problem with innovation, one of the problems with innovation is that we're taught that it's this cool thing we should be doing all the time. Oh, you need to be more innovative, you know, like, Sam, what are you doing that's innovative this week? And you know, most of the time your answer should be not a goddamn thing. Like, I don't do anything innovative. Like, I don't want this building to be innovative. I want it to be like all the other buildings behind us, built with steel and concrete and wood and whatever the heck keeps building standing. I don't want some guy to go, hey, let's build a building out of straw. You know, like I think, I think we can engineer straw and go up forty stories. Like, you know, you just don't want that. I don't want, I don't want innovative food. You know, I mean, I want, I want good tasting food, but that's been invented before, you know, don't, don't sit there and feed me some plant that no human has ever ingested. So we're taught this myth. I think about innovation being this cool thing that we should be doing, and then we feel weird when we actually come into a situation where we have to be innovative and it doesn't feel cool or comfortable. And then what happens is, you know, you find yourself in a situation where there's something you want to do. And there's no YouTube video, there's no expert. You've reached the level of human knowledge. So humans have done a lot of stuff, but we haven't done this one thing that you want to do, okay? You want to build, you know, something that hasn't been built. Great. So now you have to be innovative, now you have to invent stuff. And that's really difficult. Demoralizing. Uh, it's scary. And you'll start to question yourself because you'll sit there and say, well, gosh, every other time in my life where I felt this way, I probably should have quit, right? Like the time you decided, well, I can, I can climb that building even though I've never climbed anything. And you, you know, climb up as a kid and you fall off and break your neck, you know, break your leg or something. Um, you've probably experienced some times in your life when you haven't been qualified and you've been penalized. Well, the problem with that is that that fear response when it kicks in and you're doing something innovative is. what makes most people quit. So most people like like the saddest story about this book. Saddest story was this dude I was talking to. Actually, I can probably see his house. Well, he's in one of those really, really fancy buildings. I don't know if you can see that, but there's a really fancy building up there, and he's got a really fancy apartment and he's waving to us. Yeah. And I probably know what he's waving, but like what this guy has on his wall. He's got I'm an artist and I kind of know what stuff costs. He's got one painting on his wall in his living room that's worth more than everything else I own on the planet. Oh, geez. Like, take everything that I own, sell it at full retail. And the proceeds for that would not equal this one painting that he has. What is the painting? Oh, it's a it's a particular Rothko like, but it's it's like this. I was like, oh my God. And, and I was like, I was blown away. I saw the painting. I was like, oh my God. But I'm talking to him about my book because he was one of the early reviewers of my book, a very successful guy. And he said, Jim, I wish I'd had your book twenty years ago. He said, I was starting a company and we were doing exactly what you described, and it got so hard that we quit. If I'd known that it was supposed to be this hard, we would have continued and I would be even more successful. I mean, like, don't feel sorry for this guy, though. But that's a good question because firstly, number one, it sounds like almost the rational thing to do is to quit. You know, like you have to be almost this crazy person to quit. And when I say crazy, it's not really. I don't think it's crazy. I think it's, there's something other than the financial success or you're not doing it because you need to put food on the table, most likely. Generally, not most of those people will quit before they get to the solution. Yes. Yeah. But meaning so there's some other driver, whatever that driver is. Yeah. Maybe it's an itch that I have to do this. Or maybe it's like, if I don't do this, I'll always regret it. Or, you know, there's something that drives each of us in ways that we do not control. So I liken it to you don't have any control about who you're attracted to, right? Right. That's one of the things, you know, like, oh, you should like this person. Oh, sorry. I remember once I was, I was in a situation where this guy was telling me I should be attracted to somebody else. And I was like, yeah, but I'm not. He's like, but look, this person's gorgeous. And I was like, yeah, I mean, for you, I mean, I think German shepherds are really attractive dogs and, you know, like, but I don't have control over that. Like, it's not this choice that we have. Like there's certain problems. I believe that at least, you know, speaking personally, there's some things I care about, some things I don't, and I know there's some stuff that I probably should care about that I don't, but the stuff that I care about, if I work in that world, Then I get this motivation that is really compelling and it's really personal. And I just, you know, the things that I guess this happened to me when I was a little kid, or maybe they're my DNA, I don't know, I don't know where the motivation comes from, but that's where I see most of the entrepreneurs who are successful pull their power. It's not because they need to get rich. So I'm working harder than I've ever worked right now, and I'm probably wealthier than I've ever been now. So what keeps you motivated? I'm pissed off, I just stuff. No it's not, it's not real. It's not pure anger. But it's like, I see this problem and I think, well, somebody ought to fix that. And then I think, well, wait a second. You got some time. Why don't you fix it? You know, and then I, I asked myself the question, well, if not for me, who's going to try this? And, and the fortunate thing about my situation now is that, you know, I can I can fail big and not, you know, like put my family out on the street, right? So I get to take big shots, but like to superhero point. It's almost like you have more responsibility now because I think a lot of people see things that can be more efficient or things in the world that they want to change, but they say no resources to change them. I don't have the time to change them. Someone else is going to change them. Why is it on me to change them? And so like, people kind of let themselves off the hook even though they might have good ideas, but thinking that it's not really for me to do it versus if you have the resources to do it, you know, you have the time to do it. It's like hard to excuse yourself for not doing it. Yeah, I, I don't see a lot of great innovation, um, from people with tremendous resources. Like I've seen a lot from people who have scarcity. So there is this excuse that I've seen a lot, which is like, well, I do that if, you know, I do that, if I was rich, I do that. If I had the time, I do that. If you know these things and, you know, most of the organizations I've started that have been super successful and square included, like Jack and I just self-funded the thing, right? Now, we eventually took money from some investors, but, you know, it wasn't like, oh, thank God you got these two rich guys bankrolling this thing. You know, we were, you know, we were I mean, we were fine, but we weren't super wealthy. But it was a problem that I cared about. Like I was pissed off because I was a guy who was I'm an artist. I make, you know, glass. I lost a sale. I was angry because I lost the sale. She wanted to buy this thing. She wanted to give me an American Express card. I couldn't take it and then bothered me. And then I was angry about losing that sale for days after. I was like, God, I needed that money. You know, you made the thing. Somebody wanted the thing. They're there. Let's get it done. Yeah, I mean, I had it like on the finish line and I couldn't take an Amex card. So these are the things that I, I hear a lot of excuses And one of them is I don't have the resources to do this. And. Maybe, maybe if you're starting a space exploration company or something that's like insane, that would be probably need a few bucks. Yeah, you need some money. But for most of the problems that we need to address, the tools are available and commonly so and increasingly so. Oh my God. Yeah. Um, like even, you know, audio equipment and like doing a podcast like this is super easy to set up. There's nobody else in this room. Yeah, literally, that's literally as far as I can tell. Sam, you have no friends? No, it's the truth. Like I can see no evidence of of any human else. But you're doing great. I mean, you got a two camera setup. You got decent lights. I mean, that power looks like it's going to fall off. And don't spill the secrets, but, I mean, you know, like, the point is, here's an example. You're setting an example of of empowerment. You want to put out content? You can do it. You don't need anybody's permission. Yeah. Um, so in reading your book, I think I did find, um, it was pretty emotionally driven as really what stood out to me a lot. Meaning obviously there were very much, um, you know, the tremendous, great advice and like a playbook that you can ascribe to and understanding, hey, when you're outside the, you know, the walls, you kind of have to really expect it to be an adventure. But I like the fact that there was really passionate behind it in terms of what the motivation was, that it was very clear that you were like upset, which as you mentioned now, not just on the losing of the sale, but also on behalf of your friend Bob, who lost thousands of sales. Yeah. And anyone else out there who didn't have access to capital, um, you know, because maybe they didn't fit the mold or maybe they made some poor choices earlier in their life. So can you can you sort of speak to that about number one, like, why is it that access to capital is so important? Um, and also, how is it that, you know, like, how is it that having a, a driver that's tied up in something you feel passionate about? Like how does that sort of, you know, make a difference? Which I think, you know, to me when I read your book really is what was able to help you withstand some of the more difficult things that you went through? I mean, feelings are way more powerful than thoughts, right? You feel something and you act. You think something and you can just kind of think about it. But but if you're feeling it, that's that's what and that's why I ended up rewriting this book eight times because, you know, the first time I got it, it was factually correct. I had all the same data. Um, but by the sixth or seventh rewrite, I started to capture the emotional side, which was really hard for me because, you know, I'm a scientist, economist, I'm a numbers guy, you know, so capturing that and really being, you know, sort of brutally honest about what motivated me because that's the only data point that I can really speak honestly to. And then the data that I got in front of the people in the interviews, like with herb and guys, um, I wanted to capture that. So I wanted people when they read the book to feel something. Yeah. You know, so I talked about my mom's suicide. I talk about, well, what happened in, you know, uh, I mean, you know, there's, there's a murder in this book. Like it's, there's a murder, you know, a little kid watches his dad get shot, right? You know, these are these are things, and these are not made up stories. These really happened. Um, I, I don't know how to express that except to share it, but the reason to share it is so that somebody going through it can tap into that power source, because that's probably what's going to get you through. Because look, if you're, if you're if you believe that the problem you're trying to solve is going to make you rich. Well, let's talk about being rich for a second. Like you're probably sleeping indoors. You probably have air conditioning. You know, clothing's cheap these days. Like you're probably not. The difference between you at your current level and you as rich as the richest guy in the world. The Delta is not that big, right? You know, who cares? It's not that much different, you know? Oh, you're flying in the back of a plane and he's flying on a private plane. You're still flying. There's not that much difference. So these are weak motivators. And my whole purpose of writing this thing, and the reason that herb asked me to write the book, I think, was so that we don't have so many people give up. Like the heartbreak was with that guy who, you know, had the Rothko, right. He quit like he had a job. He had he had a product that might have made the world way better. And we never get to see it. Like we don't have that thing. And even though he's well off, he still has this pang of regret. Yeah, he knows he quit. Yeah. He was like, I was there. I could, I could have done it. He was like, I was on the path. You described it perfectly. And the funny thing was, you know, this happened twenty years before you read the book, you know, and it's a pattern. And this is the thing that I recognize this pattern. I saw it repeated and I was like, oh my God. So how do we get people to not quit? And the answer is, you know, I'll save you three hundred pages of reading. Like. What will happen almost certainly if you start doing something significant. Like, I'm not talking derivative bullshit or, you know, copying somebody else's stuff. Copying is great. Copy everything you can, but like you start doing something significant that has not been done before, your fear response is going to kick in hard because you're designed as a as a human to want to be with everybody else. You want to be. We're herd animals. We all. I'm kind of glad you're dressed like me. Yeah, we're both wearing jeans. We're both wearing t shirts. We're both wearing a. I mean, I should roll up my sleeves, but you know, like. But there's basically. This protective instinct that's wired into you that says, oh, if I'm doing what everybody else is doing, I'm fine. And as soon as you start doing something that nobody else is doing, all the people who love you are going to say, Sam, what are you doing? Yeah, like, where are you going? Like what? And they'll start pulling you back. Don't do that. You got a good job at a law firm, right? You know, or don't, you know, don't move out there. You know, they'll they'll they'll they'll pull you back. Not because they're jealous of you or anything. Because they love you, because they want to protect you. You know, and those are the people you, you've, you put the most weight probably on those people's opinions and they're all saying, come back. Don't. And, and, and, and then As you go in and work on your problems, you're encountering nothing but failure. Like it's failed. It fails again. Because if you're if it's succeeding, you don't work on it. But it's failure after failure. And this continues until you quit. And my book, if you read it, it's not going to give you any tricks. But what will happen, I hope, is you'll recognize what's happening. You'll go, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to feel like this. I didn't expect this to be pleasant or comfortable or easy or predictable. Yeah, like all these things, I didn't expect to feel cool. Like, if you expect to feel cool as an innovator, right? Whoa. You are not. I mean, I've never done it. I always feel like an idiot. Um, I, I mean, I it's horrible, but I know that that is a temporary thing that is part of the process. And because I recognize that I don't quit as often. I don't quit as quickly as I used to. And I hope that others won't either. Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is. Um, I heard this thing from like Rd was on Lex Fridman recently and he was like, there has to be this like homeostasis. So if you're trying to do something that's going to have a big impact, you're going to get sort of an opposite reaction of equal proportions. So if you're doing something small, it doesn't really have a lot of impact, doesn't really have a lot of change. Yeah. It doesn't really make a big ripple effect in the pool. You're not going to encounter that much resistance, but at the same time, you know it's not going to be all that meaningful versus if you're trying to do something really important. A lot of people are stuck in the status quo and are incentivized to keep things as they are in the status quo. And so you're now a challenger. And if you're a challenger, the existing, um, people in power, so to speak, or the people who currently are the dominating players will try to kind of stifle that. Yeah. And they don't have to do that actively. Like it's not it's not a conspiracy theorist. It's not like all the people get together and say, yeah, we will not allow this to exist. It's just the sheer momentum of millions and millions of people and systems that those people use, supporting an old way of doing something, and you've got a new way, and none of that support or none of that proven. It's yeah, it's not proven. It's not known there there are no words for it, you know? And so I use the example in the book, which is sort of a bad example now because it's twenty years old. But you know, do you remember your first Uber ride? Your very first one? I do, yeah, yeah. You got into some dude's car. Pretty weird. And you've never gotten into a stranger's car before. That was absolutely forbidden when you were kids. Like you don't, don't ride in a car with a stranger. And here's this guy pulls up and I remember I didn't know if I was supposed to get in the front seat or the back seat. Oh my God, that's funny, right? Because it's like you don't insult him, but like, well, yeah. Like, is this my friend? Because if it's my friend, right. I get in the front seat, right? If it's a cab, I get in the back seat, but it's neither. It's this thing that I don't know. Yeah. So I was weird. And so I sat in the front seat and that was awkward, and then I. But these are the things that you you just. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I think a lot of stuff that happens that looks like conspiracy is just inertia. So it's almost like survival of the fittest working its magic in the economic sphere. Um, where it's like this Darwinian effect of you're going to encounter these natural resistances and the sort of the best ideas or the people who can navigate it best or create the biggest stat, right? Because if you have a much bigger innovation stack and it has a lot more variables embedded in that. It's going to be pretty hard to challenge that versus something that doesn't have as many. Well, so now you're talking about the durability of an innovation stack in a competition. So. So so that's sort of the second stage. So stage one is you find a problem, you start building a solution. That solution is going to result in this thing, which I call an innovation stack. It's just, it's just all the things you have to do to solve the problem. You might have to do five, you might have to do fifty. You know, you don't know how many and you don't even know if the problem is solvable. So you don't know. It's not like there's a roadmap in the beginning. You're like, well, I'll do ten of these, these ten things and it'll work. I mean, we certainly started square with a pretty naive assumption of how easy it would be to build a credit card reader. And then a year and a half later, we finally got the thing legal and released. So even illegal when you're starting it. So it was illegal when we started. You know, you probably I mean, you may have not even gone down the path of doing it. In the first week I found seventeen rules or laws that we were violating with our demo product. This was the first week, the first week, first week of company of running the company. Yeah, it was, uh, it was the first week and I stopped counting at seventeen. I don't know what the actual number is, but like at seventeen, I was like, screw it, you know? But it was like, oh, fat KYC, uh, the card number or the card networks, the way we were handling banking, like the, the companies we had the internal controls that we had the, I mean, just like all this stuff like you had to do and we weren't doing it, our product worked in the sense that it would take money off your credit card and put it in my bank account. It made sense. It worked, but it didn't comply. And getting compliant took us a long time, and we were significantly underestimating how difficult things were, which is which is typical. You underestimate how difficult things are. But anyway, you build this stack, you build this thing. Back to your original question. And then you've got this thing that nobody else in the world has. And the question is, well, are they all going to copy you? Yes. Like, are they going to. Oh, yeah. Now we'll just we'll just do the same thing. And that's actually the motivation for the book was that Amazon copied square when we were a startup. And when Amazon's copies you as a startup, you die. Like that's just. No, there were no I'm sorry about this. No no worries. There are no counter examples of that. Um, when we were, uh. Uh, let's see. Sorry about this. It's turned off. Part of the fun. It's part of the fun. Yeah. Um. Oh, my wife says, wow. Amazing. Thank you so much. He's exactly who I wanted to talk with. This is you. So what you don't understand is that I'm not doing this for free. Sam's. Sam's going to help my wife with a project that she's on where he's an expert, and I don't know anything. So all those texts were relevant. And I'm sorry to interrupt your podcast. Yeah. All right, but no, here's the point. You think, oh, everybody's going to copy me. And the worst thing that can happen to you as a startup is Amazon says, oh, we're just going to copy your business, steal your business. And what they do is they add the Amazon brand name, undercut your price by thirty percent always. And then they just watch you die, right? Because they're Amazon and you're not, and they've got a giant name. They've got, they've got a listening device and everybody's home, you know, like they have the resources. Yeah. I mean, they will just cut your body into small upper parts and shove them in smiling boxes. That's where you were. Yeah. And so we were fully expecting to just be dead. Um, and amazingly, it didn't work. Like Amazon gave up after a year of competing with us, and they mailed one of these little square readers to all their. I love that customers. Yeah, well, I loved it too. I love that it was like, here you go. Like, here's we built this customer base like it's all yours. Yeah, they were really, they were amazingly cool in the way they quit like it was, it was vicious competing with them. But the way, the way they did it was, you know, it was sort of gracious like, like honor, you know, like that old sort of honor thing. I, you know, it was like, so yeah, there was some respect between adversaries or something. I don't know what it was, but they were super, super cool because they gave us all their customers. Um, but that wasn't supposed to go down like that. We were just supposed to die. And, and the reason we didn't die was nagging at me because I was like, well, were we just really lucky? And if so, how were we lucky? So I spent a couple of years literally researching, looking into that and, and looking for patterns and looking for other companies that had been through similar circumstances. And then I saw this pattern, and then the book came, and then I had to interview Herb Kelleher, and that became this, this path. Um, but the question is, okay, if somebody like Amazon or whomever wants to now copy what you have built through an innovation stack, how easy is it? And the answer is it's very, very hard for companies that don't build the innovation themselves to copy their way to a working product. And I give very good explanations. As a matter of fact, I predicted in the book what happened to Southwest Airlines, because the book was twenty nineteen and southwest was at this inflection point, and I basically called it, and I said, what southwest is doing right now is going to lead to their demise. And if you look at what's happened to southwest, I mean, they're still in business, but they're, you know, they're not the southwest of old and they've got competition now they're copying United. I mean, it's just a disaster. and herb, I think would be really sad about what's happened to his company. Um, but I literally called it out in the book because there was this math and I was like, oh, if you go this way, you can preserve your, uh, you can preserve your advantage forever. Because I've got a couple of examples of companies that have done that. And then if you go this way, you'll make a lot of money for the next two years and then eventually it'll erode. Yeah. But it's about incentives. I mean, if you're in management position, um, I think some executives might say, well, we'll take the sure thing. Oh, absolutely. Short term decision making. Oh yeah. Like, oh, let's carry the thing as like a generational company. Yeah. And short term thinking can lead to short term thinking. Can wipe a company even as great as southwest out. Uh, I mean, and you can see it in a bunch of other companies too, but it's, um, it's, it is a mathematically predictable thing. But the good news in the book is that especially if you have an innovation stack. There is another type of math which I go into in fairly good detail that will allow you to preserve that advantage indefinitely. And I guess so. You've spoken a lot about, um, you know, staying the course in the face of adversity. I think a lot of people don't even have the starting position. They don't even know what the why is or what they should be doing. Um, and so, you know, there's a tendency to replicate just because you're not sure, like, what would you say to someone who really is just not sure what they should be doing with their life or what they, um, you know, what's a good use of their time? Oh, you want me to tell you what to do with your life? Yeah. All right, let's start with the easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, I would say two things. One is respect the fact that you don't control what you care about. That is something you will care about certain things. You will not care about other things. Generally, you should work on things you care about, and that's hard to do because there are a lot of paths that are well paved and trodden down by the other cattle that are easy to follow. That might not be your path. It might. If it is, you're great. If it isn't, you need to recognize it. So that's, that's one thing is if you can pick a path that is somehow important to you. Um, and my only advice on that is it's probably not money or fame. Like I've never seen those motivate. If that's your end. Motivation is a tricky, it's a tricky motivation doesn't usually end well. It doesn't. They're not strong motivators. Um, and also, I think it's also you'll never be satisfied if you're looking for, you'll never be famous enough. You'll never have enough money. It's almost like empty calories. Yeah. Eating them there is, there is actually a good analogy, but there's some of that. Um, but the second thing I would say is don't worry about anything except a problem that you care about. And if it's something for which there's already a playbook, get the playbook. Follow the playbook. Like if you live in a city and the city doesn't have, you know, a decent microbrewery and you say, I want a decent microbrewery, chances are you can you can do that. You can go to a microbrewery conference. Now, I'm not going to call you an innovator. I'm going to call you a brewer. Right? Which is cool. You could you could call yourself an entrepreneur. I don't care if you use that word, but you know, you're not inventing something. Um, but you could argue that the guys who built the first microbreweries, which was, you know, thirty years ago, you know, I'm from Saint Louis, where Anheuser-Busch used to kill anybody who tried to brew beer like it was if you were the dominant player saying, we're going to stamp this out before they they had laws. They had. It was this thing. And I remember the first guy to build a microbrewery in Saint Louis. Like, we thought he was nuts. We thought he was going to end up, you know, carved up into pieces. Right? And and he did it. And now that guy was an innovator because he had to figure out all this stuff, not just how to brew the beer, but how to, you know, you know, get around all these laws and, you know, the liquor license thing. And it was just this weird thing. Um, so it kind of matters when you do it, but, but pick something you care about and then it's going to fall into one of two categories. One, something you can copy the solution for, in which case do. If you've picked something that hasn't been done yet. So right now I'm working on a project to make the world's only plastic free diaper. Been working on it five years. It is really, really hard to make a diaper that doesn't use any plastic. Turns out plastic is really good for stuff, and one of the things it's good for is holding pee in. We're Four fifths of the way there. But we've got this problem that we can't solve. I've got. I mean, genius level people, I mean, I just. And why do you care about this problem? Because you're talking about it. I don't know why I care about it. So that's a good question. Like, it's just this thing that always pissed me off. Like I have a couple of kids. And every time I threw away a diaper, right in my mind. So I know my father was a polymer chemist, and he actually was one of the guys who invented the plastic coke bottle. Right? Like one of the big scourges of the planet. Now, my father's a wonderful guy. He died a couple of years ago. But, like, what dad did, uh, was probably not too cool. I mean, he didn't know it at the time, but, like, what I'm trying to do maybe isn't going to be cool in the eyes of my kids, but I'm trying to get plastic out. Dad was trying to get plastic in anyway. Every time he threw away a diaper, I said to myself, this thing's going to be on the planet for a thousand years. It's ten times as durable as the kid that I just changed. Kid's going to kids going to live for one hundred years, maybe diapers going to be on the planet for one thousand, and maybe as microplastics for ten thousand. Wow. And I'm throwing five of these away a day, and I don't know why that bothered me. I don't I don't know, there was something about that, some visceral response. This is just that just got to me. And I was like, oh my God. And then the other thing is, you know, I grew up in an area of town that's got a lot of poverty. And I know people who dehydrate their kids because they can't afford diapers. Diapers are expensive. They're not covered by government assistance. And if you're in that category, like you don't give the kid a sippy cup when they're thirsty because you're sitting there. Well, I've only got three diapers today and I got to wait until, I mean, I mean, you probably aren't. It's unbelievable. Yeah. You're you're not in that. Yeah. Economic strata and I'm not there right now, but like I've got friends who are there, right? And those are my people. And not all my people. But, you know. But I care about that. And so. So I was trying to make this plastic free diaper and it's really hard and it doesn't work. But that's, you know, if you pick a problem that has not been solved before, then you have this really difficult road to walk where you have to build things that might solve the problem. And most of the time you'll build it and they won't work. And then you're stuck with a failure and you got to get up and go, well, do I quit here or do I try again? And for the last five years we kept trying again. But like, we haven't quit yet, but I'm, I'm kind of like, God, you know, if we don't get this. Yeah, yeah. But then at some point, it'll just the one thing will just happen. And then it just, I find a lot of times with these problems when, you know, it happens all at once, almost where you get to like the next phase of things. Yes. Uh, I mean, and then a whole host of other problems come around. But it's like it happens in like chunks. It's not linear. The day when you figure out how to do this thing that didn't ever work before is a great day. Like, I wish you a couple of those days in your life. Like just a, just a couple of days when you're like, it doesn't work after a hundred tries and then on the one hundred and first try, it works, you know, boom or no boom or what, you know, like there's some shit. Yeah. Um, and then I know you don't have that much time. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta run in a minute. So last question. Yeah. Um, how does glass blowing interplay with your entrepreneurship and, you know, because like, obviously doing something like art is a very different piece of the brain than doing something in the business world. You know, do those things intersect in your mind? Is it compartmentalize in your mind? Like how do those things interact, if at all? Are they definitely interact? Um, it was not an intentional thing. I didn't sit there and say, I need to use my left brain, therefore I'll be an artist or use my right brain. I guess right brain would be an artist. Left brain would be computer scientist, economist. Um, I was trained in a lot of math. I'm. I'm an engineer by training. I'm an economist by training. My degrees are in those fields. I started blowing glass because I needed money, and I happened to have a physical skill that made things and I would sell those things. So that's like, I became an artist out of need. But I love working glass. I love the material because it's really difficult to manipulate hot glass. And actually my other book. Well, I've got three other books. Two of are computer science programming books, which no one will ever read. Um, but I still have in print the probably top selling book on beginning glassblowing. Like if you study glassblowing, you can use my text. Unbelievable. Yeah. Um, and it's, uh, you know, it's this thing I've always done partially because I needed money and then partially because I wanted to make the stuff. And then also because it's just a different way of interacting and it's very tactile. So if I have a bad day, like right now, I'm going to go back to the office and I'm going to write some computer code. Okay. And if I'm really successful, at the end of the day, the office will look exactly the same as it did when I came in, except for some, you know, snack wrappers around. But there will be no physical evidence of my work now. There'll be some screens that look different, but. Come on. Um, if I'm in the studio and I have a great day, I come in the next morning and the annealers are full of just amazing physical objects. Um, likewise, if I have a terrible day or a terrible week or a terrible month, like there's sometimes I've diagnosed myself with my work, like I'll just look at my work coming out of the studio and I'll be like, what's wrong with you? Like Just what? Are you messed up? Like what's pissing you? Because it's my work just isn't work. It's just not good. And. And then I'll sit there and go. Oh, God, what am I stressed out about? I'll find something else. Oh. That's it. You know, I'm upset at this guy, and I need to go have a talk with him. And then all of a sudden, my work will improve. Because. Because you get this physical, uh, you get this physical reward or in some cases, penalty. So I love glass because it's, I mean, it's, it's my passion of creation. Like I just love making this stuff and it's really difficult and that's fun. And then when I do it, well, I've got this proof that I did it well, like there's this physical object. And to this day, I've got one piece that I made when I was a beginner. I was like a year and a half into it and I've never been able to replicate it. I've tried probably a hundred times to get that same level of where is that piece? Oh, it's sitting in my office in Saint Louis. It's on, it's on the shelf. It was it was just I was just, you know, this guy came in and said, hey, can you make this thing? And I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try. Nailed it on the first try. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I'll do it again. I have been trying since nineteen eighty seven to to replicate that damn thing. I can't do it. It's probably the like, it's just the moment. It's like, it's like if you're performing a piece. Yeah, you're giving a speech. There's that one take, you get it and you nail it. And I've never been able to do it. So glass keeps me interested. And do you have your like self-worth tied into the artistry of glass making or, or more than the business aspects? Because like, I think people generally self-identify with things that they do. Like if they're a dad, it's like, am I a good dad? If I'm a lawyer, am I a good lawyer? Right? Like, I think a lot of people tie their self-worth into the things that they do. Would you say that like, you feel that you're kind of like self worth is embedded in kind of your artistry? No, my self-worth is one hundred percent tied to book sales. Oh, No, look, I mean, no, if you're going to if you're going to put yourself and I know not to do this, and I'm only half joking because my book launched the day the pandemic shut down everything and it shut down publishing. And like my book had this big, you know, big supposed to be this big thing. And then it was like, nobody wants to read business. They're all on escapist vampire fiction. Um, I try not to tell my tie my self-worth to too much other stuff. I know I shouldn't, but I kind of do, you know, like if I lose a bunch of money by making a stupid decision, even though it's probably not material, it really bothers me. Um, and I understand the bias of loss aversion and I understand the cognitive behavior, uh, you know, biases and I understand the Ikea effect. I understand all that, but I'm still affected by it. So yeah, I'm pretty still. You're still A local person. Deeply messed up. Yeah, like the rest of us. Oh, yeah. Of course. Well, just to say, I mean, your book, like, really like in full seriousness, like your book was really, really, really, like, inspiring. Thank you. And to those who have read it, I think people, you know, you could sell ten million copies of something that people just read because it's in the airport and they see it and like, you know, and I've read, trust me, tons of those, which I don't remember what they are or, you know, versus some other ones that you read and you really get into and they actually walk away with something awesome. That's the latter. So thank you very much for coming in, Sam. Thank you. Um, all right. Well appreciate it. Yeah. Want me to sign this thing? That would be phenomenal. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Grab a pen. Thank you. Um. Oh, I've got a gold pen. That's. That's pretty. If you enjoyed this conversation, please stay in touch by visiting our website. The bigger y with sam dot com. Thank you.