- The math is very clear.
You know nine out of 10 people
fail in their entrepreneur adventure,
nine out of 10 people never even try.
We're talking about a very small group
of people who have the ability
to sustain their livelihood
predicated on their own ability
to drive their own business.
- [Interviewer] Gary,
thanks for doing this.
- Happy to do it.
- [Interviewer] Now growing
up, how often were you told no?
- Uh 98% of the time.
You know I wasn't a good student,
I wasn't a good enough athlete.
I was trying to sell
stuff from the age of six,
and that's just one big game of no,
all three of those things.
So no is, no is the thing that
I'm most comfortable with.
No is the framework of my life.
No is an entrepreneurs best friend.
- [Interviewer] Really?
- Really.
It's just something most
people don't talk about.
You know, until you get
comfortable with no,
you have absolutely no
shot to be successful
as an entrepreneur.
And that is why 99% fail,
because they're addicted
to the thought of yes
and they fear no.
Once you figure out how to
make no your best friend
is the second you become unstoppable.
- [Interviewer] Guys, can
you get quiet on set please?
Did you fail at school?
- Did I fail it?
I mean I got through it,
but that's because America
they don't wanna fail you.
I mean I literally never opened my book
in high school and they passed me.
So they,
what I observed later in my life was
oh it was worst data for
them to not pass me through
than it was for them to
actually care about me.
They didn't need the statistic
of somebody failing for their record.
They could care less about the fact
that I wasn't getting education
in their point of view.
And that was just fine by me
because the way they wanted to educate me
was not something that
I believed in either,
so it was a good trade.
- [Interviewer] Did the school fail you?
- You know it's funny,
yes and no.
In the past I would say yes,
the school failed me,
but I also chose to fail
within that environment.
So the school has a system
and they don't adjust.
And then it's up to the child,
or the student,
to conform or not.
So I think we failed each other.
The good news is I don't think
it had an impact on either.
- [Interviewer] Did it
harness your creative.
- 100%.
- [Interviewer] Entrepreneurial.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] Desire.
- Yes.
And I think, I don't think I've
articulated the relationship with no
as well as I did in the
first question here ever.
It's funny how you never know what's gonna
come out of your mouth.
Yeah.
I think one of the great vulnerabilities
of our society right now
is that we over coddle children
and we give 10th place ribbons,
and we do all sorts of things
to try to make people feel better,
and what we're creating
is false environments.
And we're creating a lot of anxiety
and worry because once
they go to the real world,
the real world doesn't
understand that game.
The market does what the market does.
There is no mommy or
daddy to make it better.
And I'm very grateful for
the way I was brought up
as an immigrant as a
losing player in the norms
of the way we looked at it,
and I would say that that adversity
has been the foundation
of my adulthood success
mentally, let alone financially.
- [Interviewer] Well
you didn't have it easy.
You had it really hard, right?
- You know it's funny,
yes, by the way it's read, right?
You know immigrant upbringing,
working like a dog since I was 13,
but I was that animal.
You know, we look at athletes
and say they didn't have it easy,
they had to train so
hard for the Olympics.
But then if you go talk
to that 16 year old skier,
it's all she knows.
All I knew was how to be a working dog.
- [Interviewer] How would
you describe the life
of an entrepreneur?
- Not half pregnant.
That's how I think about it.
I think it's a game of edges.
The highs are enormously high,
and the lows are enormously low.
So it's not safe.
It's uncomfortable.
It's always on.
If you're truly an entrepreneur,
if it's really yours,
you know I've never articulated this way,
but what just came to mind is
if you know somebody who's a parent,
if you go talk to an 88 year old parent,
what I think she or he will say to you
is you're always a parent.
You know that 88 year old will look at you
and tell you that they're worried
about their 67 year old child.
And I think that anybody
who's watching right now
who's not an entrepreneur
that has children,
especially if those children
are over the age of 20,
can really understand what it is
to be an entrepreneur,
which is you're always the last line
of defense, it's always on you,
and it's forever, until you're dead.
- [Interviewer] Is it lonely?
- Unbelievably lonely,
which is great for me because I,
believe it or not,
am unbelievably comfortable
with 5,000 people in an audience
and 50 people around me,
as I am sitting by myself.
As a matter of fact,
on this trip I requested to
have some flights by myself
'cause I'm in some really thoughtful mode
and I want it, I like being lonely.
I enjoy it.
And in my own head I'm the loneliest.
And I think that that
is a strength of mine,
not a weakness.
- [Interviewer] Is it worth it then?
- Hell yes.
For me.
I don't know any different.
I do not believe it's
worth it for the majority
of people who are watching,
who are now aspiring to be entrepreneurs
because they are the current cool thing.
- [Interviewer] Well
it's important to know
that it's not for everyone.
- No, not only is it not for everyone,
it's actually not for most.
The math is very clear.
You know nine out of 10 people fail
in their entrepreneurial adventure,
nine out of 10 people never even try.
We're talking about a very small group
of people who have the ability to
sustain their livelihood
predicated on their own ability
to drive their own business.
It's really interesting how you set it up,
and you set it up perfectly in my opinion.
We are currently in the golden era
of entrepreneurship,
everybody wants to be one.
It's actually not for most people.
Now on the flip side,
let me go contrary.
The internet allows for the first time
a lot of people to actually
be one practically,
it's that it's lonely.
It's not that you can't do it.
The people that are watching right now,
I believe they can do it,
I believe they can make a million dollars,
100,000,
forget a million,
100,000 a year selling a
bikini they made on Instagram.
I don't think most people
are inherently good
at the pressure that comes along with it,
which is year one it's 100,000,
year two it's 400,000,
year three it's 200,000
'cause Instagram changed its algorhithim
and new competitors have come in.
And oh by the way, they screwed up
because going from 100,000 to 400,000
they got fancy and they
bought a too expensive car
and a second apartment,
and now that it's 200,000
the whole thing breaks.
But now they're known as successful
and they can't deal
with the scarlet letter
of everybody's judgment that
they have to take a step back
and sell that apartment.
That's the problem.
Got it.
- [Interviewer] Got it.
Got it.
Do, have you heard of
the tall poppy syndrome?
- No, but it's funny you said that
because three people tweeted
that exact terminology to me
on a flight last night.
And I was going to Google what it meant,
but then I got a popup
because right now I'm in a cocoon
of buying sports cards,
and I've been trying to buy up a bunch
of messy rookie cards
and I got a notification from Ebay
so I got side tracked,
and I had to go buy it.
But I'm thrilled now because now
you get to tell me what it is.
- [Interviewer] Tall poppy
is where you're the top poppy
and everyone else is
trying to bring you down.
- I see.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
So it's called tall poppy syndrome.
- It's funny, I have a saying that says
there's two ways to build
the biggest building.
One, just be good enough
to build the biggest building in town.
Two, try to tear down
everybody else's building.
I very much disrespect people
who tear down buildings.
I couldn't be more disrespectful
of all the small poppies
that are wasting all their time
trying to tear down the big poppy
instead of focusing on their own poppy
and building a bigger
poppy than somebody else's.
- [Interviewer] And telling that poppy no.
- Telling, yeah I mean like
to me I'm not just,
I'm just not worried about
anybody else's poppy.
I don't care how big
or small your poppy is.
I'm gonna focus on my poppy,
and that's what I'm about.
And by the way, here's something else
I'm very proud of,
if you go out and build a bigger poppy,
I'm your number one fan.
I get a lot of accolades
from my angel investing,
but I'm often, when I
get too much accolades,
to say hey did you look at
Scott Balski and Chris Sacca?
They did it better than I did.
And I was part of that gush book.
So I'm not worried about
anybody else's poppy,
and if I happen to build a bigger one,
then I want clapping and cheers for that.
But if somebody else builds a bigger one,
I'm not booing it,
I'm admiring it.
Especially if that poppy didn't use
fertilizer that was illegal.
Got it.
- [Interviewer] Got it.
I think that's a lot of
trouble with this country,
we do have that tall poppy syndrome.
And I wish it was different.
- Well that's,
you know that's probably
America's great strength.
- [Interviewer] Absolutely.
- You know there,
they cheer success, to a fault at times,
but you know that makes sense to me.
- [Interviewer] The school system here,
I'm not sure about America,
but it's outdated.
- It's outdated globally.
- [Interviewer] It's outdated globally.
- The internet made it outdated
because information is a commodity,
and the school system
was built on memorization of information.
Why do I have to do any math?
I have a calculator on my iPhone
that can give you any math.
I don't need to know anything,
I can ask Siri and Alexa,
in two seconds they'll give me the answer.
You know who cares
about the periodic table
when I can tell you what,
like it just,
it's so uncomfortably outdated globally
'cause it's predicated on memorization
of information in a world
where we have information
at our fingertip within
a second for zero cost.
The whole thing's dead.
- [Man] How do we fix it?
- It's parents' responsibility.
It's the parents'
responsibility to not buy into
the self esteem wrapped up in your child
going to a top university.
We don't need to boil the ocean,
parents need to make sure
their kids are happy.
If you just,
if we all collectively
actually gave a crap
about the happiness of our children,
it would fix itself.
Unfortunately we care
more about the judgment
of our contemporaries
about what our children
are accomplishing more than
caring about our children.
This is an issue of modern day parenting
and insecurity and keeping
up with the Joneses,
not a school system problem.
- [Interviewer] Caring
about what people think.
- It is the devastation of our society.
- [Interviewer] Yeah 'cause
so many people watching this
will be like no, you
need a university degree.
You need that to fall back on.
- Fall back on what?
Every company's not requiring
a degree to get hired anyway.
The greatest companies in the world,
Amazon, Google, are no longer
requiring a degree anyway.
So what are you falling back on?
You know that's like saying
you need to keep a horse on hand
in case the car doesn't work.
It's ludicrous.
- [Interviewer] It is ludicrous.
- It is ludicrous.
And it's completely predicated on
the framework that the
parent grew up with,
and more importantly the judgment
that their parents are putting on them
or how they wanna keep
up with everybody else
because the people that
they eat dinner with
at the country club on Sunday night,
their daughter's going
to the big university
and they want,
it's just ludicrous, it is sad.
I'm a byproduct
of parents that were strong enough
to not care about what
other people thought,
which is why I'm happy.
And I would like to use what,
the gift my parents gave to me
as something that I
communicate to the world,
hopefully inspiring one parent
to give that gift to a child.
- [Interviewer] And what do
you say that entrepreneur,
that young entrepreneur at school,
hating school, wanting to leave school,
but has to stay at school.
What do you say to them?
- Enjoy the vacation because you're gonna
work the rest of your life.
Two, don't be a hypocrite.
If you're such a tough guy or gal,
stop taking mommy and daddy's money.
If you're such an entrepreneur,
go buy your own iPhone.
Start practicing now.
The quicker a child gets
off the parents' payroll,
the more likely they
will be happy in life.
- [Interviewer] I like that.
- Me too
because, you know, it's funny
I give this talk at USC,
and it was parents and kids,
and it was a really funny talk
because depending on my answers
one of the two of them would be thrilled.
You know parents stop
crapping on millennials,
you're the ones who parent them.
Everyone's like yay, the kids.
Kids get off the payroll,
if you're such a tough guy
don't let your parents
pay for your sneakers,
your iPhones and your Uber.
Parents would clap.
And I was watching this audience,
and the reality is there's
two sides to every story.
And I talk a lot about putting pressure
on modern day parenting,
and kids flood in like
yeah, Gary, you got my back,
and I'm like stop taking mommy's money.
And they're like wait a minute,
you know, 'cause they want the new Jordans
or the new Supremes, right?
Or if they want a new car.
All of a sudden
entrepreneurship is not as cool.
They want entitlement.
And there is no entitlement
in entrepreneurship
because once it goes real
it gets real fast.
- [Interviewer] Holiday's over.
- Holiday's over.
I enjoyed my high school
and college years,
it was an eight year vacation.
I packed in those hours
because since then it's been real real.
- [Interviewer] Brilliant.
I think that's all I need.
- Good.
- [Interviewer] Gary,
that's perfect my friend.
