Multi-Billionaire Marc Lore on How to Find Your Big Opportunity | Impact Theory

I'm not going to accept that it can't be done unless somebody proves it's a zero probability. And often the case, you can't prove it's zero. There's always some non-zero probability. And it's typically the stuff that has that's really close to non-zero, nobody else is touching. That's where the big opportunities are. Hey everybody, welcome to Impact Theory. Today's guest is a profoundly successful serial entrepreneur who has gone head-to-head with some of the largest companies on the planet and won. Fortune magazine named him one of the smartest people in technology, and given his unprecedented string of successes, it is not hard to understand why. He's founded and sold for massively disruptive companies, including The Pit, which challenged online giant eBay and had a successful exit just two years after beginning. He also co-founded diapers.com, destroying the myth that people would never buy diapers online, and establishing it as such a powerful player in the industry that it was acquired by Amazon for a staggering $550 million dollars. And most recently, he founded jet.com, which proved that it is possible to compete directly with the juggernaut Amazon and build an enormous business in the process. Under his leadership, jet.com raced at breakneck speed to a billion dollars in sales and subsequently sold to Walmart for a dizzying $3.3 billion. Again, after just two years in business. Now the CEO of Walmart e-commerce, this Wharton Business School grad is once again demonstrating that the right idea executed well can thrive against any competitor. So please, help me in welcoming the man Ernst & Young named regional entrepreneur of the year, the former wannabe farmer, and now storied entrepreneur, Marc Lore. ALL RIGHT, HOW ARE YOU DOING? HEY, YEAH, GOOD TO SEE WELCOME, MAN. YEAH, THANKS. Good to have you on the show. to be here. And dude, the fact that you did it once, already amazing. To do it two, three, four times is pretty crazy. What is it that you understand that makes you so successful that you think other people are missing? I don't know it's necessarily other people are missing it. I'm I'm willing to do whatever it takes, like create a a situation where it feels like life or death. Billions or body bags? Billions or body bags, yeah. No, but in in all seriousness, that I think is the distinguishing characteristic because all four of the businesses that were all turned out to be successes, but if I didn't put it into that extra gear, I think none of them would have made it. Like I I I really think that you have to you have to be willing to to go all the way. How do you pull that off though? Like the first time I get it because it really is, I know you left the banking, uh you didn't exactly have a safety net, and so the first one really is sort of billions or body bags, but after that, I mean, you've had some huge wins. How do you recapture that? I always figure out a way to put myself in a position where it can't not work. And so, you know, the first one, it was not only quitting, but I also put every dollar in my bank account into that first company. Did you have kids at that point? Yeah. So what do you tell people? had a kid. Like the number of people that want to be entrepreneurs that come up to me and they say, "Look, I've got this litany of things, you know, I'm married now, I have kids, I can't really do this. How did you position yourself financially and emotionally to pull that one off? I just convinced myself that I would do this for a you know, a year or two, give it a real go. Because you had that much saved up or The the idea was to take everything I saved, invest it in the company, take a salary, and then but I still needed to raise capital to kind of continue on. And so um I hoped that I'd be able to do that. And if I if I was able to, then I'd be able to sustain. Worst case, wasn't able to raise money, had no more money in savings, and had to go back into the workforce. Did I think that I can get back in? Like was I you know, past the point where I've no return? And I thought, "No, you know, I'm 7 years into my career. Worst case, I can go back and get a get a you know, normal job again." But it was that was too much of a safety net. You know, you could always go back. It was investing every penny of savings into the business. That was the real catalyst for making sure that it worked. And then in the subsequent business, it was less about the money that was at risk and more friends and family money. So every relative, every friend, everybody I knew pretty much had a stake in the startup. And I just didn't want to disappoint all the people that I love and care about, you know, by So that drove me more than anything. In that moment, so I find that pressure like that can be powerful for people or can be really destructive. Do you think about framing it in a certain way that makes it powerful for you? Like are you sitting there putting actual words behind the idea or is it just this overwhelming sense of like, "Yo, I can't [ __ ] this up"? Yeah, it's just it just brings out abilities you didn't know you had, basically. I mean, just knowing that you need to like go all in here and do everything you possibly can and work as hard as as possible, you know, to make it happen. It wasn't an anxiety like oh I can't fail I can't fail it wasn't like that. It was more just it's like you don't really think about it. You just go. It's sort of you know, if something would happen in the moment, you know, that was life-threatening you'd react in a certain way that you needed to react without having to think about it. That's sort of the way it is. Do you consider yourself an aggressive person? No. It's interesting. I'm not aggressive either not by nature but I have found in business it is like so when I think about that story of you really backing yourself against the wall or having your friends and families money in the business and you're like I really don't want to mess this up for me to tap into the aggression which is some that's what I had to learn. So for me to go from an employee to an entrepreneur it was a game of learning to be aggressive. It was um being bold, striking, um even if I was the youngest person or the least educated that I had to be able to step up to the plate to learn to try something to be willing to fail all that. So for me I really had to cultivate an an aggressiveness about myself to be able to do that. So taking things like family money or whatever which is not my story but things like that and saying all right look like actually talking to myself look man you're not going to [ __ ] this up. You're not going to let these people down. You're going to do it but it's not going to weaken you like this is going to make you stronger. You got this. Stay focused. Do you have an internal dialogue like that or um do you have a different approach to it? I didn't really think about it day-to-day. It was more just you know, I can imagine if it would be equivalent you know, the analogy of like being in some sort of bike race or or marathon or something and you basically just bike as hard and as fast as you can for as long as your body will allow you to do it. It's like just push yourself so that when you get across the finish line, you're like I I just couldn't have gone any faster on this day, right? It's just everything I had went into it. And so once you put yourself kind of into that gear, you're in that gear, you're not really thinking about it. You just I'm just running as hard as I possibly can to leave nothing on the table, you know? How do you instill that in your teams, or do you? I look to hire people that are self-motivated who are more missionary than mercenary, so it's not about mean by that? I mean the primary motivation is not money. The primary motivation is to make an impact on the world, and the company has a mission, it's got a vision, it's typically bold, and you want to find people that really believe in it and want to, you know, make a contribution be a part of something bigger than themselves, and they're willing to to work hard at it. And yes, money will come, and they want money, but it's like secondary. Some people, you know, like having worked in banking for 7 years, it's very different. It's I'll do whatever you want, just pay me. And so find people that are really self-motivated, get them in the right position, and then empower them. Give them all the information, be transparent, trust them, and then just empower them to run and not micromanage or or get in their way, and I find you have incredible leverage when you have great people and you kind of let them do their thing. If you had to give a few key characteristics to what makes somebody great, so one thing I'll say is very difficult is hiring, especially in a hypergrowth company. You're having to hire so fast. What do you What are some key elements that you look for? Is it like personality traits? Do you look for different personality traits for different jobs? Like how Yeah, I I have I've learned so many lessons along the way, and and where I I come out is and I see this happen a lot of startups, you'll be looking for like a certain position, like I need a supply chain person to do X, and the initial um Do start from this place of trying to find someone that's done that before? The chances of find somebody that's actually done it before that's in the top sort of 10% for that job and get that person to quit their job and come work and take the risk of a startup. I found that that's it's too hard, too much of a unicorn and certainly like you said, if you're hiring lots of people, you're not going to get lots of people like that. So then, does that mean you just go after mediocre people? Like how do you solve a problem? What I've done is I say, "Okay, find the the the the smartest person I can that exhibits the traits that I look to hire for." You know, and the traits would be I use the SPAT acronym which is uh smart uh passionate, optimistic, tenacious, adaptable, kind, and and empathetic. And those are sort of the the traits that I look for and the entire interview process is trying to make sure that that people align to those uh traits because I find that those people are more missionary, they are more self-motivated, they want to be empowered, they want to do big things and if you find great people like that, after 6 months or 12 months or 24 months, they want to be coming some of the top people in their field because they learn it and they've got all these other traits there. So that's what I found. I'm desperate to know what your interview process looks like. How the hell in an interview do you figure out SPAT acronym? SPAT acronym? Yeah. So how do you How do you suss it out? What are some key questions? Do you have them walk in and it's a maze? Like how do you figure out if people are adaptable? the here's the secret to interviewing. For me at least, is never to ask a question that somebody could have already prepared in advance. Okay. So that's kind of levels the playing field. So nothing like what's your strength, what's your weakness, tell me about some great thing you've done. A lot of that is just people that prepare and they have good answers and and some people have mentors or other people that have been through it and say, "Hey, listen, let's prepare, let's go through it. I do it with my daughter. My daughter had an interview. I'm like, okay, we're going to like prepare for this. There you go. Give me your strength, give me your you know, I went through the whole thing. She won an interview. She nailed it. It was like the same questions. I I kind of don't like that. I don't think you could in an hour, which is typical length of an interview, suss out whether somebody has these traits if you're just asking sort of The other thing that happens too, I find, is that there's also like an unconscious bias, you know, toward people that do have more connections, you know, do have parents that have kind of been there, done that before. You know, I was the first person in my family to go to college, very different than my daughter's now. And so, to avoid the unconscious bias and also to to make sure that you take level playing field, I ask questions that basically you couldn't prepare for. And really trying to open people up to see who they Yeah, I'll give you a great example. So, one that I ask is um How what's the minimum amount of money that you would take to walk backwards everywhere you go for a week? Can't tell anybody why you're doing it. If they ask you to say, sorry, I can't tell you. You have to go to work, you have to go out on the weekend. It has to be a normal week. Backwards everywhere. The only thing I'll do is I'll guarantee your safety. And it's after-tax dollars. What's the minimum amount of money that you would actually take? Like if you if I wrote you a check right now, you would go and do it. But the minimum. People will come up with with numbers, and I'll just press them. I'll say Somebody will say, you know, I I would I would do it for five grand. I'm like, I don't believe you'd do it for five grand. No, this had this has to be actually, you know, Yeah, I would. I would. And then I then I go and leave the room and come back with a check. Start writing it out. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, I didn't know you would actually I said, I gave you I told you. I told you. You know, so basically just having the discussion like this is good. Um I ask people questions like if you could only be one of the two, what would you be? Um you'd be known to be very nice but not very smart or very smart and not very nice. You can only pick one. And I find it's kind of interesting. Some people like, "Oh, of course, you know, I I can never not be nice to people. So, even though I don't want to be smart, I'll pick very nice and not that smart." And a lot of people like, "There's no way I'm going to be not smart." So, and it's kind of interesting. It's probably like I'd say it's probably 60/40 um asking that question. Which is the 60? 60 is nice and I don't know how many people are lying or just think that's what I want to hear, but probably 60 will say they're nice and that's that's one of the things I'm looking for. I definitely want people given the choice to prioritize being nice over being smart. It's more just to get people opening up, get them talking about real things, and seeing how they problem-solve, how they approach situations. How do you deal with employees that have like a real different tolerance for risk when you're asking them to take a big swing or to take a chance with you um on a new business? I think it's really tough to ask people that are already in the organization that haven't been vetted through a process of, you know, are you comfortable taking risk and ask them to take risk now. It doesn't work. You You don't want somebody to do something that's contradictory to that their their nature. You have to find the right people up front. That's why in a startup you have a clean slate. Um I found it's something really interesting is that people that have typically gone to really good schools and done really well grade-wise, they're used to getting A's on everything, have a much harder time taking risk because they just they look at something that has a low probability of success and say, "Well, why would I do that? I don't I'm you know, I'm used to getting A's and that's 95%." So, why would I do something that has 20%? Well, because the outcome is 200X or 500X. That's why you do it. But a lot of people just can't get comfortable with that. I think that's the difference between an entrepreneur or not. Somebody who's comfortable with a low probability of success with a huge outcome. And then you do go after it and you're okay failing. I failed so many times as a kid, whether it be academically or otherwise, that I was so comfortable with failing that it was not even a constant you know, it just meant That combined with just being chill it generally about things not working out, the combination of that allowed me to like freely just take risks without any regard for for like maybe failing. I love the story that you have about applying to college and the non-zero probability. I thought that was really really a powerful story. Walk us through that. Okay. Yeah, so uh you know, I didn't have good grades in in high school. I really didn't I It was This is funny. I tell people this and nobody believes the story, but it was sophomore year in high school. Remember walking down sort of the corridor and somebody's like, "Hey, where where are you going to go to college? Or what are you thinking about?" I said, "Oh, I'm probably just going to go to Harvard." And they said, "Harvard? Like you you can't You're not going to get in Harvard." And I was like, "What do you What do you mean? Don't you just like kind of send your thing in and pay and go?" Like, "No, you have to actually apply and they have to accept you." That was sophomore year in high school is when I learned that. Which is crazy these days because I've been talking to my daughters since they were like, you know, this yay big about college. So, but yeah, so I I didn't really know. So, I didn't I wasn't applying myself in school, didn't have good grades. And my dad um had asked me This is I did all the applying myself, went to the colleges myself, parents didn't know what was going on. And then after the deadline, this is like in January, February, the deadline was like, you know, November, December for applying to college. And my dad said, "Hey, uh um how's it going How's the college stuff coming, you know? Where Where are you going to apply?" I said, "Oh, I already did. I applied. I'm done." He's like, "Oh, you applied already? What Did you Did you apply to Wharton?" Cuz he knew that I knew that that was I talked about that business school and I wanted to do business and stuff. I'm like, "Oh, no, I didn't I didn't apply to Wharton. Um there's no way I could have gotten in." He said, "Oh, really? There's no way you could have gotten in? Zero? It's zero?" And I said, "Well, I don't know if it's zero, it's pretty close to zero, though." And I said, "There's a lot of essays and all this stuff." He's like, "Oh, so it's so it's so it's work. You You didn't want to do the work." I said, "No, I'm fine to do the work. It's just It's basically my guidance counselor told me I can't get in. Objectively, I don't think I can get in. So, you know, I didn't apply." He's like, "All right." And he was looking at me and I'm like, "All right, you're right, Dad. I'm going to apply, you know?" And uh and this was after the deadline. So, this is like 2 months later. I went and did all the essays, did the whole application, did everything, sent it in. And I'll never forget, it was like May when you sort of got the letter. Went out to the mailbox, I saw it. It said, you know, "Wharton School." I ran in, I opened it up. Yeah, I got rejected. Um But But it really taught me a great lesson because when I was opening that envelope, it really felt non-zero to me. Even though it was like I had no chance of getting in, and it was after the fact, you know, and it probably was as close to zero as anything could possibly get, but I just felt like happy that I went through the process. Nothing had changed. It was still the same probability, but I was really happy I went through the process and took a shot, and I was actually I had an at bat. That letter, that chance, that it could there's a possibility it could have it could have said accepted. Although, it's as close to zero as it So, I've just taken that in life in general. It's like, just I'm not going to accept that it can't be done unless somebody proves it's a zero probability. And often the case, you can't prove it's zero. There's always some non-zero probability. And it's typically the stuff that has that's really close to non-zero, nobody else is touching. That's where the big opportunities are. When I when I heard that story, man, I was really blown away. Now, of course, I know the punchline of your life is that it all works out okay. Uh so, hearing that story after seeing what you go on to do with your life and really thinking, "Wow, the the vast majority of humanity, dude, when they get that letter and they're rejected, they're like, 'See, Dad, I told you. I never should have wasted my time.'" And the fact that you take that lesson to be in that moment I held the envelope, it went from when I didn't even apply, I knew guaranteed I wasn't getting in to now like there's actually a shot, and so I'm going to pursue that in the future that I'm actually going to try things. Um I think that's really powerful. And I I want to tie this back to something you said earlier. So, part of what you look for for people is adaptability. You also talked about like you're sort of some people have a personality this way, some are that way, and don't don't put people against their nature. So, how much of that like I want to believe, literally my life is predicated on the belief that someone watching this right now, hearing you tell that story, they will now forever think the way that you think about non-zero probabilities, and they will go on to do something that other people wouldn't do. They weren't born that way. They encountered that information, and they chose to adopt it. How adaptable do you think we are? Can you teach that to somebody? Like, could you teach that to your children? Or is that like you either have it or you don't? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think you can definitely be better at it, but I do think there's something um something that you're not necessarily born with, but that you're raised with. So, after what is it, 18 years basically, you know, you know, at home with with parents and the friends that you surround yourself with, you're definitely molded in in a certain way, and I think it's it's tough to change it dramatically after that. You can certainly push it one way or the other. Um but, you know, my starting point was was way out there. You know, just just given the way I was I was raised, you know, which was pretty hands-off, you know. your parents teach you? Was it Was it just the freedom to learn on your own that was powerful, or did they give you certain things that have really carried through? I think different things from different parent. I think my my dad was was pretty sort of non-present and to get his attention, which was not that frequent, you'd have to do something pretty spectacular, which is probably one of the driving forces to to this this mentality, like, you know, you need to go and do big things to to be loved, basically, you know, like in the world. And so, that's sort of has been an internal drive and motivator that I didn't really know and appreciate until, you know, just recently you start to think through stuff in your life and why am I this way? Why does this make me happy? Why am I driven to do this? And then you kind of always, if you think about it long enough, you tie back to something in childhood. That's sort of the catalyst. And so, I don't know what it would have been like without that, you know, and I couple that, and I could have gone the other way, I guess, and just been like, you know, a bum and just forget it, you know, like and I went this other way, and I think on my mom's side, I think there was such incredible empathy and caring and kindness on this side, and that the coupling, you know, allowed me to to to achieve what I had set out to do. How do you think of that with raising your own kids? the key thing that I really always try to instill is the sense of of caring, kindness, and empathy. And you can't pick too many things, as as you know, like it's just kids are not going to react, but if there's one thing and you want to keep hammering it, there's a good chance that that could sink in, and I think that's kind of how we approached it. It's sort of like, let's go with with the the core, you know, be good to people, um treat people as you want to be treated. Be empathetic, be kind, and just drill that into them. Um And not only drill it into them, but by example as well. And see that. And I think they have turned out to be very kind, empathetic, and and that at the core I feel good. There's other things that you'd say as a parent, "Oh, well, I wish they would be like more like this and more like that." Or but at the end of the day, if if you got the the nucleus of of being kind and and good, um then everything else everything else is okay. And so you that's I would just say you have to pick something. When you're in banking, so you're following a relatively um typical path for somebody who's ultra ambitious. I won't say it's just a typical path, but for somebody who's really got some drive and ambition, I get why you went into that. What was the epiphany that made you decide that that wasn't for you? When did you know that leaving was the right thing? And how do you structure your life now to make sure you never go back to the way that you felt when you were banking? Okay, sure. Well, I mean, just starting out. So in grammar school, high school, I started every business that a kid could start, you know, newspapers, car waxing, lawn mowing, baseball cards, recycling, lemonade stands, like anything. And so I was quite entrepreneurial as as a kid. But there wasn't really any thought to like go to work for a startup. That really wasn't the case. I graduated high school in '89 and in college in '93. It just that wasn't wasn't really a thing until the late '90s really. Um and so I for some reason got interested in stocks in like 10 years old. And then started reading books on derivatives and stock options when I was like in seventh grade, eighth grade. I was really into it and went to Bucknell, studied finance, knew I wanted to work with stocks, went to work in banking, and 7 years into it I had gone pretty far pretty fast cuz I was willing to work as hard as it took to to kind of move up. I was executive vice president, chief risk officer, the youngest in the bank's history kind of thing. You know, it's like it was I things were going really well, but I wasn't happy. And and it really was interesting. I'm like, "Wow, this is this is as good as I possibly could have imagined doing, you know, 6 7 years out of out of college. I'm making a ton of money. I'm doing really well, but I wasn't fulfilled. I wasn't happy. And when I was really thinking about it, it I realized that what I really missed was that sort of entrepreneurial kind of feeling that I had as a kid, you know, building something from nothing. And so, yeah, I had this incredible pull that that just toward entrepreneurship and startup that got to the point where I I just walked in to my boss's office and said, "I'm going to quit and become an entrepreneur." And he's like, "That's really funny." And I'm like, "No." He's like, "Oh, well, what's your idea?" I said, "Well, I don't have an idea yet, but" He's like, "You're going to quit this job making this amount of money. Didn't you just have a kid?" Yeah. "That's crazy." I said, "Yeah, well, I'm going to do it." And he said, "Well, you're serious." He said, "Well, if you're if you're that serious, I can I be your first investor? Can I put 50" I think it was 50 grand, he said, um and I didn't know anybody with money, and so that was the seed. He introduced me to two people. I met with those two people. They introduced me to a couple people. They and I wound up I met with like 200 angel people, you know, and got 60 investors. I I have to stop you there because people at home, if they're not having a seizure right now and desperate for me to ask the question that I'm about to ask, then they're not paying attention. So, all right, you're an insanely hard worker, I'll give you that, but there for a guy sight unseen to say you're quitting, you have a kid, that's crazy. That that's so risky. He's a banker, so he's not exactly Captain Risk, and for him to go, "I want" without knowing what you're going to do, "I want to invest $50,000 in you, which was I'm assuming a very smart bet on his part. So, what is it? So, I I think everybody has something that they get early wins in. So, I'll say for me it was verbal ability. Now, I've put an inordinate amount decades of practice into making it useful, but I definitely got disproportionate um results out of every amount of energy that I put in. Is there something that he saw in you like, "Yo, this guy is so good at finance. I know he'll never [ __ ] up a business on that side." Or was it something else? He knew you were a natural-born leader. Like, what what was it that he was banking on at that point? I don't know exactly, but I would think it's he probably saw a little bit of what I talked about before, which is I won't let it fail. Like, I'll do whatever it takes. Billions of body bags, I'll do whatever it takes. You know, work as hard as is necessary to make it work. And I think also was I was just naturally really good at math, which was something that I was kind of known for, which translates into finance, which translates into other stuff, so. Can we go into the billions of body bags saying for a second? So, first of all, I'm I'm not a fan of burn the ships at the shore, but the do-or-die mentality to me is so intoxicating. I have it very much so. It's exactly the thing that I will say is um because I don't think I'm particularly bright. I don't have any uh entrepreneurial skills whatsoever when I started. Didn't have a lemonade stand. Um but dude, when I [ __ ] set my mind to something, that is it. And literally, I'm going to see it through no matter what. All the success in the world I've only sped up in terms of my drive, my ambition, the speed at which which with I move. And I am so desperate to be able to package that up, to say magic [ __ ] words to somebody, to give them that the power of desire, so that they'll want things the way that I want things. Because it's not in a destructive way. Like, I'm not I'm not destroyed by it. You could take the wealth away. It wouldn't matter. That wouldn't phase me. It's that sense of like, "Dude, we have so little time here, so much ability, like potential that we can transform into real skills." Like, how do you infect people with that? That like is one of the things like I always tell people, "If I could give somebody a gift, it would be the gift to have that that desire I agree. I agree. That's That is everything. How do you build drive? How do you build it in in Give it to someone, basically? Yeah, like I want to believe it can be built, right? Cuz I know it can't just be given. So, I want to believe that there's a process. I think there is, but I'm always super curious. the only thing the thing I've seen um is first of all, people need to feel uh an intense sense of uh ownership of their idea. So, making sure that, you know, so when somebody has an idea, you can help them mold it, but it's their idea, and and they have to feel like they're they're accountable to it to the idea. Um and then um pushing them to go out there and tell the world, friends, family, everyone about their idea and what their vision is and what they hope to achieve. And it's amazing how infectious that can be. When somebody gets out there and they start telling people like, "Wow, that's a really good idea." Or, "Ooh, can you do that?" Or, "I don't think you can do that." Or, and you start whether whether someone says you can't do it or they say, "Well, it sounds like an amazing idea." In either case, it's pretty motivating. I find the people that are scared to tell people about it because they feel like some sense of like, "Now I'm kind of committed." Or, you know, "I've told all my friends about this big idea I'm going to go do." Um so, just getting somebody to go out there It's kind of like, you know, if you want to work out, they say, you know, you know, put your shorts, your T-shirt, your shoes right next to the bed, get out of bed and put them on. And then once you get them on, it's it's easy to go. Um it's similar kind of thing. It's like, once you have your idea, start telling everybody you know about this idea and how that you can you're going to do it, and usually that kind of starts to snowball, and then people feel a sense of accountability to it and then take friends and family money. Some people say, you know, I don't want to take friends and family money. It's like, why? Well, it's yeah, cuz it's it's kind of scary, right? Um that's always been a motivating factor, you know, just knowing like you've got It's not only the money, but it's also hold you accountable. This is like everybody you know will know that this thing failed and there'll be a monetary proof that it didn't work. You said that you're equally motivated by people telling you that it will work or that it won't work. You literally when I look every idea you've had has seemed like a terrible idea and yet you've turned it into these juggernauts. So, one, how do you look at that and go, "No, no, no, I see a path there." and then two, when people start telling you especially in the early days when you did not have the track record to back it up, how did you deal with doubt other people like putting doubt on you? Yeah. Well, I mean diapers.com is a great example because it was sort of I said you know, my idea is is pretty simple. We're going to sell diapers on the internet and deliver them to people's homes so they could have convenient access to something that's a pain in the butt. Um and then I talked to people in the industry and they'd say, "Well, let me tell you why it hasn't been done. It hasn't been done because diapers are loss leaders for places like, you know, Walmart and Target and and big box. So, they don't make any money on it anyway and then now you want to pay for shipping and you want to pay for fulfillment and they're heavy and by the way wipes, that's basically shipping water. So, there's no way to make money. And so, and every time somebody says something can't be done, there's also a part of me that gets a little bit excited because I'm like, okay, well, then nobody else is going to do it. The big companies aren't going to do it and then you kind of put that juxtapose that against really big market opportunity cuz what I would The follow-up question I would always ask was, "Okay, fine. You're not going to make money, but will there be customer demand? Will people want diapers delivered to their door overnight at amazing prices?" And everyone would say, "Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no arguing with that. People will love that." So, I'm thinking, "Okay, so the demand is there. Really big market. Can't make money." So, then thinking about how to solve that, well, what if the diapers, the fulfillment, the shipping, all that was a loss leader online to basically sell that long tail with unlimited shelf space. So, similar to brick-and-mortars, they use it as loss leader, you could afford to lose more money on on diapers if you've got million SKUs to sell them with limited shelf space that you make money on. And once I got convicted on that, that that that made sense and that penciled out, um nothing was stopping me at that point. I didn't care what anyone what anyone said. And the more people said couldn't be done, the more fired up it got me. So. What do you think stops would-be entrepreneurs? Like if you had to So, I'll say for me it's boredom. Boredom kills more entrepreneurs than anything. They don't understand what's coming for them. But in your story, I I hear something else and I wonder if there's something that you What stops them after they've already started or from starting? From starting or once they get going? Yeah, I think from starting, and I know a lot of people that have ideas. Um first thing is people think the idea is not good enough and they think the idea is way more important than it really is. And people try and find ideas that have never been done before, which usually result in niche little businesses. I challenge people all the time to say it's not about the idea, it's about the execution. Find and pick any industry out there, there's a way to disrupt it. There's already a big market. If you just figure out a way to do it a little bit better and execute well, you could make a nice return on on capital. You could take anything. Take, you know, pizza delivery or something and just say, "Great, we know people order pizza, they get it delivered, it's great. What's wrong with it?" Oh, it comes, it's not hot, the quality is not good, you know, all of the things. Okay, I'm going to create this, it's going to be better quality, faster, what whatever it is. Yeah, if you if you go and raise capital and execute, you'll make that work. Doesn't doesn't have to be um anything super innovative. So, I think that's what what holds people back. I think once people get going, I think they spend too much time thinking about all the things that could go wrong, and they get overwhelmed, and it literally just paralyzes them. And I always say like, "Forget about all that stuff. Today's today. What's the biggest step you can take today toward your vision? Well, how can you make the most progress against the vision today?" So, I always push people to be really clear about the vision, and then and then they take that step, and then it's the next day. And they say, "Well, what No, no, don't focus on that. What's the biggest step you need?" And as you start lining up five, six, seven, eight weeks, months in a row, you're like, "Wow, look back. Made some serious progress." And focus on like how far you've come, and and keep the vision in mind, but don't get caught up between today and the vision, cuz you'll just you'll spin out of control. I've seen that all the time. How do you deal with failure? Like surely none of your plans are like, "We're doing this." And then you just execute no. I've so many like I've had before in my life, so many failures, you know, growing up and things. And the way I deal with it is not to dwell on it at all. Just you just have to basically soon as you recognize First of all, being objective about progress. So, constantly reevaluating all the new information. So, you could basically say, you know, here's the vision, and you start marching, and information's coming at you every day. Competition, things, the market, the world, whatever. You need to to take in that information and then kind of reassess constantly so you could be objective about making decisions. And if you get to a point where you realize what you thought was true a year ago or two years ago is not true anymore given all this information, now where where do you need to be? And as soon as you recognize that being able to tell people I was wrong, forget that. I know I said that that was when the information was this, new information, new, we're going to pivot and then get everybody aligned around it, but willing to take that risk of looking stupid and and basically just changing your mind. And sometimes that happens over a year or two years, sometimes it could be months. You could be months and say, you know what? Wrong. Objectively, we've got some new information. Let's go in this direction. So, I think you can't dwell, you just have to reassess and and go. If you're thinking about the failure or feel bad even for a minute, that's just a minute of lost time going forward. If someone wants to be a great leader, what do you think are the key traits that they should be developing? Yeah, it's funny. I I get asked this question a lot and I thought about it a lot. If I had to pick one, and this usually surprises people, if I had to pick one trait of a leader, it would be empathy. For any business to be successful, most people would agree you need to have great people working in the business. You need those people to basically give you everything that the best they've got. Um you need to retain those people, they need to be happy. Like if you really want to create a a big sustainable business. And then it comes back to, well, what does it take for for the ability to to sort of recruit great people and then keep great people and keep them motivated. It's like, well, they want to be happy, they want to feel a part of something. Okay. Like what drives someone's happiness? At the end of the day when you kind of when you really get into it, it's people want to be understood, they want to be heard. They want to feel like that there's something bigger than just dollars and cents in business. And I think being empathetic is putting yourself in somebody's situation and being able to um relate to how they feel about business, situation, things outside of business, personal stuff, and I think that builds a lot of trust and respect and um people willing to to to be more loyal and committed and willing to give the best that they've got when they feel It's also feeling of safety, too. I think when when when people feel listened to, heard, and understood, they feel safer. And a lot of times people don't give their best or do their best because they feel unsafe, which brings to a whole another topic around, you know, just creating a a inclusive work environment, which I think is super important. And I think empathy plays a big part of that. So, going beyond empathy, cuz I know some seriously empathetic people who are not good leaders. So, I'll say that is necessary but not sufficient. That's true. Um what else are things that people should be working on if they want to lead? I think entrepreneurs um should be thinking about what I call VCP, vision, capital, people. At least 80% of the time. And I really focus probably even more than that percentage on those three things. It's constantly, you know, thinking, shaping, molding the vision, and articulating it over and over and over so that everybody's crystal clear on where we're going. What's the North Star? Um you know, making sure that you set your org structures under the people bucket. Set your org structure in such a way that you can put people um in spots where they've got end-to-end ownership. I don't like creating organizational structures where, you know, you don't really know who's responsible for what. So, thinking about the org structure, getting that nailed, bringing in the very best people in each area is the sort of P part, and then and then making sure that you're able to go out and raise the capital, which involves selling your vision. A lot of entrepreneurship is about selling, selling the vision to to investors, selling the vision to employees, and then packaging it all up. And And I think a good leader is able to do VCP really well. On the people part of it, the single most important thing, um, you know, outside of empathy, I would say is is about, uh, empowerment. I would say, especially in a startup where you're hiring fast and moving fast, you have to be able to empower people, which means set the vision, let them know, you know, uh, what part of the org they're going to represent and what they're, um, responsible for, and then just let them run. Let them create. Not get in their way, not micromanage. You know, I think if you really want to get the best out of people, especially people that are self-motivated, um, it's it's let them let them do their thing, and give them a chance to show what they what they can do. You've talked about the power of culture and core values. When you started jet.com, what were the core values Core values that let you guys run Yeah, was trust, transparency, and fairness. Interesting. And the reason why I picked those three. And one of another thing that I would say about core values to anyone that's thinking about core values, is and I've learned this lesson, is you can't start with a list of 10. If you get like a bunch of people in your management team together and you start doing a list, they'll all sort of converge to a similar list of 10 things, you know, you know, and integrity and and excellence and all this all this stuff. I think, um, for the core values to really be core, it has to be three or less. And you have to be prepared to live those values as a company in a way that no other company in the world does. Um and it's not just values like don't confuse them with traits you're looking for like the spot-on. Don't don't confuse it with that. These are values that the company things that company can do to create a culture. And so when we picked trust, transparency, and fairness, reason why we picked those three is because we felt those were the three most important values um to lead to empowerment. So if you want to somebody feel empowered, you got to be transparent as a company meaning be willing to share information, share financials, share sensitive information, be really open, and know that there's a risk that that it could get out and that but that's you know, but be transparent. Trust people. So you trust them obviously with the information, but also to to do their job, not to get in their way. We didn't have a non-solicit agreement, non-compete agreement. We trusted people and it was more of a of a of a handshake. Come work here and we're going to give you information that you won't get at other companies. We'll trust you in a way that you've never been trusted before. And we're going to create a fair, safe work environment. When you were starting out, what was the secret to raising capital? I get now you have a track record, there's going to be a lot of people that would bet on your side unseen at this point. Uh but what was the key in the beginning? How did you convince people to give you money? Okay. So the first was the pit um that I really raised money for, which is an online sports stock market. Um that's where I raised I did 200 investor pitches. So first thing I'd say is prepared to do a lot of pitches. People when they tell me like they're like, "Oh, I'm having trouble raising money." I'm like, "Oh, tell me. How many people have you talked to?" "Oh, I sat with probably like five or six people and it wasn't really a lot of interest." I'm like, "Five or six? That's about 500, you know?" It's like So the first company I I you know, met with 200 people, 60 of them made an investment, which is a pretty good hit rate, you know, almost one in three. I still still tell people there's 140 people that I gave the full pitch to that said, "No, I don't want to invest." So, even though that's a great hit rate, um still way more people are going to say no. But, the thing that put a lot of those 60 people over was the fact that they saw the passion that I had for the for the idea and the commitment I was making, not only for quitting my job, but I invested $390,000 into the business. And they looked at the sheet, I remember this one investor very specifically, Garnett, he looked at the sheet and he goes, "I see here you invested $390,000. Can I just ask I never seen that before. Why didn't you round to 400?" I said, "Well, I only have 390,000." And he's like, "All right, I'm in. Put me in." It was like immediate, you know? And And that's what it triggered for me. I didn't realize at the time that that was actually, you know, uh going to be going to be as valuable as it was, but I started to use that with investors after. I'd say, "You know, I I've invested, you know, my entire life savings in this business. That's how much I believe in it, you know?" And they're like, "Are you committed? Are you really going to Like, yeah, my entire life savings is in it. I have I was making this salary. I'm making zero salary now. Yes, I'm committed." That's what got a lot of people over the hump. So, I would say if you're raising money from angel investors, it doesn't need You don't need to have a network cuz I knew nobody. It was just my boss and he introduced me to two people. It's find one person, ask them to introduce you to a couple people, and then each person you um pitch ask to introduce you to a couple people. And you just And And so, the network just grows. And that's the way I did it. It was no connections. A lot of people think you need connections. You need to know people. You need There was no venture capital. There was no institutional investor the first time. It was 5 million bucks of just, you know, 80,000 a pop on average, basically, amongst 60 people. That's how I started. That's crazy, man. Dude, look, your your string of successes is so gnarly. Congratulations. How can people stay in touch with you? How can they learn more? I've been the last year I've been sort of active on LinkedIn. I don't don't really have time for other social media stuff, but LinkedIn I try and you know, once a week put a post I get an idea about something I could be think could be helpful to folks and I'll sort of post it on there. So that would be the the best way I guess. Perfect. Yeah. All right, last question. What what is the impact that you want to have on the world? What is the impact? That's a big question. I just I mean the way I live my life every day is I try and um do what I was telling you I do with my kids and just trying to be empathetic and and give back and um you know, be you know, give more than I take and I think that's kind of the impact I want to make give as much as I possibly can um without asking or taking much back in return. Amazing, man. Yeah. Well, guys, he is starting to put out a little bit more content. I would say drink it all in. What he has done is beyond extraordinary. To be that all in in your life, to gamble on yourself, to learn from your mistakes, to grow and just continue to execute at a higher and higher level. And that may be the most important thing that he said, execution is far more important than the idea. So speaking of executing, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you, man. That was [ __ ] amazing. While he was here on this planet in his human form he did something to make the planet better off because he was here. He paid really good rent and was happy because of it.