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everywhere we look the world is changing
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with technology with political systems
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even the way we interact with each other
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how do you not only survive but thrive
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in a world of change what's the secret
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sauce of Silicon Valley we're here at
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the epicenter people are trying to
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figure that out
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so I believe the secret is to think like
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an entrepreneur I had the great
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privilege to interview some of the most
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successful entrepreneurs people like
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Elon Musk building SpaceX and Tesla the
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founders of Spanx LinkedIn 23andme
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companies like Airbnb I'm constantly
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asked everyone comes up and says who's
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your favorite entrepreneur and the
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answer might surprise you my favorite
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entrepreneurs are Nadine in red this is
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my almost 101 year old grandmother and
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her one two hundred and six year old
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boyfriend red okay so why why you know
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why are they my favorite entrepreneurs
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because they're curious they're
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constantly learning they're constantly
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questioning they're overcoming setbacks
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and they really believe tomorrow will be
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better than today yes my grandmother has
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some aches and pains I mean she's a
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hundred she's breaking triple digits
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yes she's retired so she had a career as
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a nurse and yes she's left the home
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where she raised her four children and
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yes she lost her partner her husband
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after 62 years but she's not complaining
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and she's not complacent you know she's
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challenging the status quo and looking
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for something better she's a shining
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example of thinking like an entrepreneur
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you know she could have thought she was
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too old to venture out she could have
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stayed in a retirement center watch TV
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stayed with the people around there had
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meals delivered to her room but instead
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she ventured out she loves music and she
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went to a local concert every single
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Saturday she went to support local
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musicians and that's where she found
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read so she got out of her comfort zone
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you know here's where the comfort zone
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is and here's where the magic happens
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and they are not the same place so of
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all the entrepreneurs that I interviewed
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200 of them in fact what I started
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learning was they got comfortable being
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uncomfortable they didn't stay in their
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comfort zone they pushed forward that
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pit in your stomach they thought ok this
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means I'm building something important
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I'm gonna put something into the world
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that people really need now it's not an
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innate ability to think like an
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entrepreneur people are not just born
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thinking like entrepreneurs they work at
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it and I'd like to share three of the
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skills that come out of my research and
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the important thing here is they apply
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to each and every one of us we can all
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think like an entrepreneur the first is
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fly the OODA loop so this stands for
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observe orient decide act it's
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originally a fighter pilot mantra and I
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have a very good friend who's a fighter
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pilot West Hallman he told me if you
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want to think like an entrepreneur you
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think like a fighter pilot and here's
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why if you can get inside the loop the
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decision circle you can observe orient
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decide and act faster than a competitor
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you can win in a dogfight right a
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competitor is reacting to a landscape
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that's already changed you took a
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decision you took an action there a
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split-second behind that's the same in a
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really entrepreneurial world and we live
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in an entrepreneurial world an example
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is a fabulous one is PayPal so Max
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Levchin Peter Thiel and Elon Musk come
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together and they start PayPal we all
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know what that is today but they go
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through six different business models
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right six different things they try in a
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year and a half in eighteen months
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they're moving through as quick as they
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can observing orienting deciding and
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acting they raise money on a technology
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where they could beam cash between Palm
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Pilots I don't know how many people
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remember the Palm Pilot that's gone
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PayPal is still around right one of the
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things they observed was that people on
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eBay we're trying to transact and they
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were using this demo website you know to
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support the beaming product at any rate
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PayPal moved to create an online
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currency then eBay bought a competitor
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they had so many more resources people
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money still the PayPal team moved faster
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at one point Visa credit card company
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tried to sue with a PayPal startup
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saying now you're in our credit card
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business and what they did was convinced
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Visa to just study the problem for 12
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months okay never study the problem
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because while visa is studying the
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problem the PayPal team's observing Oren
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team deciding acting in winning in the
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marketplace so they sell to eBay now the
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much more interesting thing is what
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happens next the original twelve to
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eighteen people at PayPal they go on to
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seed the entire next wave of the
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internet they are the founders of
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YouTube LinkedIn Yelp slide Digg Tesla
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Motors they certainly start SpaceX they
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founders fund 500 startups they're the
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first money invested behind Mark
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Zuckerberg at Facebook
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they literally seed the entire next wave
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when you spend time with them I've spent
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time with all of these founders you say
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how is that possible you didn't just do
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it once but you did it
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you fanned out and did it over and over
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again and what they'll say is the first
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thing you think yeah that's not it you
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have to observe orient decide act you
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have to keep moving so
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Jeremy Stoppelman at Yelp he said you
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have to look for a counterintuitive blip
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of data something that doesn't make
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sense and follow it so Yelp was started
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as an email referral system and they did
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not think anyone would want to write a
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review Jeremy did not think that would
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be fun and then what he found out is
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everyone wants to review the nail salon
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the restaurant the dry cleaner and so
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they quickly moved and said okay Yelp
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will be a review site YouTube was
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started for video dating this was a
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video dating startup until they shot
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video at a local zoo they were just
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practicing uploading and shooting video
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and everyone started watching the video
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of an elephant okay if you're doing a
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video dating site that doesn't make
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sense but if you really quickly move to
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observe that take decisions take actions
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we know what YouTube is today it's the
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website where you can see all things
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video all the cat videos you want to see
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in the world right there there so these
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are successful entrepreneurs but they
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have absolutely moved through different
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decision cycles it's about thinking like
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an entrepreneur and every single one of
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us can do that this is an important
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point so if you are going to be flying
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an Oda loop you have to have a fierce
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team with you you need a wingman you
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need a wingwoman so there's great
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research out of Northwestern and says if
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you want to solve a problem alone you
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can do that a lot of people try to solve
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problems alone and your success rate is
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about 44% if you get other like-minded
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people and many of us try to gravitate
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right towards our friends then you can
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solve a problem a little bit better at
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about 54% of the time if you bring in an
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outsider someone who thinks totally
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differently your solve rate goes up
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significantly and you solve
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approximately 75% now here's the
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counterintuitive take away from this
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here's the surprise it's not because of
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the person who's diverse who comes from
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the outside it's because each single
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person raises their game when we think
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we're going to be challenged
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by someone who disagrees with us who
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gets out of the comfort zone who
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challenges the status quo we do our
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homework we show up prepared we're more
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focused on the problem we're more
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willing to articulate a point of view so
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having an outsider come in actually
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raises our own performance it's
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something really important to think
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about it's uncomfortable but it makes us
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stand a little taller and do a little
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bit better all right not just flying the
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Ute aloof but failing wisely is
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important so if you think like an
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entrepreneur it doesn't mean that you're
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never going to fail in fact the
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entrepreneurs that I interviewed in this
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research project they are failing all
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the time but they're failing wisely so
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what does that mean it means they're
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setting a ratio right one in five things
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I try won't work that's what I'm going
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for
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or one in ten things and different
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people will set different failure ratios
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the idea is that you don't want a zero
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ratio a zero ratio means a perfect
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record and that means you haven't tried
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something new you haven't actually
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pushed into the innovation curve so this
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is Jessica Heron she's found her Stellan
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dot previously the founder of wedding
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channel comm and what she says is one in
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three that's four ratio one in three
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things she tries won't work and that's
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what she's going for at Stella and I'd
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she's got a workforce of stylist it's a
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woman's direct selling company and she
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just tells the stylist you know give me
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the feedback as fast as possible love it
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or lose it love this product lose it out
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of our inventory and they will lose one
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third and that's success for Jess at
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Google Eric Schmidt instituted a
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70-20-10 ratio right 70 percent of your
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time on core business 20% of your time
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on side business-related 10% on total
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moonshots that 10% is most likely
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failure but it also may produce just
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spectacularly wonderful results now
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we've talked a little bit about
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incremental failure but what if you
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absolutely run into a catastrophic
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failure
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what if you're the captain of the
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Titanic you hit an iceberg that is a
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really big problem the Titanic had 2,200
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people on board they had 16 lifeboats
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okay what are you gonna do we all know
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what happened in this story right in two
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hours and 40 minutes the Titanic sank
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only 705 people survived less than a
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third of the people survived but what if
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you could think like an entrepreneur
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what if you could be resourceful even in
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that terribly desperate moment what if
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you could think to yourself hmm what do
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I have on this boat that will keep
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people alive there were tables wooden
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tables lots of them those would stay
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afloat you could use deck chairs as
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paddles you could use the car tires
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there were cars and trucks aboard as
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floating inner tubes what if you could
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even use the iceberg as an island the
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iceberg was known to be about 400 feet
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long and it was not going to sink what
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if you could use your life boats as
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ferry boats and ferry passengers over to
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stand on the ice Island there would have
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been ways to save lives if you could
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think in a different way you know I used
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this example a couple weeks ago I was
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teaching at Stanford we were teaching
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executive education to Hispanic
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entrepreneurs and this is a case the
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Harvard Business Review has recently put
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forward we were talking about it how can
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you be resourceful how can you fail
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wisely and one of the Hispanic
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entrepreneurs came up to me so excited
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at the end of the day and said I run a
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company out of Chicago I ran a legacy
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construction business and we are
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struggling and now I think I could fail
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wisely I could repurpose some parts of
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my company I could repurpose some of the
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resources that I own I can also go back
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to Chicago and I can think like an
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entrepreneur
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that is really exciting and that's what
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gets me you know so thrilled with this
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dataset and with the skills every single
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person can hopefully take them and
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improve the kind of work that they're
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doing now it's not only flying a noodle
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loop and failing wisely but another
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skill that I really think is important
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is what I'm calling gift small goods so
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what's a small good right it's a small
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kindness it's something of value that
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you can do for someone else it's a
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five-minute favor right so what does
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that look like you could write a few
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lines of code you could critique a
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proposal you could forward a resume you
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could make an introduction little things
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that we can do creates huge opportunity
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for other people now why is it important
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to do well it's always been sort of
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morally right to help out your
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colleagues but we've had a saying nice
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guys finish last
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okay here's the really interesting thing
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about technology now nice guys finish
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first and the reason is your reputation
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will be known it will be transparent if
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you are gifting small goods you will be
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helping those around you and other
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people will hear about it information
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will come to you people will want to
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work with you
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talent will come your way deal flow will
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come your way that actually makes you a
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lot more productive the opposite is also
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true if you are hoarding resources if
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you're cheating people if you're
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harassing people we will know about that
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and this is changing just in the last
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few years the speed of communication and
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the transparency of our reputation means
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that we will know so it's in your
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self-interest to be gifting small goods
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and generously helping and assisting
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those around you now the person that I
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know who does this best especially in
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all of the 200 interviews I did is a man
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named Bob Langer and when people ask me
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who would you like to be most like in
00:15:34
all of those interviews that you did I
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say I would like to be like Bob Langer
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and here's the reason why he has a
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reputation for integrity and he creates
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tremendous opportunity for everyone
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around him now I'm never gonna be a
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chemical engineer he's a scientist
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he runs a the world's largest bio
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technology engineering lab it's at MIT
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he has co-founded 40 companies that have
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scaled up he has 350 different licenses
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with pharmaceutical companies you know
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close to a hundred thousand three
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hundred papers that are published he is
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putting into the world some of the
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greatest technologies to stop human
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suffering
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that's what Bob's trying to do and as he
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does it he brings along so many other
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people when you ask him what he's most
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proud of he says my students you know
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they're kind of like my kids
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I'm so proud as they succeed in the
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world now bob has succeeded himself we
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don't necessarily know his name but all
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of the things that he's done we do know
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about he's the pioneer of human tissue
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engineering he's the pioneer of many of
00:16:54
the cancer delivery drugs most all of
00:16:57
them in fact he's even making synthetic
00:17:00
vocal cords so that Julie Andrews of the
00:17:02
sound of music might sing again there
00:17:05
are so many wonderful things that he's
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bringing into the world he says that
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it's important to some gift small goods
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and support other people because in his
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own career he had a rocky start he had a
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PhD from MIT and Chemical Engineering
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but he wanted to teach high school and
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he sent out 40 letters and he got 40
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rejections and then he thought okay
00:17:30
maybe I could be an engineer in the
00:17:32
medical space and he started sending
00:17:34
resumes and calling absolutely no one
00:17:36
responded until one person did a man
00:17:40
named Judah Folkman and he was a Boston
00:17:42
Children's Hospital and Folkman gave Bob
00:17:46
Langer a first opportunity and supported
00:17:49
him Folkman was a cancer surgeon and
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that's where most of
00:17:53
Bob Langer's work has been applied so
00:17:57
Bob Langer has said you know so many
00:17:58
opportunities were created by this one
00:18:01
person from him it said him on his whole
00:18:02
path to doing what he's doing so the
00:18:07
question for all of us is who are we
00:18:08
helping you know who who are we bringing
00:18:13
along who are we pushing forward in the
00:18:15
world if we want to create things the
00:18:18
world hasn't seen it's difficult to do
00:18:20
and I believe life is a search for
00:18:23
allies we have to go out and help each
00:18:25
other that brings me back to all of the
00:18:28
people who've helped me there have been
00:18:30
many along this path starting with my
00:18:32
grandmother you know I really do think
00:18:35
she's an embodiment of what Eleanor
00:18:38
Roosevelt said which is the future
00:18:41
belongs to those who believe in the
00:18:43
beauty of their dreams Nadine has
00:18:46
definitely lived that for many years now
00:18:51
I believe that the future belongs to
00:18:54
those not only who believe in the beauty
00:18:56
of their dreams but those who will take
00:18:59
action and those who will make their
00:19:02
dreams a reality
00:19:04
so may you go into the world and think
00:19:08
like an entrepreneur and may you use
00:19:11
that ability to benefit the world thank
00:19:15
you
00:19:15
[Applause]
